CIVIL WAR 1ST US ARTILLERY ID

Beautiful archive of relics from the 1st US Cavalry. 1st is a silver chalice or cup with a exquisitely executed hand engraved Federal eagle and on the reverse of the cup are the battles that the 1st Artillery engaged in "Williamsport", "Boonsboro", "Gettysburg", "Culpeper". On the base of the cup, it in engraved with the owners initials P.R. and dated 1864 and identified to Battery K, 1st US Artillery. The cup measuring right at 6 inches. Second item in the grouping is a period painted wood drum canteen certainly captured from a rebel off the field. The canteen is painted WILLIAMSPORT JULY 6 63 with a very bold set of crossed cannons to the center all in yellow paint. While in accented red paint is US K 1. On the reverse of the canteen are two initials Z.H. which is probably the confederate's initials who owned the canteen before him. After looking at the roster, there is only one person with those initials P. R., Peter Rice who ultimately became the principle musician of the regiment. Lastly in the grouping is a very rare 1st edition of the 1st US Artillery regimental. The book contains 668 pages with a complete roster of the regiment from 1821 to 1876, The book was published in 1879. Overall a historically significant grouping of the famed 1st US Artillery! EXCELLENT! Two batteries, one of the First and one of the Fifth, were in the very vortex and crisis of the battle of Bull Run; a battery of the First was in action nearly all day not far from "Deadman's Lane" at Antietam; in the line of thirty pieces which finally checked the victorious Confederates on our right at Chancellorsville were six belonging to the First; the "Crest of the Rebellion" at Gettysburg found two batteries of the First in the line against which it broke; when the last obstacle to the free navigation of the Mississippi was overcome at Port Hudson, three batteries of the First Artillery could claim their fair share of credit for the achievement; and when Early was sent "whirling through Winchester" two batteries of the First were there to assist him along. On the 12th of April, 1861, a First Artillery garrison opened the war, and on the 9th of April, 1865, a battery of the regiment fired the last cannon-shot at the principal army of the Confederacy and almost the last shot of the war. The flag of the United States which was first lowered to the Confederate forces in Charleston Harbor, was, almost exactly four years later, raised in the capital of that Confederacy by an officer of the First Artillery. The number of officers, then or formerly of the regiment, who were made general officers during the Civil War is so considerable as to merit notice. On the Union side these were: Daniel Tyler, Geo. D. Ramsay, Jacob Ammen, Montgomery C. Meigs, Israel Vogdes, Wm. H. French, Joseph Hooker, Irvin McDowell, Joseph A. Haskin, James B. Ricketts, John M. Brannan, Seth Williams, Abner Doubleday, Truman Seymour, James B. Fry, Jefferson C. Davis, Absalom Baird, Adam J. Slemmer, Alvan C. Gillem, Henry W. Slocum, John M. Schofield, John W. Turner, Robert Anderson, Erasmus D. Keyes, Richard H. Jackson, Edmund Kirby, Judson Kilpatrick, Lewis G. Arnold. On the Confederate side they were: J. B. Magruder, H. C. Wayne, J. G. Martin, Samuel Jones, T. J. Jackson (Stonewall), A. P. Hill, Daniel Leadbetter, J. E. Slaughter, A. R. Lawton, F. A. Shoup, I. R. Trimble, W. W. Mackall.The theory upon which our army is said to be maintained,—for the purpose of providing trained officers for higher rank in the militia or volunteers,—would seem to have been justified in the case of this particular regiment, since it was able to furnish 40 general officers when called upon for that purpose. Between December, 186l, and the 1st of January, 1865, sixty-eight officers are named upon the regimental return, and 38 of these were, for a part of their service at least, on detached duty. This number includes those serving with increased rank in the volunteers. When the number absent on account of wounds or from sickness is taken into account it becomes more easy to comprehend why it was, that during the Civil War it was very seldom the case that one-half of the officers belonging to the regiment were actually serving with it. Up to the date of the battle of Gettysburg the average number present was twenty; but from that time till the close of the war the average was only thirteen, and there were at no time so many as twenty officers with their batteries. From the battle of Bull Run to the surrender at Appomatox the average number present was only 16.57, yet the regimental returns for that period show a total of 19 killed and wounded, and—what is a little remarkable—no deaths from disease. The average strength of the regiment in enlisted men for this period was 770. Of these 54 were killed, 216 wounded, 71 missing, and 91 died of disease; making the total loss 432. In Fox's "Regimental Losses of the American Civil War" a list of the light batteries (regular and volunteer) which suffered the heaviest losses is given on page 463. Sixty-two batteries are named and among them are Battery M, at Olustee; I, at Bull Run and again at Gettysburg; H, at Chancellorsville; and A, at Port Hudson. During the Civil War the headquarters of the regiment never took the field. For several months in 1861 there was actually no regimental commander. The sergeant-major probably received and filed the company monthly returns, but no regimental orders were issued nor any other business transacted such as properly pertains to the office of a regimental commander. Colonel Erving was retired in October, 1861, and was succeeded by Colonel Justin Dimick with station at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. In November he named Lieutenant Dimick as the regimental adjutant but in the July following the adjutant applied for field service and from that time until the close of the war there was no officer actually serving as adjutant of the regiment. There had been no regimental quartermaster since June, 1860, and none was appointed till June, 1876. Colonel Dimick nominally commanded the regiment until the close of the year 1863, when Captain Wm. Silvey, the senior officer in the regiment not holding higher rank in the volunteer service, was directed to relieve him. He acted as regimental commander, with station at Concord, N. H., until January, 1866.