User:Aleutian06/List of Arkansas Artillery Batteries

Most artillery units seem to have begun the war named for the city or county that sponsored their organization. In the Official Records, artillery units are most often referred to by the name of their battery commander. During the war, some effort was made to organize artillery units into battalions and regiments, but the units almost never functioned above the battery level, and were often broken out and fought as single gun sections. For these reasons the Arkansas artillery organizations are listed by several names. The Arkansas batteries which served primarily in the Confederate Army of Tennessee or Army of Mississippi, (east of the Mississippi River) were "officially" designated as "_st Arkansas Light Artillery". On November 19, 1864, General E. Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, issued Special Orders No. 290, organizing the artillery of the department into battalions, and listing the various batteries as "_st Arkansas Field Battery". The component batteries rarely, if ever, operated together. They were usually assigned individually to an infantry or cavalry brigade.