Regular Army =LINK=
A regular army is the official army of a state or country (the official armed forces), contrasting with irregular forces, such as volunteer irregular militias, private armies, mercenaries, etc. A regular army usually has the following:
regular army
In the United Kingdom and the United States, the term Regular Army means the professional standing active duty army, as different from the reserve component: the Army Reserve (formerly the Territorial Army) in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Army Reserve and the Army National Guard in the United States.
The United States Army traces its origin to the founding of the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized a one-year enlistment of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to join the New England militia army besieging Boston.[4] Late in 1776, Congress called for the Continental Army to serve for the duration of the war. The army was to consist of 88 battalions raised and equipped by the states, with officers appointed by the states. Appointment of officers actually continued to be a collaboration between Congress, the Commander in Chief, George Washington, and the states. The number of battalions was to be apportioned to the states according to their populations.[5] While the initial number of battalions approached the authorized strength, by 1 January 1787 the Continental infantry was only able to maintain enough regiments for fifty battalions.[6] During the Revolutionary War, battalions and regiments were essentially the same.[6] By October 19, 1781 when a British army under General Cornwallis surrendered to the American and French forces at Yorktown, the Continental Army had grown to sixty battalions.[7]
For varying short periods of time during the war, many state militia units and separate volunteer state regiments (usually organized only for local service) supported the Continental Army. Although training and equipping part-time or short-term soldiers and coordinating them with professionally trained regulars was especially difficult, this approach also enabled the Americans to prevail without having had to establish a large or permanent army.[8]
As the war waned, General Washington sent his plans for a standing army and organized militia to Congress.[9][10] But due to the inability of Congress to raise much revenue under the Articles of Confederation, suspicion of standing armies, and perceived safety from foreign enemies provided by large oceans effectively controlled by the then non-hostile Royal Navy, Congress disbanded the Continental Army after the Treaty of Paris, the peace treaty with Great Britain, became effective. Congress retained 80 caretaker soldiers to protect arms and equipment at West Point, New York and Fort Pitt and called on the States to furnish 700 men from their militias for one year of service on the frontier.[11] The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 recognized the need for a more permanent military establishment and provided for a national regular army and navy and a militia under state control, subject to civilian control through congressional control of appropriations and presidential leadership as commander in chief of the regular forces and of the militia when called into federal service.[12]
On June 3, 1784, the day after the Continental Army was reduced to 80 men, the Congress established a regiment which was to be raised and officered by obtaining volunteers from the militia of four of the states.[13] This unit, the First American Regiment was commanded until 1 January 1792 by Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania, gradually turned into a Regular regiment known as the 1st Infantry in 1791, and in 1815 was it redesignated as the 3d Infantry in the reorganization of the army following the War of 1812.[13] Congress gradually increased the military establishment from 700 men in 1784 to 5,104 in 1793.[14]
The United States military realized it needed a well-trained standing army following St. Clair's Defeat on November 4, 1791, when a force led by General Arthur St. Clair was almost entirely wiped out by the Northwestern Confederacy near modern Fort Recovery, Ohio.[14] The plans, which were supported by U.S. President George Washington and Henry Knox, Secretary of War, would lead to the creation of the Legion of the United States. The command would be based on the 18th-century military works of Henry Bouquet, a professional Swiss soldier who served as a colonel in the British Army, and French Marshal Maurice de Saxe.
In January 1812, with the threat of war with Britain looming larger, Congress authorized the army to add ten more regiments of infantry, which were to be larger than the existing regiments and authorized the president to call 50,000 militiamen into service, but in June 1812 Congress authorized a total of 25 infantry regiments of equal strength for the Regular Army.[17] All the while the States competed with the Federal government for soldiers with shorter terms of enlistment for their regiments. Congress then directed the creation, in January 1813, of twenty new infantry regiments enlisted for just one year. Nineteen of them were raised.[18] Early in 1814 four more infantry regiments and three more regiments of riflemen were constituted. These 48 regiments of infantry and 4 rifle regiments were the greatest number of infantry units included in the Regular Army until the First World War.[18] Despite this increase in Regular Army units, nine out of ten infantrymen in the War of 1812 were militiamen.[19]
At the start of the Mexican War, Congress tried to get along with just eight infantry regiments of Regulars, but gave the president power to expand their companies to one hundred enlisted men during the war. After hostilities commenced, Congress had to add nine new regiments with the same organization as the old ones to the Regular infantry.[22] The cavalry of the U.S. Regular Army consisted of two light regiments trained to fight mounted or dismounted and designated as dragoons.[23] Although raised as Regulars, the nine new infantry regiments created during the Mexican War were disbanded when the war was over.[22] By contrast to the army of mainly militiamen who fought the War of 1812, in the Mexican War, one of every ten soldiers was a militiaman, three were Regulars and six were war volunteers.[19] During the Mexican War, some 73,260 volunteers enlisted, although fewer than 30,000 actually served in Mexico.[24]
During the American Civil War, the Union Army consisted of a very small contingent of pre-war U.S. Army or "Regular Army" personnel combined with vast numbers of soldiers in state volunteer regiments raised and equipped by the States before being "federalized" and led by general officers appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. In many ways, these regiments resembled and might be analogized to the modern day National Guard. Due to their pre-war experience, they were considered by many to be the elite of the Union Army, and during battles regular army units were often held in reserve in case of emergencies.
Officers during the Civil War from the state forces were known by the rank suffix "of volunteers"; if Regular Army, these officers were known by the rank suffix "USA". Thus, a state regiment colonel would be known as "colonel of volunteers" while a Regular Army captain would be known as "Captain, USA". Regular Army officers of the Civil War could accept commissions in volunteer forces and could also be granted brevet ranks (higher ranks than the permanent commission). In some cases, officers held as many as four ranks: a permanent rank (called "full rank") in the Regular Army, a full rank in the volunteers, and brevet ranks in both as a result of battlefield promotion, meritorious service or Congressional action. The officers typically would only refer to themselves by the highest rank they held. An example is Union Army officer James Henry Carleton who was a "full" captain, a brevet major in the regular army, a colonel of volunteers, and a brevet brigadier general.
Since passage of the 2005 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), all active duty officers are commissioned in the regular army. Eligible commissioned officers serving on active duty were automatically converted to RA on/or after Veteran's Day, 11 November 2005.[25]
According to the policy, a retired regular Army warrant officer who elects to receive compensation for service is required to waive one day of retired pay for each calendar day they perform Reserve duty. Because of the RC pay structure, the pay for performing one duty day in the Reserve or National Guard could be greater than one day of retirement pay for most warrant officers.
History: Four artillery regiments were formed out of the existingCorps of Artillery and Regiment of Light Artillery, June 1821, inaccordance with the act reducing the size of the army (3 Stat.615), March 2, 1821. Fifth regiment organized, May 4, 1861, andconfirmed by an act of July 29, 1861 (12 Stat. 279). Twoadditional regiments of artillery (6th and 7th) organized underan act of March 8, 1898 (30 Stat. 261). Artillery Corps,consisting of field and coast artillery branches, established byGeneral Order 9, War Department, February 6, 1901, pursuant tothe Army Reorganization Act (31 Stat. 748), February 2, 1901,which provided an authorized strength of 30 field artillerybatteries and 130 coast artillery companies. The existingregiments were divided into 82 coast artillery companies and 16field artillery batteries by General Order 15, War Department,February 13, 1901.
History: Company of sappers, miners, and pontoniers authorizedunder an act of May 15, 1846 (9 Stat. 12), as part of the Corpsof Engineers, to which were added three additional companies byan act of August 3, 1861 (12 Stat. 287), and a fifth company, byan act of July 28, 1866 (14 Stat. 332). Organized into Battalionof Engineers by General Order 56, War Department, August 1, 1866.Transferred to line of the army by General Order 36, WarDepartment, March 4, 1899. Increased to three battalions byGeneral Order 22, War Department, February 26, 1901, pursuant tothe Army Reorganization Act (31 Stat. 748), February 2, 1901, andorganized into three regiments and one company of a mountedbattalion by General Order 22, War Department, June 30, 1916. 041b061a72