Daily AncestorBattery
A battery was the basic unit of artillery, the gun crews' equivalent of an infantry company, commanded by a captain.
A Civil War battery had four, six or eight cannon with the men, horses and equipment to move and fire them. The Regular Army's older artillery regiments called these units companies, but Volunteer artillery companies were officially termed batteries.
Records often name a battery by letter within an artillery regiment, as in Battery D, 1st Ohio Light Artillery. By the late 1800s battery had mostly replaced company or troop as the name for an artillery unit.
As seen in a recordCivil War compiled service record
Pvt., Battery D, 1st Regt. Ohio Light Artillery
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Battery." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/military/battery. Last checked 2026-10-03.