John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

Doing this sort of business over and over again, day after day, got to be quite tedious, but it all helped to pass away the three years. One part of this instruction was quite interesting, particularly if the exercise was a match against time, or if there was competition between detachments or sections; this was the dismounting and remounting the piece and carriage. In this operation each man must know his precise place, and fit into it as accurately as if he were a part of a machine. This was absolutely necessary, in order to secure facility and despatch. In just the measure that he realized and lived up to this duty, did his gun detachment succeed in reducing the time of the exercise. One gun's crew in my company worked with such speed, strength, unanimity, and precision, that they reduced the time for performing this manoeuvre, including loading and firing, to forty-nine seconds. Other batteries may have done even better. The guns we then used were the steel Rodmans, weighing something over eight hundred pounds, and four of us could toss them about pretty much at will. I say four of us, because just four were concerned in the lifting of the gun. We could not have handled the brass Napoleons with equal readiness, for they are somewhat heavier.

After cannoneers and drivers came to be tolerably familiar with the school of the piece, field manoeuvres with the battery began. The signal which announced this bit of “entertainment for man and beast” is known to Army Regulations as

Boots and Saddles,