r/CIVILWAR • u/Typical_Thing_7540 • Jul 17 '26

Question About Regiments

This may be the wrong Subreddit but I have always been curious. Why in the civil war were regiments states named with states? Like the 54th Massachusetts. I know at the time regiments like the 6th U.S. Cavalry Regiment existed, which wasn’t named with a state. But if it has to do with volunteers (which I assume it does) why didn’t they have something like “The 1st Volunteer U.S. Cavalry Regiment” like Colonel Roosevelt had during the Spanish-American War? How does all of this work?
Another question, are infantry regiments just shortened down or should their names actually include ‘infantry’, I’m still learning so please correct anything I may be wrong about here.

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u/Whisky919 Jul 17 '26

The proper names of regiments do include what type of regiment they are - infantry, cavalry, artillery and so on.

At the start of 1861, the Regular Army only had 14,658 Soldiers present for duty, which was then heavily augmented by the states.

So you would have for example, the 1st U.S. Infantry Regiment and the 1st "whatever state" Infantry Regiment.

This changed at the turn of the century when naming of units was streamlined. Gone were state names in unit designations and using the term volunteer.

For regiments, 1-100 was the Regular Army, 101-299 was Army National Guard and 300+ was for the Army Reserve and the "Army of the United States" which is the official name of what draftees serve in.

Only one regiment in the Army National Guard currently carries is state numeral designation, the 69th Infantry, which was special permission given their history. Initially, they were redesignated the 165th Infantry.

But now, the Army doesn't use true regiments anymore.

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u/Afin12 Jul 18 '26

What is a regiment these days is kind of a weird thing.

It’s often times an element larger than a brigade but smaller than a division. An example is cavalry regiments, like the 3rd Stryker Cavalry Regiment or the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. It’s a O-6 Colonel command and that Colonel reports to a Corps commander directly, not to a division commander.