Union Noncommissioned Officer's Uniforms
Artillery Sergeant Major
His hat is a Jeff Davis type with brass crossed cannons, the number of his regiment and letter of his company (battery). It is looped on the left side by a brass eagle. He is wearing a uniform frock coat with an N.C.O. sword. The sword is suspended from a cross belt, having a round brass eagle plate. The hilt of the sword is brass and should be that color rather than as pictured. He also wears the red worsted sash allowed for senior non-commissioned officers. His trousers have an inch and one-half stripe. In the field a N.C.O. would not be dressed in this fashion, but in garision or in camps of instruction dress parades and inspections were held and soldiers were expected to turn out in their best.
The table of organization for a typical field artillery battery did not include a Sergeant Major. When the Union army was being organized it was decided that regimental staffs of volunteer artillery units of which a sergeant major would have been a part, would not be mustered except by special approval of the War Department and that artillery would be accepted by battery only. The exception was heavy or fortress artillery units, which were accepted as entire regiments. These units and the Regular Army artillery regiments would have had one sergeant major, who functioned as the senior non-commissioned officer of a regiment.