To Battle We Go: What Unit Are You With?
In the spring of 1863, Daniel Butterfield had a problem. General Butterfield, Chief of Staff of the Union Army of Potomac, was having trouble organizing the army into line of battle for the impending spring campaign. He and his officers could not quickly and easily identify the units to which each soldier or group of soldiers belonged. Worse, some units had begun wearing their own unauthorized homemade unit patches, which only caused more confusion. So, Butterfield designed his own patches and had them distributed to the entire army (incidentally, Butterfield is also credited with writing or rewriting the bugle call “Taps” around the same time and publishing the first official book of bugle calls and drum taps).
Each of General Butterfield’s unit patches had a distinctive shape that made it easily identifiable at a distance, particularly important in organizing for battle and for moving troops around quickly once the fighting began. Some of these shapes are still used in modern unit patches and have become famous in wars and in movies, like the 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One) patch and the 1st Cavalry Division patch with its familiar horse head.
But these patches had another positive effect that officers and NCOs noticed right away. They helped produce “espirit de corps,” that intangible combination of unit pride, loyalty, cohesion, and high morale so important to battlefield effectiveness. Yes, the soldiers were part of the larger Union Army, but they were most proud of their particular unit’s battle record and loved wearing its distinctive patch on their uniforms for all to see.
There was a time when the soldiers of nearly every Salvation Army corps wore on their uniforms epaulet tabs identifying their corps, and local officers wore the distinctive insignia of their positions. Yes, they were part of the worldwide Army, but they were primarily members of their local corps and proud of its record of service in their community. These identifying markings signaled a corps organized for battle and enthusiastic about its mission.
I have had the opportunity as part of my job to visit many corps over the years, and I’ve noticed that the corps where these tabs and insignia are worn have a certain energy and spirit – an espirit de corps, if you will – and are still serving the community well and drawing people to the corps and to Jesus. Sadly, I don’t see these tabs and insignia in many corps nowadays, and these corps have lost some of the espirit de corps of old, and typically show a similar decline in service to the community and souls won to the Lord.
If our Army is going to continue to have soldiers, officers, local officers, and all our other “quasi-military” nomenclature, as I believe it should, then it makes sense to embrace our tradition fully and wear our corps and position insignia on our uniforms. It may seem a little old fashioned to do so in today’s anti-authority and anti-uniform culture, but it will show that our corps are organized for battle and help us develop the espirit de corps necessary to accomplish the mission.
So, what unit are you with?