Organization
The first company of the unit was organized on October 23rd 1864, but since the low enlistments numbers the companies were individually sent to the front, and were temporarily attached to the 4th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry in the First New Jersey Brigade. It was officially organized and mustered in as a whole on March 10, 1865, when the last company was sent to the front. Owing largely to high bounties paid out and a smaller pool of available men of age since the war was in its later days, the unit suffered heavy desertion rates - the highest of any New Jersey infantry regiment. Its commander, Colonel Stephen Rose Gilkyson, had previously commanded the 6th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry as a Lieutenant Colonel, and had several years of combat field service under his belt. Likewise, most of the 40th's officer corps were combat veterans from previous New Jersey regiments. Due to the hapazard way the unit was organized, many officers served in their duty in the field long before they were officially mustered in.
Read more about this topic: 40th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“Democracy means the organization of society for the benefit and at the expense of everybody indiscriminately and not for the benefit of a privileged class.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“... every woman’s organization recognizes that reformers are far more common than feminists, that the passion to look after your fellow man, and especially woman, to do good to her in your way is far more common than the desire to put into every one’s hand the power to look after themselves.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“The newly-formed clothing unions are ready to welcome her; but woman shrinks back from organization, Heaven knows why! It is perhaps because in organization one find the truest freedom, and woman has been a slave too long to know what freedom means.”
—Katharine Pearson Woods (1853–1923)