I have read accounts of batteries being captured and recaptured, within short periods of time. Also, when they could, the artillerymen spiked the guns, using whatever was handy. Sometimes this just made it too difficult, in the heat of battle, to reuse them. Unless they had the means to move them, they would be destroyed or made much more unusable.
#3. Would be an excellent addition and has been done in some made scenarios. I think the patrols would be about right at 100 men as that seemed to be the numbers for a company. An interesting account of the Peninsula Campaign is found at:
http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/books/battles/vol2/429.cfm
and another at
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Lineage/arcav/arcav.htm
,which made this statement:" While a number of mounted regiments and smaller organizations of Volunteers were mustered in for service in the Union Army, only one mounted regiment was added to the Regular establishment during the entire four years of the war. The new Regular regiment, at first designated the 3d Cavalry, differed from the other horse regiments in that from its beginning it had 12 companies instead of 10. In it, 2 companies constituted a squadron, and 2 squadrons a battalion, which was commanded by a major. A company could have any number of privates up to 72. In contrast, the volunteer regiments were modeled after the pattern of the old Regular cavalry."
<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO
President, Colonial Campaigns Club
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