In a march through mountains, difficult country, a bugler should be on the left, at the orders of an intelligent officer who indicates when the halt seems necessary for discipline in the line. The right responds and if the place has been judged correctly an orderly formation is maintained. Keep in ranks. If one man steps out, others follow. Do not permit men to leave ranks without requiring them to rejoin.
In the rear-guard it is always necessary to have pack mules in an emergency; without this precaution, considerable time may be lost. In certain difficult places time is thus lost every day.
In camp, organize your fatigue parties in advance; send them out in formation and escorted.
Definite and detailed orders ought to be given to the convoy, and the chief baggage-master ought to supervise it, which is rarely the case.
It is a mistake to furnish mules to officers and replace them in case of loss or sickness. The officer overloads the mule and the Government loses more thereby than is generally understood. Convoys are endless owing to overloaded mules and stragglers. If furnished money to buy a mule the officer uses it economically because it is his. If mules are individually furnished to officers instead of money, the officer will care for his beast for the same reason. But it is better to give money only, and the officer, if he is not well cared for on the march has no claim against the Government.
Always, always, take Draconian measures to prevent pillage from commencing. If it begins, it is difficult ever to stop it. A body of infantry is never left alone. There is no reason for calling officers of that arm inapt, when battalions although established in position are not absolutely on the same line, with absolutely equal intervals. Ten moves are made to achieve the exact alignment which the instructions on camp movements prescribe. Yet designating a guiding battalion might answer well enough and still be according to the regulations.
Why are not night attacks more employed to-day, at least on a grand scale? The great front which armies occupy renders their employment more difficult, and exacts of the troops an extreme aptitude in this kind of surprise tactics (found in the Arabs, Turcos, Spahis), or absolute reliability. There are some men whose knowledge of terrain is wonderful, with an unerring eye for distance, who can find their way through places at night which they have visited only in the day time. Utilizing such material for a system of guides it would be possible to move with certainty. These are simple means, rarely employed, for conducting a body of troops into position on the darkest night. There is, even, a means of assuring at night the fire of a gun upon a given point with as much precision as in plain day.