When skirmishers become mixed and unmanageable, and there is neither time nor opportunity for re-forming them at close order on their covering serjeants, the officer in command fixes upon any man as a point of direction, the others instantly extend away right and left (unless at the time especially ordered to extend to either flank in particular), without regard to their original proper places—double into files—take up the general alignment—officers and non-commissioned officers with alertness take charge of proper portions, and the whole move and act upon this new centre, as if no inversion or mixture had occurred.
Upon such simple rules, well impressed and strictly maintained, any number of skirmishers may fight over large extents of the most intricate ground, perfectly in hand and without confusion. Or, should extraordinary events produce irregularity, officers in command may easily, in an instant, under the worst circumstances, restore good fighting order, until leisure permits a more regular formation.
In extensive skirmishes, the eyes and feelings of men retiring are powerfully drawn towards the most apparently important points of defence; and upon these, without direct orders, they more or less concentrate. Assailants follow the same impulse, and direct their force principally against these identical strongly occupied points.
Hence follow of necessity on both sides a massing into large marks for the fire of opposing musquetry, sometimes even of artillery—great unnecessary bloodshed in violent struggles, and a neglect on the defensive side of ground which ought to be occupied, and on the assailing side of points which ought to be attacked. Nothing but keeping men in hand by the principle of well understood and well maintained centres of direction can prevent similar evils.
Supports, in their movements, should be guided by the same general principle as skirmishers—that is, the centre or right centre support of each battalion should be, unless otherwise ordered, the support of direction, except in the cases of wheeling on a fixed pivot, or of taking ground to a flank. In the first exception, all conform to the pivot, and in the last to the leading division, unless at the time otherwise ordered. Supports, not belonging to the battalion of direction, except in the two cases just noticed, conform under the orders of their senior officer to the movements of those which do belong to it, with due regard to their primary duty—the proper support of their own skirmishers.
VII.
Skirmishers, by the looseness of their formation, are dangerously exposed to charges from small parties of the enemy’s light cavalry; and in districts destitute of continuous fences, but abounding in hollows, isolated patches of wood, or other features convenient for concealment, such attacks may burst forth with most confusing suddenness. Except in ground absolutely impracticable for cavalry, skirmishers must move in constant expectation of them.
The eye of the officer should be accustomed to recognise habitually those frequently occurring posts of defence against cavalry, copses, walls, hedges, ditches, &c., which are preferable to small squares; and the minds of men should be well prepared by previous instruction and explanation, to recollect, in an instant, in what their strength in such cases consists, and to be undaunted in it.
Against great charges of cavalry, large squares are unquestionably the safest and most efficient; but, in opposition to the small dashes which occur in skirmishing, large squares are often impracticable, and small ones more advisable, as being more rapidly formed and broken up.
Squares have a moral strength in proportion to the mutual acquaintance of the men and officers who compose them. Men of the same company stand better together than those of mixed companies, and men of the same regiment better than those of different corps. However, as in the field thorough mixtures do occur, and as they, if observed, are likely above all other things to bring on charges from the enemy’s cavalry, squares of mixed masses should, in instruction, at times be practised.