To break up the formation, “Supports to your proper places, threes right and left shoulders forward, quick march,” will speedily restore all to common skirmishing order.
No duties of supports are more important than those in retrograde movements, of leading their skirmishers in proper lines of retreat; and of opening those lines sufficiently, but not more than sufficiently, for their passage. Circumstances have actually occurred, and, in intricate countries, are likely often to be repeated, of fine fellows, slowly retiring before an overwhelming enemy, their whole attention absorbed upon their front, suddenly finding further retreat intercepted by impassable obstacles, with no alternative remaining but to surrender, or fight their way right and left at the risk of almost utter destruction.
The principles advanced in the foregoing remarks, are not, in the main, of a character to be limited to the details of particular movements; but are rather to be kept continually on the mind, for the purpose of being thrown into effect as circumstances may require. Practical differs from formal skirmishing, even more by the style than by the method of its execution.
Not one sentence, it is believed, will be found to stand in opposition to the British established system. The few points in which they may at first sight appear to differ from it, consist simply in an application of principles already established to a practical extent somewhat beyond that usually adopted. If an officer who did not act upon this extent of application, were to succeed in the command of a corps to one who had adopted it, neither he nor those under him would experience any difficulty from the previous practice.
It should not be forgotten, that the thorough spirit of practical skirmishing is not to be communicated or maintained, with only one or two companies at a time, on the level, restricted, drill field. Soldiers, after having been thoroughly grounded in elementary details and permanent principles, should be often taken out in large bodies to skirmish, with strict, universal and incessant attention to the duty, across extensive and intricate tracts of country.
Such tracts are often to be found without restrictions in foreign stations; and at proper seasons of the year, a little management and promises of repairing damages will generally procure access to admirable skirmishing ground from British farmers and landed proprietors.
The writer is conscious that he can have advanced little, if anything, that must not have occurred to officers who have had experience in this branch of warfare, or that may not have been brought into instruction practice by them. He has not, however, seen the foregoing practical application of essential principles thrown broadly into print; and it appears to him important that it should be so exhibited, in order that the spirit of actual skirmishing may not be confined to the regimental locality, or cease with the regimental employment of those who witnessed it.
A BRIEF SYSTEM OF COMMON LIGHT INFANTRY DRILL, ADAPTED TO THE LONG RANGE RIFLE.
Ordinary Rules.
1. The company or division of about sixty men, is the unit of extended Light Infantry, in the same manner as the battalion of about six hundred men, is the unit of a large military force at close order. Every company, or portion of a company, acting as Light Infantry, is therefore kept in hand by its immediate commander.