Each Regiment had a Provost-Marshal to enforce discipline, a Surgeon, and a Chaplain, and Infantry had a Quarter-Master and a Drum-Major.
The Troops of Cavalry had four Officers—Captain, Lieutenant, Cornet, Quarter-Master—and three Corporals and three Trumpeters. There were no Sergeants of Horse, so that even to-day in the Household Cavalry the word Corporal-Major is used instead of Sergeant-Major.
The Infantry Companies had three Officers—Captain, Lieutenant, Ensign—and two Sergeants, three Corporals, a Quarter-Master-Sergeant, and two Drummers.
The Artillery was at this time of little account. The lighter guns—3- to 6-pounders—were attached in pairs to each Regiment, like our Machine Guns to-day. This practice survived during the eighteenth century. The heavier guns—9- to 12-pounders—with a few larger ones up to 20-pounders, were drawn by teams of horses or oxen, driven by civilians on foot. They formed, with the wagons carrying ammunition both for guns and match locks, the Train, controlled by the Waggon-Master-General. Each gun was served by a Master Gunner and two Under-Cannoneers, while the train was managed by Waggon-Masters, assisted by Furriers (French Fouriers) and clerks, and a number of artificers of all sorts.
The Head-Quarters of the Army consisted of a General as C.-in-C., with a Second-in-Command, naturally called the Lieutenant-General, who commanded the principal Arm—the Cavalry. There was a Sergeant-Major-General who commanded the Infantry, and was, as his name implies, the Chief Staff Officer of the Commander-in-Chief, as the Sergeant-Major was the Staff Officer of the Colonel of a Regiment. In these titles the Sergeant has long been dropped, and the (Sergeant) Major-General is still, as in the “New Model,” the junior rank of General Officer. A Master-General of the Ordnance controlled the Artillery, Engineers, and Train.
The two Generals of Horse and Foot had each a Staff, consisting of an Adjutant-General and a Quarter-Master-General. Under the Master of the Ordnance there were a Comptroller of the Ordnance, and an Engineer-General with several assistant Engineers, but no men.
The list of Administrative Officers on the Head-Quarters Staff is interesting, as showing the antiquity of many of our military titles:
The Judge-Advocate-General.
Two Provost-Marshals-General—one for the Horse, one for the Foot.
The Commissary-General of Victuals.
The Commissary-General of Horse Provisions.
The Waggon-Master-General, in charge of Train and baggage.
Medical Officers.
The Chaplain to the Army.
Two Treasurers-at-War (or Paymasters).
The Muster-Master-General.
The Scout-Master-General, who was what we should call the Chief Intelligence Officer; he had two Assistants and twenty Scouts.
The Armies of the Eighteenth Century
Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century the Armies of Europe much resembled those of the seventeenth, of which the “New Model,” just described, is an example. They were formed of a number of Regiments of Cavalry, and separate Battalions, or at most Brigades, of Infantry, accompanied by a long train of guns and motley wagons carrying food and baggage. These were drawn by teams of oxen and horses hired in the country, driven by wagoners on foot.