The troopers, like every other man in this remodelled army, wore scarlet coats faced with their Colonel’s colours—blue in the case of Fairfax. They were equipped with an iron cuirass and an iron helmet, armed with a brace of pistols and a long straight sword, and mounted on horses mostly under fifteen hands in height. For drill in the field they were formed in five ranks, with six feet (one horse’s length in those days), both of interval and distance, between ranks and files, so that the whole troop could take ground to flanks or rear by the simple words, “To your right (or left) turn;” “To your right (or left) about turn.” Thus, as a rule, every horse turned on his own ground, and the troop was rarely wheeled entire: if the latter course were necessary, ranks and files were closed up till the men stood knee to knee, and the horses nose to croup. This formation deservedly bore the name of “close order.” For increasing the front the order was, “To the right (or left) double your ranks,” which brought the men of the second and fourth ranks into the intervals of the first and third, leaving the fifth rank untouched. To diminish the front the order was: “To the right (or left) double your files,” which doubled the depth of the files from five to ten in the same way as infantry files are now doubled at the word, “Form fours.”
The principal weapons of the cavalry soldiers were his firearms, generally pistols, but sometimes a carbine. The lance, which had formerly been the favourite weapon, at Crecy for instance, was utterly out of fashion in Cromwell’s time, and never employed when any other arm was procurable. Firearms were the rage of the day, and governed the whole system of cavalry attack. Thus in action the front rank fired its two pistols, and filed away to load again in the rear, while the second and third ranks came up and did likewise. If the word were given to charge, the men advanced to the charge pistol in hand, fired, threw it in the enemy’s face, and then fell in with the sword. But though there was a very elaborate exercise for carbine and pistol, there was no such thing as sword exercise.
Moreover, though the whole system of drill was difficult, and required perfection of training in horse and man, yet there was no such thing as a regular riding-school. If a troop horse was a kicker a bell was placed on his crupper to warn men to keep clear of his heels. If he were a jibber the following were the instructions given for his cure:—
“If your horse be resty so as he cannot be put forwards then let one take a cat tied by the tail to a long pole, and when he [the horse] goes backward, thrust the cat within his tail where she may claw him, and forget not to threaten your horse with a terrible noise. Or otherwise, take a hedgehog and tie him strait by one of his feet to the horse’s tail, so that he [the hedgehog] may squeal and prick him.”
For the rest, certain peculiarities should be noted which distinguish cavalry from infantry. In the first place, though every troop and every company had a standard of its own, such standard was called in the cavalry a Cornet, and in the infantry an Ensign, and gave in each case its name to the junior subaltern whose duty it was to carry it. In the second place there were no sergeants in old days except in the infantry, the non-commissioned officers of cavalry being corporals only. In the third place, the use of a wind instrument for making signals was confined to the cavalry, which used the trumpet; the infantry as yet had no bugle, but only the drum. There were originally but six trumpet-calls, all known by foreign names; of which names one (Butte sella or Boute selle) still survives in the corrupted form, “Boots and saddles.”
How then have these minor distinctions which formerly separated cavalry from infantry so utterly disappeared? Through what channel did the two branches of the service contrive to meet? The answer is, through the dragoons. Dragoons were originally mounted infantry pure and simple. Those of the Army of 1645 were organised in ten companies, each 100 men strong. They were armed like infantry and drilled like infantry; they followed an ensign and not a cornet; they obeyed, not a trumpet, but a drum. True, they were mounted, but on inferior horses, and for the object of swifter mobility only; for they always fought on foot, dismounting nine men out of ten for action, and linking the horses by the rude process of throwing each animal’s bridle over the head of the horse standing next to it in the ranks. Such were the two branches of the mounted service in the first British Army.
1745.
A century passes, and we find Great Britain again torn by internal strife in the shape of the Scotch rebellion. Glancing at the list of the British cavalry regiments at this period we find them still divided into horse and dragoons; but the dragoons are in decided preponderance, and both branches unmistakably “heavy.” A patriotic Englishman, the Duke of Kingston, observing this latter failing, raised a regiment of Light Horse (the first ever seen in England) at his own expense, in imitation of the Hussars of foreign countries. Thus the Civil War of 1745 called into existence the only arm of the military service which had been left uncreate by the great rebellion of 1642–48. Before leaving this Scotch rebellion of 1745, let us remark that there took part in the suppression thereof a young ensign of the 47th Foot, named John Hale—a mere boy of seventeen, it is true, but a promising officer, of whom we shall hear more.
The Scotch rebellion over, the Duke of Kingston’s Light Horse were disbanded and re-established forthwith as the Duke of Cumberland’s own, a delicate compliment to their distinguished service. As such they fought in Flanders in 1747, but were finally disbanded in the following year. For seven years after the British Army possessed no Light Cavalry, until at the end of 1755 a single troop of Light Dragoons—3 officers and 65 men strong—was added to each of the eleven cavalry regiments on the British establishment, viz., the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dragoon Guards, and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 10th, and 11th Dragoons. These light dragoons were armed with carbine and bayonet and a single pistol, the second holster being filled (sufficiently filled, one must conclude) with an axe, a hedging-bill, and a spade. Their shoulder-belts were provided with a swivel to which the carbine could be sprung; for these light troops were expected to do a deal of firing from the saddle. Their main distinction of dress was that they wore not hats like the rest of the army, but helmets—helmets of strong black jacked leather with bars down the sides and a brass comb on the top. The front of the helmet was red, ornamented with the royal cypher and the regimental number in brass; and at the back of the comb was a tuft of horse-hair, half coloured red for the King, and half of the hue of the regimental facings for the regiment. The Light Dragoon-horse, we learn, was of the “nag or hunter kind,” standing from 14.3 to 15.1, for he was not expected to carry so heavy a man nor such cumbrous saddlery as the Heavy Dragoon-horse. Of this latter we can only say that he was a most ponderous animal, with a character of his own, known as the “true dragoon mould, short-backed, well-coupled, buttocked, quartered, forehanded, and limbed,”—all of which qualities had to be purchased for twenty guineas. At this time, and until 1764, all troop horses were docked so short that they can hardly be said to have kept any tail at all.