Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885

by Various

Stand to your arms.
Take up your bandoliers.
Put on your bandoliers.
Take up your match.
Take up your rest.
Put the string of your rest about
your left wrist.
Take up your musket.
Rest your musket.
Poise your musket.
Shoulder your musket.
Unshoulder your musket and poise.
Join your rest to the outside of your musket.
Open your pan.
Clear your pan.
Prime your pan.
Shut your pan.
Cast off your loose corns.
Blow off your loose corns, and bring
about your musket to the left side.
Trail your rest.
Balance your musket in your left hand.
Find out your charge.
Open your charge.
Charge with powder.
Draw forth your scouring-stick.
Turn and shorten him to an inch.
Charge with bullet.
Put your scouring-stick into your musket.
Ram home your charge.
Withdraw your scouring-stick.
Turn and shorten him to a handful.
Return your scouring-stick.
Bring forward your musket and rest.
Poise your musket and recover your rest.
Join your rest to the outside of your musket.
Draw forth your match.
Blow your coal.
Cock your match.
Guard your pan.
Blow the ashes from your coal.
Open your pan.
Present upon your rest.
Give fire breast-high.
Dismount your musket, joining the rest to the outside of your musket.
Uncock and return your match.
Clear your pan.
Poise your musket.
Rest your musket.
Take your musket off the rest and set
the butt end to the ground.
Lay down your musket.
Lay down your match.
Take your rest into your right hand,
clearing the string from your left wrist.
Lay down your rest.
Take off your bandoliers.
Lay down your bandoliers.
Here endeth the postures of the musket.

The "Postures of the Pike" gave these orders: "Handle, raise, charge, order, advance, shoulder, port, comport, check, trail, and lay down,"—the words "your pikes" being given with every order.

Elton's "Instructions to a Company of Horsemen" were as follows:

Horse,—i.e., mount your horse.
Uncap your pistol-case.
Draw your pistol.
Order your pistol.
Span your pistol.
Prime your pistol.
Shut your pan.
Cast your pistol.
Gage your flasque.
Lode your pistol.
Draw your rammer.
Lode with bullet and ram home.
Return your rammer.
Pull down the cock.
Recover your pistol.
Present and give fire.
Return your pistol.

Our fathers might have gone on in this lumbering way for many years if they had seen nothing worth imitating in the red men. The Indians of King Philip's War brought out their "snap-hances," or flint-locks, and the colonists were not slow to see the improvement. Experimentally at first, and afterward by a law of Massachusetts, the old pikes and heavy match-lock rifles were replaced with lighter muskets bearing the flint. The soldier ceased to be a slave to his weapon. Tactics were revolutionized; and the newly-developed military spirit was met by "The Complete Soldier," compiled from Elton, Bariff, and other authorities, and published by Nicholas Boone, of Boston, in 1701. This, the first military book in the British colonies, directed the soldiers to appear "with their hair, or periwigs, tied up in bags, and their hats briskly cocked." We hear also for the first time of the "powder-horn" and the "cartouch-box." The "bagnets" that are mentioned were of little use against the Indians, and they were scarcely known in America until the wars with France. But with the appearance of the bayonet came also the revival of the fife, which had been discarded in England in the time of Shakespeare. The military experiences gained in the French wars were of immense benefit when the Continentals and the volunteers formed themselves in line for the American Revolution. And yet the esprit de corps was contemptible; for every movement contemplated and every order given by a superior officer had to be discussed, approved, or disapproved by the inferior officers and by the humblest privates. It was years before the army ceased to be a great debating-society with a sharp rivalry as to which regiment should have the handsomest silk banner. But Steuben—the great drill-master—brought order out of the turmoil with his "Regulations for the Discipline of the Troops of the United States," although the evolutions in the field did not go much beyond the old-time marching that clings to the Hartford Phalanx of to-day. An Englishman who lived in Massachusetts during the Revolution had this to say: "The females are fond of dress and love to rule. The men are fond of the military art. But in Connecticut the men are less so, while the women stay at home and spin."

The Revolution being over, the several States of the new republic enacted military laws of their own. In New York every able-bodied male between eighteen and forty-five was required to meet with his company four times in each year "for training and discipline,"—once by brigade, once by regiment, and twice by company,—for such length of time as the governor might direct. Similar laws were in force in the New-England States, and upon them was based the United States law of 1792 which sought to establish a uniform militia throughout the country. The attempt was a failure, because the President is commander-in-chief of the militia only when it is in the actual service of the United States. The several States, therefore, kept up their ununiformed militia until it became a laughing-stock,—an army with broom-sticks, to evade serving in which but fifty cents a year was required,—and then the present uniformed militia arose from the ruins. Our present inquiry concerns the militia of New England during the fifty years from 1790 to 1840. In those days the "military duty" consisted of two "company trainings" of half a day each in May and October, and one "general training" or "regimental muster" of one day in October. While no uniforms were required at the trainings, except to distinguish the officers, yet there were usually enough public-spirited people in every town to furnish uniforms to the crack company. The other company, the tatterdemalions of the town, was called "the flood-wood." The regiment consisted of one company each of artillery, grenadiers, light infantry, and riflemen from adjoining towns,—the cavalry being recruited wherever a farm-house could be found which was able to stand the shock of war. Then came the flood-wood companies, outnumbering the uniformed companies almost two to one.

The cavalry—it was before the days of Hackett and Poinsett and McClellan saddles and Solingen sabres—appeared to treasure up the memory of "Light-Horse Harry Lee" and Major Winston of the Legionary Cavalry that helped Mad Anthony Wayne against the Indians of the West. They had not heard of the valor of the elder Hampton or the daring rides of Major Davies, of Kentucky. "Tone's Tactics" was unknown to them. And yet they were admired in their black suits faced and corded with red (the militia repudiated the colors of the regular army), and they were a terror with their cutlasses and holsters for the brace of huge horse-pistols that they were required to carry. The uniform of the artillery and grenadiers differed little from that of the cavalry. The latter were topped off with helmets of red leather. Upon the hats of the flood-wood, tin or sheet-iron plates showed the name of the company,—the L. I. standing for "Light Infantry,"—just as you know the porter of your hotel by his badge. The riflemen wore gray spencers and gray pantaloons. Their hats were stiff black beavers, for the comfort of a soft felt hat had not yet been discovered. Most gorgeous of all were the men of the infantry, in their white pantaloons and blue coats, the latter covered by cross-belts of white, to which priming-wires, brushes, and extra flints were chained. A cap of black leather, sprung outward at the top, carried a black feather tipped with red. The musicians, when there were any, followed the uniform of the company which they attended, with some slight differences, like turned-over plates and tasselled ends, to show that they were non-combatants. Altogether, as one looked at the "fuss and feathers," the broad lapels, and the bob-tailed coats, he might well recall Thoreau's description of the manner in which the salt cod are spread out on the fish-flakes to dry: "They were everywhere lying on their backs, their collar-bones standing out like the lapels of a man-o'-war-man's jacket.... If you should wrap a large salt fish around a small boy, he would have a coat of such fashion as I have seen many a one wear at muster." Or, if we wish to go back still further, we might exclaim, with Falstaff, "You would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks.... No eye hath seen such scarecrows."

We are at the training "in the fall of the year,"—a far more important occasion than that in the spring, because the annual "muster" is only a week or ten days ahead. It is a private show. The uniformed infantry and the flood-wood have met at Walton Centre, but they, and all the spectators too, are from "our town," with its various outlying settlements. Let the other towns boast, let Stormont show her grenadiers, Leicester her riflemen, and Acton her artillery, but when "muster-day" comes look out for Walton and her infantry. The law requires every soldier to have a musket or rifle,—flint-lock of course,—a bayonet, a priming-wire and brush, a knapsack, a cartridge-box, and two spare flints. The lack of any one of these may lead to a fine. The regular order of the manual is, open pan, tear cartridge, prime, shut pan, ram down cartridge, ready, aim, fire. But cartridges are not often to be had, and flasks must be used, with a pause in the manual to allow the measuring of a charge. The lack of cartridges leads also to the carrying of powder in bulk in the pantaloons pocket, so that the soldier may move quickly when the order is given to "load and fire as fast as possible." Still more quick in his movements will the soldier be when, led on by the excitement of the hour, he becomes careless of his pocket-magazine and allows it to explode, with a great wreckage of hair, whiskers, and eyebrows, though no one was ever known to lose his life thereby.

But the "evolutions" of the fall training-day make up its greatest worth. It is not enough that squads of "our company" advance, fire, and fall back, the drummer drumming his loudest all the while. It is mere boy's play to march in single and double files or in platoons. We are to meet the companies from the other towns at the muster, and they must be forced to admit our superiority in spite of themselves, or else our town will not come out ahead. Now, if there is any one manœuvre on which the Walton infantry prides itself, the "lock-step and sit-down" is that one. The company is marched about in single file until a circle is formed, care being taken that the captain shall be in the inside and the musicians on the outside. Gradually drawing toward the centre, the circle contracts to slow music, until the whole company is in lock-step, like a gang of convicts. At the word of command, each man seats himself in the lap of the man behind him, and the whole company is in the attitude of frogs as they are ready to leap. The captain, raised aloft in the middle by some convenient mackerel-keg, draws his sword, and the tableau lasts while the music sounds the "three cheers."

Another "evolution," such as Darwin never dreamed of, is begun by facing the company to the front in a single rank. The left hand of each man resting on his next neighbor's right shoulder, space is taken until all the men are an arm's length apart. At a given signal they all face to the right. The captain, "with drawn sword," followed by the music, the drum beating vigorously, runs at double-quick time in and out of the spaces, like a very undignified performance of the Virginia Reel. As each man is passed, he joins the rapidly-increasing file, until the whole line expends its snake-like activity and marches off in "common time" on a straight course, like this: