To Halt after having wheeled from open column. The officers commanding companies, &c. having during the wheel turned round to face their men, and inclined towards the pivot of the preceding company, as they perceive their wheeling men make the step which brings them up to their several pivots, they give the word mark time—halt. The men, on receiving this last word of command, halt with their eyes still turned to the wheeling flank, and each officer being then placed before the preceding guide or pivot, to which his men are then looking, corrects the interior of his company upon that pivot, his own pivot, and the general line of the other pivots. This being quickly and instantaneously done, the officer immediately takes his post on the right of his company, which has been preserved for him by his serjeant. Thus the whole line, when halted, is imperceptibly dressed.
In cavalry movements, when the open column halted on the ground on which it is to form, wheels up into line, the following specific instructions must be attended to:
Distances being just, guides and pivot leaders being truly covered, the caution is given, Wheel into line! when the then pivot-flank leaders place themselves each on the reverse flank of such divisions, as by its wheel up brings them to their true place in the squadron. The leading division of each squadron sends out a guide to line himself with the pivot files. At the word march! the whole wheel up into line, which is marked by the guides or pivots, and also bounded by the horses’ heads of the faced guides of it.—Dress—halt! is then given (as well as the other words by each squadron leader) the instant before the completion of the wheel; the eyes are then turned to the standing flank (to which the correction of the squadron is made), and remain so till otherwise ordered; so that a line formed by wheels to the left, will remain with eyes to the right; and one formed by wheels to the right will remain with eyes to the left.
During the wheel up, the standard moves to its place in squadron, and at the halt every individual must have gained his proper post.
HALTE, Fr. See [Halt].
HALTER-CAST. In farriery, an excoriation or hurt in the pastern, which is occasioned by the horse endeavoring to scrub the itching part of the body near the head and neck, and thus entangling one of his hinder feet in the halter. The consequence of which is, that he naturally struggles to get free and sometimes receives very dangerous hurts in the hollow of his pastern.
HALTING, in farriery, a limping, or going lame; an irregularity in the motion of a horse, arising from a lameness in the shoulder, leg, or foot, which obliges him to tread tenderly.
HAMLET, a small village.
Tower Hamlets. The militia raised in the district of the Tower of London, is so called, and is divided into two battalions.
HAMMER, well-known instrument with an iron head, for driving nails, &c. The artillery aids each carry one in his belt, in order to clear the vent from any stoppage.