Hand-spikes. Common, weight 10 pounds, length 6 feet.
Hand-to-Hand, close fight; the situation of two persons closely opposed to each other.
HANDFUL, used figuratively, in a military sense, to denote a small quantity or number, as a handful of men.
To HANDLE, to manage, to wield.
Handle arms, a word of command (when the men are at ordered arms) by which the soldier is directed to bring his right hand briskly up to the muzzle of his musquet, with his fingers bent inwards. This word of command is frequently used at the private inspection of companies, and always precedes—Ease arms.
This term was formerly used in the manual from the support to the carry. It is now however used only in the instance just mentioned.
To HANG-FIRE. Fire-arms are said to hang-fire when the flame is not speedy in communicating from the pan to the charge. This defect may arise from the powder being damp or the touch-hole foul.
To Hang upon. To hover, to impede.
To Hang upon the rear of a retreating enemy. To follow the movements of any body of men so closely as to be a constant annoyance to them.
It requires both judgment and activity in the commanding officer of a pursuing army to execute this business without endangering his troops. For it might happen that the retreating enemy, seeing an opportunity to make a retrograde flank movement from its front, would practice a feint in its rear, and suddenly appear upon the right or left of his pursuers. To prevent a surprize of this sort, constant vedettes and side-patroles must be detached, and the pursuer must never attempt to follow through any considerable length of defile, or cross rivers, without having secured the neighboring eminences, and been well informed as to the nature of the stream, for some extent on his right and left. Without these precautions he might himself be taken in flank and rear.