To March past, is to advance in open or close column, in ordinary or slow time, with a firm and steady step, erect person, the eye glanced towards the reviewing general.
The ordered or cadenced March.—The prescribed movements in military tactics. All military movements are intended to be made with the greatest quickness consistent with order, regularity, and without hurry or fatigue to the troops. The uniformity of position, and the cadence and length of step, produce that equality and freedom of march, on which every thing depends, and to which the soldier must be carefully trained, nor suffered to join the battalion, until he be thoroughly perfected in this most essential duty. Many different times of march must not be required of the soldier. These two must suffice.
Ordinary or quick time, and slow or parade time. The first 75 steps of 24 inches in a minute; the second of 60 steps of 24 inches in a minute.
In order to accustom soldiers to accurate movements, plummets, which vibrate the required times or march in a minute, have been recommended: musquet balls suspended by a string which is not subject to stretch, and on which are marked the different required lengths, will answer the above purpose. The length of the plummet is to be measured from the point of suspension, to the centre of the ball.
The several lengths are:—
| steps | in. | hun. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary or quick time in a minute | 75 | — | 24 | 96 |
| Accelerated time | 108 | — | 12 | 3 |
Marching by files, is to march with the narrowest front, except that of rank entire or Indian file, which bodies of men are susceptible of.
The strictest observance of all the rules for marching, is particularly necessary in marching by files, which is first to be taught at the ordinary time, or 75 steps in the minute, and afterwards in accelerated time, or 108 steps in the minute.
In file marching, particularly at the drill, the whole of a company or squad, having been previously faced, are immediately to step off together, gaining at the very first step 24 inches.
The first adoption of file marching has been attributed to the Prussians, and the advocates for what is called the Ordre mince des Prussiens, the thin or narrow order, have in contradistinction named the ordre profond, the deep order, or column, the French order. According to a very ingenious and lively writer, who has had frequent occasions to see the practice of both orders, the ordre mince or file marching, may be very useful during a march, but the deep order or column ought only to be depended upon in manœuvring before an enemy.