Part 194

In time of war, particularly in the seat of it, the guides invariably accompany head-quarters, and a certain number is allotted not only to general officers, but to all detachments made from the main body, either for the purpose of combating the advanced posts of an enemy, of protecting escorts, or securing convoys. Guides, in an army, may be justly called its principal outsets. They are to a body of men what the eyes are to the human frame. They cannot, however, be too jealously watched.

GUIDES, the name given to the non-commissioned officers who take positions to mark the pivots, marches, formations, and alignements in modern discipline; it is expressed in French by the word jaloneur, from jalon a post. See JALON.

GUIDES of manœuvre, the name given to those which the French call jaloneur, and the British markers. The use of guides, is perhaps one of the best conceived and ingenious methods which could be devised to perfect the art of manœuvring troops; and one of its happiest advantages is its fitness for raw or undisciplined troops, which by the aid of guides of manœuvre, may be brought to comprehend and execute every species of movement in company, platoons, divisions, or battalions, in one third of the time formerly required; and in a manner much more perfect than was formerly considered as the utmost excellence. See Am. Mil. Lib.

GUIDES, corps of, under the new French dynasty have a new organization of which we hear only by some decisive effects.

Corps des GUIDES, Fr. The corps of guides. This body was originally formed in France in the year 1756, and consisted of one captain, one 1st lieutenant, one 2d lieutenant, two serjeants, two corporals, one anspessade, and twenty privates, called fusiliers-guides.--Twelve out of the twenty-five (which was the effective number) were mounted. These consisted of one Serjeant, one corporal, and ten fusiliers. Their particular duty was to carry orders that required dispatch; and on this account they were always attached to head-quarters. The twelve fusiliers were mounted on small active horses, about four French feet, five or six inches high. They were supplied with a saddle, blue saddle-cloth trimmed with white, holster-caps the same; and they were armed with a fusil and cut-and-thrust bayonet, a pistol, sabre, with a cartouch-box, containing 20 rounds. They wore half-boots, or bottines.--Each man carried, moreover, one field utensil out of the twelve belonging to the company. These utensils consisted of four hatchets, four shovels, and four pick-axes. The thirteen fusilier guides on foot were armed with a fusil six inches shorter than the regular musquet, with a blade-bayonet and a cartouch-box, holding twenty rounds of ball cartridges. Their uniform was a blue coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with flat white metal buttons. The hat was bordered with common white lace for the soldiers, and of a superior quality for the serjeants; which latter had three silver brandenburgs hanging from each shoulder. The corporals had three made of white worsted, and the anspessade two ditto. The daily pay of the captain was 4 livres, or 6s. 8d., the 1st lieutenant 1 livre, 7 sols and 6 deniers, equal to 2s. 4d., the 2d lieutenant 1 livre, or 10d., each serjeant 13 sols, or 6¹⁄₂d., each corporal 10 sols, or 6d., each anspessade 8 sols, 6 deniers, or 4¹⁄₂d. and each private 6 sols, 6 deniers, or 3¹⁄₂d.

GUIDON, Fr. See SIGHT.

GUIDON, in ancient military history, the name of a sort of standard broad at one extreme and almost pointed at the other, and slit or divided into two.

GUIDON also implies the officer who carries the guidon or standard.

GUIDONS, in the French service, were exclusively attached to the Gendarmerie; and among them the word formerly meant not only the standard but likewise the officer who carried it.

GUIGNEAU, Fr. This word means the same thing as chevétre. It is a piece of wood which joins the joists of a floor, that are cut to make room for the hearth of a chimney-piece.

GUILLAUME, Fr. a tool somewhat like a plane which is used by carpenters, and of which there are several sorts according to the nature of the work.

GUINDAS, Fr. All machines which by means of a wheel and its axis serve to raise heavy loads, are so called by the French.

GUINDER, Fr. to draw up any weight. Hence the term guindage, which is applied to the movement of loads that are raised and let down.

GUISARMIERS, Fr. a body of free archers, or bowmen, who took their name from an offensive weapon called guisarme, or jusarme, somewhat similar to the voulgue, a sort of javelin, which was used in hunting the wild boar. Its length was equal to that of the halbert, and it had a broad piece of sharp iron fixed to one end.

GULLY. Any hollow which has been made by running water. Ambuscades are frequently laid in such places.

GUN, a fire-arm, or weapon of offence, which forcibly discharges a bullet through a cylindrical barrel by means of gunpowder. The term is chiefly applied to cannon.

Somnerus derives gun from mangon, a warlike machine, which was used before the invention of guns. He establishes his derivation by taking away the first syllable.

Curricle GUNS are small pieces of ordnance, mounted upon carriages of two wheels, and drawn by two horses. The artillery-man is seated on a box, and the whole can be moved forward into action with astonishing rapidity. The tumbrils belonging to curricle guns carry 60 rounds of ball cartridges. Great improvements are daily making in this machine on account of its acknowleged utility.

Great GUN. See CANNON.

Evening GUN, Morning GUN is generally a 6 or 12-pounder, which is fired every night about sun-set, and every morning at sun-rise, to give notice to the drums and trumpets of the army, to beat and sound the retreat and the reveille.

Morning and evening, and other signal guns, by the United States regulations, are not to be fired from larger calibres than 6 or 12 pounders; which calibres are seldom mounted on permanent works.

GUN-fire. The time at which the morning or evening gun is fired.

GUN-boat, a boat which is generally used to form a kind of floating battery, to cover the landing of troops.

GUNNEL, or GUNWALE, the lower part of any port where ordnance is planted. It likewise means that beam in a pontoon which supports the main waste.

GUNNER, in the artillery, is the title of the first and second artillerist at a gun in battery; all the rest are called aids.

GUNNERY, the art of determining the motions of bodies shot from cannon, mortars, howitzers, &c. See the article PROJECTILE.

The late ingenious Mr. Robins, having concluded from experiments, that the force of fired gunpowder, at the instant of its explosion, is the same with that of an elastic fluid of a thousand times the density of common air, and that the elasticity of this fluid, like that of the air, is proportional to its density, proposes the following problem.

The dimensions of any piece of artillery, the weight of its ball, and the quantity of its charge being given; to determine the velocity which the shot will acquire from the explosion, supposing the elasticity or force of the powder at the first instant of its firing to be given.