Part 2

This book, no way calculated to teach the initiatory exercises, nor to give an idea of the combined manœuvres of larger bodies; nor any method of instruction, nor the duties of any other body than an infantry battalion, was improperly dignified with the name of a system. The most elevated in power as well as the most subordinate in military or militia duty, adopted this false notion of a system, without enquiring further than that it was established. When such a tract was held forth as sufficient by the authority of law and by the silent indifference of those who knew or ought to know better, it is not at all surprizing that every other object of military study was neglected, since every other was announced to be superfluous.

This state of general indifference or unacquaintance with the business of war, gave rise to the American Military Library; in which the editor intended originally to have comprehended a vocabulary of military terms; and had made so much progress in its preparation, as to discover that it would make a large book, and that any thing short of a minute and comprehensive Dictionary, would be leaving the undertaking still incomplete. The general want of knowlege on the subject, the inaccuracy of the notions which prevailed, and above all the great revolutions which modern times had produced in the whole economy and ordination of military science, decided the editor upon the necessity of rendering the undertaking as complete as practicable, by giving to the public a competent book of reference, so necessary to study in the acquisition of every species of knowlege.

After some numbers of the Library had been published, the French Military Dictionary of 1768, and the English Military Dictionary of major James, fell into the editor’s hands. These works rendered much of what had been already done superfluous, though not entirely useless; the French work had been antiquated long before the revolution, by the changes which took place in the French establishment in 1788 and 1791, and still more by the total renovation which it underwent during the revolution. The English Dictionary labored under difficulties of another nature; adapted to England alone, the military system of England, called by the name of Dundas, which was only a modification of the Prussian system of Saldern, and the French system formed in imitation of the Prussian after the seven years war, must necessarily be to a British officer the standard of a work published for the British army; accordingly, although major James, both from his fine understanding and experience, was well acquainted with the defects of that system, he was still under the necessity of making it his standard.

In undertaking to give a work to the American people, the publication of either the French or English Dictionary, though it might equally profit the bookseller, would be only imposing upon the public, instead of giving the best information and the most recent and approved principles and improvements in the art of war: it was necessary therefore almost to re-write, and to augment to a vast bulk the quantity of information. The whole has been, therefore, modelled and adapted throughout to the modern principles of discipline and general tactics. So much of what is old has been retained as may give some correct ideas of the systems of other nations; and the body of information, as well as of words of reference, renders this the most ample and particular Military Dictionary that has been published in the language.

To the general mass has been added the useful little work called the Little Bombardier, or Pocket Gunner, originally compiled for the British artillerists from the French Manuel de l’Artilleur of Durtubie. The measures of extent and capacity, and the monies of all foreign nations: under the words Tactics, Military Schools, Topographical Depot, Money, Weights and Measures, Valor, and generally throughout the work will be found a vast body of new information, particularly adapted to the communication of correct knowlege to all who wish to comprehend military subjects.

A too prevalent error, and the most fatal if we should ever be engaged in war, and not acquire more perfect and general knowlege, is, that the art of war requires neither study nor much attention to what is called discipline; and this error has obtained a sort of sanctity from the triumphs of our undisciplined yeomanry over the British, Hanoverian, Wurtemburg, and Hessian veterans in our revolution. Undoubtedly without an examination into the causes of the triumphs in a more particular manner than general history presents, the assumption is very imposing, and adapted to flatter self-love and national pride.

These natural and often useful passions must, nevertheless, be restrained like all others within the bounds of reason; and, in order to avoid the danger which may flow from our prejudices, we must endeavor to consider our own circumstances with eyes as dispassionate as we should those of strangers. We must enquire, what was the state of military knowlege in the armies of the invaders; whether they exhibited any of the great qualities which constitute well disciplined troops or great generals; whether the whole course of their military transactions was not a series of blunders, produced by their ignorance of our people and country; and even in a great degree owing to the want of talents in the officers of the enemy, to supply by their genius and spirit of enterprize, the disadvantages under which they labored. It would require only an enumeration of a few facts to shew, that although the patience with which the American troops endured hardships and privations, afford glorious examples of the military virtues; that even these great virtues, conducted as they were, by a general who united in himself the military qualities of a Fabius and a Scipio, could not have had so much success were it not for the want of a good discipline, and the utter incapacity of the generals of the British army.

In the modern wars of the French revolution, the like truths have been demonstrated as in the American contest. The British armies had been merely taught the duties of parade, and when they came into the field, had to learn by hard fighting and severe defeats, that their officers were generally ignorant of the art of war; for they were beaten once more by raw troops ably conducted to the field by experienced officers, who possessed skill, who had made military science their study; and, above all, who knew how to take advantage of the incompetency of the British leaders.

Mankind in every country, educated in the same way, varies very little in those points which are adapted to military services. It must, therefore, in a great measure depend upon the education which is applied to military affairs, in the discipline of armies, whether they are victors or vanquished. All nations profess to have acted upon this opinion, though there seems not to be that attention paid to the subject, nor to education of any kind, which the acknowleged importance of the case calls for. This indifference or heedlessness has at times infected all nations, and may be considered as a disease, which if not cured at a certain stage, ensures destruction.

The triumphs of Spain before the peace of Vervins in 1598, is a most important part of history for the study of men fond of military enquiries; the infantry of Spain was then the first in Europe; we have seen in the years 1808 and 1809, that the extinction, by the neglect of military knowlege, has left Spain, with ten millions of people, an easy conquest. Austria and Prussia have successively shone preeminent on the military theatre of Europe. The daily parades at Berlin, which Frederic II. conducted himself for many years, and from which strangers were excluded, were only lessons of experiment and instruction by which he formed his own mind to the conviction of the power of rapid movement, and close evolutions by small divisions; divisions moving in different modes, and by different points, in apparent disorder but by the most exact laws, to one common point of action. Here it was that he contrived those methods which he accomplished in action afterwards, and which enabled him, with a force not equal to half the Austrian army, to baffle, defeat, and triumph over all Europe. It will be useful for the man of sense to consider, whether Frederic could have performed such wonders in the field, without this previous practice himself, and the previous discipline which rendered his armies of 40,000 as manageable as a battalion of 500 men. Perhaps we shall be told that Steuben’s tract renders all these considerations unnecessary.

The military triumphs of modern France have been ascribed to a multitude of causes; really, perhaps, the causes of her military successes may be reduced to two. First, the necessity which arose out of what has been preposterously called the balance of power in Europe, which under the pretence of maintaining an equality of nations, has been the real mask for reiterated wars, conquests, plunder, and desolation; Spain, Austria, and France, have been at different periods held up as aspiring to universal dominion; under the color of resisting the aggrandizement of either, they have been for two centuries constantly engaged in efforts to plunder each other. France, from her position, was from the passions of the age, forced to be prepared for the defensive; and in several successive wars had made conquests on her extremities, which rendered it daily more necessary to maintain a military establishment; and at length, after suffering great disasters, and thereby producing a succession of great generals, the passions and character of the people became military.

Taught by triumphs and disasters, the causes of success and failure, her generals and statesmen directed their attention to the perfection of all the branches of military institution; the management of weapons, the array of troops, the plans of marches, the supply of armies, the passage of rivers, and the simplification of every species of duty. Colleges were instituted, the sciences were enlisted in the military service, and it was difficult to tell in which class of citizens the greatest military enthusiasm prevailed....the nobles who alone could aspire to command, or the privates who composed the rank and file of armies.

It is to these institutions, through which the path to honor and renown lay, that France owes her present preeminence. Under several heads of this Dictionary will be found the facts upon which this opinion is sustained; other nations rather aped than emulated her institutions; while France pursued the spirit of the Romans who adopted every weapon which they found powerful in the hands of their enemies; France adopted the prolonged line of the Austrians, or abandoned it to pursue the concentric movements of Prussia; those echellons which under another name were among the manœuvres of Scipio and Gustavus Adolphus, and which so many have affected to laugh at as novelties, because they know neither their history nor their use; were recommended by Guibert in 1763, as the column had been before recommended by Folard; and each of whom had been calumniated and their tactics reprobated, by the enemies of innovation, or rather by the blockheads of their day, a class of beings of which some are to be found every where.

The rapid principles of Frederic, and the evolutions of the echellon and column adapted to the concentric method of movement, upon oblique as well as direct lines; and all executed with a combined precision before unusual, constitute the great features of the modern tactics. Simplicity of method in instruction is the key to it.

It must be evident to the humblest understanding, that a great part of the success of armies in war must depend as much upon the knowlege of the enemies’ mode of movement and action, as well as in the perfection, precision, and promptitude of execution in their own. Voltaire, whose history of Europe is alike admirable for its conciseness and authenticity, since all his information on military affairs was drawn from the military depot established at Versailles, speaking of the battle of Rosbach, attributes the defeat of the French under Soubise to their ignorance of the new methods of movement which had been introduced by Frederic II. The soldiers saw that the old method of battle was changed; they did not comprehend the motions of the Prussians, which were not merely novel, but as exact as the movements on a parade; they believed they saw their masters in the art of war, they were dismayed and fled.

This anecdote, which has many resemblances in ancient history, is of great moment in directing the understanding to the consideration of military institution. It leaves no doubt of the necessity of knowing the art of war as it is practised by other nations, and especially the importance of practising that which has proved superior to all others.

A fatality has attended all the efforts which have been made for several years to introduce a suitable organization of the militia, and a correct military system. The genius of ignorance appears to have cast a spell over all the attempts that have been made. Like the projector who was so much occupied by the erection of a weathercock, that he set about it before the foundation for the steeple was laid, every attempt has been made at the wrong end; a part has been mistaken for a whole, composed of numerous parts, and the wrong part has always been chosen first. America, which has been so original in the revolution as to give rise to the institution of rifle corps, which have decided seven-eighths of the battles that have been fought in Europe since; has been led to resort constantly to the very system of which America proved the futility, for precepts and examples; instead of profiting by the march of science, we have gone for instruction to the worst military institutions of Europe. When any person intrusted with the military concerns of the U. States wants information, it is to authorities exploded and condemned by men of military knowlege, reference is made. A minister of England in addressing that nation in 1806, at the very moment when it was announced to that nation that the bellum ad internicionem had only then begun..... that “the war was now at the foot of her walls,” had the honesty, which times of danger extracts even from ministers, to declare.... “The military system of England was equally in want of repairs, or rather a thorough rebuilding, even to its foundation stone.” There is no truth more certain, yet it is to this tattered and defenceless fabric we resort for models on every occasion. The bill for establishing a quarter-master general’s department, which was before congress in 1809-10, is a scion of this decayed tree; no doubt that as long as the present apology for a system exists, the proposed department may serve, as a crutch is of use to a body stricken with paralysis.

Military science even in France, where it has now reached the greatest perfection, has had to struggle with selfishness and the occasional and almost insuperable difficulties, which the appointment of ministers incompetent and inexperienced in military affairs, threw in their way. Folard is reputed to have died broken-hearted, by the persecution which he experienced from stupid generals and ministers who looked to nothing but official patronage. Levrilliere, whose admirable improvements in the various departments of artillery, to whom is owing the reduction of the length and the weight of metal of guns of the same calibre, was persecuted out of France, and obliged to take refuge in the army of Austria, where his services proved so formidable as to induce his recall, and the final adoption of his vast improvements; those improvements which, by lessening the weight of artillery, have led to the powerful institution of horse artillery.

Wise nations are never disposed to reject the useful because it is not of their own invention. The Austrians after the battle of Austerlitz immediately abolished their old discipline, and the archduke Charles instituted a better system upon the principles of the modern French. Even the French themselves, surrounded by triumphs, have not yet deemed the science of war perfect. New dispositions of the column were adopted in Egypt; it was only in 1808 that the regulations for the exercise and manœuvres of Cavalry were completed; and even since the campaign which closed with the battle of Wagram, they have made some important alterations in the arms of their cavalry, founded either on the experience of inconvenience in their own, or of some superior advantages in those of their enemy.

The conclusions which we draw from these facts are, that the prevalence of erroneous opinions on the military institutions is a subject of very serious concern; because it is evident, that so long as a nation or a government, which has the care of the national concerns, and a great influence over its opinions, suffers ignorance and prejudice to occupy the place of intelligence, a similar fate may be considered as the consequence, whenever the nation shall be attacked, as other negligent or ignorant nations have been, by a power of superior knowlege and capacity in the art of war.

Nothing more plainly shews the misconception which generally prevails, especially in the legislatures of the Union and the several states, than the contradictory motives which are assigned for leaving the militia and military system in their present state of disorganization. Some plead that the art of war is laid down in Steuben; others that Steuben carried us through the revolution; when in fact both Burgoyne and Cornwallis were taken before Steuben’s tract was introduced; others are for arming our militia with pikes alone, forgetting that an open country is that for which pikes are best adapted; and that to render pikes effective there must be a most perfect discipline of manœuvre, which may render the line as potent and firm as the column, and as easily displayed, concentrated, and formed to various fronts as the best disciplined infantry; when the new modes of movement are mentioned, they are called novelties, though the principal of them are as old as the battle of Pharsalia, and were in practice at the battle of Lutzen; other exceptions are, that besides being new, the modern discipline is too difficult to learn, too perplexed and fatiguing; that the multiplied manœuvres require more time and labor, and must be in a great measure useless; and that so satisfied are the British of this that they have reduced them all to nineteen manœuvres. Nothing so truly depicts the want of judgment or a proper attention to the subject, as observations like these.....the truth is that the modern principles of instruction are fewer in number, more easily taught and understood, and less irksome to the soldier; better adapted to engage the soldier’s attention and afford him gratification; that the variety and number of evolutions is not more various than the eternal variety of ground by which military movements and dispositions are always governed; and that the new discipline, by teaching the first elements well, enables the military body to be moved by these principles on any ground, and not only to form any disposition that it is possible to form, but without having been previously formed in such new dispositions; the elementary principles of modern discipline being peculiarly adapted to the understanding, and the movements by small bodies, enabling every officer of a small portion of troops to move his particular corps by the mode best adapted to the ground.

It must always be the fault of the government if its military institutions are erroneous. If there were but a single regiment, that should be instructed according to the best principles, and made to practise whatever was most useful and necessary in the art of war. In a nation of freemen the regular force should constantly exhibit their exercises and evolutions, so that every citizen should be familiar with the best practice of the use of arms and of manœuvres. The eye may be said to have an infallible memory, it is above all other of the organs of sense the best medium of intelligence. The United States troops are usually cooped up in garrisons, as if they were, like the king of Prussia, forming a system in secret, while in fact there is nothing worthy of the name of discipline carried on, and in too many instances nothing understood. Perhaps the troops of the United States have not, as a part of discipline, fired a ball at a target for twenty years. Field artillery, or mortar practice, probably not more frequent. The maxim of economy is an important one in a free state, but there is an economy more destructive than the greatest profusion; and that is the economy of practical and useful knowlege.

We speak of these things reluctantly, but the evil is almost a disease, and requires the regard of the intelligent men in all parts of the nation.

What is then requisite for the United States?

It will be said that there is some difficulty in effecting any improvement. Unquestionably so it is, and so it ever will be. But the government is bound not to regard difficulties, when they are put in competition with the dangers which may flow from neglect. The government possesses the power, and the army is bound, and the country is anxious to possess a more complete system in lieu of the once useful but at present useless tract of baron Steuben. The difficulties are not so great as may be at first sight supposed, and may be surmounted in a way rather to serve as a pleasure than a difficulty to the army and militia. The elements of modern exercise might be first introduced, they are neither so numerous, so perplexed, nor so unnatural as the old forms; neither are they so tiresome to the teacher or the taught. They have also another advantage, that the soldier is not as heretofore stiffened and set up like an embalmed Egyptian mummy; the modern method takes any number from 10 to 100 men, and places them in an easy position erect without constraint of head, or limbs, or body; and proceeds by familiarizing the ear to equal time by the action of the feet of the whole squad or company; after which they are all taught to face to either hand or about, indifferently, and never in one routine; the mode of moving the limbs and the time of movement is ever the same; and the words of command few, simple, and plain; where they in any case differ from the usual words of common life the teacher’s duty is to explain them often, until the ears of all are familiar with their practical meaning.

The next process is advancing, at a given length of pace in equal times; and this is combined with facings, and at last with wheelings, in whole ranks, or in sections of any given numbers, always varying, diminishing, and augmenting at discretion the numbers of the sections, by drawing from the right of each successive section in the rear of the first, to the left of the leading section, a number sufficient to augment the first to the number required, and so of every section from front to rear; the drill is thus carried on always with moving feet at the time of gay dancing music, and when marching always at a pace of 24 inches.

After the squad of 20 or 100 is found complete in these minute branches of marking time, advancing at time, facing and wheeling, augmenting and diminishing sections, they are taught the oblique wheelings and facings, or as the modern words are half or quarter facing, or half or quarter wheeling; and to march dressed in these several orders, so as to form exactly in the same relative position to each other when wheeled or faced to their primitive position.

Thus much may be well taught, and comprehended, and practised in two or three weeks, employing only two or three hours at each drill, and twice each day.