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For a different tactics manual, take a look at John A. Godfrey's 1862 "Rhyming Tactics."
(http://books.google.com/books?id=yPw9UzU_1dEC&oe=UTF-8)
It's the school of the soldier, company, and regiment in rhyme. I can just picture a brand new lieutenant the night before his first company drill trying to learn drill by rote memorization of this "poetry."
For example: The first motion of shoulder arms:
"One time and motions three,
Against, and under the left arm,
The right will placed be.
Seize with left hand the lower band,
Your thumb at length extended;
Slightly from shoulder move the piece,
Left arm, it is intended
Should lay along the stock with ease;
Here motion first is ended."
Explains wheelings, columns, firings, skirmish drill, basically all of Hardee's in sing-song rhymes.
I would LOVE to be at a drill and have the captain or sergeant major yelling out
"A company, as skirmishers deployed,
Is rallied, better to the foe oppose.
In rallies, bayonets fixed will be employed;
When rally's ordered, bayonets so dispose..."
(http://books.google.com/books?id=yPw9UzU_1dEC&oe=UTF-8)
It's the school of the soldier, company, and regiment in rhyme. I can just picture a brand new lieutenant the night before his first company drill trying to learn drill by rote memorization of this "poetry."
For example: The first motion of shoulder arms:
"One time and motions three,
Against, and under the left arm,
The right will placed be.
Seize with left hand the lower band,
Your thumb at length extended;
Slightly from shoulder move the piece,
Left arm, it is intended
Should lay along the stock with ease;
Here motion first is ended."
Explains wheelings, columns, firings, skirmish drill, basically all of Hardee's in sing-song rhymes.
I would LOVE to be at a drill and have the captain or sergeant major yelling out
"A company, as skirmishers deployed,
Is rallied, better to the foe oppose.
In rallies, bayonets fixed will be employed;
When rally's ordered, bayonets so dispose..."