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‘Light troops are, as it were, a light or beacon for the general, which should constantly inform him of the situation, the movements and nature of the enemy’s designs; it is upon the exactness and intelligence of what they report that he is enabled to regulate the time and manner of executing his own enterprises.’ […]

Contrary to our expectations, there was quite a lot of tactical variation during the first half of the 18th century. The problem is that most memoirs and battle accounts are very terse, providing the barest minimum about tactical level detail. One has to literally look through thousands of pages of period histories to find the […]

The duty of my station when in engagements was to fill up the intervals occasioned by killed and wounded, and to receive and issue orders, etc. The duty of firing is left to the private men. The business of an officer is to see that they do their duty properly, level and fire well; and, […]

FRAGMENTATION OF THE LINE DURING THE ADVANCE In conventional linear warfare it was, as Bland had put it in 1727, “a fixed rule for every battalion to act, as near as possible, in concert with the whole, both in advancing, attacking, pursuing, or retiring together.” This was because a battalion that did not regulate its […]

THE COMPANY IN ACTION Unlike conventional European linear warfare, on American battlefields it was common for the companies within the battalion to operate as semiautonomous tactical entities, each one under the direction of its captain or senior subaltern. Indeed, individual companies were not infrequently detached from the battalion during combat to perform particular tasks. Although […]