| The Civil War
era was still under the general influence of Napoleonic
tactics, with large masses of infantry moving as a
cohesive unit, lining up hundreds abreast, and loading and
firing on command at a similar infantry line perhaps no
more than a hundred yards away. This was the norm in
the earlier days of terribly inaccurate muskets where
massed firepower trumped individual rifle marksmanship and
the group who could hold it's line the longest was
generally considered the "winner". The
fact that the development of the rifle-musket and minie
ball ( see
Weapons
) made the infantry deadly
out to hundreds of yards did not immediately change the
old-school tactics - leading to the slaughter that marked
the Civil War from the onset.
Joel Roberts Poinsett,
who today is best remembered for his work as a botanist,
introducing a Mexican flower to the U.S. (later named the
Poinsettia in his honor), wrote the first official tactics
manual for mounted dragoons and cavalry. It was
approved and published in 1841 by the War Department,
known by troopers then as simply "Poinsett's
Tactics." These were the cavalry tactics taught
at the military academy at West Point. Poinsett's
work taught a double-rank formation for combat, much
different than a new manual to be published just before
the Civil War began by Philip St. George Cooke, whose
manual taught the long, single-rank formation for combat.
Today, most mounted cavalry units follow either Poinsett's
or Cooke's manual, and our unit employs Poinsett's as the
standard drill manual. New recruits are advised to obtain
a copy ( available from many sutlers ) and begin a study
of it.
Your training as a 1st
Virginia Cavalry trooper will include many things..
including the recognition of standard bugle calls and hand
signals from your officers which will soon have you riding
boot-to-boot in the ranks, enjoying the sheer adventure of
it all, and above all - keeping safe. |
