(For the Army and Navy Journal.)TACTICS.
THIS subject should now be in order; it has suffered great neglect for some nine years past. I would suggest some ideas for the consideration of the profession.
Our tactics received about their first moulding from our good friend and general officer, the Prussian Baron Steuben; and they have since been derived, in the main, from Prussia through England and France; the original excessive formalism, combined with despotic discipline—both inherited by Frederic the Great—was so illustrated by his genius and successes, that the form, perhaps mistaken for their spirit, was adopted by neighboring nations. But with great improvements in Europe, especially of late, we have not kept pace.
An imperfect, but great advance in cavalry tactics, was attempted just as our civil war began; had Executive approval been given a year earlier—when the work was completed—it might have gained fair trial, and favor enough to have carried it on to uninterrupted success. In the systems now prescribed some of its ideas have been incorporated, but clumsily; and, as if in return, the cavalry has received some of the worst infantry features; the results are similar but somewhat confused jumbles of good and bad, old and new; of intricacy foreboding miscarriage in presence of a civilized enemy.
It is a mere truism to say that improved firearms—machine guns—have greatly modified the old conditions of war: [do they not threaten to make it too destructive for human resort?]
The slow precision and complicated evolutions of infantry must vanish as before a flame of fire; their formation in two ranks will probably follow their discarded squares, which, with loss of fire partook too much of the defenceless nature of a crowd. [Next to the opportunity offered by the flank of a line, it is masses or heavy columns which give the best possibilities to cavalry.]
Field artillery, whose best range is now less than that of arms of precision, has suffered perhaps more than cavalry by the great changes.
Gunpowder, thought to be a death blow to cavalry, relieved it of its armor, and gave it increase of activity, and momentum too. It may be said that in some of its very important, indeed essential, services, cavalry alone remains but little affected by the extraordinary inventions in firearms. The reader shall judge; I specify the following duties, viz:
1. Scouts and reconnoissances for discovery in campaign of the movements and strength of the enemy‘s army or columns.
2. Opening communications—interrupting those of the enemy.
3. Destruction of, and cutting off the enemy's resources, and lines of supply.
4. Surprises of distant intrenched positions, depots, etc.
5. Prompt occupancy of strategic positions and points; as heights, bridges, fords; important to operations decided upon; Or to thwart the enemy.
6. The guard of the army, day and night, at rest or moving, from surprises, clearing the way of marching columns.
These detached services are dependent chiefly upon rapidity of motion. In the late war our cavalry very successfully performed the infantry service of defending and attacking intrenchments dismounted; and the last even sometimes mounted.
In battles of importance, after hours of carnage, when ammunition may fail, when a great mistake may be committed, when confusion may occur, [when, perhaps, both sides may “ feel whipped ”],—in short when the balance of victory is nicely poised, then the sabre should be cast into the scale! Almost any of these conditions neutralize the ascendancy of machine arms and restore the cavalry its great powers; there should always be a reserve of cavalry to strike then!—only a portion of the enemy’s army in such a state being routed, the rest will seldom stand fast—unless held by a hero: as at Chickamauga.
If the enemy be routed, then woe to the conquered! the cavalry becomes of supreme importance. Drawn battles decide nothing, and victory is claimed by both sides; but the energetic, thorough pursuit of a routed, sometimes of a merely retreating army, shall give the great results—the peacemaking fruits of victory.
What a different story would have been told of Lee‘s retreat from Petersburg, but for our cavalry. He would have made a junction with Johnston, and probably would have established a new base. But our cavalry, directed by a general of genius and full of energy, seconded by skilful and brave commanders, soon brought the enemy to bay, and closed the war, too, with some brilliant charges.
But, on the other hand, a retreat covered by superior cavalry can be made with small loss.
But to return to tactics. Tactics for infantry should be simplified—reduced in volume, with fewer and less formal deployments, with no injurious puzzles, dependent upon “ right or left in front." Nothing can be more important than precision of fire, but that, of late, has received great attention. In connection with it, exercises in open order should be developed as the great feature of future battles. Their first lines will consist of skirmishers, with equal strength in reserve and as supports; these, together, will be about half as numerous as the second line, in single rank.
After all, infantry must give substantial form and coherence to armies; it is often thrown on the simple and dogged defensive—never the case with cavalry.
So cavalry tactics must be in nearly all respects different; its movements both in detail and in the large are the movements of horses; its duties are disconnected and essentially different; its powers bear no resemblance, little comparison to those of other arms; and it has peculiar weaknesses. The character and worth of cavalry are dependent upon mobility in all its widest sense. Its deployments, few and simple, should be without halt, unless ordered—the first formations ready to strike; and if such its need, the later ones in that admirable formation of echelons. The officers, who are always in front, should be its guides; making an end to the martinet system of markers and guides, “general " and “ particular,” right and left, and their mathematical lines. No confused noise of unnecessary, repeated commands—some of which the very horses anticipate—drowning often those of real importance.
What room or reason is there for precision of movements and of lines in cavalry ? If there were time, the nature of horses renders them as impossible as useless.
With short enlistments, and much more with instruction at the beginning of a war, time fails for much nicety and formality in riding; security of seat, “rough riding," will much better pay.
P. S. G. C.
--Army and Navy Journal - Saturday, September 15, 1883
For another sample of General Cooke in retirement, check out this published extract from his 1886 talk before the Michigan Commandery of the Loyal Legion: Our Army and Navy.
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