Redcoats and Revolutionaries

The Light Infantry Discipline

In 1772, regiments on the Irish establishment, which included the 40th, were ordered to practice the 'discipline of the light infantry.' Much of this drill would become common across all regiments serving in the wild and wooded Americas.

Among the goals of the movements and evolutions was to be quickly form fronts without the long and tedious 'wheeling' of close order battalions. One part of this is how a soldier carries his arms: usually a soldier would advance with his 'firelock' [musket] at the shoulder or recover position. Neither are stable for swift movement. In the Light Infantry Discipline, soldiers were told carry them in their right hand in a 'diagonal position' that is called 'trail arms' in later exercise manuals.

All the evolutions — the facing and forming of fronts with which to fire upon an enemy — are done by file rather than rank. That is, the front man and the man directly behind him when drawn up in two ranks. The file partners have 'an entire dependence upon itself' and would run to position rather than forming neat lines shoulder-to-shoulder with others in the ranks.

They were taught to use cover as file pairs, firing from the right of a tree, but they'd make use of large stones, fences — anything. In Townshend's orders, file pairs 'are never to be unloaded at the same time' and is 'by no means to discharge his firelock until the other has loaded.' This would mean alternate fire while the partner readies for the 'mutual defence' of the file. Of course if they were being rushed they might need to fire before retreating...

Amongst other things, Light Infantry practiced firing at marks, made their own cartridges, and had significant training in building field fortification like abatis (felled trees in front of a ditch) and creneaus (battlements), and using houses and other buildings.

In 1774, General Howe ordered light infantry training at Salisbury plain.

Whereas Townshend's instructions were mainly about how a company of light infantry might be expected to perform together, Howe's drill concentrated on how to manoeuver a number of companies in a composite light infantry battalion. It's assumed that when Howe formed the light infantry battalions in Halifax in 1776, they were taugh a version of this discipline.

In practice, it wasn't especially different to the regular infantry exercise of 1764. It constituted a section on moving a battalion in broken country in two ranks at open file intervals, and a platoon exercise to take into account the '2-deep' formation.

Howe specified three different interval “orders” — that is the gap between files in a given rank. He chose “order” (two feet), “open order” (four feet), and “extended order” (ten feet) as the intervals for Light Infantry.

The most impactful part of Howe's drill was quickly changing formations or facings, with troops forming by files instead of marching or wheeling by ranks. No particular cadence of marching was prescribed: the regular troops had 'ordinary time' at 75 paces per minute and 'quick time' at 120. Howe's drill simply has 'slow,' 'quick,' and 'run.'

Before Halifax, Townshend's and Howe's training was only practiced by light infantry ont he British and Irish establishments, which was perhaps why the light infantry wasn't quite as effective in Massachusetts at the outbreak of the wa, with many regiments there being on American service for some time. Colonel Edward Hand of the provincial forces wrote in 1781 that at the beginning of operations British Light Infantry were "compact in their movements, regular in their marching and from habit and general instructions they appeared averse to every attempt to screen or cover themselves from danger." General Sir Henry Clinton like wise wrote "Perhaps in all America there is not a worse spot than this we are in for a regular army without light troops [...] I cannot call our light companies such, nor would you if I were to converse with you for five minutes.”

But, by the time of the Long island invasion in August 1776, the Light Infantry were effective, particularly with bayonets fixed! There is some evidence that Major Thomas Musgrave (of the 64th at the time, later the 40th), commander of the 1st Battalion Light infantry, oversaw specialist "bushfighting" training during the Army's sojourn in Halifax, which may account for the significant improvement in results.

This engaging, fast and exciting exercise is one of the reasons we chose to portray the Light Infantry – far from being red-coated automatons that marched in perfect lines to deliver volleys at the enemy, the British army was a maneuverable, tactically adaptable force, and the light infantry were at the forefront of it.