skirmish tactics for cavalry," I
believe; but as that drill contemplated the employment of but a very few
men, and ours had to provide for the evolutions of regiments, and
eventually brigades, the latter was necessarily much more comprehensive.
The formation of the company, the method of counting off in sets, and of
dismounting and deploying to the front, flanks, or rear, for battle, was
the same as in Maury's tactics; but a great many movements necessary to
the change of front, as the kind of ground or other circumstances
required it to be made in various ways, to the formations from column
into line, and from line into column, the methods of taking ground to
the front, or rear, in establishing or changing line, the various
methods of providing, as circumstances might require, for the employment
of all, or only part of a regiment or brigade, or for the employment of
supports and reserves, all these evolutions had to be added. It would be
uninteresting to all but the practical military reader, and unnecessary,
as well, to enter into a minute explanation of these matters.

If the reader will only imagine a regiment drawn up in single rank, the
flank companies skirmishing, sometimes on horseback, and then thrown out
as skirmishers on foot, and so deployed as to cover the whole front of
the regiment, the rest of the men dismounted (one out of each set of
four and the corporals, remaining to hold horses) and deployed as
circumstances required, and the command indicated, to the front of, on
either flank, or to the rear of the line of horses--the files two yards
apart--and then imagine this line moved forward at a double-quick, or
oftener a half run, he will have an idea of Morgan's style of fighting.

Exactly the same evolutions were applicable for horseback, or foot
fighting, but the latter method was much oftener practiced--we were, in
fact, not cavalry, but mounted riflemen. A small body of mounted men was
usually kept in reserve to act on the flanks, cover a retreat, or press
a victory, but otherwise our men fought very little on horseback, except
on scouting expeditions. Our men were all admirable riders, trained
from childhood to manage the wildest horses with perfect ease; but the
nature of the ground on which we generally fought, covered with dense
woods, or crossed by high fences, and the impossibility of devoting
sufficient time to the training of the horses, rendered the employment
of large bodies of mounted men