"Breaking infantry squares" Topic

As a tangent what size of units are most researchers taliking about when the issue of squares are covered. Are we talking about only battlaion (regimental for the British) or are we also talking about squares consisting of slightly more than a company or composing of multi-units in a Divisional hollow square formation?

The breaking of squares by infantry is irrelevant in this context. A "dervish" to use the Victorian expression, with his sword and shield, is hardly going to be put off from charging into a solid line of infantry when his raison d'etre as a warrior is charging at infantry! The only thing that will put him off will be fire power.
Creeks may have been in the same situation, and the Christinas and the US infantry probably used squares as a means of:
1) protecting their baggage and camp followers and,
2) giving less steady and well trained troops the benefit of unturnable flanks.
Again, neither case, when used against
infantry are relevant in this debate.
Squares were used to give infantry an unturnable flank, and solidity, against cavalry. Musketry, and to an extent, bayonets, were of limited value, in comparison to the immoveable nature of the formation. Essentially the horses slowed right down, the cavalryman couldn't reach the infantryman, few infantrymen could reach the cavalrymen, so there would be a stand off. The rear rank of infantry could fire, so could cause some few casualties, and, theoretically, the cavalry could fire their carbines and pistols, but most accounts seem to have the cavalry riding around ineffectually before departing, with few casualties on either side. Unless, as the French at Waterloo, for example, one side can bring up artillery.

At Austerlitz the sequence was the square face loosed a volley which halted a squadron of Chevalier Guards and then with empty muskets was hit by a second squardron that attacked from a slightly different angle and thus had a clear run. There were the remnants of the Guard Jagers in the vicinity but the horse artillery was not close enough, nor was there time to make a difference. So it was the Chevalier Guards alone and the fight was desperate for the very short time before the French broke up.

Its a question of both eyesight and speed. Unless knocked down to a walk a horse's eysight is insufficient to determine what it is running at till it is too late. Light horese would often jump and heavy horses attempt to stop by sitting down but by the time they did this it was mostly too late. Then there was the matter of training. Many horses were schooled to believe the front would break up. Then there was a matter of survival. Riders would often attempt to reign in to save their lives. The bottom liine was if you didn't knock enough horses down at 40 yards or so to slow the charge you were in heep big trouble and a bayonet wasn't about to help stop 1000 lbs at 20mph.

At Waterloo the British did but also at Waterloo the charges appear to have turned into a game of chicken in which the cavalry attempted to get the squares to fire at ineffective range and the squares refused to do so. What the cavalry did was drive in the skirmishers and run off most of the artillerymen leaving the squares vulnerable to artilley and infantry. Of course Ney forgot till it was too late.

Good gaming.

Bob Coggins

Of course, if the horses don't see an obstacle until its too late, then the situation changes!

"Its a question of both eyesight and speed. Unless knocked down to a walk a horse's eysight is insufficient to determine what it is running at till it is too late."

Im not sure I buy this. Im no expert on horses but Im sure that they have evolved to avoid objects at high speed. you seem to suggest that these horses crashed into squares, breaking them up. While the physical weight of the horse and men would be enough to do this, I beleive it basically never happened due to self preservation of man and beast.

I did read of an ottoman horseman who reared his horse in such a way as to crash down and break a russian sqaure at close range. This self sacrifice allowd his fellow cavalry to rush the gap and slaughter them from inside.

I personally feel that Cavalry were mostly ineffectual against steady close order Infantry in squares, if the Infantry held their ground and good order the cavalry would not normally be able to break them up.

For me, Cavalry really needed extenuating circumstances to break steady Infantry in Squares such as several that have been put up already, a dying horse collapsing, a self sacrifice, friendly artillery pounding gaps into them, caught after firing a volley at another bait target squadron and so on. If the Cavalry gets any one of these advantages he can gain the possibility of getting in. It might still be hard to do but possible none the less.

It is when the enemy Infantry are already unsteady, shaken or wavering when the Cavalry get to slaughter their prey. Infantry in a compromising situation like this are usually doomed.

The way I see it is, "STEADY" and "FORMED" Infantry squares should be 95% or more impervious to Cavalry charges while in square, the other 5% pertains to those small number of situations where pure luck and accidents occur to allow the cavalry in such as falling horses and so on. But even Landwehr and any conscript, "IF" Steady should be able to hold off cavalry with relative ease so for Elite troops it would (or should) be almost impossible to break them providing they have already passed a morale test and are steady.

The trick for the Infantry is to remain steady after an initial Morale check, the slightest panic or wavering and the chance to break the square goes right up at contact. This should be shown and catered for in rules systems that play at this level.

Regards,
Shane

Shane mentions some key terms, steady and formed infantry. It would be very difficult at best for such infantry to be overwhelmed.

There may be exceptions found but in designing rules this is a good position to base a rule mechanic. A chance of failure (breaking) in rules may be more of a morale failure when shifting from the line or column to the square than actual contact with the enemy.

Chouan
''But, Cacadores, they'll only try to jump something that they think that they can clear, which is why horse refuse fences and stop. Horse can be persuaded to barge into flesh, but only slowly, rather like police horses do; infantry with bayonets will persuade the horse not to. They won't charge into flesh if it looks too solid, as they don't want to get hurt. They will, however, charge through a small gap if they can see a clear space beyond. Unsteady infantry will create that gap. Steady infantry will ensure that that gap isn't there. Even the best trained hunter won't go through a hedge; it will go though a gap in a hedge though, even if it only a small one.''

All that you say is true. Which is why, in the case of a formed square, getting that square to shoot early so that the horses can come up close and do that stuff is a major factor in square-destruction.

And why not: under pressure, even experienced gamers will risk a shot from a square against some enemy infantry perhaps. And if the enemy has some cavalry behind, and the square fails to re-load in time, then it should be riper for destruction.

I reckon.

<<At Quatre Bras the French Cavalry broke into the 42nd's square and had they been supported there would have been a hell of a lot more death notificatoins posted on the village kirks.>>

Just for the record, the cavalry (line light horse lancers) didn't break into the square; they were caught inside when the square was formed, and were wiped out by a combination of the supernumaries in the centre and the rear rank facing about.

In response to LordGhee's comment that the standards in the painting are displayed over Napoleon's tomb; they are not.

The standards of the 5th KGL and the Luneburg Landwehr were recovered in the days following the battle. I have never found any definite information on what happened to that of the 8th KGL, but there was a French report that a single "British" standard was found in Soissons by Grouchy's staff later in June, and that this standard subsequently disappeared.

Some French sources claim that the other alleged one to three captured standards were left behind at Le Caillou.

Therefore, no Mont-Saint-Jean standards in Paris!

The key French primary source for captured standards at Mont-Saint-Jean, General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, only gives the names of three Frenchmen who captured standards:

Marechal de Logis Gauthier (10th Cuirassiers)
Fourier Palau (Pilloy?) (9th Cuirassiers)
Capitain Klein de Kleinenberg (Guard Chasseurs).

As a comment to Rudy, it is nice to meet someone here who appreciates robust and rigorous debate. Unlike you, I do not come at this from the view of developing rules mechanisms, but from that of an academic historian. It is interesting when the two viewpoints overlap:).

Colin

I think I will just paint the wounded horse that falls on the square figure and forget about the other stuff.

;-)

mjc

There is a medical condition known as Equinophobia. I can imagine that one would not want to find out that the man standing next to one in the square suffered from it.

C,

Horses can be persuaded to barge into flesh, but only slowly, rather like police horses do; They won't charge into flesh if it looks too solid, as they don't want to get hurt

Actually horses will barge into flesh at higher speeds. Police horses do not walk at crowds they trot or even canter – and anyone who has been on the receiving end will know how that feels.

The more pertinent point is that over and above the horse's preservations instincts are those of the rider. You may well encourage a horse to ride into a formed square but to encourage a horse AND rider to do so, resulting in a high chance of serious injury or death is a different matter, and the reason why most cavalry baulked prior to contact.

DB

DB,

One big difference between modern police practice and Napoleonic military practice is that crowds are not formed up and pointing scary sharp things at the horses; they tend to be clumped with clear gaps and also tend to run away when faced by cantering police horses. I am not convinced that one is an analogue of the other.

However, I do tend to agree that the combined preservation instincts of horse and rider would be crucial in preventing a charge home.

Colin

The idea that cavalry believe they can overthrow infantry and infantry believe they can hold firm against cavalry leads me to concur with Shane that there will be a percentage of exceptions. The trick is getting the balance right in any rules.

Cavalry versus infantry is asymetric, a bit like asymetric sport where you have a bowler against a batsman (for US readers pitcher and batter). The bowler believes he can take wickets, the batsman that he can defend his wicket or even counter and score runs. Both the bowler and batsmen believe in their abilities otherwise they would not engage. A small difference in skill and conditions can make a big difference to the outcome.

If we accept that in a small percentage of cases the square will be broken then we probably need to consider the stats of the combat mechanism. Rare events need a distribution with a long tail – the chance of the break is in the tail and not in the bulk of the distribution. Variation in conditions favourable to the cavalry should increase the chance of the break happening.

Regular 6 sided dice do not give us the sort of distribution we need for this. We need something else, maybe a card mechanism or computerised stats

colinjallen,

''One big difference between modern police practice and Napoleonic military practice is that crowds are not formed up and pointing scary sharp things at the horses; they tend to be clumped with clear gaps and also tend to run away when faced by cantering police horses. I am not convinced that one is an analogue of the other''.

You've obviously never seen Millwall at home verses Chelsea. There is no where to run at Millwall. Horses chesting away opposition is an evolutionary self-preservation tactic: if backed up by other horses they certainly don't shy from people and frankly don't have the intelligence to know what a bayonet is, without personal experience.

It's IMO 90% psychology 10% physics.

You are trained to beleive that you are safe in a square, that your back is protected, that "cavalry cannot break a square"
Hence you see a thundering mass of hoofs and steel coming at you and you are reassured.

You are Trained to beleive that Squares are unbreakable. Your job is to ride down disordered fleeing troops and to roll up lines that are caught unaware, to slice down skirmishers in the open. Hence you are thundering towards a formed square of foot, and you are uncertain about it from the moment you tap your spurs.

Take away that training for a moment. The square is formed because the colonel of the battalion thinks its a pretty pattern. The troops dont know why theyre formed up like that, they dont know of the efficiency of square vs horse.

The Mass of horseflesh and shining steel approaches at the charge. It looks flipping scary. Actually, it a good idea to run. Right now.
The massacre begins.

A square is unbreakable, mainly, because every cavalryman knows a square is unbreakable.

"It has been said that the greatest inconvenience resulting from the use of dragoons consists in the fact of being obliged at one moment to make them believe infantry squares cannot resist their charges, and the next moment that a foot soldier is superior to any horseman…"

Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini

Being a football fan, I always try to avoid the New Den;).

On a more serious note, the use of horses for crowd control is not an analogue for a battlefield situation. While I accept that horses can be persuaded to shoulder aside unformed and loosish mobs of people, the situation with a steady square is very different; the defenders are making a lot of noise by firing, they are trying to stab the horses with bayonets, and they are ordered and disciplined. These are not the conditions met at football matches (although one might argue that Millwall v Chelsea is not so much a football match as a tribal conflict).

Many of the arguments in favour of the cavalry seem to ignore the activity of the infantry in the square; they are actively trying to kill men and horses, not waiting to be barged aside.

A quick review of known cases of squares being broken by cavalry in the Napoleonic period throws up a few dozen examples at most; even if this is doubled to allow for unreported cases, which is probably far too generous, it is still a tiny figure when compared with the number of times that cavalry encountered infantry squares. The only reasonable conclusion can be that cavalry could only break squares in very rare situations where somthing unusual happened to enable them to do so.

The one thing that my my research for three degrees including one in Military Science not only military history, is that therre are no abosolutes.

You can always find an example contrary to any point you trying to research. It may cause a blip on your graph but it should not change the outcome of your thesis statement (point of the research) when all the facts and examples are considered.

You can always find an example contrary to any point you trying to research.

Agreed, there is always going to be exceptions to the norm and the more unusual or rare the more exceptional they become. So while being reported and read about so much people unconsciously see them as "normal", simply because they are written about so much. This problem permeates in history all the time.

There might be 1 or 2 dozen cases all, "well documented" regarding cavalry breaking squares but there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of cases of Cavalry being frustrated by steady infantry in square. These situations although "normal" make poor reading and thus ignored or brushed over at best by writers, historians and eyewitnesses. It is only the unusual or rare events that make it to paper in detail, and only these events make good reading.

It is this disparity or distortion of what is considered normal and exceptional that causes everyone reading history to get a distorted view on what happened, how it happened, why it happened and how much it happened and how to portray it in rules systems. This is the problem we face and what we have to understand.

Regards,
Shane

Because there is no record of a square breaking at Waterloo doesn't mean they were not broken with relative regularity in central Europe.

To repeat. Military men are of a practical bent. They tend not to do things that don't work after a failure or two. That includes cavalry charging squares. They would not have done it were there not a reasonable chance of breaking the square.

Cavalry horses were schooled for the battlefield but no one ever read them into what a bayonet was. The only way to stop a cavalry charge on infantry is to gun down the first rank of horses and bring the attack to a halt or a walk and this had to be done between 40 and 60 yards. Closer and a wounded or dying horse was liable to fall into a square farther away and you might not knock down enough horses.

So what about the pointy things? There you are a 150lb infantryman with a 10lb musket and bayonet and here come a bunch of 1200lb horses at 20mph. Now what's the problem with this picture?

Hell, in 1813 even LW regularly charged squares breaking some and not breaking others.

Good gaming.

Bob Coggins

Anyone remember the bird's eye view of the British squares in the film 'Waterloo?'

Even with countless re-takes, they couldn't get the infantry extras to stay still in the face of charging horses. So instead of showing steady formations, the bird's eye views appear to be showing a rout!

"Cavalry horses were schooled for the battlefield"
In an ideal world, they might have been! How many of Bonaparte's were in 1813? How many of the Prussian army were in 1813, given the dramatic expansion of the Prussian army, and given that Bonaparte had virtually stripped Prussia of cavalry horses in 1812?

@Chouan

December 1812, there were only around 3000 horses in French depots, the "propaganda" (planned) strength of the cav. in Germany was around 90.000, even if we assume that 50% of them actually existed, less than 10% of the horses were trained. The influx of the Polish troops and dragoons from Spain during the armistic improved the situation before the autum campaign.

Of the 540.000 French soldiers who fought in Germany, around 90.000 were veterans or had at least a regular military training (~15%). Of the 300k Prussians more than 60.000 were veterans or at least well trained (for continentals standards in 1813 :-)). Most of the line regiments served against the French army (and pure Landwehr units were used for sieges,) the percentage of trained soldies was very likely even higher in the Prussian corps of the allied armies.

Greetings fron Graz!

Thanks everyone for your comments, for the record my 3 Landwehr units had all passed their morale tests, had no previous casualties and had no friendly routers, they did however have no general in command radius.

Ulenspiegel, I'm sure that the soldiers were trained, but what I said was that there was a desperate shortage of horses, as Bonaparte had taken just about every available horse for the campaign of 1812. The attrition rate of horses in that campaign was nearly 100%. Which would mean that the Prussians, when they dramatically increased their cavalry arm in 1813 would have been desperatedly short of trained cavalry horses themselves.

Colin,

On a more serious note, the use of horses for crowd control is not an analogue for a battlefield situation.

Errr…yes it is! Without coming too far off the point of the thread I think you are missing a key issue. Do not confuse public disorder situations with a lack of discipline, esp. with regard to English football disorder.

Those involved in the core of this disorder are extremely disciplined, maintain tight formations and know exactly what tactics to carry out and carry a nice assortment of weapons ranging from the usual knives and meat cleavers to spears/scaffolding poles and even shotguns.

At Millwall the crowd was densely packed and stood their ground – the "cavalry" trotted and cantered at the crowd and simply smashed into them! The horses did not stop and the crowd did not run!

The results were not pleasant, esp. for the "cavalry" as they ended up isolated in the crowd and a few riderless horses came out with the falling back cavalry.

Now I know it's not a square situation or a battlefield situation but there are similarities that should not be overlooked.

DB

Dave,

There are superficial similarities but none that support the idea of crowd control (even at Millwall) being an analogue of square v cavalry on the Napoleonic battlefield.

To examine the key differences:

The defenders on the battlefield are motivated by one key consideration: not to let the cavalry get amongst them. The penalty for failing in this is death or mutilation. Consequently, the defenders will do everything that they can to prevent it, including happily using lethal force against the cavalry at a distance.

In a football "riot", the defenders' motivation is different; they know that there is no real risk of death or mutilation from the police. They also know that in close combat they are probably better armed than the police "cavalry". They are also aware that bringing down a horseman and then doing something nasty to him will bring enhanced status among their peers. Consequently, they are more inclined to allow the "cavalry" into close contact as it is in their perceived self-interest to do so. However well organised they may appear to be, a group of football hooligans do not have the same discipline and motivation to keep the cavalry away as a group of Napoleonic infantry do.

There is a huge danger of overlooking the psycholigical influences in favour of the mechanics. The difference in motivations is key when deciding if the situations are analogous.

colinjallen

''There are superficial similarities but none that support the idea of crowd control (even at Millwall) being an analogue of square v cavalry on the Napoleonic battlefield''

Mean-spirited man :-) Dave provided direct parallels. Horses will chest away people and ignore weapons – especially if these weapons are being parried by a flailing sabre or nullified by shock. To deny it on a 'psychological' basis is to get lost in the changeable miasma of people's ever-changing feelings. A cavalryman's unusual courage combined with men who've no ball in their muskets at the time provide the window of opportunity for cavalry to try – in an unusual case. And it is unusual cases we're discussing, isn't it? We need to look at other factors to see what can happen.

''However well organised they may appear to be, a group of football hooligans do not have the same discipline and motivation to keep the cavalry away as a group of Napoleonic infantry do.''

You don't understand. Not the same, but these hooligan groups do train and peer group pressure, ridicule, orders and admiration are the motivation – just as for soldiers. The parallel does not have to be exact for it to provide useful information. What do you think?

To repeat. Military men are of a practical bent. They tend not to do things that don't work after a failure or two.

Rot

They are also conservative and reactionary, and more than willing to fight the next war with the previous war's tactics.

A brief glance at the history of the Great War should serve to illuminate the theory.

Cacadores, you seem to have completely misunderstood. My argument was that the motivation is different in that the hooligans are motivated to enter into close combat with the "cavalry" rather than to prevent it, which is the motivation of the infantry soldier in a square.

Again,no more posts from me on this topic.

Strangely enough I SUPPORT MILLWALL!

Yikes… Trust the brits in the group to bring up the soccer mobs v. police.

I dunno, I'm leaning more towards colin's argument. I *know* that the police won't kill me, and I can drag a couple down when they get close. On the other hand, those 250 guys on horses over there are *trying* to kill me, and the only way they can really have a chance is to get close to me.

I have to agree, trying to relate an unruly mob riot with that of a square full of desperate men fighting to save their own lives against cavalry trying their very best to get amongst them and hack them down in cold blood is no analogy.

Shane

Rioting mobs and police would, I expect, react differently if their opponents were wielding machetes.

It reminds me of a thought experiment: a group of western archeologists, anthropologists, and social workers, in the midst of savage African wars, get cut off from the western world and stranded in small village. That village is harassed constantly by cruel guerillas trying to spread their campaign of terror by descending on the villages with machetes to hack, torture, rape, and brutalize the inhabitants. The less-than-magnificent Seven have among them a historian and wargamer. The task? Teach the villagers how to fight off the marauders. What drill, makeshift weapons, and tactics do you use?

What would change if the marauders had light motor bikes?

We've just explained that football hooligans in the hooligan 'firms' are trained and diciplined. And if they're not static, that makes it more difficult for the horse not less. Anyway, the point was only this very limited one: will trained horses willingly get close to a hostile crowd of men bearing weapons? I think the point was proved.

teach them how to form square ;-p

Colin, et al,

Will trained horses willingly get close to a hostile crowd of men bearing weapons? I think the point was proved.

Thank you Cac, that was the point I was trying to make.

I appreciate it is not quite on the same lines as attacking squares, as I think I tried to point out.

The point was that horses will charge formed disciplined bodies of men. (Shane – do not be confused here – I am not discussing an unruly mob riot – the point refers very much to a disciplined mob – it's a significant difference.)

Whether one can or should take the analogy forward to attacking squares is another debate in itself and I accept that; however I use the example to illustrate that horses do charge and strike formed bodies of men at speed; as it seems a popular misconception that horses will not do this.

DB

I looked at the Austerlitz French square a bit. It seems: the battalion lost its eagle; the battalion suffered much fewer casualities than the battalion beyond it, which was caught in line; the Russian cavalry could not get into the adjacent vineyard; the L.G. Horse battery did go into action; the colonel offered a strange story about ordering the battalion to go prone in the belief the horses would step on them.

My take is that some combination of artillery and cavalry convinced the battalion it would be better off scampering in the vineyards (this supposed happened with a second battalion at Quatre-Bras when the misformed square was overrun) and lost their eagle in the process, and the colonel came up with some tall tale to excuse them.

Interesting notion there, nvrsaynvr. If one were to form square beside a village, vinyard, a ditch,or some other cover that might provide individuals security, the square might be less effective because frightened soldiers would be eyeing, edging, and in some case outright scampering to that protection.

For a square to be ideally effective, it has to be the clearly best chance for the soldiers. The same would hold true for those knots of men that form up in square in the midst of a rout. The men that stop and join the square must have decided that it presented a better chance for survival than running.

Squares did get broken for all the above reasons, although the chance is less, unless the magic dice are at work.

In the examples given of mounted police, they are, of course, using properly trained horses, which have been extenively trained to interact with mobs of people on foot. How many cavalry horses in our period were actually trained, rather than merely broken?

Thr Russian Gd HA battery caused some casualties to the 1/4 but not sufficient to disorder it or shake its confidence when the Garde du Corps arrived. The charge of the First Squadron was brought up short by the square's steady ordered fire BUT before they could reload the Second Squadron charged at a slightly different angle. The horses charged home. The infantry stood its ground. Its bayonets did not stop the Cuirassiers' horses. Boom, Bam! Two hundred casualties later and the loss of an Eagle and the massacre was over.

The 24th Lt. advanced in the vinyard in line on purpose. The Russian cavalry charged down the rows and overran the Regiment. Given the terrain, line was not unreasonable. Less than an hour earlier, 2 Austrian Cuirassier Regts attempting to charge became entangled and after them the Russian Guard Hussars were brought up short by the vines.

Good gaming.

Bob Coggins

What source are you citing Bob? I can't find some of those exact details in any of mine (Andolenko, Bowden, Castle, Chandler, Duffy, Goetz).

I also cannot find the anecdote about Bigarré ordering the battalion to lie down. Either memory betrays me, or it shows up in the cavalry versus square discussions. If so, perhaps it is a mémoires-ism that more serious historians identify and avoid.

In any event, the 4th Line suffered 200 casualties but only 18 fatalities, which might not be inconsistent with a sabering, but the 24th Light suffered 126 dead and 364 wounded (Duffy). Andolenko quotes the 4th's regimental history which says that forming the square unfortuantely moved the left half of the battalion out of the vines and onto the ridge or embankment where it was exposed to bombardment, and that it routed and carried the right half away when attacked by cavalry. It all seems to point to the square collapsing into the vines but not suffering much further.

The breaking of squares by infantry (and, similarly, by artillery) is indeed relevant to this thread.

A careful reading of colonel mustard's original post will indicate that, although he mentioned a wargame example of Prussian landwehr squares being broken by cavalry, he did not limit the scope of his question to any particular manner is breaking a square.

Rudy's Creek War example is very interesting to those of us who are interested in the non-European campaigns during the Napoleonic period.

Rick

nvrsaynve,

I usually don't quote sources on this site figuring the members are capable of finding them. In this instance, however, because I mis-remembered the presence of the Russian Guard H/A, I looked it up.

Bowden, pp 368, "The crushing volley issued at point-blank range…staggared the 1st Squadron preventing them from closing. Howerer, before the French could reload…the 2nd Squadron were upon them….the third company penetrated the ranks of the fantassins, destroying the cohesion of the battalion…," etc. and so forth. There were 200 casualties (fn 172) or 25% in a trice.

Hope this helps.

Good gaming.

Bob Coggins

Regarding 4e ligne at Austerlitz – causation is pretty much impossible to determine with certainty.

The part about the square being broken by an untimely second charge immediately after firing comes from Bigarré (commanding 4e ligne at Austerlitz). Bigarré also mentions 4e ligne being somewhat disordered by Russian cannister fire. He attributes the breaking of the square entirely to the timing of the second charge, not to the disorder caused by the canister. The footnote on this is that Bigarré needed to explain/excuse the profoundly embarrassing loss of an eagle in what was otherwise a day of glory for the French, which has to be kept in mind. If he emphasizes lucky timing by the Russians and de-emphasizes disorder caused by canister, it shouldn't be too surprising.

So a square breaks – what is the cause? I suspect a little of A and and little of B. In the end, who can know for sure? But Bigarre's comment that the canister fire caused some disorder suggests that as a contributing factor, even if Bigarré chose to imply that his unit was in perfect order immediately before being broken and was simply the victim of unfortunate timing.

Florida Tory,
Happened to the Georgia expedition at Calabee creek. it happened to the Tenn expedition at Emfauka Town. In both cases the Americans became so disorganized and casualties so heavy that the action stopped their offensive campaign.

If this is true then the btln in question is another example of Infantry "not" steady to receive cavalry. I still believe that there is almost always (if not always) extenuating circumstances that occur before Cavalry can break Infantry squares.

Shane