Research Help needed: 3 lines of skirmishers Dismounted Cavalry

[RJSamp]

Have a theory and need your help. There are two quotes that have been bothering me for literally Decades (1975 The University of Texas at Austin History class).

July 1st 1863 Gettysburg 1863
General Buford says something to the effect that the Confederates will come a 'boomin' in their usual fashion preceded by a cloud of skirmishers 3 lines deep.

Asked about this on the old skirmisher board (1998 ran by former Austin's Battalion CO JP Walsh)...and no one knew what it meant.

Now I run into a quote (again, don't you just love rereading books every ten years) in "The Story of a Cavalry Regiment" about the 4th Iowa Cavalry. They are running around in the Meridian Campaign......and they send out 3 lines of skirmishers.

If any of you can find more 3 line skirmisher quotes I'd love to hear about it.

Cavalry numbers off in 4's. When they dismount the 1,2, and 3 hand their reins over to the number 4 who becomes the led horses handler. 1,2,3 go off to fight on foot. and we don't know specifically how they went off and fought on foot from a single rank of mounted troops (non Poinsett's manuals). IF #1's file partner is the #2....then who's #3's partner??? Did they renumber ? (sounds confusing to me). Did 1 go forward, 2 became their file mate, and #3 formed the reserves? Did they play 3 line leap frog (kind of like the 4 ranks firing in Zulu). And which manual was this written down in.

So inquiring minds want to know.....if you solve the mystery of Cooke's Tactics Manual and how to fight on foot maybe you can make a presentation at the Cavalry Congress in July??? Coley and I will provide the refreshments.

[tompritchett]

In thinking of the role of skirmishers as a means of locating the main force of the enemy while pushing aside his own skirmishers, whose role was to deny you that information, I can only think of how those roles are accomplished in modern armies. Rather than interpreting that quote as one skirmish line of three rows, I would instead interprete it as three separate lines of the standard two rows where there would first be a very sparse skirmish line representing the division, then some distance behind that would be a more compact line (in terms of distance between shirmishers) representing the brigades, and finally a series of standard skirmish lines representing the individual regiments. This layering of advance "scouting" units was fairly standard in the modern military organization when I was in and might be the explanation, particularly since Heath and his subordinate officers really were not sure of what they were going to run into as they advanced towards Gettysburg because the ANV cavalry was tied up on other missions
.

[bob 125th nysvi]

the Buford quote refers to the Rebs pushing out three ranks of skirmishers.

But as far as forming three ranks of shirmishers I think you are lining up your troops the wrong way, in column instead of in line.

Say the Regt. commander sent out three companies to form a skirmish formation. Why wouldn't company "A" be line 1, Company "B" be line 2 and Company "C" being line 3? with the olders behind the main unit?

Afterall you wouldn't put the skirmish horse between the skirmish line and the main unit, that would either put them at serious risk of loss or in the way of the main unit advancing on foot.

[White Horse]

Have a theory and need your help. There are two quotes that have been bothering me for literally Decades (1975 The University of Texas at Austin History class).

July 1st 1863 Gettysburg 1863
General Buford says something to the effect that the Confederates will come a 'boomin' in their usual fashion preceded by a cloud of skirmishers 3 lines deep.

Asked about this on the old skirmisher board (1998 ran by former Austin's Battalion CO JP Walsh)...and no one knew what it meant.

Now I run into a quote (again, don't you just love rereading books every ten years) in "The Story of a Cavalry Regiment" about the 4th Iowa Cavalry. They are running around in the Meridian Campaign......and they send out 3 lines of skirmishers.

If any of you can find more 3 line skirmisher quotes I'd love to hear about it.

Cavalry numbers off in 4's. When they dismount the 1,2, and 3 hand their reins over to the number 4 who becomes the led horses handler. 1,2,3 go off to fight on foot. and we don't know specifically how they went off and fought on foot from a single rank of mounted troops (non Poinsett's manuals). IF #1's file partner is the #2....then who's #3's partner??? Did they renumber ? (sounds confusing to me). Did 1 go forward, 2 became their file mate, and #3 formed the reserves? Did they play 3 line leap frog (kind of like the 4 ranks firing in Zulu). And which manual was this written down in.

So inquiring minds want to know.....if you solve the mystery of Cooke's Tactics Manual and how to fight on foot maybe you can make a presentation at the Cavalry Congress in July??? Coley and I will provide the refreshments.

I suspect the first line is the actual skirmishers, the seond would be the reserve , the third the main body. Depending on terrian there might be a couple scouts in advance of the skirmishers as well.This is not to scale!
When I deploy our company (Usually 45 or so riders divided in three platoons) as skirmishers I will send a platoons forward under a Sgt or Lt. He will deploy one half his platoon as skirmishers in advance of the other half at x number of yards, depending on where we are playing. The second platoon is the reserve. The main body of the company follows that.

I can't get the spacing to work here, but the first line, labeled as skirmishers, should be the same width as the whole company, they are covering a company front in this example



- - - - - - - - Skirmishers


- - - - - - - Reserve


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rest of the company


Scale it up if you ever get a whole regiment to play with.
The first line covers the width of the company and falls back on the reserve if it meets something it can't deal with. All the skimishers fall back on the rest of the company if needed, and the whole company back to its Battalion if needed.

And see you at Congress!