or nineteen hours, and arriving in time to
participate in the second day's battle. As much skill is evinced by a
commander in preliminary manoeuvring marches and the assignment of
positions to the different portions of his army as in the direction of a
battle. Napoleon gained many of his victories through the effects of
such manoeuvres.

_Time_ is a very important element in marching. An army which can march
five miles a day more than its opponent will almost certainly be
victorious, for it can go to his flank, or assail him when unprepared,
Frederick the Great achieved his successes by imparting mobility to his
troops, and Napoleon also was a master of that peculiar feature in that
faculty of command of which we have before spoken, that enables a leader
to obtain from his men the maximum amount of continued exertion. To
achieve facility in marching, all the equipments of the soldiers should
be as light as possible, and the columns should be encumbered with no
more trains than are absolutely indispensable. Officers of the highest
class must be prepared to forego unnecessary luxuries, and to march with
nothing more than a blanket, a change of clothing, and rations for a few
days in their haversacks.

When a march is contemplated, orders are issued from the general
headquarters prescribing all the details--the time at which each corps
is to start, the roads to be taken, the precautions to be observed, and
the points to be gained. Usually an early hour in the morning is fixed
for the commencement of the march. If not in the immediate presence of
the enemy, and a surprise is not intended, the _reveille_ is beaten
about three o'clock, and the sleepy soldiers arouse from their beds on
the ground, pack up their tents, blankets, and equipments, get a hasty
breakfast, and fall into their ranks. If some commander--perhaps of a
regiment only--has been dilatory, the whole movement is delayed. Many
well-formed plans have been defeated by the indolence of a subordinate
commander and his failure to put his troops in motion at the designated
hour. Such a delay may embarrass the whole army by detaining other
portions, whose movements are to be governed by those of the belated
fragment. At four o'clock, if orders have been obeyed, the long columns
are moving. Perhaps four or five hours are occupied in filing out into
the road. While the sun is rising and the birds engaged at their matins,
the troops are trudging along at that pace of th