m from
the field.

3. A line of infantry may _avoid_ cannon-shot by advancing or retiring
fifty paces. A column or a square would have to move this distance, or
more, according to its depth.

Ricochet shots may be avoided by moving fifty paces to the right or
left.

This shifting of position is but a temporary expedient, it is true, for
the enemy's guns will soon obtain the exact range again. But for this,
several trial-shots will be requisite, thus making the enemy lose time;
and, in battle, a few minutes lost or gained have often decided between
victory and defeat.

4. When the enemy opens an artillery fire on a square, _preparatory to a
cavalry charge_, his fire must cease when his cavalry approaches the
square; say, on its arriving within one hundred and fifty yards. To
avoid the artillery fire, the square may safely remain lying down until
the hostile cavalry has reached this point. For, as they will require
about half a minute to clear the intervening ground, the square will
still have time enough left to rise, align its ranks, and deliver a
volley before the cavalry reaches it.

VII.--Defence against Cavalry.

1. The discipline of infantry is never put to a severer test than when
it is required to resist a _charge of cavalry_, properly made. The moral
effect of a charge of a body of horse at full speed, on the troops
waiting to receive it, is like that caused by the swift approach of a
locomotive under full steam, seeming quite as irresistible. It would be
so in reality, but for the counter effect produced both on the horses
and their riders by the sight of the infantry standing firm and
reserving its fire. I have been told by an old cuirassier officer, who
served through the campaigns of Napoleon with distinguished bravery,
that there was no operation that his regiment so much dreaded as a
charge upon well-disciplined infantry.

2. This counter moral effect on the charging cavalry is the greater,
_the longer the infantry reserve their fire_; since, the less the
distance at which it is delivered, the more fatal will be its effects. A
volley at long range is not destructive enough to check the cavalry's
advance; while this effect has often been produced by the infantry
merely withholding its fire till the cavalry has approached very near;
and a volley delivered at the very last moment has, in by far the
greater number of instances, effectually repulsed the charge.

Infantry should, therefore, let cava