SOLDIER’S POCKET COMPANION OR THE MANUAL EXERCISE OF OUR BRITISH FOOT 1746

This is a reprint of a rare drill book from the Royal Armoury library in Leeds. It is a fully illustrated manual, with 96 plates and accompanying text explaining the movements and the orders needed to execute them. The manual covers saluting in no less than 15 plates. Manual exercise is the drill for the rank and file, and a sequence of no less than 48 plates show musket drill in detail. Every single movement in musket drill is covered, and so the plates show loading and priming the musket step by step. Other plates show handing the weapon on the parade square and on the field (including the archaic ‘club your firelock’ command). Subsequent plates show the drill for fixing bayonets and for presenting the bayonet to the enemy as well as on the square. This section ends with the drills for unfixing bayonets, and shouldering arms. The final section of the book gives the drills for small sword, and nine plates cover the guard, thrust, tierce and pass in tierce. This book is invaluable to historians of the British Army, of firearms and side arms, and is faithfully reproduced from the original copy held at the Royal Armouries.