Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition — Reading Companion

(0 User reviews) 45

In Category - Science Fiction Utopias

Authors: Moss, James A. (James Alfred), 1872-1941 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: United States. Army -- Handbooks, manuals, etc. Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 263,121

Reading time 1145 min

Text sections 45

This digital edition of Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition — Reading Companion is described by source-level measurements including 263,121 words, 19 hr 5 min estimated reading time, and 45 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 19.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “United States. Army -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #26706

Colonel James A. Moss's 1917 manual, officially adopted by 105 military schools, structures company-level training through detailed drill regulations, tactical problems, and recurring map-based patrol scenarios set around Fort Leavenworth.

Editorial Edition Score 4.9/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg26706

Read the Text

There was nothing else in sight." I would then tell him what the country to the south looked like, if he wanted to know.

=Captain:= Sergeant Allen, what do you do now?

=Sergeant Allen:= I would continue toward the Brown house at a trot. I would send no message to you as you already know there are hostile patrols about and therefore this information would be of little or no importance to you. (Par. 981.)

=Captain:= You arrive at Brown's house.

=Sergeant Allen:= I would send two men in to question the people and I would continue on at a walk. I would not send any one up the road towards Oxford as Foster has already seen that road.

=Captain:= You should have sent a man several hundred yards out the Farm Lane. (Par. 989.) If he moved at a trot it would only have taken a very short time. Continue to describe your movements.

=Sergeant Allen:= I would halt at the railroad track until I saw my two men coming on from the Brown house. I would then direct the other two men who were with me to go through the first opening in the fence to the west and ride south along that ridge (62--Lone Hill--Twin Hills' ridge) until I signaled them to rejoin. I would tell them to look out for our troop over to the east. If there were a great many fences I would not send them out until we were opposite the southern edge of that woods ahead of us. There I would send them to the high ground to look over the country, and return at once.

=Captain:= There are a great many fences west of the road and practically none east of the road to Sandy Creek. Just as you arrive opposite the southern edge of those woods and are giving orders for the two men to ride up the hill, you hear firing in the direction of Bald Knob. In the road at the foot of the south slope of Bald Knob, where the trail to the quarry starts off, you can see quite a clump of horses. You see nothing to the west of your position or towards Mason's. What do you do?

=Sergeant Allen:= I signal "RALLY" to Carter and Downs. If there is a gate nearby I lead my men through it. If not, I have them cut or break an opening in the fence and ride towards the railroad fill at a fast trot, having one man gallop ahead as point.

When we reach the fill, the point having first looked beyond it, I order, "=DISMOUNT=. Lacey, hold the horses. =1. As skirmishers along that fill, 2. MARCH.=" When Corporal Burt, Brown, Carter and Downs come up Lacey takes their horses and they join the line of skirmishers. Captain, what do I see from the fill?

=Captain:= There appear to be about twenty or thirty horses in the group. The firing seems to come from the cut in the road just north of the horses and from the clump of trees by the Quarry. You can also hear firing from a point further north on the road, apparently your troop replying to the fire from Bald Knob. You see nothing in the road south of the horses as far as Hill 42, which obstructs your view. What action do you take?

=Sergeant Allen:= I order, "=AT THE FEET OF THOSE HORSES. RANGE, 850. CLIP FIRE.="

=Captain:= What is your object in doing as you have done?

=Sergeant Allen:= I know the captain intended to go to Salem with the troop. From the fact that he is replying to the hostile fire I judge he still wishes to push south. I was ordered to reconnoiter along this road, but now a situation has arisen where the troop is being prevented or delayed in doing what was desired and I am in what appears to be a very favorable position from which to give assistance to the troop and enable them to push ahead. I am practically in rear of the enemy and within effective range of their lead horses. I therefore think my mission has at least temporarily changed and I should try and cause the twenty or thirty hostile troopers to draw off (Par. 1011). Besides, I think it is my business to find out what the strength of this enemy is and whether or not he has reinforcements coming up from Salem, and send this information to the captain. From my position I can still watch the Chester Pike.

=Captain:= After you have emptied your clips you see the enemy running down out of the cut and from among the trees mount their horses and gallop south. What do you do?

Continue Reading →

Colonel James A. Moss's Manual of Military Training (Second, Revised Edition, 1917) is built around a distinctive structural device: a series of tactical problems keyed to a detailed map of the Fort Leavenworth area. The manual repeatedly sends patrols along named roads—Sheridan's Drive, Atchison Hill, Prison Lane—and through specific grid coordinates, creating a consistent geographic framework that anchors abstract principles to a concrete landscape. This map-based approach, combined with verbatim orders and required responses, transforms the manual into a kind of interactive terrain for the reader-officer to navigate.

Map Coordinates as a Recurring Structural Device

The manual's tactical problems rely on a fixed coordinate system. Patrols move from points like 72 (uj') to Frenchman (oc') or along Metropolitan avenue (w)—70 (vj')—72 (vj')—14 (ug'). These coordinates recur across multiple problems, linking infantry and cavalry scenarios into a shared spatial logic. The reader is expected to visualize the terrain through these alphanumeric references, not through narrative description. This structure turns each problem into a miniature wargame, where the same roads and hills are recombined under different tactical conditions.

Verbatim Orders as a Training Tool

Moss repeatedly requires the reader to produce verbatim orders. In Problem No. 10 (Cavalry), Lieutenant A's order is given in full: "Sergeant Jones, the enemy is north of Kickapoo, moving on that place." The manual then provides the exact wording, modeling the precision expected of officers. This emphasis on rote reproduction—down to the punctuation—reflects a training philosophy that values standardized communication under stress. The reader is not asked to paraphrase but to memorize and replicate.

Movement Between Scenes: From Drill Ground to Tactical Field

The manual shifts between two distinct modes: static drill regulations and dynamic tactical problems. Early sections cover close-order drill, manual of arms, and company formations. Later sections introduce patrol scenarios that require movement across the map, with decisions about route selection, formation, and timing. For instance, Sergeant Jones chooses a main highway over a lane to save time, even though "it is always well for a patrol to avoid main highways when the enemy is near." This movement between fixed procedures and fluid field decisions mirrors the officer's transition from parade ground to combat.

Recurring Details: Rations, Horses, and Night Operations

Small, practical details recur across the tactical problems. In Problem No. 10, Sergeant Jones directs his men to take "one cooked ration each and canteen full of water" and inspects horses for conspicuous color or neighing. These details—rations, horse color, night observation—appear in multiple problems, reinforcing the idea that effective training lies in attending to the mundane. The manual's structure ensures that such details are not mentioned once but repeated, embedding them in the officer's procedural memory.

Readers approaching this manual should treat the tactical problems as the core of the work, not as appendices. The map-based scenarios reward careful study of coordinates and routes; skipping them loses the manual's primary training mechanism. The verbatim orders and repeated practical details are not filler but deliberate pedagogical tools. For those interested in early 20th-century military training methods, this edition offers a concrete, structured view of how company officers were prepared for the battlefield.

I kept thinking about that old drill manual, the way its map problems circled the same quiet fields around Leavenworth, and it reminded me of something else that lingers—Adventures Among the Red Indians Romantic Incidents and Perils Amongst the Indians of North and South America — A Closer Reading. Both feel like voices from another time, patient and deliberate, holding their own strange geography long after you’ve set them down.