The following missive can be applied to not merely frontier trade-knife,
bowie knife, tomahawk, foils, sabers, epees, but also to “schooled” unarmed
combat and precision military maneuvers.
The informed among us are already quite familiar with the fact
that some of the best troops from Europe fought in Early America. These crack
troops were schooled by some of the best military minds that Great Britain and the
Continent had to offer, and yet they encountered more persistent and baffling resistance
than they expected and/or had confronted in warfare in the Old World.
The early colonists [some were schooled in the European military tradition,
many were not] took their cue from what they encountered in the Indigenous Tribes
of this new land. This new warfare if it can be encapsulated at all might be
expressed in a proverb originating in the Northeastern tribes that can be loosely
translated as
“Advance like foxes, fight like catamounts [panthers], and fly
like birds.”
For an observation of this style of combat from a well-tutored Continental
mind. This is Lieutenant-General John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne on the rabble
that was encountered during the American Revolution.
“It is not to be expected that the rebel Americans will risk a
general combat or a pitched battle, or even stand at all, except behind
intrenchments as at Boston. Accustomed to felling of timber and to grubbing up
trees, they are very ready at earthworks and palisading, and will cover and
intrench themselves wherever they are for a short time left unmolested with
surprising alacrity…Composed as the American army is, together with the
strength of the country, full of woods, swamps, stone walls, and other inclosures
and hiding places, it may be said of it that every private man will in action
be his own general, who will turn every tree and bush into a kind of temporary
fortress, and from whence, he has fired his shot with all deliberation,
coolness, and uncertainty which hidden safety inspires, he will skip as it were
to the next, and so on for a long time till dislodged either by cannon or by a
resolute attack of light infantry.”
I wager I break no new ground in stating that this new warfare
altered how the game was played. We all likely would nod our heads in agreement
and state candidly that the schooled and structured fighting way of the Old
World dissolved into shambles when encountering the ways of the New World on
its own ground and with its own rules of engagement.
Where I may now, initially, lose some of my “You got that
right, Mark!” cadre is with the next observation.
What holds on the large stage also holds true for the small.
Or the Macro is the Micro and vice versa.
By this I mean, that often we laugh at rank and file battle
formations and regimented tactics against the colonists and Indian Tribes as we
all see the folly in such things and then, many of us who are old school combat
enthusiasts have no problem turning right around and picking up a sword, a knife,
a tomahawk, or other such implement of war and putting them through Old World regimentation
paces and declaring that “This is how it was done here in the early days.”
What happened to that opinion we shared a mere few paragraphs ago
that the schooled and structured fighting way of the Old World dissolves into
shambles when encountering the ways of the New World on its own ground and with
its own rules of engagement.
Some will persist, “But Mark, that’s different?”
Really? How?
“Well, a blade is a blade and there are only so many ways to move
the body.”
Fair enough. And troops are men and women on two legs and there
are only so many ways to maneuver them against an opposing force as we agreed
to mere moments ago.
Now, yes, there were indeed skilled fencers, skilled swordsmen, facile
wielders of Old School cutlery; staves, and cudgels of all types in the vast
Melting Pot of the early Continental United states and Canada. New Orleans was
rife with salle d’armes, we have like academies in New York and talented
and tutored men of blade, staff, cudgel and other like items spread throughout
the New World offering their instruction and services but…and I repeat the
lesson of Burgoyne and others when encountering the new ways---just because
we see the same implements of war does not mean we are seeing the same tactical
or strategic approaches.
I offer this observation from a fellow in the early days of the Louisiana
Territory.
During the long idle hours of the afternoon it was his custom to
banter me for a bout at swords, and Levert generally acted as our master of the
lists. At first he was much my superior with the foils, for during his days
with the Embassy at Madrid, and in the schools at Paris, he had learned those
hundreds of showy and fancy little tricks of which we in the forests knew
nothing. However, I doubted not that on the field our rougher ways and sterner
methods would
count for quite as much.
Let us not forget, the macro and micro turned out to be quite similar
in regard to combat [armed and unarmed] in the early days of the American Continent.
The weapons may be the same, or similar enough in appearance but regimented
formation, and “showy and fancy tricks” found their limits outside the strict parameters
of their game.
The rough ‘n’ tumble world was and is an altogether different animal
let us not make the mistake of marching rank and file in our redcoats and adhering
to “across the pond” protocols when what came out of the forests, was gleaned
from the prairies, learned in the mountains put a rawhide bow on pretty toys
from across the sea.
[For
techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School
Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous
Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service, or
stay on the corral fence with the other dandified dudes and city-slickers. http://www.extremeselfprotection.com
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