Should the disposition be manifested to cultivate the knowlege of military subjects generally, the editor proposes at some future day to publish gen. Grimoard’s treatise on the _Staff_ of armies; the French Regulations for Cavalry of 1808; and the most modern and celebrated works on Tactics, the treatise of Jomini, the 4th volume of which was published in the beginning of 1810. All these works are already translated and ready to be put to press; beside a Dictionary of all the military actions recorded in ancient and modern history which is now in great forwardness. Military men who may be desirous of adding to the stock of useful and correct knowlege, will oblige by pointing out any defects or errors, or recommending any additions that are pertinent to the nature of this work, addressed to the compiler. JULY 4, 1810. MILITARY DICTIONARY. A. ABATIS, in a military sense, is formed by cutting down many entire trees, the branches of which are turned towards an enemy, and as much as possible entangled one into another. They are made either before redoubts, or other works, to render the attacks difficult, or sometimes along the skirts of a wood, to prevent an enemy from getting possession of it. In this case the trunks serve as a breast-work, behind which the troops are posted, and for that reason should be so disposed, that the parts may, if possible, flank each other. ABLECTI, _in military antiquity_, a choice or select part of the soldiery in the Roman armies, picked out of those called _extraordinarii_. ABOLLA, _in military antiquity_, a warm kind of garment, generally lined or doubled, used both by the Greeks and Romans, chiefly out of the city, in following the camp. ABORD, _Fr._ attack, onset. _S’_ABOUCHER, _Fr._ to parley. ABOUT, a technical word to express the movement, by which a body of troops changes its front or aspect, by facing according to any given word of command. _Right_ ABOUT, is when the soldier completely changes the situation of his person, by a semi-circular movement to the right. _Left_ ABOUT, is when the soldier changes the situation of his person by a semi-circular movement to the left. ABREAST, a term formerly used to express any number of men in front. At present they are determined by Files. ABRI, _Fr._ shelter, cover. _Etre à l’abri_, to be under cover, as of a wood, hillock, &c. ABSCISSA, _in military mathematics_, signifies any part of the diameter or axis of a curve, contained between its vertex or some other fixed point, and the intersection of the ordinate. In the parabola, the _abscissa_ is a third proportional to the parameter and the ordinate. In the ellipsis, the square of the ordinate is equal to the rectangle under the parameter and _abscissa_, lessened by another rectangle under the said _abscissa_, and a fourth proportional to the axis, the parameter, and the _abscissa_.