Often the forgotten soldiers of the regiment, the pioneers were skilled in the art and science of military construction. They, like their modern counterparts the Army Corps of Engineers or Navy Seabees, were expected to fight as well as to build. (Photo above: Two Pioneers discuss their after-battle duties)

Major Bennett Cuthbertson of the Fifth Foot set out the attributes of a pioneer as follows:

"As Pioneers on Service, are a good deal employed in works of labor and fatigue, it is absolutely necessary they should be remarkably strong, and well set, to be the better enabled to undertake both; besides which, great attention must be paid to their morals, as they are frequently sent forward with the Quarter-master, to assist in making the necessary preparations, against the arrival of the Regiment, in a new Encampment, and on that account, must be unavoidably entrusted from under his eye, in Villages, where opportunities will often happen, of putting their conduct to the test; and as they are usually employed in action, either as a general Guard to the Colours, or to carry off the wounded, that alone points out the necessity, of their being sober, resolute, good Men."

Pioneers were often employed as supervisors over groups of privates assigned from the battalion companies for fatigue duty. Fatigue meant "any manual or menial chores of the soldier". Every camp needed cleanup, kitchens, latrines and other "public works."

Pioneers carried the arms and accoutrements of the ordinary soldier but also wore a leather apron and the tools of their trade, an ax and a saw. Thus equipped, they were prepared to detach with quartermaster or engineering officers for days at a time to clear roads or prepare encampment sites and/or fortifications -- breastworks, trenches, abatis, fraises, etc. On a day that the regiment was scheduled to relocate the "advance party, consisting of the regimental quartermaster, the pioneers, artificers, and guides would assemble and begin their march to the new location." Away from the regiment and the niceties of formal camp life, pioneers were, by tradition, permitted facial hair.

The eighteenth century order of march being "for the pioneers to march first, next the band of music and then the colonel, followed by the regiment in line of companies" pioneers lead the regiment when on ceremonial parade. Our reconstructed Fifth Regiment of Foot, however, usually musters the Pioneers with the Grenadier Company for parades as well as in battle. Occasionally, at large events, the pioneers of the various regiments are brigaded and deployed as a unit to perform traditional pioneer duties under the command of an officer of engineers.

References:

1. Cuthbertson, Bennett, Esq. A System for the Complete Interior Management and Oeconomy of a Battalion of Infantry, The Second Edition. London: J. Millan, 1779. p115.
   
2. Camus, Raoul F. Military music of the American Revolution. Westerville, Ohio: Integrity Press, 1975. Pp27&85.

Cuthbertson also made a list of recommendations to improve the dress and equipment of Pioneers. Though his recommendations were never fully incorporated into the official uniform regulations of the army, they are helpful in picturing the Pioneer's duties. In particular, the following paragraph indicates that there were eight privates and one corporal of Pioneers in a typical regiment.

(p. 73) As Pioneers are principally designed, for clearing and mending roads, for the convenient and speedy march of a Battalion, the tools (consisting only of a saw and hatchet for each man) with which they are generally provided, must be often found very tedious and insufficient for that purpose; it would therefore be an improvement, and answer every design of their institution, if three pick-axes, three spades, three hatchets, and two saws, with the proper cases and leather slings for each, were to be established tools for the Pioneers of a Regiment, and to be distributed among them equally,- vis. three men with axes, three with spades, two with hatchets and -saws, and the Corporal with a hatchet only: they should be forbid to use these tools on any occasion, but the service of the Regiment, and ought to be made answerable for keeping them and their Aprons (which are best of thick brown leather) in as good condition, as their Arms and Accouterments, which should only consist of a Firelock, with a sling (Fn. The sling should bee loose, that he may sling his Firelock, when called to work upon a March), and a small cartouch-box for twelve Cartridges, to fix upon the belt which carries their tools: equipped in this manner, they can with ease perform the longest day's march, and in the progress of it, all the necessary duties that may be required from them; (which is scarcely reasonable to expect, if loaded with the Arms and Accouterments, both of a Soldier and a Pioneer) and will besides find it a sufficient defense, if detached from the Battalion, on any work, that being the only time when Arms can be useful to them.