Sometimes a word can elude me for years, and when I find it, I like to hold it fast. This is for anyone chasing the same word.
My stepfather became a Civil War buff while running the B&O Ellicott City Station Museum, with all the reenactments that would happen for tourists. When the movie Gettysburg came out, we watched it in the theater, and on VHS, again and again. As a family, our favorite scene involved Jeff Bridges’ character Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. His 20th Maine Infantry regiment had to defend the extreme left of the Union line at Little Round Top. Facing the prospect of the Confederate army running along the back of the Union line (and setting up a position to fire down the line of hapless troops), Chamberlain told his troops, “I think if we lose this fight, we lose the war.”
The scene was a great underdog moment: with no ammunition left, Chamberlain orders the troops to fix bayonets and march down the hill shoulder to shoulder, executing a hooking maneuver mostly familiar to troops turning a corner in a parade. The astonished Confederate troops were whelmed over by the unexpected show of force and fled. There were lots of fist pumps in my living room for this scene.
I always wondered what this maneuver was called. Still, my search uncovered an even more interesting word for the vulnerable position the Union troops were in before winning the day: enfilade.
From the root for “string” (or filament), an enfilade means two things in a battle: firing across the enemy’s line from their flank and being at risk of receiving such an attack.
But there’s another definition from the world of architecture that grabbed me. An enfilade is an arrangement of rooms with the doorways lined up so that people could move through a palace in a procession. You will find this pattern today in many museums and galleries.
Enfilade was one of those words I couldn’t remember to save my life. After years of looking it up repeatedly, I finally added it to my list of “Words To Remember.” It only took another couple years, but now I can always recall this word … 60% of the time.
As for the parade turn used by those Mainers at Gettysburg, that’s called a “swinging gate” or “right wheel forward” bayonet charge. It became one of the most famous moments of the Civil War.
Was this just the word you were looking for? Did you find an occasion to use it? Let me know in the comments!
