Picket

Picket may refer to:

See also

Picket (punishment)

The picket, picquet or piquet was a form of military punishment in vogue in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. It consisted of the offender being forced to stand on the narrow flat top of a peg for a period of time. The punishment died out in the 18th century and was so unfamiliar by 1800 that when the then governor of Trinidad, Sir Thomas Picton, ordered Luisa Calderon, a woman of European and African ancestry to be so punished, he was accused by public opinion in England of inflicting a torture akin to impalement. It was thought erroneously that the prisoner was forced to stand on the head of a pointed stake, and this error was repeated in the New English Dictionary.

The punishment required placing a wooden peg (for the sort used for tents or for a line for cavalry horses — "picket" etc. were originally alternative names for such pegs) in the ground with the exposed end facing upward. The malefactor was typically a private soldier who had disobeyed orders. One wrist was suspended from a tree by a rope, while the sole or heel of the opposite bare foot was balanced atop the peg. The top of the peg was narrow enough to cause considerable discomfort, but not sharp enough to draw blood. To relieve pressure upon a foot, the prisoner relegated all his weight to the wrist, which could only be relieved by shifting weight back onto the other foot.

Picket (military)

Picket (archaically, picquet [variant form piquet]) is a soldier, or small unit of soldiers, placed on a line forward of a position to warn against an enemy advance. It can also refer to any unit (for example, an aircraft or ship) performing a similar function.

Origins

Picket (Fr. piquet, a pointed stake or peg, from piquer, to point or pierce), is thought to have originated in the French army about 1690, from the circumstance that an infantry company on outpost duty dispersed its musketeers to watch, the small group of pikemen called piquet remaining in reserve. It was in use in the British Army before 1735 and probably much earlier.

Usage

Picket now refers to a soldier or small unit of soldiers maintaining a watch. This may mean a watch for the enemy, or other types of watch e.g. "fire picket". This can be likened to the art of sentry keeping.

A staggered picket consists of, for example, two soldiers where one soldier is relieved at a time. This is so that on any given picket one soldier is fresh, having just started the picket, while the other is ready to be relieved. Although each soldier is required to maintain watch for the full duration of a shift, halfway through each shift a new soldier is put on watch.