Mil. [QUARTER sb. 14 c.] A small guard mounted in front of each battalion in a camp, at about eighty paces distant.
1741. S. Speed, in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 399. Col. Cockran’s and Brigadier Lowther’s Regiments … were not able to give more than nine men for their quarter-guard.
1758. Watson, Milit. Dict. (ed. 5), s.v. Guard, Quarter Guards are more for preserving the Peace and Tranquillity within the Regiment … than for a Security against the Enemy.
1844. Regul. & Ord. Army, 32. On these occasions, the Tents of the Quarter Guards are to be struck.
1892. R. Kipling, Ball., East & West, 89. When they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear.
