ASSAULT. In law, an assault is a move ment virtually implying a threat to strike, as when a person raises his hand or his cane in a menacing manner, or strikes at another but misses him. It is not needful to touch one to constitute an assault. When a blow actually takes effect the crime is not simple assault, but assault and battery. Assault, however, is usu ally coupled with battery and for the reason that they generally go together; but the as sault is rather the initiation or offer to com mit the act of which the battery is the con summation. An assault is included in every battery. An aggravated assault is one per formed with the intention of committing some additional crime, such as an assault with intent to commit rape, assault with intent to murder, an assault with a deadly weapon, an indecent assault. The defenses usually interposed in cases of assault are self-defense, recapture of property, ejectment of trespassers, defense of property, defense of family, accident, etc. A
person assaulting another may be prosecuted by him for the civil injury and also be punished by the criminal law for the injury done to the public.
In military language an assault is a furious effect to carry a fortified post, camp or for tress where the assailants do not screen them selves by any works. It is the appropriate termination of a siege which has not led to the capitulation of• the garrison. To give an as sault: To attack any post. To repulse an as sault: To cause the assailants to retreat; to beat them back. To carry by assault: To gain a post by storm. In fencing, an assault of (or at) arms is an attack on each other (not in earnest), made by two fencers to exhibit or increase their skill. (Sometimes it is used in a wider sense for other military exercises).