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On the other hand, we hear frequently of foreign soldiers falling victims to such temptation, and eventually being discovered. Cases have only recently come to light in Austria where officers were willing to sell information as regards a number of secret block-houses which were built on the frontier of Bukovina last year.
General Thomas's reply was: NASHVILLE, October 17, 1864 10.30 a.m. Major-General SHERMAN: Your dispatch from Ship's Gap, 5 p.m. of the 16th, just received. I will order him to join you with the two divisions, and will reconstruct the road as soon as possible. Will also reorganize the guards for posts and block-houses .... Mower and Wilson have arrived, and are on their way to join you.
The breadth of the roadway formed of strong sleepers firmly bound together was twelve feet, along which block-houses of great thickness were placed to defend the whole against assault. Thus far the work had been comparatively easy.
On the 20th of April a band of fifty Indians made an attack upon Scituate, and, though the inhabitants speedily rallied and assailed them with great bravery, they succeeded in plundering and burning nineteen houses and barns. They proceeded along the road, avoiding the block-houses, and burning all that were unprotected. They approached one house where an aged woman, Mrs.
Gillmore followed him up vigorously, recapturing a considerable part of the cattle he had collected, and overtaking his principal column at Somerset, routed him and drove him beyond the Cumberland River. He recommended building block-houses to protect the principal bridges on the railroads, where very small garrisons could give comparative security to our lines of communication.
To men peering out from block-houses, or crouching behind walls, awaiting the terrific yell of an Indian attack, it was not likely to occur that they might compromise their dignity by treating on equal terms with an enemy tenfold as numerous as themselves; nor were the statesmen of that early heroic age likely to give themselves trouble about the character and standing among the nations of the earth, of confederacies that could bring five thousand warriors into the field.
The defences in the rear consisted only of a ditch and palisade, protected by two block-houses, the upper story of one of which had been destroyed in the late cannonade. Above the fort were two batteries opposing those constructed by the British on Province and Carpenter's Islands, which were separated from Mud Island only by a narrow passage between four and five hundred yards wide.
The fort is very much like the one which has been already described, but somewhat stronger; and there are four block-houses or bastions, one at each corner, from which the muzzles of a few heavy guns may be seen protruding.
About half-past two o'clock, the savages again advanced and renewed their fire. An impetuous attack was made upon the south side of the fort, but the garrison poured upon the assailants a destructive fire from the two lower block-houses.
The castle was so strong that Evan had no hope of taking it by force, and so he invested it closely on all sides, and sat down quietly waiting for the garrison to be starved into a surrender. The castle was near the river. Evan built three block-houses on the three sides of it. One of these block-houses was on the edge of a rock before the castle, on the river side.
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