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Not a boat could pass up or down the river in safety. The colonists were compelled to keep a constant guard, to huddle together in block-houses, and could never lie down at night without the fear of being murdered before morning.
He conducted the opening of the determining battle of Paardeberg, and was typically systematic in covering the half-conquered country with a system of block-houses and enclosures like a diagram of geometry. But to-day, and for many reasons, Englishmen will think first of the last scene of that war.
His impatience was great, and, after having whispered a few words in the ear of Captain Headley, and received an affirmative reply, coupled with an injunction of caution, he left the building in haste, and proceeded towards the block-houses, where, selecting half a dozen men, and ordering them to arm on the instant, he passed with them through the gate sprang into a large scow which was unchained from its moorings, on the bank of the river, and pulled in the direction of the house already said to have been occupied by the wife and daughter of Mr.
The Spaniards erected neat structures of two stories, built of concrete, with wooden roofs and openings for two lines of fire, one above the other. These were erected not more than half a mile apart. In the Civil War our block-houses were usually erected of logs, one and two stories high.
Their consciences must have troubled them after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the highest accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the trouble to build several queer little square houses called "block-houses," from which they could keep a sharp look-out for foes coming over the hills from Hottentots' Holland.
The block-houses remain, but the work, which was composed of fascines and sods, is falling down, and the ridge on which it stands is too narrow to admit of any useful works being constructed upon it." The armament of Fort Howe, according to Col. Morse, consisted of 2 five and a half inch brass mortars, and 8 iron guns; the latter comprising 2 eighteen-pounders, 4 six-pounders, and 2 four-pounders.
That is, their forces occupied a range of high hills in the form of an obtuse angle, the salient being toward the space between the American forces, while there were advance parties along both roads. There were stone breastworks flanked by block-houses on that part of the ridge where the two trails came together. The place was called Las Guasimas, from trees of that name in the neighborhood.
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.
Not far distant were four block-houses and a village which they were designed to protect. These with the fort were occupied by about a hundred men, chiefly settlers of the neighborhood, under Captain Sylvanus Davis, a prominent trader. Around lay rough and broken fields stretching to the skirts of the forest half a mile distant.
A narrow wooden support, or walk, accessible only from one or the other of these block-houses, enabled its defenders to stand within the enclosure and look out over the row of sharpened logs.
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