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These were qualities which his enemies knew how to respect. On one occasion, when his legions were blockaded in Germany, he penetrated at night to his camp disguised as a Gaul; and in more than one battle he turned the fortune of the day by his extraordinary personal courage, fighting on foot before his wavering troops, or snatching the standard from the centurion's timid grasp.

As the one fleet of the enemy was only blockaded in the Aegean Sea, and the other, which was coming up from the south, might daily arrive there in spite of the squadron charged to intercept it, it seemed advisable to take the land route through Macedonia and Thrace and to cross the Hellespont.

He straightway connected himself with the army as surgeon, and solicited a place at the front. He wanted active service. In this he was disappointed. Charleston, blockaded and beseiged, was in a state of military inaction.

They learned that she was to be carried off by the crew and leave them blockaded. So they shot their Zouaves ahead as skirmishers. The fine fellows rattled on board, and before the steamboat had time to take a turn or open a valve, she was held by Massachusetts in trust for Uncle Sam. Hurrah for the most important prize thus far in the war!

It contended, indeed, for Austria, in so far as it fought against the Protestant princes; but Austria herself had soon cause to tremble before it. The arms of the Union had, in the meantime, been tolerably successful in Juliers and in Alsace; Juliers was closely blockaded, and the whole bishopric of Strasburg was in their power. But here their splendid achievements came to an end.

The British army had been treated too roughly, to attempt farther offensive operations. They contented themselves with seizing and fortifying Bunker's hill, which secured the peninsula of Charlestown; in which, however, they remained as closely blockaded as in that of Boston.

"Dark nights and mountains of ice matter little; we must take courage to meet the enemy." Having passed the Sound, the English squadron blockaded the fleet which covered Copenhagen. The Danes made an heroic defence, and the old Admiral Parker, somewhat alarmed, gave the signal for the action to cease.

Astor would not yet allow himself to pause in his undertaking. He determined to send the Enterprise to sea alone, and let her take the chance of making her unprotected way across the ocean. Just at this time, however, a British force made its appearance off the Hook; and the port of New York was effectually blockaded.

The control of the sea, however real, does not imply that an enemy's single ships or small squadrons cannot steal out of port, cannot cross more or less frequented tracts of ocean, make harassing descents upon unprotected points of a long coast-line, enter blockaded harbors.

Our government had no means at home, no ships on the ocean, little credit abroad, and our ports all blockaded. So all had to enter the service either as a fighter or a worker, and our wisest men thought it the better policy to allow the young men the glory upon the field, while the old men served at home.