United States or Denmark ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He did so, and the men spent the hours before dawn in protecting themselves by schanzes or breastworks of stones. At dawn, about half-past four, they were attacked, at first lightly. There were two companies of the Gloucesters in an advanced position; the rest, in close order, occupied a high point on the kopje; to line the whole summit, they say, would have needed 10,000 men.
General Hood was, no doubt, an able, resolute, and indefatigable commander, although meteoric, something on the order of Charles, the "Madman of the North;" but his experience did not warrant the department in placing him in the command of an expedition to undertake the impossible the defeat of an overwhelming army, behind breastworks, in the heart of its own country.
But Grant's orders to clear their path had not been obeyed, and the charging troops had to climb over their own breastworks, causing more delay and confusion. Finally, however, the leading brigades reached the great excavation torn by the mine, and there they halted awaiting further orders.
Bragg hump out of Chattanooga, or stay in there and git captured." "Yes," assented Shorty, knocking the ashes out of his brierwood pipe, and beginning to shave down a plug of bright navy to refill it, "and I'll put old Rosey's brains and git-there agin all the mountains and rivers and forts, and breastworks and thingama-jigs that Bragg kin git up.
Here a thousand warriors, with many women and children, took refuge behind breastworks which they believed impregnable, and here, in late March, Jackson attacked with a force of three thousand men. No quarter was asked and none given, on either side, and the battle quickly became a butchery.
"Better take the other with you," suggested Jack. "Someone may pass while we're away and think they could use it." "Good idea," assented Tom. "I'll keep it with me." Not far from where the boys landed they discovered the time-worn earthworks of what had once been the old fort. Trees nearly a foot in diameter were seen growing on the former breastworks.
Here rise still the breastworks, grass-grown and harmless now, behind which men awaited bravely the shock of furious onset, before which men rushed as bravely to duty and to death.
Behind and beside them loomed the precipice and the waterfall; there was surrender, there was conquest; there was no retreat. The fires were extinguished, the breastworks strengthened, weapons adjusted, and all the ireful preparations for hasty battle made. Then they expected their foe. Slowly over the crown of the mountain above them an aurora crept and brandished its spears.
Sitting on his horse in our rear, watching the battle as it ebbed and flowed, and seeing the deadly throes in which the Third was writhing, only a few feet separating them from the enemy, by some sudden impulse or emotion put spurs to his horse and dashed headlong through our ranks, over the breastworks, and fell desperately wounded in the ranks of the Federals, just as their lines gave way or surrendered.
A part of Logan's 15th corps, formed in two lines, fought its way up to the slope of Little Kennesaw, carried the confederate skirmish pits and tried to go further, but was checked by the rough nature of the ground, and the fire of artillery and musketry at short range from behind breastworks.
Word Of The Day