United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The animal's long, melancholy face, his habit of braying mournfully in the moonlight until Westerners compared him unfavorably with the coyotes of the Plains had earned him the name Croaker; and he was part of the loot they had brought out of the bushwhackers' camp. As unlovely as he appeared, Croaker had endurance, steady nerves, and a most un-mulelike willingness to obey orders.
Then the Van Kortlandts, who lived on the wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of wild ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in shooting with the long bow. Then the Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who were the first that did ever kick with the left foot. They were gallant bushwhackers and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.
On the breaking out of the rebellion he was the first in his county to volunteer in defense of the Union, and immediately took the field as captain of a company of daring and enterprising men. With his company he was detailed to hunt the bushwhackers, who, from their hiding-places, were committing the most atrocious outrages upon the loyal people.
Finally, however, I succeeded in quieting the almost uncontrollable rage that seemed to possess him, and he remained with me during the Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns; but when we reached Knoxville the next winter, he took his departure, informing me that he was going for the bushwhackers who had killed his brother.
It is so like the noise that would be made by a party of guerrillas or bushwhackers, stealing up to the camp under cover of darkness, that it might well keep awake even a man who was neither nervous nor imaginative.
"You been here near two months now, Racey," he had said that very morning, "and they ain't anything happened yet." "I've got four months to go," Racey had replied with a placidity he did not feel. Now as he rode, his eyes closely scanning the various places in the landscape providing good cover for possible bushwhackers, he recalled what Loudon had said.
Then the Van Kortlandts, who lived on the wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of wild ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in shooting with the long bow. Then the Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who were the first that did ever kick with the left foot. They were gallant bushwhackers and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.
This place where I was halted was Nelson's farm, and the house was held as headquarters for a company of rebel soldiers, known as bushwhackers. While they belonged to the rebel army, they were, in a measure, independent of its regulations and discipline, kept back in the woods, ready for any depredation upon the property of unionists any outrage upon their persons.
This did not deprive the bushwhackers of a single man, but they naturally retaliated by a counter-order that all prisoners of theirs should be shot. In this game of pop and pop again the guerrillas had decidedly the advantage, and I was one of the first to fall in their way. I had hardly surrendered before I regretted that I had not resisted capture.
That man you just roughed is George Chirakes, and he's a bad one. Knifed three of his countrymen in a drunken riot in Darrow last fall, but got out of it on a plea of self-defense. Keep your eye on the brute. He may try to play even, although there's no real courage in his kind. They're born bushwhackers," The Laird glanced at his watch and saw that it still lacked eight minutes of train-time.
Word Of The Day