United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I at once diagnosed the position with great professional acumen we were now enfiladed from both flanks, but the knowledge was acquired too late to help us, for "We lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, To the hail of the Nordenfeldt." This was the last straw; there was nothing left but surrender or entire annihilation at long range. I surrendered. Boers, as usual, sprang up from all round.
The trenches had been pushed so close on the rising grounds at the right that a great part of the covered way was enfiladed, while a battery on a hill across the harbor swept the whole front with a flank fire. Amherst had ordered the gunners to spare the houses of the town; but, according to French accounts, the order had little effect, for shot and shell fell everywhere.
This position, three miles in extent, and enfiladed in front by heavy guns on the south bank of the Chickahominy, was held by three lines of infantry, one above the other on the rising ground, which was crowned with numerous batteries, concealed by timber.
In crossing an old unfinished railroad cut the two siege guns played upon the flank with fearful effect. Huddling down behind the walls of the cut to avoid the fire in front, the batteries from Mayree's and in the fields to the right enfiladed the position, the men rushing hither and thither and falling in heaps from the deadly fire in front and flank.
They had our supporting trenches east of Hennebeke Creek along the Kerrselaer Zonnebeke highway to the ruined houses at Enfiladed crossroads where I had met Captain Victor Currie and the officers of the 7th and 8th Battalions. The 2nd Brigade, all that was left of them, had been kept hard at it in this section and were still in reserve behind the 28th Division.
Here General Jackson, the American commander, had constructed a deep ditch and an entrenchment of earthworks, strengthened by sand-bags and cotton- bales, a thousand yards long, stretching from the Mississippi to an impassable swamp in the rear. Flanking batteries enfiladed the front. Behind these formidable works was posted an army of twelve thousand men.
I told him to tell his companies to hang on till the last on the left and at the same time to take all the stragglers and put them into the trenches in rear of his left company as support. The ground on his right which I had crossed was badly enfiladed. Lieut.-Colonel Burland came along, having put all the men he could muster into our supporting trenches.
On the same day, a house directly opposite to us in Moultrieville, at the nearest point, was suddenly removed, disclosing a formidable masked battery, which effectually enfiladed two rows of our upper tier of guns in barbette, and took a third tier in reverse. It was a sad surprise to us, for we had our heaviest metal there.
In a word, she was somewhat of the Venus-di-Milo type; her companion was more of a Diana. Both were neatly habited in plain travelling-dresses and cloaks of black and white plaid, and both seemed utterly unconscious of the battery of eyes and eye-glasses that enfiladed them from the whole length of the piazza as they passed. "Who are they?" asked Salsbury; "I don't know them."
Hovey was still being heavily pressed, and was calling on me for more reinforcements. I ordered Crocker, who was now coming up, to send one brigade from his division. McPherson ordered two batteries to be stationed where they nearly enfiladed the enemy's line, and they did good execution.
Word Of The Day