United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When Pompey conquered the pirates, he destroyed fifteen hundred ships of the line. The Xanthian parapets were tore down. Brutus, suspecting that his troops were plundering, commanded the trumpets to sound to their colours. Most people understood the act of attainder passed by the senate. The Numidian troopers were unlikely in their appearance. The Numidians beat up one quarter after another.
Stretching across the fields and meadows were what looked at first glance like enormous red-brown serpents but which proved, upon closer inspection, to be trenches for infantry. The region to the south of Antwerp is a network of canals, and on the bank of every canal rose, as though by magic, parapets of sandbags. Charges of dynamite were placed under every bridge and viaduct and tunnel.
The Germans were very vicious when we went into the trenches for the first time, but we adjusted our fire so as to enfilade their trenches, that is to say, instead of firing at the trenches opposite we aimed to the right or the left so our bullets dropped behind their parapets.
This is exactly what one would expect to find: a central tower is almost always found in Norman churches, especially collegiate churches; and the pyramidal roof was almost certainly the usual form in which these early towers were finished. The battlemented parapets which we so often meet with in Norman towers are in all cases more recent additions.
A light yellow cloud had settled down over the place where the German parapets once were. I could not see through the smoke, as the more powerful a glass is the more it exaggerates the fog or smoke. I could hear the loud, sharp detonations of grenades, and I fancied cheers, more detonations and cheers and cries. All this was occurring within less than a mile of where I was standing.
Each brigade found the rebel parapets abandoned, and pushed straight for the town, which lies in the northeast angle of intersection of the Mobile & Ohio and Memphis & Charleston Railroads.
Meantime we had strengthened our positions near Chickasaw Bayou, had all our guns in good position with parapets, and had every thing ready to renew our attack as soon as we heard the sound of battle above. At midnight I left Admiral Porter on his gunboat; he had his fleet ready and the night was propitious.
In some neglected spots the prickly pear grew in rank masses. The houses along the way, built of yellow or gray stone, had a weather-beaten look, and the yards around them were enclosed with high walls. The small square windows in the houses and the flat stone roofs with enclosing parapets reminded us of pictures of the houses in Bible stories.
All the corps commanders set their time by mine so that all might open the engagement at the same minute. The attack was gallant, and portions of each of the three corps succeeded in getting up to the very parapets of the enemy and in planting their battle flags upon them; but at no place were we able to enter.
I stayed until they got tired of shelling and then had a good look at their lines through my field glasses. The ground sloped gently down from where I stood in the sap-head for about three hundred yards to our forward line of redoubts. Away to the northwest the double line of parapets disappeared in the trees and hedges around Langemarck.
Word Of The Day