United States or Jersey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Windom herself never looked bedraggled. The barnyard took on an orderly appearance, the stables were repaired, the picket fences gleamed white in the sun, the roof of the house was painted red, the sides a shimmering white, and there were green window shutters and green window boxes filled with geraniums.
They who slept in this loft had no fastidious standards of personal luxury. These two buildings, with some half-dozen out-houses of one sort and another, stood in an enclosure surrounded by a low white picket fence, which gave to the place a certain home-like look, spite of the neglected condition of the ground, which was bare sand, or sparsely tufted with weeds and wild grass.
Drilling, inspections, grand reviews, picket duty, and frequent preparations for marching, constituted the chief occupation of the troops during the greater part of the winter months. The weather was extremely cold, quarters were poor, and constant exposure invited sickness and disease, and death creeping in boldly hurried away its defenceless victims with alarming rapidity.
War, so completely applicable to the policy of the young banner- bearers at the gates. During the reunion week of the Daughters and Veterans of the Confederacy, the picket line was the center of attraction for the sight-seeing veterans and their families. For the first time in history the troops of the Confederacy had crossed the Potomac and taken possession of the capital city.
There were a great many women passing through the lines, and I am sure many soldiers decided that the first woman who attempted to pass through would get searched. It was talked among the men, and for a day or two a lady would certainly have stood a poor show to have rode up to a picket post with a pass to go outside.
He gave little encouragement, therefore, to what I proposed, yet the conversation was immediately beneficial in one way, for when I laid before him the true condition of the cavalry, he promptly relieved it from much of the arduous and harassing picket service it was performing, thus giving me about two weeks in which to nurse the horses before the campaign opened.
He only did it to get a run ashore an' have himself talked of. A day an' a night eight of us followin' Boy Niven round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!" "What did you get for it?" Hooper asked. "Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours.
"They fetched me to General Gomez and Caramba! he's mad. But after I tell him what I seen in the dark he say I don't have to go back there no more. He let me go to sleep 'longside of his hammock, and bimeby I quit cryin'. I ain't never stood no picket duty since that night. I won't do it."
Swartz staggered back, threw up his hands, and uttering a wild cry, fell at full length upon the ground. The scene which followed was as brief as this tragedy. Mohun charged, at the head of his men, and drove the picket force before him. In five minutes the whole party were dispersed, or captured. Darke had escaped with the gray woman, in the darkness. The pursuit did not continue far.
"Halt a minute till I give a look, for this picket isn't going to be driven in or taken while I'm on guard." Down his beat went Thorn, reconnoitring river, road, and swamp, as thoroughly as one pair of keen eyes could do it, and came back satisfied, but still growling like a faithful mastiff on the watch; performances which he repeated at intervals till his own turn came.
Word Of The Day