United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The blue battery and the blue sharpshooters persisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued to interfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of the Chickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatiently wondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrations on the other side and the dust streaks moving southward.
Days passed and the broad river bore them peacefully onward, the wind blowing into ripples its yellow surface which the sunshine turned into deep gold. The woods still formed a solid bank of dark green on either shore, and they knew that warriors might be lurking in them, but they kept to the middle of the current, and the Ohio was so wide that they were fairly safe from sharpshooters.
Now the fighting, mostly the work of sharpshooters through the winter, began in regular form, and extended in a long line over the torn and trampled fields of Virginia, where all the soil was watered with blood.
No!" came back the cry. "Down with the Mexicans!" And in less than five minutes the garrison was pouring through the gateway and out on the plain beyond. The sharpshooters were in front, and so deadly were their aims that the enemy was speedily forced to retreat, dragging their cannon with them. "Hurrah! They are running!" shouted the Texans, joyfully.
Behind them, in such a position as to fire almost over them, was a battery of rifled guns, which kept up a fire of shells upon the rebel works at intervals day and night. The rebel batteries responded at intervals of but a few minutes. This position was also under a continual fire from rebel sharpshooters, their balls reaching as far as the woods beyond with fatal effect.
The captain approved the idea, and instructed the colonel to effect the removal with his own force. The riflemen were also directed to remove the dead into the forest until there was time to dispose of them. The ground was still strewn with the dead, as they had fallen under the destructive fire of the sharpshooters.
"She seems to think she's better'n Max and you and me, and everybody. I thought she looked pretty civil, and I didn't say a word she need to have got stuck-up about." Bannon asked no questions. After waiting to give him an opportunity, Peterson went on: "There's going to be a picnic Sunday of the Iron Workers up at Sharpshooters' Park. I know a fellow that has tickets.
Division after division of Belgians, British and their colonial troops, French, and Americans held the trenches on this side, facing a great horde of Germans. In places the huge guns stood so close together they all but touched. Beyond these were the front trenches, in which the sharpshooters and the machine-gun men watched the enemy.
They were to be given to the best shots in the army. One day Captain Joe P. Lee and Company H went out to shoot at a target for the gun. We all wanted the gun, because if we got it we would be sharpshooters, and be relieved from camp duty, etc. All the generals and officers came out to see us shoot. The mark was put up about five hundred yards on a hill, and each of us had three shots.
But between Bob and that precious water lay a stretch of sandy wash which the Blanco covered when it was high. One venturing to cross this would be an easy mark for sharpshooters from the camp. It seemed to him that the firing was now more distant. There was a chance that none of the Utes were still in the camp. Fever was mounting in Houck.
Word Of The Day