Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 23, 2025
The artillery-men had unlimbered the gun, pointed it, and the gunner stood with the lanyard in his hand, when he was struck by a charging horse; the gun was fired by the concussion, but at the same moment it was capsized into the ditch by the impact of the cavalry column. The enemy had no time to right the gun or carry it off, nor to stop for prisoners.
The troops for the great breach were filed out ahead of the 38th, which had farther to go. Worst of all, they were set in motion an hour before dawn, although Wellington had left orders that fair daylight should be waited for, and the artillery-men across the Urumea were still plying their guns on the sea-wall, to dissuade the besieged from repairing it in the darkness.
This formidable artillery brought up the rear of the procession, and formed the hindmost guard of the French army. It was six hours since the front guard entered the town; and as it was now night and for every six artillery-men there was a torch-bearer, this illumination gave to the objects around a more gloomy character than they would have shown in the sunlight.
The whole of the infantry may, therefore, be estimated at four thousand and twenty men. Besides these, there were landed about a hundred artillery-men, and an equal number of drivers; but for want of horses to drag them, no more than one six-pounder and two small three-pounder guns were brought on shore.
The Shoshones, by a rapid movement, had broken through between the infantry and artillery, forcing the artillery-men to abandon their pieces; then, closing their ranks and wheeling, they attacked fiercely the right flank of the infantry.
Rufus Dawes did not understand the sudden silence. With all his senses stretched to the utmost to listen, the cessation of the whispered colloquy affected him strangely. Old artillery-men have said that, after being at work for days in the trenches, accustomed to the continued roar of the guns, a sudden pause in the firing will cause them intense pain.
I got a hedge-stake, and awaited my fate, from very shame. At this moment, to my great delight, there arrived from the fort an English officer, two artillery-men, and a Malay captain; and a pretty figure we should have cut without them, as the event will show. I was now quite ready to attack, and my gun came a minute afterward.
That the Americans are excellent marksmen, as well with artillery as with rifles, we have had frequent cause to acknowledge; but, perhaps, on no occasion did they assert their claim to the title of good artillery-men more effectually than on the present. Scarce a ball passed over or fell short of its mark, but all striking full into the midst of our ranks, occasioned terrible havoc.
Away flew half a dozen officers with the orders, and the batteries, one after another, came thundering down the road, the horses leaping, the artillery-men blackened and begrimed, yet ready for another fight. "Get anybody you can to work the thirty-twos," said Colonel Webster, the chief of artillery, to Paul. "I can sight a cannon," said a surgeon, who was dressing wounds in the hospital.
Then came other Indian converts, two and two; then the foundress of the Ursuline convent, with Indian children in French gowns; then all the Indian girls and women, dressed after their own way; then the priests; then the Governor; and finally the whole French population, male and female, except the artillery-men at the fort, who saluted with their cannon the cross and banner borne at the head of the procession.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking