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And now from Stabroek, where old Mansfeid lay with his army, all the way across the flooded country, ran the great bulwark, strengthened with new palisade-work and block-houses, bristling with Spanish cannon, pike, and arquebus, even to the bank of the Scheldt, in the immediate vicinity of Fort Lille. That fortress and the whole line of the Kowenstyn were held in the iron grip of Mondragon.
In this fierce encounter words fail to do justice to the gallant regimental commanders and their heroic men, for, while the generals indicated the formations and the points of attack, it was, after all, the intrepid bravery of the subordinate officers and men that planted our colors on the crest of San Juan Hill and drove the enemy from his trenches and block-houses, thus gaining a position which sealed the fate of Santiago.
The breadth of the roadway formed of strong sleepers firmly bound together was twelve feet, along which block-houses of great thickness were placed to defend the whole against assault. Thus far the work had been comparatively easy.
We had strong railroad guards at Marietta and Kenesaw, Allatoona, Etowah Bridge, Kingston, Rome, Resaca, Dalton, Ringgold, and Chattanooga. All the important bridges were likewise protected by good block-houses, admirably constructed, and capable of a strong defense against cavalry or infantry; and at nearly all the regular railroad-stations we had smaller detachments intrenched.
The block-houses held about a company, but sometimes stockades or earth intrenchments were added to hold two companies, and our orders were imperative to all forces occupying them never to leave them or surrender, no matter how large the attacking force.
So well founded was his judgment of locality that when the light first appeared, a pale glimmer at the end of a long tunnel, growing broader and clearer on approach, and he reached an archway with a sudden turn, seeming from without a mere "rock-house" as a grotto formed by the beetling ledges of a cliff is called in that region and with no further cavernous suggestion, the first thing that caught his eye was the English flag flying above the primitive block-houses and bastions and out-works of Fort Loudon, while the little stream gathered all its strength and hied down through the thick underbrush to join the Tennessee River.
In February, 1902, a party of Turkish soldiers, half starved in their frontier block-houses, attempted a raid into Montenegro. They were accompanied by a brother of the famous Achmet Uiko; whose story has been related elsewhere.
They struggled over the narrow, ill-made roads which led from the different back settlements, until they came to the last outposts of civilization east of the Cumberland Mountains; scattered block-houses, whose owners were by turns farmers, tavern-keepers, hunters, and Indian fighters.
This I could not understand or reconcile with any proper measure of safety, as the cannon in the block-houses were not to be many or of any great calibre, and only the corps of invalids were to remain to defend them. I had told Lois that no women would be permitted at Tioga Point. That these were the orders that had been generally understood at Otsego.
They dug a well for water, which till then had been obtained from the river, erected some twenty cabins, shingled the church, cleared and planted forty acres of land with Indian-corn, built a house for the Poles to make glass in, and erected two block-houses.
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