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Updated: September 13, 2025
I turned off into the fields to the westward at Vine street, riding carefully; and soon, as I moved to north, saw that fences, fruit-trees, and the scattered remnant of the wood were gone. Stumbling through mud and over stumps, I began to see before me one of Montresor's blockhouses, and presently, for now the night was far too clear, the forms of sentries on top.
He had heard that some general in the East had said he would give a dollar or some such to see a dead cavalryman. Well, there had been sight of those at Harrisburg and some at the blockhouses. Forrest stated that Morgan's men could fight; he did not have to say that of his own. Now they were heading into another sort of war altogether.
We took position along the heights of Koumani, on the verge of the great table-land which intervenes between Rieka and Danilograd, and from which we could see the Turkish camps spread out on the plain below us; and if the Turks had but known where we were, they might have thrown their shells from the blockhouses in the plain into our camp.
The rebels were taken between troops from Risano and Orohovac, and others who came from the Herzegovinian mountains. Part laid down their arms, and part fled into Montenegro. To prevent a recurrence of the trouble, and perhaps also with an eye to Montenegro, the forts and a number of blockhouses were built, which one may see high up the mountains, sometimes against the sky-line.
Its lake front is graced by a fort, now and long since a water-cure establishment. All these Western forts, erected many years ago, seem not intended for offence, but rather as stockades or blockhouses of shelter from the Indians. They are arranged as extensive tenements within, pierced for musketry, and only in some cases with terraces for cannon.
The artillery opened on the town at 6.15 A. M. The battle here soon became general, and was hotly contested. The enemy’s position was naturally strong, and was rendered more so by blockhouses, a stone fort and entrenchments cut in solid rock, and the loopholing of a solidly built stone church.
To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple.
Major Fleury, a French officer of distinguished merit, who served as engineer, reported to Washington that, although the blockhouses were beaten down, all the guns in them, except two, disabled, and several breaches made in the walls, the place was still defensible; but the garrison was so unequal to the numbers required by the extent of the lines, and was so dispirited by watching, fatigue, and constant exposure to the cold rains, which were almost incessant, that he dreaded the event of an attempt to carry the place by storm.
"L" Company and Ballard's Machine Gun platoon were hourly prepared to fight for their position at the Emtsa River against the Red force flushed with the victorious recapture of Kodish. 310th Engineers were skillfully and heartily at work on the blockhouses and gun emplacements and log shelters for this Kodish force, doomed to a desperate winter, armistice or no armistice.
The summit of the one on the right, which was the steeper of the two, seemed, at first glance, to be inaccessible; but there must have been a hidden path up to it through the trees, bushes, and vines which clothed its almost precipitous face, because it was crowned with one of the small, square, unpainted log blockhouses which are a characteristic feature of almost every east-Cuban landscape.
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