Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
Meanwhile we learned that the Russian government was sending us four heavier guns, sixteen and thirty-two bronze rifled breech-loaders, the heaviest we had being ten-pound muzzle-loaders against a battery of field guns, Krupp steel, breech-loading twelve-pounders.
The breech-loaders of my men swallowed my metallic cartridges much faster than I liked to see; but happily there was a lull in the firing, and we were rushing into the village from the west, the south, the north, through the gates and over the tall palings that surrounded the village, like so many Merry Andrews; and the poor villagers were flying from the enclosure towards the mountains, through the northern gate, pursued by the fleetest runners of our force, and pelted in the back by bullets from breech-loaders and shot-guns.
The idea that savages, however brave, could cope with British troops with breech-loaders had then seemed absurd; but the extraordinary bravery with which the Arabs had fought, the recklessness with which they threw away their lives, and the determination with which they had charged through a fire in which it seemed impossible that any human being could live, had created a feeling of respect.
I came up here with Major Aldey and three other gentlemen and forty bearers. That devil Wambe ambushed us, and murdered the lot to get their guns. They weren't much use to him when he got them, being breech-loaders, for the fools fired away all the ammunition in a month or two. However, they are all in good order, and hanging up in the hut there.
The guns with which these men are armed, are of all sorts, descriptions and ages, from the old flint-locks to repeating breech-loaders, and it can easily be imagined how difficult it must be to train the troops, hardly two soldiers having guns of even a similar make!
The invention of breech-loading rifles came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed with Sharp's breech-loaders.
For a quarter of an hour he sidled and pushed and shoved, and picked a cautious path through section after section of field artillery, seeing here and there an officer whom he knew, saluting cheerily, making a thousand excuses for his haste to the good-natured artillerymen, who only grinned in reply. As he rode, he noted with misgivings that the cannon were not breech-loaders.
After the first day's march from Back's River we were never compelled to lie in camp for the purposes of hunting game, for when we did come upon a herd the breech-loaders and magazine-guns did their work so effectively that we could lay in a stock of meat for a day or two ahead.
They're goners if they attempt to stay there and build that post. If you don't have word from us in two days, send for all the troops the government can raise. It will take every mother's son they've got to whip the Sioux when once they're leagued together." "But our men have the new breech-loaders now, Mr. Folsom," said the officers.
We were frequently successful; we were on the inside, and had the advantage of the short interior lines, so that our few men and our breech-loaders told to a good purpose. There were frequent crises in the struggle, that at some times gave encouragement, but never hope. Once a determined onset was made from the East, and was met by the equally determined resistance of nearly our whole force.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking