Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Throughout the night he remained, but no one joined him and he presumed that his followers had all either been taken or had deserted him. Nor did any one come on Wednesday, or on Thursday. On Thursday night, having supplied himself with provisions from the Travis home, he scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails, and here he remained for six weeks, leaving only at night to get water.
And then the cold, the bitter cold of it all, the white winding sheet of the snow and the ice made us shiver and hug the fire of dry fence-rails and button our threadbare coats more tightly around us, while we looked in despair at the toes peeping through the ends of our boots.
It was now a booming river as large as the Tuolumne at ordinary stages, its current brown with mining-mud washed down from many a "claim," and mottled with sluice-boxes, fence-rails, and logs that had long lain above its reach. A slim foot-bridge stretched across it, now scarcely above the swollen current.
Getty's division, when I found it, was about a mile north of Middletown, posted on the reverse slope of some slightly rising ground, holding a barricade made with fence-rails, and skirmishing slightly with the enemy's pickets.
A portion of our sharp-shooters took position behind this wall, and erected traverses to protect them from a flanking fire, should the enemy attempt to move up the road from Gettysburg. These traverses are constructed at right angles to the wall, by making a 'crib' of fence-rails, two feet high and the same distance apart, and then filling the crib with dirt.
There's Barney' Maguire, pickin' up three twigs 'bout as big as lead pencils, and solemnly carryin' 'em off the parade ground as if they wuz fence-rails. I'll just bet a month's pay that's Denny Murphy marchin' up and down there with his knapsack filled with Tennessee dornicks.
At the same time, when in the midst of plenty he was not impeccable. For highway robbery and housebreaking he had no inclination, but he was by no means above petty larceny. Pigs and poultry, fruit, corn, vegetables and fence-rails, he looked upon as his lawful perquisites.
Afraid of shadows, they submit tamely to squads of dragoons, and permit them, without a murmur, to burn their cotton, take their horses, corn, and every thing; and, when we reach them, they are full of complaints if our men take a few fence-rails for fire, or corn to feed our horses.
But the one blotted "'Lisbeth, 'Lisbeth," told the true tale of the empty house. When no letter came from Mary he toiled, white as lint, in his potato-field. There followed two days of sick suspense; then the minister waved to him at the gray fence-rails.
S., the Company Surgeon, who was sick, and had taken refuge in an adjoining wood, into which our quarters were presently moved. Here, under the direction of the Quartermaster, a sort of wigwam was constructed, built of fence-rails and cornstalks, and floored with straw. It was long enough to accommodate the entire company, and formed a very tight and really comfortable tenement.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking