Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
William, my coachman, is a teetotaller by profession, but, as the phrase goes, not a bigot. He was a gunner, and the other night I suppose he had been drinking delight of battle with his peers he brought me home from , where I had been dining, in his best artillery style, as though the carriage was a field-piece.
By the time the second round was fired the "deadening" was clear of all the rebels but those who had been struck. The others were re-forming on the knoll beyond, and a field-piece was hurried up to their assistance, which threw a shell over at the line. "We had better move off," said the Lieutenant. "They're forming out there to take us in flank, and we can't hold them back.
The copper bullets were flying like hailstones, so it didn't much matter where a fellow went he was sure to get peppered. Of course the captain couldn't be left up there we wanted him for morning parades. Then I happened to see the little field-piece stranded among the chaparral. It was a cursed nice little cannon. It would have been a blighting shame to have lost it."
At Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of Foot and a field-piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder, the middle party of them within forty miles of him.
"An admirable traverse," observed the Captain; "and if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets, quite sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party."
One could never be certain where one would find the guns. I had come up off the main road from Vichy, walking vaguely towards the sound of the firing. It was unfamiliar. The old and terrible rumble has been lost for a generation; even the plain noise of the field-piece which used to be called "90" is forgotten by the young men now. The new little guns pop and ring.
They were in pursuit of Captain Thomas H. Hines, who had that morning returned from Indiana to Kentucky, after having undertaken a brief expedition of his own. This fire did no harm, the river here being eight hundred or a thousand yards wide. But in a few minutes the bright gleam of a field-piece spouted through the low-hanging mist on the farther bank.
Not content with that, Private Dutton had returned to the dangerous plateau, and, under a heavy fire, had secured a small field-piece which was about to fall into the hands of the enemy. Later in the day this little howitzer did eminent service. After touching on one or two other minor matters, the despatch remarked, incidentally, that Private James Dutton had had his left leg blown off.
With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider anything new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the superiority of the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial proved that superiority to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted. And then Mr. Armstrong showed the large-minded generosity which was so marked a feature of his character.
The Greek artillery-men shot away the rammer of their only field-piece, after a few discharges, rendering the gun useless. Finding that a number of his small party were falling, Eaton ordered a charge, and led it. Dashing through a volley of bullets, the Christians took the battery in flank, carried it, planted the American flag, and turned the guns upon the town.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking