United States or Côte d'Ivoire ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They were old and practically worthless hulks; he would destroy them after he had annihilated the ironclad monsters which were capable of doing efficient work. With carelessness that amounted to fatuity there seemed to be no watch kept on board the ships, and there were no lights visible. All was as still and silent as the grave.
With Richmond in flames and the exultant shouts of the detested yet victorious Yankees in his ears, he did die. Wigfall survived but a few years. He was less a dreamer than Yancey. A man big of brain and warm of heart he had gone from the ironclad provincialism of South Carolina to the windswept vagaries of Texas.
Both countries concerned had fleets on the Adriatic. Italy was the strongest in navel vessels, possessing ten ironclads and a considerable number of wooden ships. Austria's ironclad fleet was seven in number, plated with thin iron and with no very heavy guns. In addition there was a number of wooden vessels and gunboats.
Gray laughed off the suggestion. "Merely the jingle of officers' spurs, I assure you. We amateurs cling to the Regular Army pomp and practice. Frankly, I love it; I admire the military method a rule for every occasion, a rigid adherence to form, no price too high for a necessary objective. And the army code! Ironclad and exacting! Honors difficult and disgrace easy.
To avoid ramming, this old ironclad plunged boldly between the Chen-yuen and Ting-yuen. She was hit 22 times and had 56 killed and wounded, but managed to pull through. Before this time the Chao-yung and Yang-wei on the right flank of the Chinese line had crumpled under a heavy cross-fire from the flying squadron.
Finding it difficult to get to her in the shoal water, she began to knock her to pieces with her great rifle-guns. The unequal fight between the ironclad and the wooden ship lasted for perhaps half an hour. By that time the commander of the Congress had been killed, and her decks looked like a slaughterhouse.
As the general had given him three days' leave, Vincent was able to stay to see the close of the affair, and early next morning again rode down to Sewell's Point, as the Merrimac was to start at daybreak. At six o'clock the ironclad came out from the river and made for the Minnesota, which was still aground.
Such a rising took place in the last week of May. Pierola, the leader, had as his friends the officers of the Peruvian ironclad the Huascar, and this vessel pronouncing in his favour, put to sea with him on board.
The Essex ironclad was doing very well when a big shot crashed into her middle boiler, which immediately burst like a shell, scalding the nearest men to death, burning others, and sending the rest flying overboard or aft.
I turned impatiently as one turns upon an impertinence, and beheld a great ironclad not four miles out, steaming fast across the dappled silver, and from its funnels sparks, intensely red, poured out into the night. As I turned, came the hot flash of its guns, firing seaward, and answering this, red flashes and a streaming smoke in the line between sea and sky.
Word Of The Day