United States or South Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ailsa also had risen, laying one hand on his arm, listening intently. "What is it?" she breathed. "It is the noise made by thousands of bullets streaming through the air above us. It sounds like that in the rifle-pits. Listen!" The strange, bewildering sound filled the room. And now, as the wind shifted, the steady rattle of musketry became suddenly audible.
The greatly increased mortality which began with our seventh decade went on steadily increasing. At sixty we come "within range of the rifle-pits," to borrow an expression from my friend Weir Mitchell. Our eminent classmate, the late Professor Benjamin Peirce, showed by numerical comparison that the men of superior ability outlasted the average of their fellow-graduates.
Our men drove the troops in front of the lower line of rifle-pits so rapidly, and followed them so closely, that rebel and Union troops went over the first line of works almost at the same time. Many rebels were captured and sent to the rear under the fire of their own friends higher up the hill. Those that were not captured retreated, and were pursued.
"I wonder what it is all for?" asked Rollo Van Kyp, as he crouched in the hot trench, industriously firing his carbine at the flashes from the Spanish rifle-pits. "We don't seem to hit them, and they certainly don't hit us. Now if Teddy would only order a charge, it would be something sensible. But this play-fighting is disgusting!"
Admiral Sampson, in his report of the engagement, says that the Spaniards had no artillery except one small field-piece, which they fired only four or five times, and that not more than fifteen or twenty of them could be seen, at any time, in or about the rifle-pits.
Colonel Rice was the inventor of this weapon, and it proved very useful in Indian warfare. It is just as deadly in a charge as the regular bayonet, and can also be used almost as effectively as a shovel for digging rifle-pits and throwing up intrenchments. The Far West was to remain at Glendive overnight.
He telegraphed to General Johnston, at Nashville, after our men were within the rebel rifle-pits, and almost on the eve of his making his escape, that the Southern troops had had great success all day. Johnston forwarded the dispatch to Richmond. While the authorities at the capital were reading it Floyd and Pillow were fugitives.
At the rifle-pits there had been little use for the bayonet, for most of the Confederate troops, disconcerted by the sudden rush, lay close in the ditch and surrendered, though some few fled up the slope to the next line.
A week or ten days earlier I had seen the town from the rifle-pits of the Rough Riders at the front of our army; but its appearance from the harbor was so different that I could hardly recognize it as the same place.
We boys got the range of the rifle-pits of "Mr. Secesh" opposite, perfectly, consequently they didn't dare show their heads. Though from their hiding place they annoyed us all day. After dark we usually held some conversation with the Rebs across the ravine. We would ask them if they wanted any soft bread. If they did we would put some in a mortar and send it over.
Word Of The Day