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He had command of a company that was working on the stockades, and he made such a muss of it that his sergeant had to take hold and handle it to get the work done at all. You can imagine what bad feeling that made in his company. Played the devil with his discipline. Well, he took it like a child. But that night, when he got a little loose on his legs, he hunted up the sergeant and made him fight.
The troops now saw the method of investment for the first time. It consisted in making large entrenchments, to barricade all the roads and tracks. In the bush between these were similar stockades, to complete the circle of fortifications and afford flank defences. All these were joined by a wide path; so that, as soon as one position was attacked, it was reinforced by those to right and left.
In the capture of the stockades in which he took so many prisoners, Morgan suffered hardly any loss, as he forced the surrender with his artillery. But the joy which Morgan and his men felt over the success of the raid was clouded when they reached Tennessee by the news of the result of the battle of Stone River. Murfreesboro no longer belonged to the South.
The scene was indeed terrible to those standing in the narrow space within the stockades the crackling of the burning wood, the lurid flames, the dense mass of smoke, and outside the shouting, shrieking savages eager to break through the defences and massacre all within.
It seemed that here in Mongolia we had discovered an American frontier outpost of the Indian fighting days. Every house and shop was protected by high stockades of unpeeled timbers, and there was hardly a trace of Oriental architecture save where a temple roof gleamed above the palisades.
The column in the rear had greater difficulty for they had several strong stockades to carry before they reached the central work and lost four officers and eight men killed, and forty-nine officers and men wounded, in the 13th Regiment alone.
The East Gate, or Low Mun, stockades were selected for the first attack, and as the scene of a reverse to Ching's force on 14th October, the Chinese commander was specially anxious to capture them. They were exceedingly formidable, consisting of a line of breastwork, defended at intervals with circular stockades, and the position was well chosen and strongly fortified.
Earth was brought in sacks or baskets and piled up, stockades repaired, and fascines and gabions mended. The work would have been hard anywhere; on an August night in India it was exhausting. All the time that they were at work the bullets continued to fly thickly overhead, striking the wall of the house with a sharp crack, or burying themselves with a short thud in the earth.
The settlers had expected to see a well laid-out town, with broad streets and good-sized houses, instead of which rows of huts alone were visible, with here and there a cottage of somewhat larger size; the whole surrounded by stockades. It was situated on the borders of the river, which here made a sharp angle, another stream running in on one side.
The rebels were extremely confident for this reason, and also because they had some heavy artillery. Gordon had to keep to his stockades, and to send the Hyson out of action from fear of its being damaged by the enemy's shell, but the Taepings were afraid to come to close quarters, and eventually retreated before a well-timed sortie.
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