"Breastwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... razor-edged feature which faced the steep north-west slope of Sari Bair. In between the two, and diagonally across the front, ran the Aghyl Dere which passed through the trench line at the 28th's northern boundary. Here a high breastwork had been constructed which carried a firestep and at the same time allowed room for the passage of water underneath. This breastwork, and the line for some distance beyond, was manned alternately by the 5th Norfolks and 10th Londons, both of whom belonged ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... was on his feet, rifle in hand. It soon became evident that the Comanches had taken possession of the ravine, its banks serving as a breastwork, behind which they were effectually sheltered in ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... in feverish expectation on the bridge, his hands clinched round the hot iron bars of the breastwork and his eyes measuring the rapidly diminishing distance between the Mindoro and the landing place of Corregidor. As the Mindoro turned into the northern passage between Corregidor and the mainland, the chain of mountains, looking like banks of clouds, ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... still standing, and climbed the dizzy height in a shower of spray, so close to the edge of the fall that we could almost wet our hands in its rim. Once at the top, we found that Nature had been as accommodating to the sight-seer as man himself; for the ledge we landed on was a perfect breastwork, built from the receding precipices on either side of the canon to the very crown of the cataract. The weakest nerves need not have trembled, when once within the parapet, on the smooth, flat rampart, and looking down into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Trevarthen fell to work stockading the weak spots in the defence and piercing loopholes in the outer walls. Finding that the slope behind the house commanded an open space in the south-west corner of the yard, they even began to erect a breastwork here, behind which they might ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wish!" answered Browne, grasping his club with both hands, and planting himself firmly, to receive the expected onset; "to make it completely in character you have only to wish, in addition, for a mud breastwork, or a few cotton bags, between us and our ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... long the fearless battalions of Old and New England hurled themselves against the fatal breastwork; all day long those steady columns of British infantry, headed by Campbell's Highlanders, brilliantly valiant, pressed up the rough glacis under a cross-fire which swept them front and flank. At night two ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... in great numbers at the "Horse-shoe Bend" of the Tallapoosa. A strong breastwork, composed mostly of hickory logs, was built across the neck of the peninsula. The Indians had great stores of provisions ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... am here. Glory apart, I could think for a long time without hitting on anywhere beastlier to be except perhaps just the other side of a breastwork thirty yards off where the Bosch has been dropping heavy crumps in threes with monotonous regularity since an indecent hour this morning. I have been partly asleep, partly waiting for one to drop thirty yards short. There is no one to talk ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... blanket lay on the ground, and upon it he had poured the company's supply of coffee. Corporals and other representatives of the grimy and hot-throated men who lined the breastwork had ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... our formidable assault was to be leveled. It was situated at the water's edge, on a slight eminence on the right bank of the river; and a large house with a thatched roof and a lookout house on the summit; a few swivels and a gun or two were in it, and around it a breastwork of wood—judging from a distance, about six or seven feet high. The other defences were more insignificant even than this; and the enemies' artillery amounted, by account, to three six-pounders and numerous swivels; from 350 to 500 men, about half of whom ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the spiked extremities of their long shields in the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him. The responses were unfavorable, ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... mass of ruins of houses....One family has remained behind...an old married couple and their daughter, the latter in childbed. The husband is serving in our regiment.... Poor devil! he got there just in time to see the mother and child die; a shell had exploded under their bed.... I saw a breastwork there which was formed of corpses. The defenders had heaped all the slain who were lying near, in order, from that rampart, to fire over at their assailants. I shall surely never forget that wall in my life. A man ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... arranging the last; with shovels, they were forming a border of earth, a foot in width, around each piece. This border guarded the feet of the operators whose bodies were protected by steel shields on both sides of them. Then they raised a breastwork of trunks and boughs, leaving only the mouth of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... dull resounding of axe-blades. Barlow led the way. They traversed a few hundred yards of path through brush, broken tops, and stumps, coming at last into a fairway cut through virgin timber, a sixty-foot strip denuded of every growth, great firs felled and drawn far aside, brush piled and burned. A breastwork from which to fight advancing fire, it ran away into the heart of a smoky forest. Here and there blackened, fire-scorched patches abutted upon its northern flank, stumps of great trees smoldering, crackling yet. At the first such place, half a dozen men were busy with shovels blotting ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from the recoil of his gun, which produced a short stupor, during which period the ex-steward was prostrate on the ground. Captain Hollister availed himself of this circumstance to scramble ever the breastwork and obtain a footing in the bastionfor such was the nature of the fortress, as connected with the cave. The moment the veteran found himself within the works of his enemy, he rushed to the edge of the fortification, and, waving his sabre over his ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... yell we rushed upon them, breaking through their line, and retreating rapidly towards the base of the mountain. Here a number of large rocks had fallen upon the plain from the cliffs above, and laid in such positions as to form a sort of natural breastwork. Indeed, the masses of rock, from their peculiar formation and grouping, had a striking resemblance to the ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... a pang Unfathomable seized the Prince's heart; Like a wild beast, spurred on of hate and vengeance, Forward he lunged with us at the redoubt. Flying, we cleared the trench and, at a bound, The shelt'ring breastwork, bore the garrison down, Scattered them out across the field, destroyed; Capturing the Swede's whole panoply of war— Cannon and standards, kettle-drums and flags. And had the group of bridges at the Rhyn Hemmed not our murderous course, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... whose position extended from a stream flowing into the Tchernaya at right angles to an eminence known as Mount Hasfort. In front, and divided from it by an aqueduct which, too, ran parallel to the river, was another hillock accessible from the first by a stone bridge at which the Sardinians had a breastwork. Their outposts extended some distance on the other side of the Tchernaya. The French occupied a series of hillocks to the left of the Sardinians, guarding the road leading from Balaklava to McKenzie's ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... midnight, the face of the fort where the Ghurkas lived on the hill was suddenly attacked. Out of the brushwood near by a heavy fire was opened upon the breastwork, and there was shouting and beating of gongs. So all the Ghurkas turned out in a hurry, and ran to man the breastwork, and the return fire became hot and heavy. In a moment, as it seemed, the attackers were in the village. They had burst in the north gate by the river face, killed ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... it would only sweep the raft down the coast in the direction of the volcanic peak that had been observed to cap the spur of the mountain chain which stretched out right into the water at an angle with the land; and, here, there was every probability of their finally finding an opening in the breastwork of adamantine rocks that ranged along the coast-line as if to prevent any intrusive strangers like themselves from getting ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... course was pursued with the other two tiers of carcasses, the hides of the upper row being firmly pegged into the flesh, to prevent their being pulled off. The breastwork was about five feet high, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... from the men, he had a conference with Flint and Amblen, giving them the details of what he had discovered. Then he stated his plan, and the men were marched silently to the battery, and were posted behind the breastwork. Not a man was allowed to move, and Christy and Flint went to the casemate, which looked like a mound ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... we were near the trenches; or, rather, the breastworks. We are always speaking of the trenches, while not all parts of the line are held by trenches. A trench is dug in the ground; a breastwork is raised from the level of the ground. At some points a trench becomes practically a breastwork, as its wall is raised to get free of the mud ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... by being more tender after it, a result which many a woman will consider cheap at the price of a blow endured,—is an immeasurably superior husband to the gentleman who shows his wife the most absolute politeness, but uses that very politeness as a breastwork to fortify himself in ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... arranged upon it, Guskof's sheepskin jacket, his face, and his small red hands which he used in lifting the patties from the pan. Everything around us was black; and only by straining the sight could be seen the dark battery, the dark form of the sentry moving along the breastwork, on all sides the watch-fires, and on ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... grizzly bear claws. Well, when the trappers came to a river where there were signs of beaver they called a halt, and proceeded to select a safe and convenient spot, near wood and water, for the camp. Here the property of the band was securely piled in such a manner as to form a breastwork or slight fortification, and here Walter Cameron established headquarters. This was always the post of danger, being exposed to sudden attack by prowling savages, who often dogged the footsteps of the party in their journeyings to see what ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... were now made for defence. Trees were hastily felled to blockade the road. A breastwork of logs was thrown up at a commanding position, in front of which was an abattis of young trees and brush piled up to obstruct approach. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon had only some forty-three regulars and two hundred Indiana, to oppose a force of nearly six hundred men, including fifty cavalry and ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... they have a choice of ground, they pick a narrow ravine, or gully, with a line of hills front and rear, covered with small rocky boulders and bushes. They drive their waggons along the ravine, and make a sort of rude breastwork across the gully with the waggons. In between these waggons the women are placed for safety, for it is a noticeable fact that very large numbers of women have followed their husbands and fathers to ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... coming. Just on the edge of the river, opposite where they were waiting, a boat under repairs was in the stocks. In order to evade the advancing foe, they all marched into the river, the water being shallow, and with the vessel for a breastwork hiding them from the shore, there they remained for an hour and a half. They were thoroughly soaked if nothing more. However, about ten o'clock a small oyster boat came to their relief, and all were soon placed aboard the schooner, which was loaded with ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... islands they had collected a great quantity of logs, to serve them for fuel during the winter. These were carried upon the deck of the Isabel, and so arranged as to form a kind of breastwork, to shield the boys from the bullets of the enemy. By noon on the following day, every thing that could be thought of to conceal or defend the camp had been done. They were ready for the slave-hunters then, and if Quin had only been with them, they would have felt confident of ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy," muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly looked over the pales ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... where the approaches were less difficult, it was protected by two other semicircular walls of the same length as the preceding. They were separated, a considerable distance from one another and from the fortress; and the intervening ground was raised so that the walls afforded a breastwork for the troops stationed there in times of assault. The fortress consisted of three towers, detached from one another. One was appropriated to the Inca, and was garnished with the sumptuous decorations befitting a royal residence, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... where the balls would count. Men protected by heavy planking or advancing along trenches were seeking to erect a battery within less than three hundred yards of the entrance to the main plaza. They had already thrown up a part of a breastwork. Meanwhile the Texan sharpshooters ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... brook, where the vessel lies, about six or seven feet. This entrance forms a semi-circular cove, on each side of which towards the St. Charles, the earth is elevated so as to have the appearance of a breastwork; the bank to the west of the cove is about eighteen feet high, and it was then covered with thick brush which prevented its being fully examined. The distance of the place from town is about one mile; the road is over the Dorchester ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... me, Rack, that's why. Yo're a-going with me while I'm hunting for Coffin and Honey Hoke and Punch-the-breeze Thompson and Peaches Austin. Those four will likely be together, see, and I wanna use you for a breastwork sort of." ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... lifted a knife that lay on the dining-room table and made for him. But this time, being prepared, he was not alarmed; nay, he seemed to take leasure in the success of his plan of tormenting. The heavy escritoire at which he sat was a breastwork between him and the angry woman. He coolly opened a drawer; produced a revolver, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... to the front of the house, and the waters of which rippled up to the very lawn, was part of the German Ocean, and here at the back, and not a stone's throw distant, was the Atlantic! Its great, green, dark billows rolled up and broke into foam against the black breastwork of cliffs beneath us; the immense depth of its waves could be judged of by keeping the eye fixed upon the tall, steeple-like rocks which shot up here and there through the water a little way out to sea: at one moment these would appear like lofty spires, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... thinking with panaceas and doctrines, we come back to the same conclusion. Those people with the best foundations built on reason and truth are those who are nearest the soil and growing things. Those who work with trees and other living things in nature possess the philosophy which acts as a breastwork against the forces which ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... British camp at Villere's, and five miles below the city. The space from the river here back to the swamp was but seventeen hundred yards, making it an admirable line for defense. Early on the twenty-fourth every available man was put to work throwing up a breastwork on the upper side of the canal, while pieces of artillery were planted at commanding points for immediate emergency. Negroes from the adjacent plantations were called in to expedite the work of building the entrenchment and suitable redoubts, as had ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven men had come back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and had worked along with us: but, I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. The ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... the measures of fortification taken by De Salaberry. In his rear there was a small rapid where the river was fordable in two spots close to one another. He commanded this with a strong breastwork and a guard. There were four ravines which issued from the very thick woods, crossing the road, and distant from each other two hundred yards or so. On their banks he made his men fell trees and build them into breastworks—"a kind of parapet extending into the woods some distance." ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... Manono had thus passed off without the least advantage to Tamasese. But he still held the significant position of Mulinuu, and Brandeis was strenuous to make it good. The whole peninsula was surrounded with a breastwork; across the isthmus it was six feet high and strengthened with a ditch; and the beach was staked against landing. Weber's land claim—the same that now broods over the village in the form of a signboard—then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. They reached the stone ridge about dusk. "Carson," said Willis, "tell us what to do, I know nothing about fighting these wild devils." Kit Carson told him to put his soldiers to piling stone and make a breastwork to hide behind. He told Willis to send some of the soldiers to the spring and build up a wall several feet all around it and put some of the soldiers in there for protection and at the same time have a place to get water. The soldiers ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... a drawing-room resembles a soldier on a breastwork; self-abnegation is the first of her duties; however much she may suffer, she must present as calm and serene a countenance as a warrior in the hour of danger, and fall, if necessary, upon the spot, with death in her heart and ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... timber-trees, which had been cut down the summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little troop in among those trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree before us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, enclosing our horses in the centre. We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on with a growling kind of noise, and mounted the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... warriors lay about five hundred yards from the city's walls. Between it and the city was no semblance of breastwork or other protection against rifle or cannon fire; yet distinctly now in the light of the rising sun Carthoris could see many figures moving along the summit of the high wall, and upon ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... columns when this terrific fire was poured upon a spot only twenty feet above them; but they were not men to shrink, and the men of the light division seized the opportunity to pull up the broken masonry and make a breastwork, known in military terms as ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... logs an' while hid by their boughs yank 'em together to make a breastwork. Then they'll pepper us while 'nother party rushes in close. New party will pelt us while the first makes a run to git ag'in' the walls where we can't damage 'em from the loopholes. That Black Hoof is a devil for ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... themselves, and fired in return upon their cowardly assailants, who showed no desire for a parley. The firing from the centre was made over the backs of the ponies and mustangs, who in such emergencies are made to do duty as a breastwork. The circle of red-skins gradually lessened in diameter, as the firing on both sides continued, when a shot from the carbine of the Mexican herder killed ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... seemingly insuperable difficulty loomed ahead. He had no knife and was unable to let go the rope. Would he be able to take his comrades aboard, and would the schooner keep afloat and form a breastwork against the sea, or would it sink and, after all his battle, drag the boat and him ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... minutes compelled the barges to seek safety in flight. During this time the brig was working up towards the Point, and soon after sunrise came to anchor, short of half a mile from the battery, (or more correctly, the breastwork). Our ammunition being soon exhausted, the guns were spiked, and the men who fought them, being only about 15 or 20,[5] retired, leaving them behind for want of ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... were generally so smooth and perpendicular that it would have been impossible even for a monkey to have climbed them—much less human beings, albeit one was a sailor and pretty well accustomed to saltatory feats! But, on their inspecting the apparently insurmountable breastwork a little closer, Fritz noticed, as the young Tristaner had pointed out to them, that, by the side of the gorge through which the waterfall made its erratic descent to the lower level, the face of the cliff was more strongly indented; so that, by using ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... before understand Mahmud's delay. Now, I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... field-guns, while all were pitted with scars of bullets on the side facing the enemy. Scarce a pane of glass remained intact. The floors had been torn up for firing and the furniture had shared the same fate. A breastwork had been thrown up some fifty yards in front of the village and the houses had been connected by earthen walls, so that if the outwork were taken the place could be ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... walk calling out in this manner to one of our men, was answered by him: 'Put your arm about my neck and I'll show you what I intend to do.' Then taking him, with his arm over his neck, he walked slowly along, bearing him with great tenderness to the breastwork." Pennsylvania Evening ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... studied intricacy of the enemy's defences, consisting not only of the breastwork connecting their batteries, but of successive lines of entrenchments for a hundred yards in the rear, covering the batteries and enfilading each other, and the whole obstructed by abatis, brush and felled timber, was calculated to produce confusion among the assailants, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... line to continue to push there, he rapidly moved again to the west side and climbed swiftly to the ridge. Here was only room for four men to march abreast, but charging from rock to rock he succeeded in advancing about a third of a mile southward along the ridge to a breastwork of stone where the enemy, who had fought bravely for every "coign of vantage," were finally enabled to check him. He also threw together a heap of stones to cover and enable him to hold the ground he had gained. [Footnote: Id., ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the Soldier." In one of the terrible battles in Virginia, during the late war, a Union officer fell wounded in front of the Confederate breastwork, which had been attacked. His wounds brought on a raging fever, and he lay on the ground crying piteously for water. A kind-hearted Confederate soldier heard the touching cry, and leaping over the fortifications, with his canteen in his hand, he crawled up to the poor fellow and gave him a drink ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... the twilight of an April morning, he stood on the green, beside the meeting-house, at Lexington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... horses or the wheels of carts; but the practised eye of our guide could recognize by scraps of mud or the dung of cattle the road that crossed that desert, now descending towards the sea, then rising landward according to either the fall of the ground or the necessity of rounding some breastwork of rock. By mid-day, we ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... more troops? Many of the soldiers ate of their stock of provisions. Harry, in a kind of dream, looked westward up the hill towards the silent Yankee redoubt. It faced south, west, and east. The line of its eastern side was continued northward by a breastwork, and still beyond this, down the northern hillside to another river, ran a straggling rail fence, which was thatched with fresh-cut hay. What were the men doing behind those defences? What ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... buildings, on the other a low breastwork interrupted by a watch tower; at back the castle-gate. The situation is supposed to be on rocky cliffs; through openings the view extends over a wide sea horizon. The whole gives an impression of being deserted by the owner, badly kept, and here ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... up another section and repeated. When the ladder had reached to the eaves, he and his companions dragged the squirting, writhing hose up with them, chopped footholds in the roof, and lay flat to look over the ridgepole as over a breastwork. All this to the tune of admiring plaudits and with a pleasing glow of heroism. There was a skylight, but either they overlooked ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... desperate attempts to force a passage; but the loose earth freshly turned up afforded no hold to the feet, and his men were compelled to recoil from the dense array of German pikes, which bristled over the summit of the breastwork. Chandieu, their leader, made every effort to rally and bring them back to the charge; but, in the act of doing this, was hit by a ball, which stretched him lifeless in the ditch; his burnished arms, and the snow-white plumes above his helmet, making him a conspicuous ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. I thank Mother Nature that she has put ingenuity enough in the breast of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; you have tried it. Tell him, as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... us as we emerged from the thick wood. We, being armed with muskets and pistols as well as swords, returned the fire, and spurred our horses on toward the low breastwork, which, as it was not likely to have anything of a trench behind it, we thought to overleap either on horse or afoot. But the fire that we met, almost at the very barrier, felled so many of our horses and men, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the track which here ran along an embankment several feet high, and took shelter on its southern side. They now had an advantage for a while, as they fired from a breastwork upon their foes, who were in the open. But the darkness, lit only by the flashes of the rifles, kept the fire of both sides from being very destructive, the bullets ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... precaution of throwing up a breastwork round the camp, which might assist him in repelling any attack of the Frenchmen. "Though my countrymen will kill me if they discover I have warned you, I would rather die than that you should be taken by surprise," exclaimed Pierre, as he ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... in constructing the present beautiful carriage drive from Sheil Brude to Dorlin House, hundreds of yards of solid rock had to be blasted; part of the river Sheil had to be embanked; huge boulders between the cliffs and the sea-shore had to be cleared away, while a considerable line of breastwork had to be erected as a protection against the waves of the Atlantic, which, in a southwest gale, beat with great fury against the coast. The other roads were carried to those parts of the estate where the tenants were principally clustered, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... location was nearly as well developed as Piegan's. He picked his way through the sage-brush to the other side of the canyon, bringing us in the deepest gloom to a great slab of sandstone that had fallen from above, and lay a few feet from the base of the sheer wall. It was a natural breastwork, all ready to our hand. There, without another word, he left us. Crouching in the shelter of that rock, not daring to speak above a whisper, denied the comforts of tobacco, it seemed as if we were never to be released from the ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... so secluded a tenement, was, at the hour named, seated on a stone at the most salient angle of the mountain, and at the place where the eye commanded the widest and least-obstructed view of the abodes of man in the distance. Stones had been rolled together in a manner to form a little breastwork in his front, so that, had there been any wandering gaze sweeping over the face of the mountain, it was far from probable that it would have detected the presence of a man whose whole form, with the exception of the superior parts, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... elevation and of triangular form, containing an acre or more of pretty level land. It was at that time covered with trees. This commanding position was chosen for the fort. Two sides were bounded by water. On the third or land side of the triangle there was a deep ravine. A breastwork of hewn logs was raised several feet high, enclosing a space eighty feet long by forty feet broad. And this all ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... presently above the roar and din, I could hear him panting close behind me. Up we went, nearer and nearer, with our fellows about a hundred yards in our rear, clambering after us and cheering as they came. I was close upon the confounded breastwork when I took a musket-ball through my leg, and over I went like a shot rabbit, b'gad! Just then Crichton panted up. 'Hurt?' says he. 'Only my leg,' says I, 'go on, and good luck to you.' 'Devilish rough on you, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a breach gaped in the battlements. Out shot the arm again; hooked its hammer tip over the parapet, tore away a stretch of the breastwork as though it had been cardboard. Beside the breach an expanse of the broad flat top lay open ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... better part of the tribe, and meant to stay on the spot two days; that the tribesmen of the slain were free to attack them if they chose, but in that case, they would split the heads of all the women and children prisoners in their hands, make a breastwork of the dead bodies, and then finish it by piling upon it those of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... firing, to allow the guns to cool. Two engineer officers with fifty stout sappers, who each had a rose noble for every quarter of an hour's work, got on to the breach in front of the sand hill, and threw up a small breastwork, strengthened by palisades, across it. An officer crept down towards the Old Haven, and presently returned with the news that two thousand of the enemy were wading across, and forming up in battalions ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... realize a speed of 19.75 knots. As vertical engines have been adopted, the necessary protection of the cylinders, which project above the steel protective deck, is obtained by fitting an armored breastwork of steel 5 in. thick, supported by a 7 in. teak backing, around the engine hatchway. Provision is made for a bunker coal capacity of 400 tons, and this is calculated to give a radius of action of 8,000 knots at a reduced ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... to the gun room, casting anxious glances at the edge of the balcony above and at the barricade they had erected across the openings to the lifter tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this last; it looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for somebody to fire on them from, more ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... the Wabash about two or three miles below the mouth of the Big Vermilion, and as it had been determined to take forward the provisions from this point in wagons, a small blockhouse, twenty-five feet square was here erected, with a breastwork at each corner next to the river, to receive supplies from the boats. Remnants of the old landing were still to be seen in 1914. Logs and brush were now employed to level down the great horse weeds that filled the lowlands, and corduroy roads made for the passage of the wagons ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... been from man to man, and now every one was at his post. The bulk of our little body crouched down behind the breastwork while four men were stationed by the open gates of the stockade to allow us to make our retreat there. Those who were behind the breastwork knew that when Lancelot gave the word they were to fire in the direction of the sea. Lancelot had ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... strove to keep his place. The valiant Wadsworth had been killed already. The dense thickets largely nullified Grant's superior numbers. Lee poured everything on Hancock, who was driven from every position. Fighting furiously behind a breastwork built the night before, he was driven from ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the remainder of the materials secured when an old house has been pulled down. Some of these mantelpieces of olden time were magnificent memorials of the sculptor's and the carver's art. They included overmantels, the entire breastwork of the chimney often being covered with stone or marble or black oak, right up to the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... party had only time to fire two rounds when the enemy retired to a strong position on the top of a steep hill where they had thrown up a breastwork, which they disputed for a short time. On our getting possession of it they divided into three parties and fled. We had one sepoy killed and several of the detachment wounded by the ranjaus. Many of the enemy were killed and wounded and the paths they had taken covered with ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... waked up on the morning of June 17, the first thing they saw was a redoubt on the top of one of the Charlestown hills. The ships opened fire. But in spite of the balls Colonel Prescott walked on the top of the breastwork while his men went on digging. Gage sent three or four thousand men across the Charles River to Charlestown to drive the daring Americans away. It took the whole morning to get them to Charlestown, and then they had ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... wonder I didn't think of that. It's a good idea, Fred. We'll do it. Get the picks and shovels. We can soon throw up a breastwork that will be proof against their bullets, and, as we occupy the highest ground, they can't ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... the breastwork of a battery is only of such height that the guns may fire over it without being obliged to make embrasures, the guns are said to fire ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... determination to be one. The address took me into a street up-town—above Twenty-third Street—the exact locality I hesitate to give for reasons that shortly will become obvious. Here I found the "Pearl Laundry," a broad brick building, grim as a fortress, and fortified by a breastwork of laundry-wagons backed up to the curb and disgorging their contents of dirty clothes. Making my way as best I could through the jam of horses and drivers and baskets, I reached the narrow, unpainted pine door marked, "Employees' Entrance," ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... to his men, "up with your axes and clubs, we've got to batter down this breastwork, ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... during their absence. They duly gave up the German axes which had been loaned to them, and carried the wood aboard. Kettle arranged its disposition. He had solid defences built up all round the vulnerable boiler and engines. He had a stout breastwork built all round inside the rail of the lower deck, quite stout enough to absorb a bullet even if fired at point-blank range. And he had another breastwork built on the third deck, above the cabins, so that he turned the flimsy little steamer ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... castle from the river, as a foreground, one has a lovely breastwork of trees, the castle resting on the crown of the hill like some splendid jewel. Its grayness makes its strong, bold outlines appear the more distinct against the melting background of the faint blue and white English sky and the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... people had at length refused to be called out, and the regular troops were already heard talking of "where booty is to be found, and where the young women live who wear gold chains." The city, entirely open along both rivers, was shut on the northern side by a breastwork and palisades[3], which, though sufficient to keep out the savages, afforded no defense against a military siege. There were scarcely six hundred pounds of serviceable ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... "the rude forefathers" of what had been, till lately, indeed little more than a hamlet. On the southern aspect of this, facing the castle and the sea, the enclosure was marked by a strong granite breastwork armed with cannons mounted en barbette. These pieces were pointed, for the most part, on the bridge, or causeway leading to the Castle, into which they were capable of sending salvos of round-shot, as in fact they had often done a few years before. The rest of the cemetery was strongly ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... company was working like so many beavers. The men dug a big rifle pit in the centre of the corral, forming a breastwork out of the displaced sand. Into this pit the women dragged bedding, food, and all sorts of necessaries from the wagons. All the children helped. There was no whimpering, and little or no excitement. There was ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... several Union officers. One of Colonel Birges's sharpshooters, an old hunter, who had killed many bears and wolves, crept up towards the breastworks to try his hand upon the Rebel. They fired at each other again and again, but both were shrewd and careful. The Rebel raised his hat above the breastwork,—whi——z! The sharpshooter out in the bushes had put a bullet through it. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Rebel, sending his own bullet into the little puff of smoke down in the ravine. The Rocky Mountain hunter was as still as a mouse. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... every part can be flanked. Within the stockade a mound of earth is thrown up, behind which the defenders can rest in safety, or use their firearms over it. On the level of the ground little archways sometimes pass through this breastwork, by which means the defenders can crawl out to the stockade and reconnoitre their enemies. The Reverend W. Williams, who gave me this account, added that in one Pas he had noticed spurs or buttresses projecting on the inner and ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... were laid aside: with nothing on them but their belts, and scimitars, and creezes, and blue under-drawers, they silently crept up to the palisades, there deposited their fagots, and then again returned, again to perform the same journey. As the breastwork of fagots increased, so did they more boldly walk up, until the pile was completed; they then, with a loud shout, fired it in several places. The flames mounted, the cannon of the fort roared, and many fell under the discharges of grape ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... within a few miles of the place now called Newtown, we were met by a body of Indians, and a number of troops well known in those times by the name of Butler's Rangers, who had thrown up, hastily, a breastwork of logs, trees, &c. They were, however, easily driven from their works, with considerable loss on their part, and without any injury to our troops. The enemy fled with so much precipitation, that they ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... the trail, the ape-man came presently to a point where he could look down in comparative safety upon the fighters. First one and then the other would partially raise himself above his breastwork of horseflesh, fire his weapon and immediately drop flat behind his shelter, where he would reload and repeat the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the herders and stampeded the cattle!" cried McCarthy. "Get under the banks of the river, boys—use 'em for a breastwork!" ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... immediately above the ballast was some seven feet from the gunwale. The second deck was four feet above this. In it was a large, commodious hatch, leading to the lower deck. The sides of the ship rose three feet above the upper deck, forming an excellent breastwork, which we loopholed at intervals that we might lie prone and fire upon ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mattresses, cushions, etcetera, piled up along the lower portion of each window, just high enough to protect a person when kneeling on the floor. The grand staircase, which was the only one accessible from the front entrance, was also strongly barricaded in three or four places, a sort of breastwork being constructed on the first landing, behind which the defenders might shelter themselves from the fire of an attacking party below. This done, nothing remained but to collect the arms and ammunition, muster the attendants, and await ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... and scalps would scarce be worth the trouble of digging out canoes. Then it's by no means sartain which would whip in such a scrimmage, for old Tom is well supplied with arms and ammunition, and the castle, as you may see, is a tight breastwork ag'in ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... confidence with thirty thousand men. The defences were simple. On the west, in the direction of Coyacan, stood the large stone convent of San Pablo, which, as well as the wall and breastworks in front, was filled with infantry, and which contained seven heavy guns. A breastwork connected San Pablo with the tete de pont over the Churubusco River, four hundred yards distant. This was the easternmost point of defence, and formed part of the San Antonio causeway leading to the city. It was a work constructed with the greatest skill—bastions, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne |
