"Breastwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talk gently; pull, and press. If your horse trusts you, he will gradually bend over toward you; lower his body to the ground; and at last lie flat, head and all, with the animal's legs away from you. Behind the horse's body the rifleman may squat, shoot from cover, and have an ample breastwork if the animal is trained to "stand the gun." It is a pretty trick, though of less practical use than was expected. It is, however, a quick measure of the horse's confidence in the rider; and it speaks well for ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... whites to a point where the woodland grew thinner, and within hearing of the wild war-whoops of the combatants. Soon they emerged into a partial clearing, which had been made by the axes of the Iroquois in preparing their breastwork of defence. Champlain gazed upon the scene before him with wondering eyes. In front was a circular barricade, composed of trunks of trees, boughs, and matted twigs, behind which the Iroquois stood like tigers at bay. In the edge of the forest ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... pitch them anew, as they leaked badly, and then to return to Spain. When we took this resolution we were near one of the best harbors in the world, entering which we found a vast number of people, who received us most kindly. We made a breastwork on shore with our boats and casks, and placed our artillery so it would play over them; then, having unloaded and lightened our ships, we hauled them to land and repaired them wherever they needed it. The natives were of great assistance to us, continually providing food, so that ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... indefinitely, and the rifles rattled out at the same time. So well aimed was the volley that the dark cloud seemed staggered. The savages wavered for a time, but on they came again, redoubling their yells. They fired again, then, dropping their guns, rushed on towards the breastwork spears in hand. It was thus that the conflict commenced in dread earnest, and the revolvers now did fearful execution. The Indians were hurled back again and again, and finally they broke and sought cover in the bush. Their wounded lay writhing and ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... 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 who formed one of its bricks was still alive, and was waving his arm.... What ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... idea," said Paul; and they all three set to work, trusting to Bruce to give them timely notice should strangers approach. They chose only small trees, which quickly yielded to their axes, and they were thus soon enabled to form a breastwork on the only accessible side of the rock. Although it was not capable of withstanding a determined rush of the enemy, yet as long as their ammunition lasted the blacks were not likely to come ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... fool me. I've been on to your little game ever since before the schooner left New York. I got sharp ears, I have," pursued the mate, his one eye gleaming balefully as he looked at the heads above the line of the breastwork. "I know you found a map an' some sort of a paper what explained about that old pirate treasure. It was in a sailorman's chest in Tyke Grimshaw's office. Like enough Tyke stole it from the poor feller. An' I heard you tellin' Miss Ruth about it that night at dinner," he added, with a leering ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... earth and stones would rise from the very edge of the rock, and as the Egyptians could only climb up in small numbers at a time, we could destroy them without difficulty. I see now that our builders made a mistake in surrounding the city with a high wall; it would have been best to have built a mere breastwork at the very edge of the cliff all round. Here comes Amusis; we shall hear what his ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... entrusted to the command of Schomberg, and was marshalled opposite to Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the whole Irish infantry had been collected. The Meath bank bristled with pikes and bayonets. A fortification had been made by French engineers out of the hedges and buildings; and a breastwork had been thrown up close to the water side, [694] Tyrconnel was there; and under him were Richard Hamilton ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cliff. This 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 Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... veteran. Benjamin received a severe contusion 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
... of bags," cried the captain, "every one of you. Whoever they are, we will talk to them over a breastwork." ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... castellated 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
... forest, and Mistisi, responding to the cry of "chaw," swerved to the right into the shelter of a breastwork of underbrush. In a few seconds, with the brush behind them, and the upturned sledge ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... and the easier by help of the river-fog, which by nine o'clock—the hour agreed upon— had gathered to a thick grey consistency. If the dock were policed at this hour, no police, save by the veriest accident, could have detected the children crouching with 'Dolph behind a breastwork of paraffin-casks, and waiting for Bill's signal—the first two or three bars of The Blue Bells ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the afternoon of the last day of November—and also the last day of many a gallant life—when Hood's tired army marched over the brow of the high ridge of hills that looked down on the town of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river, behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's determined army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain as looking down from the gallery into the pit of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... This is the key of the enemy's position. That once gained the day is won; and on the brave fellows go, great gaps tearing through their ranks—answering every fresh shock with a savage yell. Line after line of the enemy gives way before that terrible charge. The breastwork is occupied—they are driven out! Melting under the horrid fire, unfaltering still—the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... 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
... 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 farm. The river and aqueduct both flowed along ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... high, flat promontory jutting out into the Heath. A brown brick wall with buttresses, strong like fortifications on a breastwork, enclosed it on three sides. From the flagged terrace at the bottom of the garden you looked down, through the tops of the birch-trees that rose against the rampart, over the wild places of the Heath. There was another ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... 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 ruins of ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... it in order, if possible, to make his way good into the fort. Parties attempted in vain to surprise him. A few of his party were taken, one of which was Maisonville, a famous Indian partisan. Two lads had captured him, tied him to a post in the street, and fought from behind him as a breastwork, supposing that the enemy would not fire at them for fear of killing him, as he would alarm them by his voice. The lads were ordered, by an officer who discovered them at their amusement, to untie their prisoner, and take him off to the guard, which they did, but were so inhuman ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 out streaks ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... bows and quivers, spears, swords, bills and darts, thrown together just as they had cast them aside, and more or less rusty from the dew. Felix thought that had the enemy come suddenly down in force they might have made a clean sweep of the camp, for there were no defences, neither breastwork, nor fosse, nor any set guard. But he forgot that the enemy were quite as ill-organized as the besiegers; probably they were in still greater confusion, for King Isembard was considered one of the greatest military commanders of his age, if ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for these and finds them ready to hand after each meal. They are weights, not trophies; they take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected from a distance and hoisted to the top. In this way, a breastwork is obtained that strengthens and steadies the house. Additional equilibrium is often supplied by tiny shells and other objects hanging ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... 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: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... crawling up over what little dead ground there was, and one group of them reached an edge from which they began firing into our breastwork at about fifteen yards. One or two of them sprang up as though to charge. With bayonets they might have come on, but, standing to fire, they were at once shot down. Among them was Schutte, the commandant of ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... shielding her as best he could with his body. Then, suddenly, a man in blue leaped on the wall not ten feet away. He had meant to seize the wall as a breastwork and fight from behind it, but before he dropped down he would fire one last shot. His gun came up to his shoulder—he aimed at some unseen foe and fired. But from somewhere, out of the crash of sound and the rolling powder ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... 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 being sent mainly ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... furthest points ahead was Lieutenant F. McC. Turner, who with about thirty men of the Guides had driven a very much superior force of the enemy into a stone breastwork at the top of a high peak. Here the British officer was held; not an inch could he advance; and now he was called upon to conform with the general movement for retirement. To retire, placed as he was, meant ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... 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 ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... firm hold of the silver mines. I may take it, we have in the neighbourhood of the mines certain fortresses—one on the southern slope in Anaphlystus; (55) and we have another on the northern side in Thoricus, the two being about seven and a half miles (56) apart. Suppose then a third breastwork were to be placed between these, on the highest point of Besa, that would enable the operatives to collect into one out of all the fortresses, and at the first perception of a hostile movement it would only be a short ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... called Redstone Creek in southwestern Pennsylvania. Pushing along, cutting as he went the first road that ever led down to the valley of the Mississippi from the Atlantic slope, he reached a narrow glade called the Great Meadows and there began to put up a breastwork which he named Fort Necessity. While so engaged news came that the French were near. Washington thereupon took a few men, and, coming suddenly on the French, killed or captured them all save one. Among the dead ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... right of the line, where the breastwork, ending in a redoubt, was steep and high. I made two attempts to climb up, but both times slipped back. On the third trial I nearly gained the summit; but was again slipping down, when a hand seized me by the collar, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • 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 ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... 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 the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... no measures to prevent it. If it was Cox's expectation that Wagner would withdraw the two brigades at the last moment, he must have known better when he saw Conrad's brigade squat down behind their half-built breastwork preparatory to giving battle. There was even then time, if prompt action had been taken, for a staff officer to gallop to the front, before the firing began, with a peremptory order for Conrad and Lane to get out of the way; but Cox, fresh from a personal conference with Schofield, to whom he ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... who had made himself the leader of the charge gallop straight at a breastwork that the Southerners had built, reach and stand, horse and rider, a moment at the top, then both fall in a limp heap. The next instant the officer, not dead but wounded, was dragged a prisoner behind the embankment ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... brisk captaincy of 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 ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... small boat as mine. After several fruitless attempts I was obliged to abandon the idea, contenting myself with taking a view of it—and those contiguous. One of them was an immense rock; on one side perfectly round, with a large hole in the other in the form of an arch with a breastwork rising high enough above the level of the sea to preclude the water from getting into it; the hollow appeared as scooped out by art instead of nature. I gave it the name of the Hole in the Wall and to the range of islands stretching along ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... occupied a triangular promontory, washed upon two sides by the waters of Lake Champlain and the river-like extremity of Lake George. The landward approach was guarded by a strong rampart of felled trees, which the soldiers had formed into a breastwork and abattis which might almost be called musket-proof. So at least Rogers and his men had judged. They had watched the French at their task, and had good reason to know the solid protection given to the men behind by ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the British men-of-war 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 to eat their dinner. This delay gave the Americans time to send aid to Prescott. ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... by night, sailed down the coast past Syracuse, and entering the Great Harbour, came to land near the outlying suburb of Polichne, where stood the great temple of the Olympian Zeus. Here he planted a breastwork of palisades to defend his ships, and drew up his army on ground which offered many obstacles to the advance of the Syracusan cavalry. Then, having broken down the bridge over the Anapus, he waited for the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... ditch surged the brave men in front of them, and one officer, a lieutenant, came over the breastwork uninjured. Seeing Eph and a captain of infantry standing by their guns, close ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... some danger the ship-wrecked crew did at length succeed in getting ashore, with their rifles and a fair supply of powder and lead, and without an instant's delay they set about building a rude breastwork for protection if matters should come to a fight. The stranded vessel must certainly have been already seen by the Indians; at any moment they might appear. But the breastwork was completed without interruption, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Sullivan assumed the command of the whole, and proceeded up the Tioga. When 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 left behind ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... breastwork. The men here had been posted by MacIntosh eight abreast. When the head of the column of insurgents were halfway up the hill they opened a scattered fire; they had armed themselves with the muskets they had ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... the cane, and after a few minutes walking ushered Dan into an open space in the centre of the island. Here stood the little bark lean-to that he called his house. The cane had been cleared away from a spot about fifteen feet square, and piled up around the outside, so that it looked like a little breastwork. ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... again attacked the Spaniards, rushing out from their coverts in the woods, and hurling their javelins and darts. As the huts were so near the woods that they might at any moment be surprised, a spot was chosen on the shore, where a breastwork was thrown up formed of the boats, casks, and cases, in the embrasures of which were placed two small pieces of artillery. Here, when the Indians came on, they were received with so warm a fire from the arquebuses and guns that they quickly ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Cartier, is supposed to have wintered. The tide rises in the entrance of the 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 Bridge and along the north bank of the St. Charles."—(Quebec ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... ammunition, coming up from Dresden, were completely come May 19th; after which the place is industriously battered, bombarded with red-hot balls; but except by hunger, it will not do. Prag as a fortress is weak, but as a breastwork for 50,000 men it is strong. The Austrians tried sallies; but these availed nothing,—very ill-conducted, say some. The Prussians, more than once, had nearly got into the place by surprisal; but, owing to mere luck of the Austrians, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... of these vessels is surrounded by a breastwork six feet in height, plated with nine-inch armour. Entrance is gained to the turrets themselves from inside this breastwork. In the centre of the turret there are two cylinders, the one fitting over the other in a manner which keeps the whole steady even in rough ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Toulon that Napoleon, while constructing a battery under the enemy's fire, had occasion to prepare a despatch, and called out for some one who could use a pen. A young sergeant, named Junot, leapt out, and, leaning on the breastwork, wrote as he dictated. As he finished, a shot struck the ground by his side, scattering dust in abundance over him and everything near him. "Good," said the soldier, laughing, "this time we shall spare our sand." The cool gaiety of this pleased Buonaparte; he ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... desperate work confronting them. Meade had determined to await an attack from Lee and he had accordingly selected Cemetery Ridge as the position best adapted for defense. This line of hills not only provided a natural breastwork, but at the left and a little in front lay two hillocks knows as Round Top and Little Round Top, which, when crowned by artillery, were perfect fortresses of strength. Strange as it may seem, however, Round Top ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... attempted to land on the strand of Beaubassin. La Jonquiere says that he could only be resisted indirectly, because he was on the English side of the river. This indirect resistance was undertaken by Le Loutre, who had thrown up a breastwork along the shore and manned it with his Indians and his painted and be-feathered Acadians. Nevertheless the English landed, and, with some loss, drove out the defenders. Le Loutre himself seems not to have been among them; but they ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... a Yankee platoon of fifty men that we captured a mile or more from the breastwork," replied the Confederate captain; and it could be seen that his men smiled when ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... dawn that heralded a sun triumphant, the Indian borrowed a drum from the bandsman, and, standing on the highest breastwork, he gazed across the dark waters to the whitening hills. There on a tiny fire he laid tobacco and kinnikinnik, as Gisiss the Shining One burnt the rugged world rim at Vermont, and, tapping softly with one stick, he gazed upward, after the sacrificial thread of smoke, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the 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
... 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 was surrounded by ...
— 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
... 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 ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... length of the ditch. If ducks were in sight, he located them carefully and then we made our sneak. If not, we drove on to the next bend. Once we all lay behind an embankment like a lot of soldiers behind a breastwork while one of us made a long detour around a big flock resting in an overflow across the ditch. The ruse was successful. The ducks, rising at sight of the scout, flew high directly over the ambuscade. A battery of six or eight guns thereupon opened up. I believe we killed three or four ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... breastwork to act as a protection, but from behind its shelter a couple of volleys were sent in the direction of the flashes of light which indicated the whereabouts of the enemy, and this made them continue their flight, the surprise having been too great for their ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Irish bogs they first covered the surface of the bog with a layer of hazel bushes, and that by a layer of sand, and thus secured a firm surface. In this case the villages were still further defended by a breastwork of rough spars, about five feet high. One of the houses of this group was found still in position, though it had been completely buried in peat. No metal had been used in its construction. The timbers had been cut with a stone ax, ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... doctor, you are right; the London ladies were always too handsome for me; then they are so defended, such a circumvallation of hoop, with a breastwork of whale-bone that would turn a pistol-bullet, much less Cupid's arrows,—then turret on turret on top, with stores of concealed weapons, under pretence of black pins,—and above all, a standard of feathers that would do honour to a knight ...
— St. Patrick's Day • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... it's easy to understand, sir," replied the sergeant, after a long look. "That log is a movable breastwork, which can be ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... fell mortally wounded, never again recovering consciousness, and several others became casualties before the party could reach cover on the far side of the Farm. "B" and "C" were still in Armagh Wood, so Colonel Jones at once decided to man the new breastwork between it and Square Wood, and there they remained until the situation became once more quiet. Finally, at midnight, we moved into our Brigade Support positions, Headquarters and "B" Company in Railway Dug-outs, "C" Company in Deeping Dug-outs near ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... the village. Early as it was, they seemed to have been at work some hours,—at least so their labors bespoke; for already a rampart of considerable extent had been thrown up, stockades implanted, and a breastwork was in a state of active preparation. The officer of the party, wrapped up in a loose cloak, and mounted upon a sharp-looking hackney, rode hither and thither as the occasion warranted, and seemed, as well as from the distance I could guess, something of a tartar. At least ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and behind the wagons; soldiers were seen to drop their caps and fly in dismay into Rue Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance; troopers, losing their heads, fired their carbines in the air, while others dismounted and made a breastwork of their horses. Two or three of the latter, without riders, ran here and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... had been halted a few yards only from a breastwork, with a stockade above it and a chevaux de frise on top of all. As far as knowledge of his whereabouts went, Nat might have been east, west, north or south of Badajos, or somewhere in another planet. But the past two years had somehow taught him to divine that behind this ugly ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... we unhitched the mules more quickly than that operation had ever been performed before. The mules and my horse we tied to the wagon. We threw the buffalo hams on the ground and piled them about the wheels so as to form a breastwork. Then, with an extra box of ammunition and three or four extra revolvers which we always carried with us, we crept under the wagon, prepared to give our visitors a reception ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... tumult, and above all, the fierce cry of the warriors sent a thrill of terror through Paul and Henry, but their disciplined minds held their bodies firm, and they remained crouched by the primitive breastwork, ready ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of Saifaleupolu and the burning of 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 appeared in a more military guise; the German flag was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... steadily fell back upon the main body, with advantage to themselves and with loss to their opponents. When once aware of their position, and the great odds against them, in the incredible space of ten minutes, they threw up a breastwork of rails, from behind which they now began to deal the most deadly havoc amongst the enemy. The men engaged in more exposed positions, performed absolute miracles of valor, and charged the foe in the face of the most galling fire, until they actually touched their bayonets, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Captain Murray, made the same attempt and was also killed; and so was a third, Moore. Several private soldiers met a like fate. They were all killed close to the flag, and their dead bodies fell across one another. Taking advantage of this breastwork, Lieutenant Nettleton crawled from behind the fence to the colors, seized them, and ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... soldiers in defending the position against flank attacks. The guns were all loaded, and the sailors then set to work dragging up bales of goods from below, and placing them so as to form a sort of breastwork before the guns along the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... hay, but in the direction of the redoubt. With the glass Ruth saw the manly figure she had seen before, seemingly receiving instructions from his superior officer, and running towards the threatened point of attack. The scarlet lines were mounting the breastwork. Men were firing in each other's faces; thrusting with the bayonet. She could see a stalwart provincial in his shirt-sleeves beat out the brains of a Britisher with the butt of his musket, and the next moment go down with a bayonet through his heart. The manly figure was in the thick ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 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 us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... gives a view of "a large wall of dry stone, about nine feet in height, which extends across the valley from one mountain to the other: it was twenty feet in thickness, surmounted throughout its whole extent by a breastwork a foot and a half thick, to enable them to fight from the top of the wall." Diaz says, "We came to an enormous intrenchment, built so strongly of stone, lime, and a kind of hard bitumen, that it would only have been possible ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... its head towards the mound, and, calling every man to the help of the oxen, he dragged the carts one by one to the top. There he caused the beasts to be unyoked, and placed the hackeris, their poles interlocked, so as to form a rough semicircular breastwork around the summit of the mound. For a moment he hesitated in deciding what to do with the cattle. Should he keep them within his little intrenchment? If they took fright they might stampede and do mischief; in any case they ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... 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. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... width 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
... ancient town of Samnium, Italy, 15 m. E.S.E. of Beneventum, on the Via Appia (near the modern Mirabella). It became the chief town of the Hirpini after Beneventum had become a Roman colony. Sulla captured it in 89 B.C. by setting on fire the wooden breastwork by which it was defended, and new fortifications were erected. Hadrian, who repaired the Via Appia from Beneventum to this point, made it a colony; it has ruins of the city walls, of an aqueduct, baths and an amphitheatre; nearly 400 inscriptions have also been discovered. Two different ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... 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 ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... and a few hundred feet long, with a narrow prairillon on the inner side, bordered by the rocky ridge. In the upper end of this grove we cleared a circular space about forty feet in diameter, and, with the felled timber, and interwoven branches, surrounded it with a breastwork five feet in height. A gap was left for a gate on the inner side, by which the animals were to be driven in and secured, while the men slept around the little work. It was half hidden by the foliage, and garrisoned by twelve ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... besiegers ceased 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 ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... injuries which the appearance of the cathedral had sustained were, in the first instance, occasioned by the erection of a breastwork in front of the triforium, which concealed the bases and half the shafts of the columns; this might now be easily removed as the object of its erection, to protect from accident the spectators of the ancient processions, ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... four regiments had been under fire, and these only in light skirmishes. Besides, the construction of the defensive works appeared to some of the unprofessional of us to be extremely faulty. The soil of the place is a slaty clay known geologically as shale. This being thrown up to form a breastwork constituted, as was thought by some of those whose duty it was to be to stand behind it and deliver their fire when the order came, a source of greater danger to them than rebel shot or shell. A ball ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... from floor to floor with transverse blocks inserted into holes in the walls on which the planks were laid,—a frail construction, shaken by the brick-layers, but held together by ropes, white with plaster, and insecurely protected from the wheels of carriages by the breastwork of planks which the law requires round all such buildings. There is something maritime in these masts, and ladders, and cordage, even in the shouts of the masons. About a dozen yards from the hotel Maulincour, one of these ephemeral barriers ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... 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, rather than ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... hours' notice and in weather calculated to make any operation a fiasco, the Battalion on September 12 attacked Junction Post, a grass-bound breastwork where the enemy was offering a stubborn resistance. Though finally unsuccessful in result, the fighting, which was accompanied by driving storms of rain, produced two noteworthy incidents. Rowlerson, one of C Company's platoon commanders, after reaching the German trenches, ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... concentrated his fire on the man trying to get above him. He was behind a boulder, not too dissimilar to Calhoun's breastwork. Calhoun set fire to the brush at the point at which the other man aimed. That, then, made his ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natural breastwork seized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left had been taken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of leaping flame. Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer. The man nearest snatched ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... men rode forward. When within fifty yards of the bridge a volley of twenty muskets flashed out from the work behind it. The officer and three men fell, the other galloped back to the main body. He had seen nothing beyond the fact that there was a breastwork across the road, and Franceschi, thinking that he had but a small force of peasants in front of him, ordered a squadron to charge, and clear ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... water is up to the top of the enclosing levee-rim, the flat country behind it lies low—representing the bottom of a dish— and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks down upon the houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing but that frail breastwork of earth between the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 tremendous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... their approach, their enemies having their undefended bodies as marks for their weapons, while they had only head and shoulders to strike at, the rest of their bodies being safe, behind the strong breastwork. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Boston, distant twelve hundred yards from the works, and this, also, opened fire. The Americans continued their work, throwing up fresh intrenchments; and, singularly, only one man was killed by the fire from the ships and redoubt. A breastwork was carried down the hill to the flat ground which, intersected by fences, stretched away to the Mystic. By nine o'clock ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... make amends 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 his ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... next hill of the series, and this hill presented steep sides, the one to the west partially cleared, but the other covered with the native forest. The crest of the ridge was narrow and wooded. The farther point of this hill was held-by the enemy with a breastwork of logs and fresh earth, filled with men and two guns. The enemy was also seen in great force on a still higher hill beyond the tunnel, from which he had a fine plunging fire on the hill in dispute. The gorge between, through which several roads and the railroad-tunnel ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... descended French River, a rapid and dangerous stream, without accident, and entered Lake Huron on the morning of the 12th. The guide pointed out to me a place near the mouth of the river where the Indians used to waylay the canoes on their passage to and from the interior; a sort of rude breastwork still marks the spot. After much destruction of life and property by the savages, they were eventually caught in their own toil; the voyageurs, instead of descending the river at this place, passed by land, and coming unawares on ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... leader, turning to his men, "up with your axes and clubs, we've got to batter down this breastwork, and it ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... unable to 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 ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Doddridge's Notes says that the camp was surrounded by a breastwork of fallen trees, and an entrenchment, and Roosevelt's Winning of the West follows him. But Dr. Draper was distinctly told (in 1846-51) by two survivors of the campaign, Samuel Murphy and John Grim, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... trying emergency with unflinching courage and great promptness of action. It was agreed that Colonel Williams should have the chief command. Accordingly, the whole Whig force, except Capt. Inman's command, was ordered to form a breastwork of old logs and brush, and make as brave a defence as circumstances permitted. Capt. Inman, with twenty-five men was directed to proceed to the ford of the river, fire across upon the enemy, and retreat when they appeared in strong force. This stratagem ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... the sea and Utgard. That harsh-sounding name did so well fit the line of islands and islets, Shann repeated it to himself. Here the beach was narrow, a strip of blue sand-gravel walled by wave-worn boulders. And from that barrier of stones piled into a breastwork by chance, interwoven with bone-bare drift, arose the first of the cliffs. Shann studied the terrain with increasing uneasiness. To be caught between a sea, whipped inland by a storm wind, and that cliff would be a risk ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... 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 were ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Indians reached the Pass—well and good. If he did not—well, thought Pike, from here I can see the scoundrels when they are still miles away, and all we've got to do is stock this cave with blankets, provisions and ammunition, build our breastwork and let 'em come. "With Kate and the kids out of harm's way, back in that hole, I wouldn't ask anything better than to have those whelps of Tontos trail us up here and then attempt to rout us out. We'd make some of 'em sick Indians; wouldn't ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... horses being tired out, but being better mounted, he was able to get within gun shot and killed one of the Cheyennes. Seeing his Pawnees were some distance in the rear, the whole party turned on Major North. He shot his horse, and using its body for a breastwork, fought the whole party, killing or wounding nine of them and held them at bay until his men were able to come up. This fight was considered one of the most daring on the Plains and added greatly to the ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... got it more worked out. The thing to do now is to get in shape to stand off the giants if they should attack us. This hut is pretty strong, and we can risk a siege in here. Let's arrange the boxes and bales into a sort of breastwork, and then we'll take ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... arm's length apart. After laying their rifles down, barrels pointing to the enemy, a line was drawn behind the row of rifles and parallel to it. Then each man would dig up the ground, starting from his part of the line backwards, throwing forward the earth removed, until it formed a sort of breastwork. The second half of the platoon was meanwhile resting in the rear, rifle in hand and ready for action. After a half hour they took the place of the first division at work, and vice versa. Within an hour work on the trenches was so far advanced that they could be deepened while standing in them. ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... infantry, and they, as eager as he, rushed on at increased speed. Yet the Northern resistance was still hardening. Some of the German regiments atoned for their earlier panic by reforming and making a brave resistance. Other regiments formed behind a breastwork. ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the other, for the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... soothing them, and 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 breastwork was now finished, ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... line, so that 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 protected side of the mound of earth. On asking the chief ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Hunt's guns and Gibbon's rifles crashed out together, and shot, shell, canister, and bullet cut gaping wounds deep into the dense gray ranks. Still, the wave broke; and, from its storm-blown top, one furious tongue surged over the breastwork and through the hedge of bayonets. It came from Armistead's brigade of stark Virginians. He led it on; and, with a few score men, reached the highwater mark of ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... first and second companies fired volleys to cover the advance of the other columns. They crossed the little creek, near Malate, in front of the fort; then, by rushes, they reached the fort, which they entered, followed by the other troops, only to find it deserted. The Spaniards had retreated to a breastwork at the rear of the fort, where they kept up a desultory fire at the Colorado troops, killing one man and wounding several. Fort San Antonio Abad was now in possession of the 1st Colorado under Lieut.-Colonel McCoy, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond the heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... tower nestled a cemetery containing the tombs of "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 ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... all torn and gory—shall I tell the fearful story, How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, With their powder-horns all emptied, like the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... 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 piece of timber, which, as I said, was ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... 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
... Viminal and Quirinal, where from the Esquiline to the Colline gate there was an absence of natural defence—of an earthen mound, which was finished off on the outside by a similar lining-wall. On these lining-walls rested the breastwork. A trench, according to trustworthy statements of the ancients 30 feet deep and 100 feet broad, stretched along in front of the wall, for which the earth was taken from this same trench.—The breastwork has nowhere been preserved; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... lines the sides of the river. The city is filled with houses of three or four stories, forming streets in straight lines, and running parallel with one another, the cross streets opening upon the river through as many smaller brazen gates, placed in the breastwork of the river walls. Within the principal wall just mentioned is a second, not much inferior to the first in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... 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, and was ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... to Gaza we passed Zeita, where a breastwork had been hastily thrown up by the peasantry, and into which a number of armed men rushed from a concealment, and parleyed before they would allow us to pass on. Then to Falooja, and between Idsaid and Karatiyah on our right, and the Arak Munshiyah on the left. Halted at Brair ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... h.p., which is estimated to 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
... making a great effort to get within much closer range 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 were ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... protection, defending, maintenance; guard, protection, palisade, rampart, bulwark, fortress, blockhouse, fortification, earthwork, breastwork, shield, armor, stockade, buckler, redoubt, remblai, palladium, garrison, ravelin, reliance, muniment, machicolation; vindication, advocacy, plea, excuse. Antonyms: betrayal, exposure, surrender, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Chatti,[329] Usipi, and Mattiaci,[330] had already retired, having got sufficient loot and suffered some loss. Our troops surprised them while they were scattered along the road, and immediately attacked. Moreover, the Treviri had built a rampart and breastwork all along their frontier and fought the Germans again and again with heavy loss to both sides. Before long, however, they rebelled, and thus sullied their great services to the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... make them 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 ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... 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
... 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
... the barrier; and their business was simply to rush it; to advance at the charge, holding their fire until within the breastwork. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... took place in a part of the bowl where there were a large number of immense boulders scattered. Seeing that these formed a natural protection, or breastwork, Bud called to his cousins and the men to get ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... "Things are going to go all right, but a good general always looks to it that he has a way of retreat ready. Now, as soon as Chris has coffee ready, we will have one last talk together about this thing." Shouldering his rifle, he made his way to the breastwork of fallen trees, where he paced back and forth until Chris came ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fighting force; and the slopes in front and rear were steep enough to give an attacking enemy a sharp climb. Moreover, there was a plentiful outcropping of stone on the summit, scantiest on the broad or outer end of the hill, and this was so disposed as to form a natural breastwork ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... shoot us down? Suddenly two splendid rockets go up: we can see as if it were midday. We are half a dozen marines and are standing twenty metres from the German trenches. On the other side of the wire entanglements an officer and men, behind the breastwork pointed helmets and caps. All remains quiet. We look round carefully. 'Nothing. There are only corpses here. We are going back, you go back, too.' 'Merci, camerades francais!' calls the officer, and his men repeat the greeting of their superior. As ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... cabin. The boilers were protected by bales of cotton, which were piled on the guards, and the pilot-house was defended in the same manner. A few bales were also placed on the boiler-deck to serve as a breastwork. The whole was under the command of the lieutenant, who, judging by the orders he issued, knew nothing whatever of the management of ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... among the loosely tumbled rocks, which served at once as a breastwork and as rests for their guns. The projecting roof of the cave was over them; through the obscure opening they pointed their pieces. Above them, in the full light, were the frightened confederates, some on the tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff; while their ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... the fire of which in a few 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 strength to ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... sirr, I think. I cannot see them, but that wee breastwork will not cover more than a ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of Monterey: its noble flanking mountains, the Silla and the Mitras, are east and west of it; its grand rampart, the Sierra Madre, sweeps majestically from flank to flank to the southward, and its outlying breastwork, a range of far-away blue peaks, is seen mistily off in the north. And the city is in keeping with its setting. The quaint, mysterious houses, inclosing sunny gardens and tree-planted court-yards; the great cathedral where, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... chimneys, and had, from this shelter, directed a destructive fire on the troops. They were at length discovered, and a cannon was levelled against the chimney. But, before firing, the gunner made signal to the men to escape, contenting himself with demolishing their breastwork. As another company of soldiers, led by its officer, was marching through the streets, one of the mob rushed forward, and, with a mad audacity, struck the officer on the head with a bar of iron. He staggered, and his face overflowed with blood; but he still had strength enough to raise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... this point, whence the view is magnificent, and where the natural sculpture of the granite is even more imposing to the spectator than the mass of the huge breastwork when seen from the sandy road which skirts ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... troops had been secreted on board the merchantmen, which news created intense excitement, and three hundred men, under Colonel McIntosh, were marched to Yamacraw Bluff, opposite the shipping, and there threw up a hasty breastwork, through which they trained three four-pounders to bear upon the vessels. Anxious, however, to avoid bloodshed, Lieutenant Daniel Roberts, of the St. John's Rangers, and Mr. Raymond Demere, of St. ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... right in front of them appeared the dark muzzles of cannon, and the white uniforms of Austrian soldiers. One last shout, which rose high above all the roar of the battle, the bayonets went glittering over the breastwork like the spray of a breaking wave, and the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... about the burly mountains, and stifles them in its close embrace. It trails along the hills, floating in filmy, parting gauze, scattering little flecks of pearl, fringing itself over the hollows, and hustling against a rocky breastwork that bars its onward going. It wreathes upward, curling around the peaks and veiling summits, whose slopes shine white in the unclouded sun. It shuts down gray, dense, sombre, with moody monotone. It opens roguishly one little ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... supplied with arms and ammunition than his enemy, he did great execution among them. In the first battle he killed three hundred Indians, and took about one hundred prisoners. After which the Tuscororas retreated to their town, within a wooden breastwork; there Barnwell surrounded them, and having killed a considerable number, forced the remainder to sue for peace: some of his men being wounded, and others having suffered much by constant watching, and much hunger and fatigue, the savages more easily obtained their request. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... machine is given. After the bands of the sheaves have been cut, the latter are fed into the mouth of the drum A by the feeder, who stands in the feeding-box on the top of the machine. The drum revolves at a very high velocity, and is fitted with fluted beaters which act against a steel concave, or breastwork, B, the grain being threshed out of the straw in passing between the two. The breastwork is provided with open wires, through which most of the threshed grain, cavings (short straws), and chaff passes on to a sloping ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... mask their monsters more perfectly. He saw them 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 ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... entered the works together with the fugitives. Before the garrison had recovered from their first surprise, the Earl was master of the outworks, had taken several pieces of cannon, and had thrown up a breastwork to defend his men. He then sent off for Stanhope's reserve. While he was waiting for this reinforcement, news arrived that three thousand men were marching from Barcelona towards Monjuich. He instantly ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ill stone that doesn't fall to somebody's good," he said. "That big fellow is squarely in the path of anybody who advances to attack us, and adds materially to our breastwork. If they'll only drop a few more they'll make an ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... at the 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
... [375] [When 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
... any man with a musket on his shoulder, encumbered with a cartridge-box, haversack, canteen, etc., attempt to climb over a body of felled timber to get at an enemy who is coolly shooting at him from behind a log breastwork, and he will realize the difficulty of forcing a way through such obstacles. Our artillery, too, swept every avenue of approach, so that the line might be considered as almost impregnable. Before giving up the attack, however, Stuart was directed ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs, behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... 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
... one side of 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 ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... people of Boston who were gathered below the old State House. Again it was said that the form of a tall, white-bearded man in antique garb was seen in that street, warning back the troops and encouraging the people to resist them. On the little field of Lexington in early dawn, and at the breastwork on Bunker Hill, where farmers worked by lantern-light, this dark form was seen—the spirit of New England. And it is told that whenever any foreign foe or domestic oppressor shall dare the temper of the people, in the van of the resisting army shall ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... withdrew into the house with Riah and Miss Jenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side of her, within the half-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... birds and children of coming generations. Half the houses are still largely built of wood from the forest of olden times that has now disappeared; and ancient bow-windows jut out over the side causeways. Some of the old exclusive mansions continue to boast in a breastwork of stone pillars linked together by chains of iron, intended as a defence against impertinent intruders, but more often serving as safe swinging-places for the young children sent to play in the streets. Perhaps of all times of the year the little town looks its best on a sunny autumn ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... some three or four and at certain points even five systems of trenches, one behind the other. Hundreds of thousands of thick tree trunks had been worked into these defensive works and millions of sand bags piled up as breastwork. Bombproof dugouts had been constructed deep in the ground. Everywhere there were strong wire entanglements before the front, sometimes sunk below the level of the earth, arranged in from two to three ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various |
