"Musketry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he thought must be exposed to the fire of the musketeers. As to the guards, they penetrated further and further, with exclamations that grew fainter as they advanced. All at once, a discharge of musketry, growling like thunder, exploded in the entrails of the vault. Two or three balls were flattened against the rock on which Biscarrat was leaning. At the same instant, cries, shrieks, imprecations burst forth, and the little troop of gentlemen reappeared—some ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he heard the alarm from the great bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois—that fatal bell which had rung in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew two hundred and twenty years before—and almost immediately after there came the sounds of musketry and cannonading from the direction of the palace of the Tuileries. The attack had already begun, and Calvert thought with a thrill of horror of the fate that awaited Beaufort and those other loyal servants of ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Sleepless we rest upon our arms. Dim lights flit through the shade: We hear the groans of dying men, the rattle of the spade. And when the morning dawns at last, resounding from afar We hear the crash of musketry, the rising din of war. O comrades, comrades, rally round, close up your ranks again; Weep not our brethren fallen upon the crimson plain; For unborn ages shall their tombs with freshest laurels twine; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ship the schooner resumed its fire, and one ball cut away the spanker-boom and slightly wounded two of the men with splinters. The guns of the ship were now brought to bear on the boats, but without effect, although the shot plunged into the water all round them. As they drew nearer a brisk fire of musketry was opened on them, and the occasional falling of an oar and confusion on board showed that the shots told. The pirates replied vigorously, but without effect, as the men of the ship ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... have come thither at all, and Madame de Nemours began to dispute with him, but Mademoiselle interfered, saying: 'Recollect, while you are discussing useless questions the Prince is in the utmost danger;' and, as we heard the cries of the people and beyond them the sharp rattle of musketry, she threatened them with appealing ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has been curious. I wrote it between January and March 1916, when I was seventeen and a half years old and in camp at Berkhamsted with the Inns of Court O.T.C. I loathed it there, everything about it, the impersonal military machine, the monotonous routine of drills and musketry, the endless foot-slogging, the perpetual petty fault-finding. I kept comparing my present life with that which I had been leading ten, eighteen, thirty months ago at Sherborne, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... des Invalides, his umbrella swaying and snapping in the wind much like the sail of a derelict, could see in fancy that celebrated field whereon this eclipse had been supernally prearranged. He could hear the boom of cannon, the thunder of cavalry, the patter of musketry, now thick, now scattered, and again not unlike the subdued rattle of rain on the bulging silk careening before him. He held the handle of the umbrella under his arm, for the wind had a temper mawling and destructive, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... toward El Caney. It had been opened up there about half an hour before Grimes first spoke at El Poso. The fire in this direction sounded like ranging fire, a shot every two or three minutes, and it was supposed that Capron was trying to locate the enemy. The sharp crack of musketry was heard on our front, it swelled and became continuous. It was evident that quite a fight was going on at El Caney, which was to our right about one mile and to our front perhaps half a mile. Kent's Division kept pushing forward on the El Poso road. Col. McClernand was asked ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... I was gazetted I went out to India with the regiment, and arrived just in time to get up by forced marches to take part in the battle of Chillianwalla. The consequence was that up to that time I literally had heard no musketry practice. ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... met them with blasts of lead which shrivelled the grey columns as leaves are shrivelled by an autumn wind. By mid-afternoon the Belgians and Germans were in places barely a hundred yards apart, and the rattle of musketry sounded like a boy drawing a stick along the palings of a picket-fence. During the height of the battle a Zeppelin slowly circled over the field like a great vulture awaiting a feast. So heavy was the fighting that the embankment of ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... night had changed to sudden tempest, and the sky grown dark as death. It was a night for the fall of a dynasty. But there was a lurid blaze in the distant horizon, and from time to time a shout, or a sound of musketry, which told me only too well where Versailles lay. I need not say what my feelings were while I was traversing that solitary road, yet within hearing of this tremendous mass of revolt; or what I imagined in every roar, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... but suddenly it was interrupted by a very brisk fire of artillery and musketry. A radiant flash seemed to light up the emperor's face, and proudly raising his head, he said, in an ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... at Bunker's Hill was discussed at the supper-table one evening in June, I being present, and Margaret heard how bravely the British charged the third and successful time up to the rebel works, after being hurled back twice by a very hell of musketry, she dropped her fork, and ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... thundered by them, striking wildly with their sabres as they passed. At headlong speed these mounted madmen shot past the spot where Byring had sat, and vanished round an angle of the road, shouting and firing their pistols. A moment later there was a roar of musketry, followed by dropping shots—they had encountered the reserve-guard in line; and back they came in dire confusion, with here and there an empty saddle and many a maddened horse, bullet- stung, snorting and plunging with pain. It was all over—"an ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... chief of police from Dieppe, the villagers, all circulated to and fro in the halls, examining every nook and corner that was open to their inspection. The approach of the maneuvering troops, the rattling fire of the musketry, added to the picturesque character of ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... under arms; and, while the New-England Indians and their squaws stood gazing in wondering silence, they chanted the Te Deum, the Exaudiat, and the Domine salvum fac Regem. Then, amid volleys of musketry and shouts of Vive le Roi, La Salle planted the column in its place, and, standing near it, proclaimed in ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... fire-words (of public speaking) and fire whirlwinds (of cannon and musketry,) which for a season darkened the air, are perhaps at bottom ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... infantry was pressing rapidly forward. General Wilson was wondering what had become of Hulings. Not a warlike sound came from the village, a mile and a half away. Had the garrison escaped? Suddenly from beyond the town came the rattle of musketry. Soon the sound swelled into a steady roar, which the mountains echoed ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... troops were seen rushing from the gate of the fortress, and plunging into the valley. The result of this powerful sortie was soon heard, for every thing was invisible under the thick cloud, which grew thicker every moment, in the volleys of musketry, and the shouts of the troops on both sides. Varnhorst now received an order from the chief of the staff, which produced its effect, in the rush of a squadron of Prussian cavalry on the flank of the enemy's column. In a few minutes it was broken, and we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... pickets reported mounted men in the woods near by, as had previously been the report at Woodstock. This admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate arrangements were made to have the gun crews all in readiness, and to keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little use now, and I did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. The chief obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was going on, and were almost ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... appearance of an enemy to alarm the country by signals—probably by a fire. Resolute men might have defended themselves in this little fastness against many assailants, who must have been completely exposed to their arrows or musketry in the ascent. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... sound of a shot. Another and another—then a volley, which almost at once became a continuous rattle of musketry. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... thundered along the rocky hills, and sharp volleys of musketry, proclaimed that the ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... little longer. Hunger did what cannon were incapable of doing. The successive sallies made by Bazaine proved unavailing, though, on October 7th his soldiers fought with desperate energy, and for hours the air was full of the roar of cannon and mitrailleuse and the rattle of musketry. But the Germans withstood the attack unmoved, and the French were forced ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... drew near to the enemy a volley of musketry was poured into her, which was promptly returned, and several of the crew on both sides dropped to the deck, and were borne to the cockpit, though the relative strength of each remained about as before, as nearly as the officers on the quarter-deck of the ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... spoke there came a long crackle of musketry, and bullets seemed to hop like hailstones on the ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... entered the cleared space between the chiefs and caboocers surrounding the King and the thousands of warriors and spectators, salvo after salvo of musketry was fired, until the smoke obscured all objects in our immediate vicinity. Around the sacrificial bowl were grouped a dozen or more royal executioners with their faces whitewashed and hideously decorated. Some upon their heads wore caps of monkey skin with the face in front, while others ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... troops had been introduced into neighboring houses, machine guns had been installed on rooftops, companies of infantry were picketed at street corners. Suddenly throughout the town all this hell was let loose. The streets gave back the echo a thousandfold. The crackle of musketry and din of machine guns was positively infernal. As evening came and darkened into night, one after another of the Bulgarian forts Chabrol surrendered, sometimes persuaded thereto by the deadly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... a bay of rocks. Sailors have given them the name of "gun-stones"; perhaps because the sound of the breakers reminds one of the cracking of musketry fire. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... British charged, and as the raw Pennsylvanian troops in the van wavered, Washington rode to the front, and reining his horse within thirty yards of the British, ordered his men to advance. The volleys of musketry left him unscathed, the men stood firm, the other divisions came rapidly into action, and the enemy gave way in all directions. The two other British regiments were driven through the town and routed. Had there been cavalry ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and Warrior Islands, there was a livelier encounter. A squadron of canoes attacked both ships in a daring and vigorous fashion. The Assistant was pressed with especial severity, so that Portlock had to signal for help. A volley of musketry had little effect upon the Papuans; and when one wing of the attacking squadron, numbering eight canoes, headed for the Providence, and a musket was fired at the foremost, the natives responded with a great shout and paddled ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... poop and forecastle, thus giving to the men a shelter, which was further increased by strong bulkheads ("co-bridgeheads") across the main-deck below, dividing the ship thus into a number of separate forts, fitted with swivels ("bases, fowlers and murderers") and loopholed for musketry and arrows. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and with the walls about five feet thick. Round this room were loopholes in the walls, at such an elevation, that the men would be obliged to stand on benches in the event of their being required to oppose an attack of musketry. Those benches were also used as the sleeping-places of the garrison. On this floor there was a fire-place, and from the centre was a trap-door leading downwards to the ammunition and provision rooms. The second floor was ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... and anger seemed to grow as he went on, and for twenty minutes he snapped out his questions till it seemed as if we were facing a running fire of musketry. His square, smooth-shaven chin was thrust out between his bushy side-whiskers, and his eyes shot fiercely, first at Roger, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... loud clamour, and cries as if they were cutting one another's throats, which, in fact, they were. The shouts and cries were mingled with the noise of musketry, the sound of the trumpets, and roll of the drum. There was a strong smell of powder. The fight was evidently going on within a hundred yards of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... body, who numbered fourteen officers and one hundred and sixty men, advanced. Their way led along a ravine nearly half a mile long; and as they moved forward a storm of shot, shell, and grape from the guns was poured upon them, while a heavy musketry fire broke out from the heights on either side. Fast the men fell, but there was no wavering; on at the double they went, until within fifty yards of the guns, and then burst into a charge at ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... instant there was such a rataplan of musketry that one might have imagined the infernal regions had opened. Those who were not killed felt the heat of the flames. I opened my eyes, astonished to find myself alive and even unhurt; a third of the squadron were lying on the ground, wounded, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the noise outside. The crackle of musketry was more noticeable, and every now and then there seemed to be heavy strokes as if directed against the palace, sounding as if the people were attempting to force the iron ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... which operation lasted a few minutes. Whilst so employed, the Dartmouth, distant about half a mile from our ship, had sent a boat, commanded by Lieut. Fitzroy, to request the fireship to remove from her station; a fire of musketry ensued from the fireship into the boat, killing the officer and several men. This brought on a return of small-arms from the Dartmouth and Syrene. Capt. Davis, of the Rose, having witnessed the firing of the Turkish vessel, went in one of his boats to assist that of the Dartmouth; and the crew of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... plead with wild beasts. The half-breeds were deaf to commands, and in vain their leader argued with blows. The shooting had been of a blind sort, and few shots did more than wound; but the natives were venting the pent-up hate of three years and would give no quarter. From musketry volleys the fight had ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... first attempts were fruitless; and the freebooters, who advanced openly, without any other arms than their fusees and sabres, at first lost many of their comrades; for the Spaniards not only made use of all their artillery and musketry against them, but were also seconded by the Indians that were with them in the fort and whose arrows were far ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... dragged out. His cries, whether for mercy or not, were smothered first by a sabre belt, and then for all time by musketry. The Cossacks returned and assured their chief that the execution was bona ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... having reached Suez they embarked on the gunboat, the "Mukhbir," for Moilah, which they reached on December 19th. Burton landed with studied ceremony, his invariable plan when in the midst of savage or semi-civilised people. The gunboat saluted, the fort answered with a rattle and patter of musketry. All the notables drew up in line on the shore. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb, next were the garrison, a dozen Bashi-Bazouks armed with matchlocks, then came Burton's quarry men; and lastly ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the party having disappeared behind a turn of the road, we suddenly heard the cracking of their rifles, mingled with the deeper crash of more numerous musketry; and it was a vivid sensation, new to me, that some of those bullets were surely finding billets in the bodies of men. This seemed an encounter with a force of the enemy outside of the town; and directly we thought, from the movement of the noise, that our riflemen were driving them in. Then there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... toward the red flags; for an instant the gray figures were seen erect upon the summit—then a sudden crash of musketry resounded—and a mad struggle began with a Federal brigade which had ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to have placed them in position to receive the enemy. They did not, however, appear; but on our coming within range of the guns of the citadel and fortress of Ghuzni, a sharp cannonade was opened on our leading column, together with a heavy fire of musketry from behind garden walls, and temporary field-works thrown up, as well as the strong outwork I have already alluded to, which commanded the bed of the river from all but the outwork. The enemy were ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... corvette was seen working up under all sail. She approached; her anchor was dropped, and her boats, being lowered, pulled in towards the wreck. As they got near, the people on shore, balked in their first project, opened a hot fire of musketry on them. The boats had not come unarmed. The larger ones were immediately anchored, and, each having a gun of some weight, opened a hot fire on the beach. This was more than the slave-dealers had bargained for. They were ready enough to kill others, but ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... force; these are connected by a cross range, that present an apparently impassable barrier to an advancing foe. This position is surmounted by a small fort with a court-yard, whose walls are pierced for musketry. Four guns of indifferent quality are here mounted, commanding the approaches on either side, while three guard-houses, each capable of holding two or three companies, have been built on the most elevated positions, flanking ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... diameter, capped with red Agra stone and sunk eighty feet below the shifting sand of the Ganges' bed. Above them ran the railway-line fifteen feet broad; above that, again, a cart-road of eighteen feet, flanked with footpaths. At either end rose towers of red brick, loopholed for musketry and pierced for big guns, and the ramp of the road was being pushed forward to their haunches. The raw earth-ends were crawling and alive with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny asses climbing out of the yawning borrow-pit below with sackfuls of stuff; and the hot afternoon air was filled ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... of always having the decks kept clear of unnecessary lumber of every kind; but the bulwarks were strengthened and raised, for the purpose of affording the crew as much protection as possible from the enemy's musketry fire; the lower yards were fitted with chain slings, so that the risk of their being shot away, and the ship thus disabled at a critical moment, might be minimised as much as possible; parties of musketrymen ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... bowshot, and the hush that held the camp suddenly broke like the release of pent waters. There were yells and stamping, the smash of tom-toms, and a scattering salvo of musketry. It was a united roar that shut out from our consciousness the thought of the calm sky and ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... stepped to the door to watch, and at that moment a big blue car trundled into view around the bend of the road. The rear wheels struck a slide of sand and dust, and skidded; a girl cried out; then the big machine gathered out of the cloud of dust, and came toward Andy with a crackling like musketry, and it was plain that it would leap through Martindale and away into the country beyond at a bound. Andy could see now that it was a roadster, low-hung, ponderous, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... reserves had been posted. There they lay in heaps and piles, killed by solid shot or bursting shells that had leaped the battle line to plunge into the waiting ranks beyond. As the sun lifted higher its beams fell within the range of musketry fire, where the dead lay thicker,—even as they had fallen when killed outright,—with arms extended and feet at all angles to the field. As it touched these dead upturned faces, strangely enough it brought out no expression ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... this time like the sound of a musketry fusilade, during which Berkeley Fresno entered by the ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... they were boys and set rabbit-traps on the South-Branch Mountain? But there was a strange look in the old man's eyes Bone did not recognize,—a new and awful thought. Now and then the sharp crack of the musketry jarred him. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... of conflict; horses and mules neighing and screaming and straining at their ropes, dogs barking, men yelling, the clash of swords, the rattle and crash of musketry, the screams of the wounded and the groans of the dying. Was ever such a pandemonium? The Guides in small knots, though hard stricken, fought with determined courage; but they were gradually driven back, inch by inch, till they were almost on to the guns parked in the rear. Then came to ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... beside my grandfather and listen to his stories of Bunker Hill and Saratoga,—how he and his comrades stood upon those fields and fought for their country. I could almost see the fight and hear the cannon's roar, the rattle of the musketry, and the shouts of victory. They won their independence, and established the best government the world ever saw. But there are men in this country who hate that government, who have plotted against it, and who have brought about the present Great Rebellion to ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... infantry, through defiles in the mountains, and moved on the fort about midnight. The Americans went to the attack in two columns, with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets. They were unseen until within pistol-shot of the pickets. Undeterred by the hasty discharge of musketry and cannon the Americans pressed on with the bayonet, the two columns meeting in the centre of the fort. The garrison surrendered, and the Americans, after removing the ordnance and stores to West Point, and destroying the ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... of the best structures of the kind ever erected in the West. It was capable of accommodating five or six companies of infantry, was surrounded by a high stone wall, and protected at the only exposed approaches by stone bastions guarded by cannon and musketry. Its supply of water was obtained from a well in the parade ground, near the sutler's store, which was sunk below the surface of the river. It was perfectly impregnable to any savage enemy, and in consequence was never called ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... field-piece and for reinforcements. Bourke reached the fort, but after he had placed the small cannon in a cart he was permitted by those in the fort to take only one man away with him. He and his companion began to drag the cart down the road. Suddenly they were startled by the sound of the musketry fire in the distance which had struck down Semple's party. Fearing lest they might lose the gun, the pair turned back towards the fort. On their way they were met by ten men from Fort Douglas, hurrying to the scene of the conflict. Bourke told his {100} comrade ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... how cried on all sides, for the fall of the leading elephant and the volleys of musketry from the Hottentots had so frightened the herd, that they had begun to separate and break off two or three together, or singly in every direction. The shrieks and trumpetings, and the crashing of the boughs so near to them, were ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... Suddenly a shot is fired from the dense and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each dropping its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction, when a more murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights above flash with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came seems to close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and their agile and noiseless foes have settled ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... feigned, ordered his men to take as much of the spoil as they could remove, and to destroy the remainder. On their return to the fort, above the landing, and near where the old French fort stood, a party of 200 regular troops appeared, and prepared to give battle. A smart fire of musketry, aided by the cannon from the fort, soon obliged them to retreat, when Willet returned into the fort with his spoil, and without the loss of a single man. A part of that spoil was placed upon the walls of the ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... the sick are seen by a medical officer and either prescribed for or sent into hospital, as may be necessary. Stables are provided for the officers' and transport horses, and a vehicle shed and storehouse for the mobilization equipment. Stores are required for bread, meat, coal, clothing, and for musketry, signalling, and general small stores under the quartermaster's charge—also workshops for armourers, carpenters, plumbers, painters and glaziers, shoemakers, and tailors. Mention of the fives court, recreation ground and parade ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that, loop-holed for musketry, and perforated with plated trapdoor for sterner needs, separated soldiers from prisoners, was close to her left hand, and the sentry at its padlocked door looked at her inquiringly. She laid her little hand on his big rough ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... became comparatively quiet on our left and in the cemetery; but volleys of musketry on the right told us that Longstreet's infantry were advancing, and the onward progress of the smoke showed that he was progressing favourably; but about 6.30 there seemed to be a check, and even a slight retrograde movement. Soon after 7 General Lee got a report ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... raging and swearing like maniacs. Suddenly there was no one to be seen near me; the noise of muskets, the roar of cannonry, red flashes in the fog in front—that was all, as I stood panting and dazed. Next I heard wild cries back of me, and the crash of musketry. Stephens's division, coming up behind us, began to fire, mistaking us, in the infernal darkness, for an enemy. Our people broke under it, and, passing me, ran, beaten; for the panic spread in ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... fear from anything the Covenanters could bring against him. He had been writing despatches throughout the night; and he was sitting in the best house in Selkirk, penning a letter to his sovereign, when he was startled by the sounds of cannon and of musketry. He rushed to the street. The inhabitants were hurrying from their houses—many of his cavalry were mingling, half-dressed, with the crowd. "To horse!—to horse!" shouted Montrose. His command was promptly obeyed; and, in a few minutes, at the head of his cavalry, he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... stillness all about, enabled me to hear the voices of the men in the kitchen below, and to become aware that the firing, sounding from a distance since early morning, seemed now much closer at hand. It was not altogether artillery any longer, but I could plainly distinguish the volleys of musketry. What could this signify? Were the Confederates being forced back? If so would the Hardy house be caught in the maelstrom of retreat? The possibility of such a result only made haste more imperative. There were three doors at the right, and two opposite. I opened these cautiously, half expecting ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... intrepid king, thundering at the very gates of the English fort. The village was swept with the hot breath of battle. Thousands perished before this invincible army. The English soldiers poured hot shot and musketry into the columns of the advancing army; but on they marched to victory with an impurturbable air, worthy of "the old guard" under Ney at Waterloo. Preparations were completed for blowing up the walls of the fort; and it would have been but a few hours until the king of Ashantee ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... lining the overhanging range with Juzzylchees, and picking off every individual who ventured to appear on the battlements. It is now in our possession, and occupied by two companies of Sepoys; and though the place might be seriously annoyed by musketry from the adjacent hills, still the sides of those hills are so rocky and precipitous that cannon could not be brought to bear from ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... musketry, and through one of the loopholes he saw that the Mexican cavalry in the wood had opened a distant fire. Only a few of the bullets reached the church, and they fell spent against the stones. Ned saw that very little harm was ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... beat back the infantry assaults of the enemy, and by giving up direct fire at long or medium ranges and placing our trenches on the reverse slope of a hill or behind the crest, it is in many places possible to gain shelter from the frontal fire of the German guns, for the men are well trained in musketry and under good fire control, and the dead ground beyond the short range from their ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Wallachian army, and not a hair of their heads will be touched. We shall be shot at, but from such a distance that we shall never know it. We will tell the young lady it is the custom in our country to receive bridal parties with a volley of musketry. When we reach the Borev Bridge we are as good as at home, and we shall be there before any one can overtake us, ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... and event of the onset were, throughout, quite as dreadful as the mental emotion which urged it. Notwithstanding that the three files of the front line of English poured forth their incessant fire of musketry—notwithstanding that the cannon, now loaded with grapeshot, swept the field as with a hailstorm—notwithstanding the flank fire of Wolfe's regiment—onward, onward went the headlong Highlanders, flinging themselves into, rather than rushing upon, the lines of the enemy, which, indeed, they ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... battle, but if they made any more noise at Bull Run than Boston was making, I'm glad I wasn't there. I thought I was running away from the biggest fight on record. It was what our military authors call 'a continual roll of musketry.' But while running away from one battle I piled into another and had all the fight I needed on my hands. The dogs and two bears were mixed up in some sort of disagreement about things in general, and I was in it, as the Dude would say, with both feet and a crutch. ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... puff of smoke came from the stern of the ship, followed by the sound of a rifle shot in the distance, after which followed a regular fusillade of musketry fire. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of mind, and he had learned that respect could outlive even a belief in the thing upon which it was founded. Mr. Jonathan and he had been soldiers together. His old commander still entered his thoughts to the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon, and a single sublime action at Malvern Hill had served in the mind of the soldier to spread a legendary glamour over a life which held hardly another incident that ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... exit through the door of the said holy church, where the President and Regent separated, passed to their respective places and were substituted by Justice Foncerrada and Calderon, state's attorney, and upon leaving the church it was saluted by the said picket with a discharge of musketry, and there followed the Fieldmarshal and Commander of Engineers Antonio Barba, the Brigadier and Commander of militia Joaquin Cabrera, the Brigadier and Commander of the fort Antonio Cansi, and the colonel of the regiment 'Cantabria,' Gaspar de Casasola, and thereafter the military officers ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... to make a "razzia" upon the cattle of the natives, which, of course, I prohibited. It had been instigated by the traders, who were determined, if possible, to stop my advance. With the heroic assistance of my wife, I quelled the revolt. On February 15, on the rattle of musketry at a great distance, my men rushed madly to my boat with the report that two white men, who had come from the sea, had arrived. Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality; and, with a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... silent. Presently a field—piece was fired, and several rockets were let off in our direction, by whose light we could see a whole company of French soldiers standing to their arms, with several cannon, but we were speedily out of the reach of their musketry. Several round shots were now fired, that hissed, recochetting along the water close by us. Not a word was spoken in the boat all this time; we continued to pull for the opening in the dike, although, the current being strong against us, we made but little way; while the chance of being cut off ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Kurshid Agha was summoned by the constant fire of musketry, a mile or two down the river, and went off in his vessels to the relief. A party of his had come across from the N'yambara country with ivory, and on the banks of the Nile, a few miles north of this, were engaged fighting with the natives. He arrived just ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Pizarro and his followers sprang out into the square. From every avenue of the great building they occupied poured armed men, horse and foot, and rushed in warlike fury upon the Indians. Taken utterly by surprise, the latter were hurled back in confusion. Their ranks rent by the balls from cannon and musketry, hundreds of them trampled under foot by the fierce charges of the cavalry, pierced by lances or cut down by swords, they were driven resistlessly back, falling in multitudes as they wildly ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... wishing them to suffer, even at each other's hands, had betrayed the plan of his master's guest. The court-martial found him guilty and condemned him to be shot. When the execution took place, Ruth, praying and sobbing in her chamber, knew that her husband was no more. The distant sound of musketry reverberated like the roll ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... covered by the fire of the guns and by volleys of musketry. These were answered but feebly by the firearms in the peasants' hands, and the Blues pressed on until, just before they reached the foot of the slope, the peasants charged them ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... went, however, with his Spectator under his arm, whistling. Mrs. Thornburgh caught the sounds through an open window, and tore the flannel across she was preparing for a mothers' meeting with a noise like the rattle of musketry. Whistling! She would like to know what grounds he had for it, indeed! She always knew—she always said, and she would go on saying—that Catherine Leyburn ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his programme no considerable effort has yet been produced so far as we know here. Last night at 10.15 P. M. when it was dark as a rainy night without a moon could be, a furious cannonade soon joined in by a heavy musketry fire opened near Petersburg and lasted about two hours. The sound was very distinct here as also were the flashes of the guns up the clouds. It seemed to me a great battle, but the older hands here scarcely noticed it and sure enough ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the nation. The advance of the hostile host with muskets and swords, and bayonets gleaming in the morning sun; the shouts of the marshaled foemen; the opening roar of the artillery; the sheeted fire of the musketry; the unchecked approach of the enemy; the outflanking by their cavalry and its concentration in our rear; the immovable fortitude of the Illinoians; the flight of the panic-stricken Indianians; the fall of Lincoln; the wild shouts of Mexican triumph; the deadly and successful charge ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... reached it, and were about to climb the ramparts to plant their flag there, a sudden and galling fire of musketry and grape-shot poured out upon them, from a half-masked battery on their left flank, formed by an angle of an ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... the spectators stood, warning them to remove from a position in which they were in as great danger as the combatants themselves. My grandfather accordingly returned home, listening with awe to the sharp report of musketry, intermixed with the booming of cannon, which now informed him that the battle had commenced. He had not been long in the house when a dismounted dragoon made his appearance, requesting to have his left wrist bandaged, so ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... moat. Some were able to check their horses in time, but others, despite desperate efforts, pressed upon by those behind, were pushed into the ravine, and rolled helplessly to the bottom. At the same moment the order to fire was given in a sonorous voice, there was a rattle of musketry, and several dragoons near ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were impracticable in this well-fenced agricultural area, so the training embraced much route-marching, and barrack-square work, musketry, signalling, visual training, etc. There were several trying marches in the scorching May-June weather, to Clive's native district, Moreton-Say and Market Drayton, to Wem and Hodnet, and to the beautiful scenery of Hawkstone Park, and Iscoyd Hall. ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... sieges, and onslaughts, the tidings of which kept continually coming to the ears of the old inhabitants of Boston. The woods of the north were populous with fighting men. All the Indian tribes uplifted their tomahawks, and took part either with the French or English. The rattle of musketry and roar of cannon disturbed the ancient quiet of the forest, and actually drove the bears and other wild beasts to the more cultivated portion of the country in the vicinity of the sea-ports. The children felt as if they were transported back to those forgotten ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... until the blood started on his wrists. A rattling fire of musketry was heard in the direction of the river. After a lull there were more shots followed by yells, which indicated that the savages had been successful ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... that they held the life of any antagonist in their hands, as soon as enough of him appeared to "draw a bead on." Put the same men in the open field where a charge of bayonets was to be met, and they would doubtless have broken and fled without crossing steel. Nor, on the other hand, could any musketry have kept the English columns out of the cotton-bale breast-work;—they had often in the Peninsula stormed stronger works than that,—without faltering for artillery, musketry, or bayonet. But here they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... I own to a sensation of deadly terror for a moment when I saw the ladies in the midst of a lawless rabble whose brawny arms were bared as if prepared for butchery of any kind. Far off, too, a low rattle of distant musketry warned us that the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the American general drew up his men and rapidly advanced to attack the fort, which defended the city. He met with a strong resistance, the enemy numbering about three thousand. A terrible fire of musketry enveloped the combatants in fire and smoke. The voice of General Eaton, though he was wounded, was heard, amid the din ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... there were some who pretended that they heard sounds, and smelled perfumes wafted, like messages, from the hidden shores on which probably they would never land. Every one was kept busy, after a sail bath, with drilling, musketry instruction, physical drill, cleaning of accouterments, a dozen things which made the hours go quickly in a buzz of human activities. Some of the men, Dion among them, were trying to learn Dutch under an instructor ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... was lost, that there was nothing left but to retreat. We had no longer an army, but a mere mob of panic-stricken men. The hideous yelling of the savages, as they saw the slaughter they were doing and exulted in it, the rattle of the musketry, the groans and curses of the wounded who fell everywhere about us, the screams of the maddened horses, combined into a bedlam such as I hope never to hear again. Toward the last, the Virginia troops alone preserved any semblance ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... of the men. They who had fallen wounded from their seats, would crawl along the sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with their scimitars. Nothing could move the French: the bayonet and the continued roll of musketry by degrees thinned the host around them; and Buonaparte at last advanced. Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when he came near the camp, that they abandoned their works, and flung themselves by hundreds into the Nile. The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drowned. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... both equally undaunted and alert; it was like a duel between them; no opening was missed, no chance neglected. The smoke hung in the still air of morning; the long lines of men swayed and undulated beneath it obscurely, and the roar of musketry dinned terribly in the ear, here slackening for a moment, there breaking forth in volleying thunders; and men were dropping everywhere; there were shoutings from the captains, the fierce crash of cheers, yells of triumph or agony, and the faint ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... colouring of a battle-field. The ear had a larger share in the mighty work of the day than the eye. From the sides, the front, the rear, everywhere, cannon thundered, at a short distance on the right echoed the rattle of a sharp fire of musketry, while the terrible, ceaseless roar which filled the air alternately swelled and sank, like the rising and falling flood of melody of a vast orchestra, during the storm ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... marsh covered at the time with two feet of water. The other column led by Butler and Murfree crossed an apology for a bridge. During the advance both columns were discovered by the British sentinels and the rocky defense literally blazed with musketry. In stern silence, however, without faltering, the American columns moved forward, entered the abatis, until the advance guard under Anthony Wayne was within the enemy's works. A bullet at this moment struck Wayne in the forehead grazing his skull. Quickly recovering from the shock, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... caves I could see from my high perch, people were sitting, eating their poor suppers at the cave doors, ready to plunge in again. As the first shell again flew they dived, and not a human being was visible. The sharp crackle of the musketry-firing was a strong contrast to the scream of the bombs. I think all the dogs and cats must be killed or starved, we don't see any more pitiful animals prowling around.... The cellar is so damp and musty the bedding has to be carried out and laid ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... lance length from his body, and sees too that with the first heedless step he will go down to visit the profundities of Neptune's bosom, still with dauntless heart, urged on by honour that nerves him, he makes himself a target for all that musketry, and struggles to cross that narrow path to the enemy's ship. And what is still more marvellous, no sooner has one gone down into the depths he will never rise from till the end of the world, than another takes his place; and if he too falls into the sea that waits for him like an enemy, another ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with the VICOMTE for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the winter moonlight brighten ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... correct, for De Cornusson passed it the evening before. My husband, being thus disappointed in his design, returned to Nerac, and entered at one gate just as Marechal de Biron drew up his troops before the other. There fell so heavy a rain at that moment that the musketry was of no use. The King my husband, however, threw a body of his troops into a vineyard to stop the Marshal's progress, not being able to do more on account of the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... signalling, ballooning and of mounted infantry, Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps and veterinary duties. The work of these schools is, however, only a small part of the military training afforded at Aldershot; of greater importance is the field and musketry training, for the carrying out of which a considerable extent of land is essential. The land required for these purposes extends at present over an area about 9 1/4 m. in extreme length by 7 3/4 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
