"Breastwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... 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 was not immediately occupied by the ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... 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
... made for defence. Trees were hastily felled to blockade the road. A breastwork of logs was thrown up at a commanding position, in front of which was an abattis of young trees and brush piled up to obstruct approach. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon had only some forty-three regulars and two hundred Indiana, to oppose a force of nearly ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... sangar[obs3]; barrier, barricade; boom; portcullis, chevaux de frise[Fr]; abatis, abattis[obs3], abbatis[obs3]; vallum[obs3], circumvallation[obs3], battlement, rampart, scarp; escarp[obs3], counter-scarp; glacis, casemate[obs3]; vallation[obs3], vanfos[obs3]. buttress, abutment; shore &c. (support) 215. breastwork, banquette, curtain, mantlet[obs3], bastion, redan[obs3], ravelin[obs3]; vauntmure[obs3]; advance work, horn work, outwork; barbacan[obs3], barbican; redoubt; fort-elage[Fr], fort-alice; lines. loophole, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... 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 opinion ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... Catana. Thereupon Nicias, who was fully informed of their movements, embarked his troops 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 ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... was aware of a sort of tarpaulin cupboard under the breastwork, of creeping trails of wire on the ground, and ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... at his beard and pacing to and fro; "here is the place for a stronghold, Master Carver, just here where we are standing. See you now, from a breastwork thrown up hereabout and mounted with a minion or two a man could sweep off an army. 'T is but a pretty shot to the rock whereon we landed, and where any but a fool would choose to land, since it is the only dry-shod landing on the beach; and here we have Bradford's ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to the Vitruvian scheme. The columns between nave and aisles, Vitruvius proceeds, are the same height as the width of the latter, and the aisle is covered with a flat roof forming a terrace (contignatio) on which people can walk. Surrounding this on the inner side is a breastwork or parapet (pluteum), which would conceal these promenaders from the view of the merchants in the basilica below. On the top of this parapet stood the upper row of columns, three-quarters as high as the lower ones. The spaces between these columns, above the top of the pluteum, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... are driven back. Some noble men were lost here. Parks, of Company D, is mortally wounded; Daniel Graham is made prisoner. In the retreat, two men carry back John Stanley, wounded in the arm and side. At the wood they rally. A fence is torn down, and with this and whatever is nearest at hand a breastwork is hastily improvised. A few of the Bucktails have rallied on their right, and thrown up a similar defense of logs, rails, any thing that can stop a bullet. Here the line seems to terminate; but just beyond and a little back, is a brass battery, concealed ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... our breastwork none too soon," said Willet. "There'll be so many stars by and by that those fellows can pick out our place and send their bullets to it. What do you think, Tayoga? Is it just a band taking the chance to get some scalps, or are they sent ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... 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
... 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 ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... refuge to them, if attained; but it would be more of a shelter than the open prairie, where, if driven to bay, there was not the slightest protection against the bullets of the Sioux, unless the body of Jack should be used as a breastwork. ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... the right, advancing in double-quick time, rung the war-cry, "Remember the Alamo!" received the enemy's fire, and advanced within point-blank shot before a piece was fired from our lines. Our line advanced without a halt, until they were in possession of the woodland and the enemy's breastwork, the right wing of Burleson's and the left wing of Millard's taking possession of the breastwork; our Artillery having gallantly charged up within seventy yards of the enemy's cannon, when it was ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... about 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 as to take part ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... to take a look into the trench, for I reasoned that this sentry must be alone or some one else would have put up the flare while he fired the shot. Probably the rest of his regiment were on a working fatigue not far away. It was a breastwork trench and I climbed up the sand-bags, but tripped over a wire at the top and came down with a clatter. A red flare went up and I heard the feet of many soldiers running along the duck-boards. I only had time to roll ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... a pang Unfathomable seized the Prince's heart; Like a wild beast, spurred on of hate and vengeance, Forward he lunged with us at the redoubt. Flying, we cleared the trench and, at a bound, The shelt'ring breastwork, bore the garrison down, Scattered them out across the field, destroyed; Capturing the Swede's whole panoply of war— Cannon and standards, kettle-drums and flags. And had the group of bridges at the Rhyn Hemmed not our murderous course, not one had lived Who might have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... 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 the act ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... 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, ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... burning there by night. At the foot of this 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 a few years before. The rest of the cemetery was strongly ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... the men who happened to be drawn up before the prison door to relieve the guard, attacked them sword in hand, threw them suddenly into surprise by the manner in which I laid about me, wounded four of them, made way through the rest, sprang over the breastwork of the ramparts, and, with my sword drawn in my hand, immediately leaped this astonishing height without receiving the least injury. I leaped the second wall with equal safety and good fortune. None of their pieces were loaded; no one durst leap after me, and in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy," muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly looked over the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the brazen trumpet pealed Its summons, and the war-shout rent the air. On press the Volscians, locking shield to shield, And fill the trenches, and the breastwork tear. These plant their ladders for assault, where'er A gap, just glimmering, shows the line less dense. Vain hope! the Teucrians with their darts are there. Stout poles they ply, and thrust them from the fence, Trained by a lingering ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... 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 ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... (ruby glass, for the wine which "giveth his colour" on the ground, might be fitter for the rifle prize in ladies' hands). Or, conceive a little volunteer exercise with the spade, other than such as is needed for moat and breastwork, or even for the burial of the fruit of the leaden avena-seed, subject ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... firing, to allow the guns to cool. Two engineer officers with fifty stout sappers, who each had a rose noble for every quarter of an hour's work, got on to the breach in front of the sand hill, and threw up a small breastwork, strengthened by palisades, across it. An officer crept down towards the Old Haven, and presently returned with the news that two thousand of the enemy were wading across, and forming up in battalions on the ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... before understand Mahmud's delay. Now, I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... veritable wilderness; a brown, arid, treeless table-land, strewn with immense grey boulders, and shut in by lofty mountains. The ancient walls of Avila, constructed of brown granite, and surmounted by a breastwork, with eighty-six towers and nine gateways, are still in excellent repair; but a large part of the city lies beyond their circuit. Avila is the seat of a bishop, and contains several ecclesiastical buildings of high interest. The Gothic cathedral, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... the volcanic peak that had been observed to cap the spur of the mountain chain which stretched out right into the water at an angle with the land; and, here, there was every probability of their finally finding an opening in the breastwork of adamantine rocks that ranged along the coast-line as if to prevent any intrusive strangers like ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... he began forthwith to entrench himself behind deep ditches and artful palisades. It is impossible now to stand on that spot, without recognising the military skill with which the Saxon had taken his post, and formed his precautions. He surrounded the main body of his troops with a perfect breastwork against the charge of the horse. Stakes and strong hurdles interwoven with osier plaits, and protected by deep dykes, served at once to neutralise the effect of that arm in which William was most powerful, and in which Harold almost entirely failed; while the possession of the ground must ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have seen the incredible slaughter toward or through which the armies (as at first Fredericksburg, and afterward at the Wilderness,) still unhesitatingly obey'd orders to advance. We have seen them in trench, or crouching behind breastwork, or tramping in deep mud, or amid pouring rain or thick-falling snow, or under forced marches in hottest summer (as on the road to get to Gettysburg)—vast suffocating swarms, divisions, corps, with every single man so grimed and black with sweat and dust, his ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... 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
... wing, take the redoubt in the rear, and cut off retreat to Bunker Hill and the mainland. The light infantry moved closely along the Mystic. The grenadiers advanced upon the stone fence, while the British left demonstrated toward the unprotected gap which was between the fence and the short breastwork next the redoubt. General Pigot with the extreme left wing moved directly upon the redoubt. The British artillery had been supplied with twelve-pound shot for six-pounder guns, and, thus disabled, were ordered to use only grape. The guns were, therefore, advanced to the edge of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the nearest posts held by the defenders. By way of covering themselves from this fire, the besieged at once constructed a new battery on the upper cistern in the Peter Street. From this they were soon able to open fire upon the new Swedish breastwork on the tower at the Peter Gate, the result being the enemy's speedy and enforced retirement into one of the lower and less exposed rooms of the gate-tower. Yet the Swedes had this time undoubtedly gained an ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... rapidly we discussed the thing. As a result, with the help of the Zulus, we dragged together some loose stones and the tops of three small thorn trees which we had cut down, and with them made a low breastwork, sufficient to give us some protection if we lay down to shoot. It was the work of a few minutes since we had prepared the material when we camped in case an ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... 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
... 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 ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... 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 distance for each to retire into safety. (57) In the ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... little of the food. He sat apart on a piece of timber that projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself over to infinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took Alice's locket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet which struck him had almost entirely destroyed the face ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... 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
... 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 to do ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... behind the barrier of bags, but, before following them, Captain Horn, with the butt of his rifle, drew a long, deep furrow in the sand about a hundred feet from the breastwork of bags, and parallel with it. Then ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... under the 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 ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... turning to his men, "up with your axes and clubs, we've got to batter down this breastwork, and ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley |
