"Sortie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... General-in-Chief, who had desired me not to approach the works. "What did you go there for?" said Bonaparte to me, with some severity; "that is not your place." I replied that herthier told me that no assault would take place that day; and he believed there would be no sortie, as the garrison had made one the preceding evening. "What matters that? There might have been another. Those who have nothing to do in such places are always the first victims. Let every man mind his own business. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... supplied with new tactics. Guynemer defied the new tactics of numbers, and in one day, October 17, attacked a group of three one-seated planes, and another group of five. A second time he made a sortie, and attacked a two-seated plane which was aided by five one-seated machines. On another occasion, November 9, he waged six battles with one-seated and two-seated machines, all of which made their escape, one ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... "Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and could draw you a map blindfold and tell you where the counter-batteries stood, and where the lunette which Colborne carried, and how far behind it lay the Convent of San Francisco; where the parallels ran, where the French brought down a howitzer, and where by a sortie they came near to cutting up a division. I could trace you the fausse braye and the main walls, and put my finger on the angle where our guns pierced the greater breach, and carry it across to the tower where, by the lesser breach, our own ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... attack; assault, assault and battery; onset, onslaught, charge. aggression, offense; incursion, inroad, invasion; irruption; outbreak; estrapade[obs3], ruade[obs3]; coupe de main, sally, sortie, camisade[obs3], raid, foray; run at, run against; dead set at. storm, storming; boarding, escalade[obs3]; siege, investment, obsession|!, bombardment, cannonade. fire, volley; platoon fire, file fire; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... changed their minds about the danger of Monckton's guns, though not a shot had yet been fired, and agitated loudly for a sortie across the river. Montcalm thought poorly of the plan; but a miscellaneous force of fifteen hundred Canadians, possessed of more ardor than cohesion, insisted on attempting a night assault. They landed some way up the river, but did not so much as reach the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the first sign of a sortie. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... Parisians, to the great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others. The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a sortie from Paris to attack them. . . . On a certain day the besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle. The King of Navarre issued forth, armed, with his men, and drawing near to the besiegers, had long conversations ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... convention. Marat remains concealed, but his journal appears every day. Weissenau is destroyed by heavy artillery; Dampierre makes a vigorous resistance. A battle between Valenciennes and Conde. The garrison of Lisle makes a powerful sortie. Dumourier is allowed no part in the operations against France; at Frankfort he publishes his contempt for Egalite, and respect for his sons. 21. The Elector of Mayence addresses a letter of thanks to his subjects. The bishop of Liege returns to his dominions. ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... pulling down his trousers legs, which had a tendency to hitch up in what seemed to them a most exasperating disregard for form. To their certain knowledge, Mr. Blithers had never started out before without boot and spur; therefore, the suddenness of his present sortie sank into their intellects ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... trap-door, through which a thin ladder conducted to the roof of the house. It had evidently been constructed when the building was used as a fortification, and was probably intended to enable the garrison to make a sudden sortie on the enemy at an unexpected point. The outside entrance was blocked up by rubbish overgrown with vegetation; and my father had caused a strong door to be placed to the vault, to prevent any intruder, who might by chance have found his way through it, from entering ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... that Lu-don's power increased while that of Ja-don waned. Then followed a sortie from the temple which resulted in the defeat of the palace forces, and though they were able to withdraw in decent order withdraw they did, leaving the palace to Lu-don, who was ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... disparoissent sous la neige et renaissent ensuite comme sous un pont etroit ou sou la voute d'un aqueduc; elles serpentent, se replient a travers les ruines amoncelees, et surmontent les obstacles qui s'opposent a leur sortie. ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... Encircled and criss-crossed with cartridge belts, abundantly garnished with revolvers, and copiously drunk, he poured forth into Quicksand's main street. Too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent sortie, he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan—that fearful, brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano, that had gained for him the classic appellation that had superseded his own baptismal ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... in making a vigorous sortie into the road; but it was only to find the enemy in full retreat, and a few dropping shots at long range ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... it directly, they, so far from giving up, concentrated all their energy and fought like fiends. They had a battery in position, which belched incessantly, and over the breastworks their musketry made one unbroken roll, while against Sheridan's prowlers on their left, by skirmish and sortie, they stuck to their sinking fortunes, so as to win unwilling applause from mouths ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... blunder in hand, and by His grace the wind did change. So the fleet of boats came up and went away loaded with provisions and cattle, and conveyed that welcome succor to the hungry city, managing the matter successfully under protection of a sortie from the walls against the bastille of St. Loup. Then Joan began ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and I remember well that this engraving by Sharp was one of the few ornaments in the drawing-room of Macaulay when I last saw him, shortly before his lamented death. Next to the Doctors of the Church is his LEAR IN THE STORM, after the picture by West, now in the Boston Athenaeum, and his SORTIE FROM GIBRALTAR, after the picture by Trumbull, also in the Boston Athenaeum. Thus, through at least two of his masterpieces whose originals are among us, is our country associated ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... draw out, fetch. sacerdote priest. sacrificar to sacrifice. sacrificio sacrifice. sacrilegio sacrilege. sacudir to shake; shake off. sagrado sacred. sagrario sanctuary. sala room, parlor. salida outlet, sally, sortie. salir to go out, set out, issue; or to turn out. salmodiar to chant. salon m. parlor. saltar to leap. salto leap. salud f. health. saludar to greet, salute. saludo salute. salvar to save. salve hail! san ( santo) saint. sandez ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... morning of the 10th the Russian batteries for the first time opened a heavy fire upon us. But the distance was too great for much harm to be done. On the 11th the Russians made their first sortie, which ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... dale in the rear. Arrived at meeting, the canine part of the establishment generally conducted themselves with great decorum, lying down and going to sleep as decently as any body present, except when some of the business-loving bluebottles aforesaid would make a sortie upon them, when you might hear the snap of their jaws as they vainly sought to lay hold of the offender. Now and then, between some of the sixthlies, seventhlies, and eighthlies, you might hear some old patriarch giving himself a rousing shake, and pitpatting ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... contempt for the Romans, thinking that they feared him because they had transferred their camp to a certain spot from which they could get food better: he thereupon attacked them unexpectedly while they were engaged in plundering and managed to kill a few. Galba on perceiving this made a sortie from the camp, fell upon him while off his guard, and slew many more in return. Philip, in view of his defeat and the further fact that he was wounded, no longer held his position but after a truce of some days for the taking up and burial ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... partly, it was supposed, because of a violent snow-storm that came on, and partly through the failure of the mines. Scarcely had the Swedish troops withdrawn in the evening, when the besieged made a sortie, in which the miners cleared the moat of the rubbish that encumbered it, and picked up a considerable number of cannon-balls, which they carried into the town as ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... soldiers and about one hundred and fifty Indians to the said pass that the Ygolotes were defending; and although they resisted for some time, and killed some soldiers and natives, I gained the pass and destroyed the fort, so that the enemy could not remain in it longer or make any other sortie, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... earlier period up to "Ivanhoe," that famous sortie into English history, belong such masterpieces as "Guy Mannering," "Old Mortality," "Heart of Midlothian," "The Bride of Lammermoor," and "Rob Roy"; a list which, had he produced nothing else would ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... than ever. The Spaniards were in the second line of trenches and were making a sortie. Under the hill sat Grafton and another correspondent while the storm of bullets swept over them. Grafton was without glasses—a Mauser had furrowed the skin on the bridge of his nose, breaking his spectacle-frame so that one ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... try and think of a good dodge—a sortie, or doing something to make the Boers come on to-night. If we had a jolly good light he'd forget all about it, and I shouldn't hear any more about the miserable business. Here, what can we do to make the Boers come on? ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... heavier last night than it has ever been. There were both a cannonade and a fusillade. Everybody thought that the Versaillais had at last made their assault. It appears that the Communists attempted a sortie, and were repulsed with great loss. Numerous waggons filled with wounded were taken to Versailles. Various battalions returned to Paris, apparently much dispirited. Numerous reinforcements, however, ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... avant qu'il ait la dimension revee par l'auteur—cette grande figure une et multiple, lugubre et rayonnante, fatale et sacree, l'Homme; voila de quelle pensee, de quelle ambition, si l'on veut, est sortie La Legende ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... unable to offer further resistance, and they resolved on a general sortie to break through the enemy's line to a place of safety. The women of the town put on male attire, and armed themselves with pistols and daggers. The whole population,—men, women, and children,—on the night of the 22d of April, 1826, issued from their defences, crossed the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... squared logs of the upper floor, through which no less than eight of the most athletic of the Indians dropped into the rooms beneath. Here they were left, well supplied with arms and provisions, either to stand a siege, or to make a sortie, as the case might require. The night was passed in sleep, as is usual with Indians in a state of inactivity. The returning day brought them a view of the approach of the Ark through the loops, the only manner in which light and air were now admitted, the windows being closed most ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... fourth sortie or foray, six hundred and thirteen were baptized; in the next, two hundred and seventy; and in the last, two hundred and fifty-four. With these and other baptisms in this residence alone, three thousand six hundred ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... went into camp at Fort Meigs, where, with about 1,100 men, he was besieged by 1,000 British and Canadians under Proctor and 1,200 Indians under Tecumseh. A force of 1,200 Kentucky militia advanced to his relief and tried to cut its way into the fort while the garrison made a sortie. The sortie was fairly successful, but the Kentuckians were scattered like chaff by the British regulars in the open, and when broken were cut to pieces by the Indians in the woods. Nearly two thirds of the relieving troops were killed or captured; about 400 got ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... already attracted favorable notice, and the manner in which he executed the difficult operation intrusted to him fully established his reputation. By a concerted movement with the Taeping commandant of Chankiang, he attacked the imperialist lines at the same time as the garrison made a sortie, and the result was a decisive victory. Sixteen stockades were carried by assault, and the Manchu army was driven away from the town which seemed to lie at its mercy. But this success promised only to be momentary, for the imperialist forces, collecting ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... stones at the hall-door; she was naturally plump,—and it is astonishing how much more plump a female becomes when she is on all-fours! The maid-servant, then, was scrubbing the stones, her face turned from the Captain; and the Captain, evidently meditating a sortie, stood ruefully gazing at the obstacle before him and hemming aloud. Alas, the maidservant was deaf! I stopped, curious to see how Uncle Roland would ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or more mounted on swift horses will survey the caravan from a distance at which they are not likely to be discovered. Then they make their way ahead of it to some point where a dune or a gully will conceal them. Then, just as the end of the caravan drags by, there is a sudden sortie and a rattling musket fire. And before the guards can gather to the defence half a dozen camels are cut out of the train, a driver or two is shot down or pierced with assegais, and both the robbers and their loot are beyond ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the Kut Sang, and I realized ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of the number of the invaders was breeding in the Belgians a placating spirit. If a soldier fell out of line at the door of a house to ask for water, all within that house strove to bring the water to him. If an officer, returning from a small sortie into other streets, checked up to ask the way to rejoin his command, a dozen eager arms waved in chorus to point out the proper direction, and a babble of solicitous voices arose from the group about ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1814, for "gallant conduct in the defense of Fort Erie." A month later he received the rank of Brevet Colonel, for "distinguished and meritorious services in the sortie from Fort Erie." In 1824, he was made Brevet Brigadier-General for "ten years' faithful service as Colonel." In 1848, he was brevetted as Major-General for "meritorious conduct, particularly in the performance of his duties in the prosecution of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... established their camps out of range of the fire from the city, batteries were established, under cover of night, far to the front of the line where the troops lay. These batteries were intrenched and the approaches sufficiently protected. If a sortie had been made at any time by the Mexicans, the men serving the batteries could have been quickly reinforced without great exposure to the fire from the enemy's main line. No serious attempt was made to capture the batteries or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Mantua, in which city Wurmser, after the battle of Rivoli, was forced to shut himself up with twenty-eight thousand men; General Miollis, with four thousand only, was investing the place. During a sortie attempted by the Austrians, Murat, at the head of five hundred men, received an order to charge three thousand. Murat charged, but feebly. Bonaparte, whose aide-de-camp he then was, was so irritated that he would not ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Campion, in the Recueil before cited, writes to Madame de Montbazon:—"Si mon avis eut ete suivi chez Renard, vous seriez sortie, pour obeir a la Reine, vous n'habiteriez pas la maison de Rochefort, et nous ne serions pas dans le peril ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Padre," said Garnett thoughtfully. "Of course they have not a notion that we have sent for help; and though they saw Dr. Anstice arrive with Hassan, it is quite possible that in the dusk they thought it was one of us who had made a futile sortie with ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... stormed and taken. The second parallel was soon completed, and some farther outworks carried; and the whole battering guns having at length been mounted, a breach was effected in the salient angle of one of the horn-works, and on the same night a lodgement was effected. A vigorous sortie, on the 10th September, hardly retarded the progress of the operations, and a sap was made under the covered way. Marlborough, who visited the besiegers' lines on the 18th, however, expressed some displeasure at the slow progress of the siege; and in consequence, on the 20th, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... setting fire to the Parian, obliging them to retreat to a stone chapel, the erection of which had been begun, twenty paces from the wall, named Avocacion de Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria, where our men made a sortie to meet them and caused them great loss. When the Chinese saw that they could not maintain themselves there, they divided into three bands and went inland, doing much damage. An attempt was made to reach them still, for which purpose one of the old captains of this city, called ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... knowledge. Between poetry and religion the worldly wisdom of living plays its comedy. Every individual who does not live either poetically or religiously is a fool" (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift, chap. iv., sect. 2a, Sec. 2). The same writer tells us that Christianity is a desperate sortie (salida). Even so, but it is only by the very desperateness of this sortie that we can win through to hope, to that hope whose vitalizing illusion is of more force than all rational knowledge, and which assures us that there is always something that cannot ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... A common friend of theirs and hers had once described this little lady to Elsmere by a French sentence which originally applied to the Duchesse de Choiseul. 'Une charmante petite fee sortie d'un oeuf enchante!'—so it ran. Certainly, as Elsmere looked down upon her now, fresh from those squalid death-stricken hovels behind him, he was brought more abruptly than ever upon the contrasts ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to a sortie in force from the fortifications. The defenders emboldened by the hope, if not belief, that they had Sheridan in a trap; inspired by the feeling that they were fighting for their homes, their capital and their cause; and encouraged by ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the Mitylenians and the rest of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of the other allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field. After this they kept quiet, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... was thought to be in a state of sufficient security, the party who composed what might be called the sortie, sallied forth on their anxious expedition. The advance was led by Esther in person, who, attired in a dress half masculine, and bearing a weapon like the rest, seemed no unfit leader for the group of wildly clad frontiermen, that followed ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... counselled the sunny side of the Alps as a shelter to revive her animation. I have promised Roger de Blonay to pass a night or two within his ancient walls, and then we are destined to seek the hospitality of the monks of St. Bernard. Like thee, I had hoped this unusual sortie from my hold might lead to intelligence touching the fortunes of one I ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the stupid lowly. Henry has not yet won his spurs. On our side remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself. The rest will hold the wall of the poop and fight thereon to the death, but they are not to be depended upon in a sortie. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... repulsed. It was about half-past eight. The Turks, evidently apprehensive that the enemy would charge and drive them back into the gorge which led to Plevna, remained on the defensive. The Russians, obviously afraid lest the enemy should attempt another sortie, also remained on the defensive. For four hours they continued in this condition, "during which period the battle raged," it was said, "with the utmost fury," but it is also admitted that very little damage ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Augustine, commanded by a sergeant and twelve men, who surrendered without a contest. Thence he proceeded to Fort Diego, situated on the plains, twenty-five miles from St. Augustine, defended by eleven guns, and fifty regulars, besides Indians and negroes. In his sortie upon this, he made use of a little stratagem, as well as force; which was by appointing three or four drums to beat, at the same time, in different places in the woods, and a few men now and then to appear suddenly, and withdraw out of sight again. At this, the enemy in the fort were so confounded, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... The monastery stands by the river and partly over it. The besieged monks will therefore not suffer from thirst. Their larder is as amply provided as are the vaults of this castle. The militant Abbot understands both defence and sortie. He is a master of siege-craft inside or outside stone walls. How then do you propose to sack and ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... fighting to the last. Thirty prisoners were taken; also a large quantity of rifles. Seven Light Horse men were killed; twelve were seriously, and fifteen slightly, wounded. Colonel Scott-Turner, who was hit in the shoulder, had his horse shot under him. Thus ended the most serious sortie of the siege—so far. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... made a sortie at the head of one thousand men, formed in two divisions, and supported by six field pieces. The Americans had thrown up no intrenchments, and could not bring into action more than three hundred men. Under these circumstances, victory was scarcely ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately to the window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew him as far as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly to risk another sortie ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... under Dugommier finally numbered 37,000 men, with artillery organised and directed by a young Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, who since September 16 had taken an active part in the siege. General O'Hara, then in command in the town, was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a sortie, and on the night of December 16-17 the enemy forced the line of defence and planted their batteries in commanding positions. Neither the harbour nor the town was tenable any longer, and orders were given for the embarkation of the troops. Of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... battle off the Nile: and the grand illuminations which took place, on visiting Governor Ball's villa at St. Antonia, where his lordship and friends remained two days, so greatly alarmed the French, who were unable to penetrate the cause, that they attempted to make a sortie, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... de voir ces gneiss, et ces granits veines, en couches verticales a Guttannen; melangees d'horizontals et de verticales au Lauteraar; toutes verticales au Grimsel et au Gries; toutes horizontales dans le Val Formazza, et enfin pour la troisieme fois verticales a la sortie des Alpes ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... He seized his arms—he was like Bar [Baal] in his hour. The great horse which drew his Majesty his name was Nekhtou-em-Djom, of the stud of Rameses-Meiamen ... His Majesty halted when he came up to the enemy, the vile Hittites. He was alone by himself—there was no other with him in this sortie. His Majesty looked behind him and saw that he was intercepted by 2,500 horsemen in the way he had to go, by all the fleetest men of the prince of the base Hittites, and of many lands which were ...
— Egyptian Literature
... difficulty he will have of getting out. He has a fine army with him, but if he once gives time to the Germans to erect batteries commanding every road out of the place, he will soon find it well-nigh impossible to make a sortie. Except that army France has nothing she can really rely upon. It is all very well to talk of a general rising, but you can't create an army in the twinkling of an eye; and a host of half-disciplined ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... last time, did the Russian fleet at Port (p. 281) Arthur attempt a sortie. It failed, and its ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... thereafter in southern Italy, where the Lucanians and Bruttians were defeated. On the other hand Milo, issuing from Tarentum, anticipated the Romans in their attempt to surprise Croton: whereupon the Epirot garrison made even a successful sortie against the besieging army. At length, however, the consul succeeded by a stratagem in inducing it to march forth, and in possessing himself of the undefended town (477). An incident of more moment was the slaughter of the Epirot garrison by the Locrians, who had formerly surrendered the Roman ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the Boer main army were, however, within an hour's ride of each other, and thus could readily render mutual assistance, unless an attack from the south should be combined with an exactly-timed sortie by the Ladysmith garrison. Yet the Boers had reason to fear this combination against them. The troops under Sir George White were still mobile, and the enterprises against Gun Hill and Surprise Hill, in the second week of December, had shown that both officers ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... young Louis showed an uncontrollable passion for the life of a soldier. He was sent to the seat of war in Holland, to serve under the Prince of Orange. At the age of nineteen, he was a volunteer at the siege of Hesdin; in the next year he was at Arras, where he distinguished himself during a sortie of the garrison; in the next, he took part in the siege of Aire; and, in the next, in those of Callioure and Perpignan. At the age of twenty-three, he was made colonel of the regiment of Normandy, which ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... day, it would have been wiser to have at once withdrawn to the new lines, while waiting for the arrival of Sedgwick. For here the position was almost unassailable, and the troops better massed; and, if Lee had made an unsuccessful assault, Hooker would have been in better condition to make a sortie upon the arrival of the Sixth Corps in his vicinity, than after the bloody and disheartening work ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... swelled the cannonade, and presently the deep note of the heavy artillery could scarcely be distinguished above the incessant discharges of field pieces. So I lay and listened. What was happening eighteen miles away over the hills? Another bayonet attack by the garrison? Or perhaps a general sortie: or perhaps, but this seemed scarcely conceivable, the Boers had hardened their hearts and were delivering the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... still more exposed, and where the guns from the fortress were tearing up the soil. From this spot a large body of 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... fell the others would not give up the assault. But so strong and so well defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. Then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named Matts Kettilmundson, made a sortie against the Russians and drove them back in panic flight, many more of them ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... bastion, and sprung with such effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder, however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... after the return of Phil and Jerry from their unsuccessful sortie into the enemy's country, before a practical plan occurred to the ten-brain-power plotters. But the scheme, once its details had been worked out, struck them all as having a fair chance for ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... Faron's Division" (1879). He also worked with Alphonse de Neuville on the panorama of Rezonville. In 1884 he exhibited at the Salon the "Evening at Rezonville," a panoramic study, and "The Dream" (1888), now in the Luxemburg. Detaille recorded other events in the military history of his country: the "Sortie of the Garrison of Huningue" (now in the Luxemburg), the "Vincendon Brigade," and "Bizerte," reminiscences of the expedition to Tunis. After a visit to Russia, Detaille exhibited "The Cossacks of the Ataman" and "The Hereditary Grand Duke at the Head of the Hussars of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... led to the abandonment of the attack on Medeba, and to the hurried march of its besiegers to relieve Rabbath. Probably the Syrian allies had been before Medeba, and suddenly appeared in Joab's rear. Their advance led the besieged to attempt a sortie, so that Joab was between two fires. It was a difficult position. Whichever foe he attacked, his retreat was cut off, and another enemy was ready to hurl itself on his rear. There was no time for manoeuvring, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... burnt down. The minster was either wholly or partially destroyed. On the site of William's fort at Beacon Hill there have lately been discovered several deposits of silver pennies of the earliest coinage of William. These were probably hidden there by the Norman garrison. After a desperate sortie, these forts were taken. Thereupon the Danes sailed away with their plunder, and the revolt suddenly came to an end. But William swore an oath of vengeance. He caught and destroyed a number of the Danes in Lincolnshire. When he reached York ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... want to do that, as long as we can possibly stay here. I think that, when night comes, we ought to make a sortie." ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... come the cry that Johnny Montgomery was found; but he seemed to have vanished as completely as if he had been made invisible; and presently a hateful thought crept into my mind: "What if it is the Spanish Woman who has played the enchantress?" The rumor was abroad that the sortie had been planned by some of Johnny Montgomery's friends—they were such wild fellows that their doing the thing would ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... began one of the strangest of sieges, between an assailant who knew only that he had to deal with stout walls, and a defender who dared not attempt even a show of a sortie for fear of exposing the weakness of his garrison. The French had ammunition enough to last for a month, and cannon enough to keep two hundred men busy; and ran from one gun to another, keeping up pretences but doing little ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them were overtaken and killed. Between the remainder and the British and Indians there was a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, interrupted by a violent thunderstorm, with no quarter shown by either side. About this time a sortie was made from Ft. Schuyler and the British withdrew, after about 200 Americans had been killed and as many taken prisoner. The loss of the British was about the same. Gen. Herkimer, though his leg had been broken by a ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... is settled: you will make a furious sortie on the infantry and cavalry. I trust that your officers will so conduct it as ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... was bullet-proof and was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent feet and perhaps with naked body painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the wall under cover of the night, pass among ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... my kurumaya has succeeded in making arrangements for a boat; and I effect a sortie to the beach, followed by the kurumaya and by all my besiegers. Boats have been moved to make a passage for us, and we embark without trouble of any sort. Our crew consists of two scullers—an old man at the stem, wearing only ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... this moment, three battalions of the Begam's Sepoys and a field piece dashed up, under the command of her chief officer Mr. Thomas. The infantry deployed with the gun in the centre, and threw in a brisk fire of musketry and grape, which checked the sortie, and gave the Imperialists time to form. The Moghul horse lost their leader: on the other side the Chela (adopted son) of the chief was shot dead; Himmat Bahadur, at the head of his Gosains (a kind ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... any shortage of wine, oil and salt, but what use are they without solid food? All the dogs and cats in the town were eaten. A rat could fetch a high price! In the end the starvation became so appalling that when the French troops made a sortie, the inhabitants would follow them in a crowd out of the gates, and rich and poor, women, children and the old would start collecting grass, nettles, and leaves, which they would then cook with some salt. The Genoese government mowed the grass which grew on ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the mosque, Edgar went down to the great square occupied by the French, and gathered from the talk of the officers there the result of the sortie. All agreed that the Arabs had fought bravely, and that few indeed had left the field alive. Edgar made his way out of the town by the Boulak gate, which was still open, and found the two Arabs still at ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... curses and defiance. Improbable stories are told of pairs of skeletons found afterwards in the bog each with a bony hand which had driven a knife to the heart of the other. In the end the British, met by resolution so fierce, drew back. Meanwhile a sortie from the American fort on their rear had a menacing success. Sir John Johnson's camp was taken and sacked. The two sides were at last glad to separate, after the most bloody struggle in the whole war. St. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Lizars into those of Robert Havell. But the enterprise did not prosper, his agents did not attend to business, nor to his orders, and he soon found himself at bay for means to go forward with the work. At this juncture he determined to make a sortie for the purpose of collecting his dues and to add to his subscribers. He visited Leeds, York, and other towns. Under date of October 9, at York, he writes in his journal: "How often I thought during these visits of poor ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... providentially, a French fleet appeared before the city. The admiral, who thought the entire island abandoned by the French, was delighted to find the French flag still flying and gladly rendered assistance. A desperate sortie was made on March 28, the twenty-third day of the siege, with such success that Dessalines precipitately retired, abandoning his stores. The main body of the Haitians retreated by way of the Cibao, the others through the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... everything they inflicted on the Huguenots, except the murders. In the night from the 2nd to the 3rd October, about ten o'clock, he came down into the plain and attacked Sommieres from two different points, setting fire to the houses. The inhabitants seizing their arms, made a sortie, but Cavalier charged them at the head of the Cavalry and forced them to retreat. Thereupon the governor, whose garrison was too small to leave the shelter of the walls, turned his guns on them and fired, less in the hope of inflicting injury on them than in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he said. "You're my conscience. You hang around the officers' mess, and when we get back from a sortie, you make us pay for the damage we did. But that ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... looked to the general, expecting he would utter the decisive word, and order the garrison to make a sortie. But this order ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... possession of plenty of arms, the men having carried their muskets and pistols below with them, with all the ammunition, he was still extremely formidable. What course he would pursue, I was obliged to conjecture. A sortie would have been very hazardous, if practicable at all; and it was scarcely practicable, after the means taken by Smudge and the Dipper to secure the passages. Everything, so far as I was ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... making this nocturnal sortie All armed and equipped, at the rate of 'two-forty,' Called a halt, and proposed, before firing a gun, To question with care what had better be done. Forthwith he assembled a council of war, To gravely consider how fast and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... infused with new courage. In Fisette they saw the man who had won out for the second time while they sat and smoked. There was a seeking out and sharpening of picks blunted by inumerable taps on forgotten ridges, and a stuffing of dunnage bags, and a sortie to Filmer's store for flour and bacon and a few sticks of forty per cent. dynamite, and patching of leaky shoe packs. Twenty-four hours later the little station up at the works was crammed with men whose leathern faces were alight ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... surrender. They also were informed, by Barere; that some of his friends intended to move the abolition of fiscal and feudal privilege. They replied that they would do it themselves. Virieu, who afterwards disappeared in a sortie, during the siege of Lyons, said to a friend: "There are only two means of calming an excited populace, kindness and force. We have no force; we hope to succeed by kindness." They knew that precious time had been lost, and they resolved that the surrender should ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Many a small band of brave trappers have sustained the attack of a whole Indian tribe; and though half of their number may have fallen, the others lived to relate the perilous adventure. The life of a determined man is difficult to take. A desperate sortie often proves the safest defence; and three or four resolute arms will cut a loophole of escape through a host of enemies. Some such thoughts, flitting before us, hinder us from ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the Indians decided once more to make a sortie. On they came, and this time with such determination that the trappers could not withstand the assault, but were compelled to retreat. They disputed, however, every inch of ground over which they trod, as they fell back from one tree to another, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... his affability. But want of circumspection in his gallantries, the objects of which were not always of a rank equal to his own, caused jealousies and discontent among the nobles. His enemies, profiting by a sortie which he made for the purpose of getting a convoy into Naples, delivered up the city to the Spaniards. His repeated efforts to re-enter the place proved futile. After having defended himself like a lion, he was nevertheless carried prisoner to Madrid. The great Conde, who was then serving ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Amerique pour un temps fixe de leur travail.—Des circonstances singulieres l'engagerent a epouser un negre qui lui acheta sa liberte, et qui la tira des mains d'un blanc, maitre barbare et libi-dineux, qui avoit tout employe pour la desuire.—Une mulatresse, sortie de cette union, a epouse un chirurgien de Nantes, etabli a Pittsburg.—Cette famille est une des plus respectables de cette ville; le negre fait un tres bon commerce, et la maitresse se fait un devoir d'accueillir et de bien ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... Our sortie only lasted a few minutes. To me, it was a confusion of crossing beams, with the stars overhead, the swaying little platform under me, and the shield tingling in my hands when the blasts struck us. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... when he one day proposed to me an exploit savouring more of his days of Lepanto than I had expected at his hands again. Distracted by the false intelligence wherewith we were perpetually misled by the Brabancon scouts, Don John determined on a sortie in disguise, towards the intrenchments of the enemy, betwixt the Sambre and Dyle. Rumour of the reinforcements of English troops dispatched to the heretics by Queen Elizabeth at the instance of the diet of Worms, rendered him anxious; and bent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... was not easy. A sortie seemed impossible. They took the precaution to barricade the entrance, but the bears could easily have overcome the obstacles if the idea had occurred to them; they knew the number and strength of their adversaries, and they could easily have reached them. The prisoners ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... They diminished, gave way, a thin ghostly pattern of the whole, falling back. An Austrian sortie of yellow-brown men to finish ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petits insectes s'epanouirent.—L'Ortie sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... them to assume the offensive. Several desperate sorties were made by the garrison to break through the wall, only to end in complete disaster. General Herman von Kusmanek, the commander in chief of the fortress, organized a special force, composed largely of Hungarians, for "sortie duty," under the command of a Hungarian, General von Tamassy. These sorties had been carried out during November and December, 1914, especially during the latter month, when the Austro-German armies were pouring across the mountains. So critical was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... it abroad that your majesty feasts to-night. While the Duke of Burgundy believes us to be carousing, we shall make a sortie from St. Anthony's gate. Our horses' hooves will be muffled, no spur shall jingle, and no bridle clink. We will steal through the night like shadows. At the cross road some few of us will make an attack upon the enemy's left and beat a retreat. This will tempt him into our ambuscade and ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Sedan, in which he hinted at a rumour he had heard that the Count might be persuaded to become an ally of the King of France. Bayard added that he desired nothing more, but Sickingen must lose no time, for his camp would soon be hemmed in by the approaching Swiss and by a sortie well timed from the town. This information was to be kept ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... attendants, concealed themselves in a small copse adjoining the palace, until the daylight fairly broke over the awakened city. He then passed into the palace; and was conducted to a hall, where he found the renowned Moslem already astir, and conferring with some Zegri captains upon the tactics of a sortie designed for that day. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
