"Musket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sad, my poor children: and yet what I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it. Well, eighteen years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your father to this very tree. He had two sabre-cuts on the head, a musket ball in his shoulder; and it was here that he and I—who had got two thrust of a lance for my share—were taken prisoners; and by whom, worse luck?—why, a renegado! By a Frenchman—an emigrant marquis, then colonel in the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to walk into the adjoining basement. I was a few steps in advance of him, taking a straight course to the entrance, when a sentinel, pacing to and fro in the middle of the apartment, levelled his musket so as to bar my way, saying, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... at a sermon, but it requires a practitioner with an inborn faculty for the art to achieve the triumphs of somnolence which stand to my credit. I have taken a nap on horseback; I have marched for miles, a musket on my shoulder, in complete slumberous unconsciousness; I have nodded while Phelps was acting, snoozed while Mario was singing, and played the marmot while Remenyi was fiddling; awful confession, I have dozed through an important debate in the House of Commons! I am ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... depended on continuance of breeze, and those on board the boats saw that the vessel was now holding her own with them. Orders to throw the ship up into the wind and heave to were shouted and, as no attention was paid to these, several musket shots were fired at her; but the wind held and, faster and faster, the Swan made her way through the water. At last the boats fell behind, and were lost ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... war I fought, bled, and came away. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near it as General Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterwards. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges on the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... put down my musket, and when the hour came round for me to be relieved, I asked leave of my captain to come here to see an old acquaintance. And, indeed, your majesty, I was not telling a lie, for you once slept under my father's roof, and paid him so well for the night's lodging, that he was able to buy ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... sir, I don't think it was. The Indians have to fight in their own way, and the Kentucky riflemen are the best in the world. Why, sir, the things they can do with their rifles are amazing. A musket is like an old-fashioned arquebus compared with their long-barreled weapons. I know one of them—and I must say it, though I hate him—who could kill running deer at two hundred yards, as fast as you could hand him the rifles, never missing ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... immediately began preparations to retire. With threatening mien, levelled revolver, and oaths that would have done no discredit to "our army in Flanders," the Captain ordered the skulker back into line, upon pain of instant death. Leaning upon his musket, and with familiar gaze upon his irate superior, the culprit slowly drawled: "I don't mine bein' muddered by a high-tone Southern gentleman like you, Cappen, but dam if I'm gwyen to eternally disgrace my family by lettin' one of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... American camp. There they saw the assemblage spread out in all the array of war, with its host of tents, stacked guns, flags, moving men and sentries, and he prepared to strike it as ordered. One of his Indians indiscreetly discharged his musket. The camp was in alarm in an instant. De Salaberry, finding his approach discovered, immediately collected about fifty of his Voltigeurs, with whom and the Indians he pushed into the enemy's advanced camp, consisting of about 800 men, and, catching them in ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... and they govern themselves, like their ancestors, by their protoyeros, (primates, elders,) and their own magistrates. Twice the Mussulmen of Larissa attempted to scale their rocks, and twice were they repulsed by hands which dropped the shuttle to seize the musket. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... almost noiseless as they stole towards the village. The place seemed hushed in quiet, but just as they entered the little street a figure standing in the shade of a house rather larger than the rest, stepped forward and challenged, bringing, as he did so, his musket to the present. An instant later he fired, just as the words, "A Russian sentry," broke from the first lieutenant's lips. Almost simultaneously three or four other shots were fired at points along the beach. A rocket whizzed high in the air from each side of the bay, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... had the honor of writing to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, some three or four years ago, I informed him that a workman here had undertaken by the help of moulds and other means, to make all the parts of the musket so exactly alike, as that, mixed together promiscuously, any one part should serve equally for every musket. He had then succeeded as to the lock both of the officer's fusil and the soldier's musket. From a promiscuous collection of parts, I put ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... shot!—count how many for one day's work! Ten at Verona; fifteen at Mantua; five—there, stop! If we enter into another alliance with those infernal ruffians!—if they're not branded in the face of Europe as inhuman butchers! if I—by George! if I were an Italian I'd handle a musket myself, and think great guns the finest music going. Mind, if there's a subscription for the widows of these poor fellows, I put down my name; so shall my wife, so shall my daughters, so we will all, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no dinner, we'll pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... one enjoys not content? and, hereafter, there is no respect of persons. Better be a poor honest barber with a good conscience, and time to repent of my sins upon my death-bed, than be cut off (God bless us!) by a musket-shot, as it were in the very flower of one's age, in the pursuit of riches and fame. What signify riches, my dear friend? do they not make unto themselves wings and fly away? as the wise man saith. I could also mention many ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... was about to take his place on the side of the pillion nearest the horse's head, when he remembered he had forgotten to fill the powder flask, for no horseman ever ventured on the Queen's highway without abundant supply for the musket, which lay ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... pluck off her breast, to throw away, some friendly ornament, a familiar flower, a little old jewel, that was part of her daily dress; and to take up and shoulder as a substitute some queer defensive weapon, a musket, a spear, a battle-axe conducive possibly in a higher degree to a striking appearance, but demanding all the effort of the military posture. She felt this instrument, for that matter, already on her back, so that ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... they had better opportunity to mark the extraordinary richness of the country, and the abundance and luxuriance of its products, both animal and vegetable. Elephants existed in crowds, and ivory was so abundant that a trader was purchasing it at the rate of ten tusks for a musket worth fifteen shillings. Two years later, after effect had been given to Livingstone's discovery, the price had ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Napoleon's march on Paris would have been stopped. Who shall tell? There are such "ifs" in the world, which no human mind can challenge. Certain it is that that shot was not fired. At Laffray, Randon gave the order, but he did not raise his musket himself; on the walls of Grenoble St. Genis, in command of the artillery and urged by the Comte de Cambray, did not dare to give the order or to fire a gun himself. "The men declare," he had said gloomily, "that they would blow their officers ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... He is a fact and not a shadow. Alive in this Year Forty-three, able and willing to do his work. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William of Ipres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place to musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch to percussion-cap; equipments, circumstances have all changed, and again changed: but the human battle-engine in the inside of any or of each of these, ready still ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the trees, And felt the breath of the morning-breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Gilbert, who had been to sea with Captain Cook; and Captain Cook, as you justly observe, dear Miss, quoting out of your "Mangnall's Questions," was murdered by the natives of Owhyhee, anno 1779. Ah! don't you remember his picture, standing on the seashore, in tights and gaiters, with a musket in his hand, pointing to his people not to fire from the boats, whilst a great tattooed savage is going to stab him in the back? Don't you remember those houris dancing before him and the other officers at the great Otaheite ball? Don't you know that Cook was at the siege of Quebec, with ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that the mere exercise of standing was too severe for their endurance, and many of them collapsed, falling back to the sidewalk, rising to salute only the first troop of each succeeding regiment. This done, they would again sink back and each would sit leaning his head against his musket, or with his forehead resting heavily on his folded arms. In comparison the relieving column looked like giants as they came in with a swinging swagger, their uniforms blackened with mud and sweat and bloodstains, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... rencontre is described minutely, and in the most simple manner, I will give it verbatim, as I find it recorded in the family document, from which I have taken the whole narrative. Colonel Hunt and the Collier were standing at the window, each with a loaded musket; the collier's wife stood behind, with a loaded blunderbuss in one hand, and with the other she was to supply the powder and slugs, for they had no ball, for reloading. They were in this order when the commander of the gang loudly halloed ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... lad, not knowing what he said. The depths of despair came to him with the thought of enlisting as a common soldier, to go away and live his life with as little exercise of his own will as the musket he carried, and to death and a nameless grave. Or it meant to sail away before the mast, a slave to some tyrant who held the power of life and death, because he held the power of the lash. And it might have come to one or other of these possibilities with him, ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... or less matter to me?" he went on, after a short pause. "A convict is no more in my eyes than an emmet is in yours. I am like the Italian brigands—fine men they are! If a traveler is worth ever so little more than the charge of their musket, they ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... that of color. If the negro is equally competent and equally devoted to the Government as the Celt, the Saxon, or the Englishman; why should he not vote? If he pays his taxes, works the roads, repels foreign invasion with his musket, assists in suppressing insurrections, fells the forest, tills the soil, builds cities, and erects churches, what more shall he do to give him the simple right of saying he must be only equal in these ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... want a double- barreled shot-gun, muzzle-loader, go along the bank of the Missouri River, on the north side, about a mile below St. Charles bridge, and about twenty feet along the bank, just east of that dike that runs out into the river, and you will find in a little gully a shot-gun and a musket. Be careful. I left them both loaded with buckshot and caps on the tubes. They were laying, wrapped up in an oil-cloth, with some weeds thrown over them. Also, down on the river just below the guns, I left my skiff and a lot of stuff, coffee-pot, skillet, and partially concealed, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... twenty musketeers in each one of the companies of this city and in the companies of the other presidios outside the city, but no more. They shall be paid at the rate of two pesos per month, one for additional pay for the musket; but no more, inasmuch as each one has ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... threw their darts. Two or three muskets, discharged in the air did not hinder one of them from advancing still farther, and throwing another dart, or rather a spear, which passed close over my shoulder. His courage would have cost him his life, had not my musket missed fire; for I was not five paces from him when he threw his spear, and had resolved to shoot him to save myself. I was glad afterwards that it happened as it did. At this instant, our men on the rock began to fire at others who appeared ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... not because I have faith that I stand fast, but because of that in which I have faith. My feet may be well shod—and it used to be said that a soldier's shoes were of as much importance in the battle as his musket—my feet may be well shod, but if they are not well planted upon firm ground I never shall be able to stand the collision of the foe. So then, it is not my grasp of the blessed truth, God in Christ my Friend and Helper, but it is that truth which I grasp at, that makes me strong. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... pretty near dead beat when I reached the compound and ran past the sentry. The man cried out at sight of me as I went by; but I thought he was just pattering out his challenge, being taken unawares; and knowing he would not let off his musket if he recognised me, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... about, the captain ordered the master of the camp to go with a party of men in the two boats to learn what they wanted. When the Spaniards were near them, they vainly shot off their arrows to the sound of their instruments. From the boats four musket-shots were fired in the air, and they returned ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... superior to the common race of men, I was bound by the strongest ties of affection; a grief to which even the glorious occasion in which he fell does not bring the consolation which perhaps it ought. His Lordship received a musket ball in his left breast, about the middle of the action, and sent an officer to me immediately, with his last farewell, and soon after expired. I have also to lament the loss of those excellent officers, Captain Duff of the Mars, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain Military officers, mainly relics ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... whom I would undertake to bastinado quickly, though there were a musket planted in thy mouth, are not you the young drover of livings Academico told me of, that haunts steeple fairs? Base worm, must thou needs discharge thy carbine[116] to batter down ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Golah's son, a youth about eighteen years of age. He was armed with a long Moorish musket, a heavy Spanish sword, and the dirk that ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... song, by a delegate of the Commune, the very man who had arrested d'Ernemont, one Citizen Broquet. Citizen Broquet shut himself up in the house, barricaded the doors, fortified the walls and, when Charles d'Ernemont was at last set free and appeared outside, received him by firing a musket at him. Charles instituted one law-suit after another, lost them all and then proceeded to offer large sums of money. But Citizen Broquet proved intractable. He had bought the house and he stuck to the house; and he would have stuck to it until his death, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... took place in the tent, Comstock was heard to say, "I helped to take the ship, and have navigated her to this place.—I have also done all I could to get the sails and rigging on shore, and now you may do what you please with her; but if any man wants any thing of me, I'll take a musket with him!" ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... nothing, but that we never forget actions. By to-morrow noon the Queen would not remember my declarations against the Cardinal if I would admit him tomorrow morning; but if my troops were to fire a musket she would not forgive me though we were to ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... the lantern opened the carriage-door, and said two or three words to the one who acted as driver, who immediately got down from his seat, took up a short musket which he kept under his feet, and placed its ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a roar, an irresistible swaying, a rattle of musket ramrods, a rhythm of marching feet, and the grating of heavy iron-bound wheels. Seven men appeared in sight above the heads, clinging to each other for support, and being drawn slowly along. The little worsted ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... whitened by confinement; and, during his absence, when anyone asked about him, the answer was penitentiary. He wondered what those boxes on the walls were for, and he was about to ask, when a guard stepped from one of them with a musket and started to patrol the wall, and he had no need to ask. Tom wanted to go up on the hill and look at the Armory and the graveyard, but the school-master said they did not have time, and, on the moment, the air was startled with whistles ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... on the point of firing at him with his musket, when Tobasco dealt him a stinging blow from behind, that sent him sprawling on top ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... within [the fort] is the disease of smallpox and discharges of blood, together with great famine; because we have surrounded the entire hill with ditches and stockades, set with sharp stakes, which run around it for more than one and one-half leguas, and within musket-shot [of their fort] is a sentry-post [garita] or tower in which three men and three Bantayas are staying. By that means the enemy cannot enter or go out without being seen; and, when they do that, they are given such a bombardment that scarcely does any one dare to go outside ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... morning, and were received by Kurua with his usual kind affability. Our entrance to his boma was quiet and unceremonious, for we came there quite unexpectedly—hardly giving him time to prepare his musket and return our salute. Though we were allowed a ready admission, a guinea-fowl I shot on the way was not. The superstitious people forbade its entrance in full plumage, so it was plucked before being brought inside the palisade. Kurua again arranged a hut for my residence, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... they were taken off at a gallop toward Galshio. When the party were nearing that place they came up with a party of Lamas, awaiting them by the roadside. Here Mr. Landor's horse was whipped and urged to the front. A kneeling soldier, his musket resting on a prop, fired at Mr. Landor as he went past. The shot failed to take effect. Then they stopped the pony and fastened a long cord to Mr. Landor's handcuffs. The other end was held by a soldier on horseback. The ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... A change in the weapons of the infantry was effected, which was as momentous in its day as the introduction of the breech-loading rifle in ours. The old inefficient firelock was replaced by the flint musket, and the rapidity and certainty of fire vastly increased. The undisciplined independence of the officers commanding regiments and companies was suppressed by the rigorous and methodical Colonel Martinet, whose name ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... halted. Then in close order the battery itself followed and stood. Now the loud commands were in here. Strange it was to hear them ring through the holy place (French to the Chasseurs, English to the battery), and the crashing musket-butts smite the paved floor as one weapon, to the flash of ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... deserter from the Tyger, who pledged himself to the enemy that he would throw two shells out of three into the Tyger, but whilst he was bringing the mortars to bear for that purpose, he was disabled by a musket bullet from the Kent's tops. He was afterwards sent ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... these had to do with security. Like the pioneers who settled this great continent of ours, we have had to carry a musket while we went about our peaceful business. We realized that if we and our allies did not have military strength to meet the growing Soviet military threat, we would never have the opportunity to carry forward our efforts to build a peaceful world of law and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... danger, and courage in action. At last, on the 24th of September, 1586, in a gallant attack on a greatly superior force of the enemy, near Zutphen, a town he was besieging, after having had one horse shot from under him, he was severely wounded by a musket-ball ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... in one moment, turned against her like a stone. A musket-bullet through the body does not turn life to death quicker than Raynal turned his rival's love to despair and scorn: that love which neither wounds, absence, prison, nor even her want of constancy had ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the old gobbler for us," exclaimed one who seemed to be the leader of the party. Suiting the action to the word, he raised his musket and shot the gobbler. One of his men brought it into the house and gave it to Aunt Nancy, with orders to clean and cook it at once. This, of course, made that stanch patriot very angry, and she gave the Tories a ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... finding of a court of inquiry acquitting the prisoner of all blame is not a legal bar to a prosecution, it is entitled to weight as an expression of the views of the military court of the necessity of using a musket to prevent the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... populace fretted against the Empire and its pretentious pomp; but the action of the commanders soon restored order. And thus it came to pass that even the soldiery that still cherished the Republic raised not a musket while the Empire was founded, and Moreau was accused of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous conflict ensued. The nearness of the enemy left no room for fire-arms, the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched to man, the useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and science gave way to desperation. Overpowered by numbers, the wearied Swedes at last retire beyond the trenches; and the captured battery is again lost by the retreat. A thousand ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... have liked to lay aboard of her and carry her in sight of the whole fleet; but her captain, being suspicious, would not let me get within musket-shot of him, and sent his boat to help me. But, when the boat was half way, her people made out that we were French, and turned to go back; on which, seeing that we were discovered, I hoisted my white flag and poured my broadside ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... herds of horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse, which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within musket-shot of a tree, in which he intended to pass the night, anticipating that the jaguar would return in the course of it, to its victim; but while he was gone to prepare for his adventure, behold the animal swam across a large and deep river, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... rifle. With it he defended his cabin and his crops from marauders, waged warfare on hostile redskins, and obtained the game which formed an indispensable part of his food supply. At first the gun chiefly used on the border was the smooth-bored musket. But toward the close of the eighteenth century a gunsmith named Deckhard, living at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, began making flintlock rifles of small bore, and in a short time the "Deckhard rifle" was to be found in the ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... country; now the German national idea began to revolt against the influence of French culture, and the King, who himself greatly admired Parisian poetry, had effectively routed the Parisian generals with German musket balls. It was such a brilliant victory, such a humiliating defeat of the hereditary enemy, that everywhere in Germany there was hearty rejoicing. Even where the soldiers of a State were fighting against King Frederick, the people at home in city and ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... came to the meeting-house, they had their business to attend to, and could not conveniently go four or five miles to put up their muskets, neither did we see the propriety of their so doing. We believe that a just man would not have trembled at an old rusty musket. ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... and thus learn its folly. I know of a man who once came within an inch of braining his fellow-soldier. They were lying on the grass, when the fellow struck my friend a smart blow with the iron ramrod of a Springfield musket, all in fun, you know. My friend ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... so," I said; "only there's a kind of a passageway that goes into the hills there. It starts in the cave. None of us ever followed it, because it's so dark and wet. A fellow found an old musket ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... it, and I think some heroines, that we must hunt up at a leisure day. There was Ann Halsted of Elizabethtown, who saw the British foraging expedition coming over from Staten Island, where the ship lay at anchor; and, donning a suit of her father's clothes, and taking an old musket, she went down to the only road they could come up, and blazed away at them with such intrepidity that the red-coats were alarmed lest a whole squad might be quartered there, and retreated in haste. It was said when Washington heard of it, he toasted the young ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... at intervals. A huge bunch of onions hung on a wooden peg beside the wild-cat skin. Over the window was slung an old-fashioned muzzle-loading musket. The sling which held it was made of a pair of ancient home-made suspenders fastened to the logs with nails. Beneath the gun hung a cow's horn, cut and finished for powder, and with it a dirty game-bag. Strings of red peppers were ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... implements, and fragments of animal bones has been uncovered here. In fact, the field is known locally as "the place where the Indians made their pottery." This site seems to have been occupied within historic times; after an unusual freshet some years ago, many "round musket-balls, such as belonged to the old-fashioned muzzle loaders"—"hundreds," or "two gallons," of them is the usual version—were picked up where the loose soil had washed off. There is a local tradition, long antedating the discovery of the bullets, that ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... surrender," says Long, "the Army of Northern Virginia had dispersed in every direction, and three weeks later the veterans of a hundred battles had exchanged the musket and the sword for the implements of husbandry. It is worthy of remark that never before was there an army disbanded with less disorder. Thousands of soldiers were set adrift on the world without a penny in their pockets to enable them to reach their homes. Yet none of the ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... a good one," said Bill. "It's a musket that used to belong to old Count Frontenac. What do you think ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... fancied; so he reported the matter to Lieutenant Taylor, who reproved Broderick for his behavior. A few days afterward the husband again appealed to his commanding officer (Taylor), who exclaimed: "Haven't you got a musket? Can't you defend your own family?" Very soon after a shot was heard down by the mess-house, and it transpired that the husband had actually shot Broderick, inflicting a wound which proved mortal. The law and army regulations required that the man should be sent ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... good workman. He invented a many useful little things that brought him in - nothing. I have two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales - single, when last heard from. One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own hand. He was the best looking. One of my two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest. The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the basest manner, and she and her three children ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... wavering glance which the big soldier had thrown backward toward his companions,—a glance accompanied by a queer sickly smile. He remembered too, with equal vividness, its consequence. For though the soldier carried a loaded musket and a bayonet locked to the muzzle, he had without an effort of self-defence received the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... to the house of Joseph Garniero, and before they entered, fired in at the window, to give notice of their approach. A musket ball entered one of Mrs. Garniero's breasts, as she was suckling an infant with the other. On finding their intentions, she begged hard that they would spare the life of the infant, which they promised to do, and sent it immediately ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... but now with that thrill of exultation which even a faint prospect of success inspires in a sanguine man. He heard a shout of many voices far off, then there was another report of a shot, and a musket ball fired at long range spurted a tiny jet of sand between him and his wild enemies. His next bound would have carried him into their midst had they awaited his onset, but his uplifted arm found nothing to strike. Black backs were leaping high or gliding horizontally through the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... good for a beginning. Yet still, if I may be critical, not perfect. There is more in this thing than you might imagine, gentlemen. May I point out to Private Henry Thompson that a musket carried across the shoulder at right angles is apt to inconvenience the gentleman behind. Even from the point of view of his own comfort, I feel sure that Private Thompson would do better to follow the usual custom ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... money taken from him, by a fellow whom he believed came from this murderers' nest. He said that he was an exceedingly powerful young man, with immense moustaches and whiskers, and was armed with an espingarda, or musket. About ten days subsequently he saw the robber at Vendas Novas, where we should pass the night. The fellow on recognising him took him aside, and, with horrid imprecations, threatened that he should never be permitted to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... could from the rain, hail, and snow, which fell heavily. Now they employed themselves by drying a part of the meat they had secured; and when cutting up the carcass of the animal, they discovered it had been shot at by hunters not more than a week previously, as an arrow-head and a musket-ball were still in the wounds. Under other circumstances such a matter would have been regarded as trivial, but as they knew the Snake Indians had no guns, the presence of the bullet indicated that the elk could not have been wounded by one of them. They were aware that they were on the edge ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... service of God, the king, and the public good, I sentence them to a violent death by musket shots, on the 11th of April, at 9 A.M., the troops to be present at the execution, under arms; and also all the Christian rancherias subject to the San Diego Mission, that they may be ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... in the wall, were the belts, which the soldiers had profited by the day's halt—no very frequent occurrence with them—to clean and pipeclay, and then had hung to dry in the sun. Here, just within the open door of a stable, were men polishing their musket-barrels, or repairing their accoutrements; in another place a group, more idly disposed, had collected in some shady nook, and were playing at cards or morra; whilst others, wrapped in their grey capotes, their heads resting upon a knapsack or doorstep, indulged in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... my arrival it was my fortune to be ordered on a sally party, in which my left leg was broke with a musket-ball; and I should most certainly have either perished miserably, or must have owed my preservation to some of the enemy, had not my faithful servant carried me off on his shoulders, and afterwards, with the assistance of one of his comrades, brought ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... proceeded to review his army of vagabonds. And though he complimented them on the great perfection of their drill, and bid them esteem themselves the heroes of no end of victories, they were in truth as awkward a set of fellows as ever shouldered musket, in short, not one of them knew how to take the first move in forming a section, though they could rob hen roosts and banana fields with a facility truly remarkable. And now, as the noon-day sun was oppressive enough ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... musket is an extremely formidable weapon, and has, perhaps, been the greatest single contributor to the victory of civilization over barbarism, and order over anarchy, that has ever existed up to the present time. But the enormous advances in engineering, including ordnance, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... royal officers on the face, the latter called out, 'to arms!' and as soon as he was surrounded by his followers, he rushed furiously upon the lunatic, whom he clove in two by a sabre stroke. During this time the sentinels placed in the street to guard the royal granary, fired musket-shots at the windows, and the bullets, rebounding from the ceiling of the building, wounded and killed several amongst us." The horrors of their situation, and the pangs of hunger and thirst were so great, that some of the sane amongst the prisoners nearly went mad. It was not till ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... of his way toward the maternal nest. The temptation on Markham's part to capture this sprig of porkdom was too mighty to be overcome by any lingering fear of Alexandria's dungeon, so instantly clapping his musket to his shoulder he blazed away, with the result of piggy's dropping in his tracks, without so much as an audible grunt. He sprang out, and had barely secured his prey, when a mounted officer with a squad of cavalry came galloping down the ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... going into camp, I took a running jump over a ditch, and this rapid motion so frightened an honest German sentinel—probably a little muddled with lager—that he actually forgot to fire, and came at me in a more natural way with his musket clubbed. I escaped a broken head at the expense of a severely bruised arm. The rule for challenging, it used to be said, was to 'fire three times, and then cry 'halt!' instead of the reverse, as prescribed in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with shaven head and scalping lock—favoured us with a graphic mimicry of a fight, showing the methods in his day. He took the handjar between his teeth and a musket in his hands, yelling and scowling fearfully; then, the last cartridge fired or the moment for hand-to-hand combat arrived, the rifle was thrown away, and brandishing the handjar in the air, he darted towards us. It was a most realistic performance, and made us feel thankful ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... the bugle, and the troop were in their saddles and galloping away over the greensward of the meadow in a southerly direction. The whole transaction did not occupy five minutes, and it seemed to Rolfe and his party, who witnessed it, more like a dream than a reality. The Jarochos were just out of musket range. A long shot might have reached them, but even had Rolfe ventured this, it would have been with doubtful propriety. Rumor had fixed the existence of a large force of the enemy in this neighborhood. It was supposed that at least a thousand men ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... withdrew into the background; it hastened to restore to the pontifical government all its powers. Austria has only restored what it could not keep. She even still undertakes to repress political crimes. She feels personally wronged if a cracker is let off, if a musket is concealed: in short, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... see the bringing of our ordnance Along the trench into [146] the battery, Where we will have gallions of six foot broad, To save our cannoneers from musket-shot; Betwixt which shall our ordnance thunder forth, And with the breach's fall, smoke, fire, and dust, The crack, the echo, and the soldiers' cry, Make deaf the air and dim the ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... binder-whip in his hand, imagining he was one of the original Forty-Niners pioneering along the unknown frontiers of an unknown land. I could see him duck at imaginary arrows and frenziedly defend his family from imaginary Sioux with an imaginary musket. And I stood beside it this morning, dreaming of the adventures it must have lumbered through, of the freight it must have carried and the hopes it must have ferried as it once crawled westward along the floor of the world, from water-hole ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... were deserting the almiranta, they lowered their lanchas and entered it. One Dutchman, climbing up to the maintopsail, lowered the banner of Christ and ran up that of Count Mauricio, the sight of which caused us great anguish. Throughout that battle our men did not fire a musket or espingarda, [76] and they had none on the second day, for they tried to escape by swimming. Our men set fire to this galleon, the almiranta; and when the Dutch saw that it was burning, they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... country. Forthwith he was deputed by President Davis to return to the Northern States, and make large purchases and contracts "for machinery and munitions, or for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war;" as also to obtain "cannon and musket-powder, the former of the coarsest grain," and to engage with a certain proprietor of powder-mills for the "establishment of a powder-mill at some point in the limits of our territory." This letter gives a good idea of the business-like qualities ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... the party encounter. The officer commanding it stopped the ambassador and the linguister and let the soldiers go on at a round trot toward the great gate, which stood open, the bayonet on the musket of the sentry shining with an errant gleam of light like the sword of fire at the entrance of Paradise. For now the sun was up, the radiance suffusing the blue and misty mountains and the seas of ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... crux of it. The plutonium bomb, from a military standpoint, was as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at the time of the Second World War. He reviewed, quickly, the history of weapons-development since the beginning of the Atomic Era. The emphasis, since the end of the Second World War, had all been on nuclear ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... only on horseback, becoming largely helpless on foot. At length, the greatest stage in the history of war, the notable invention of gunpowder was achieved, and an enormous transformation took place in the whole terrible art. The musket, the rifle, the pistol, the cannon were one by one evolved, to develop in the nineteenth century into the breech-loader, the machine gun, the bomb, and the multitude of devices fitted to bring about death and destruction ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... Supplies of all kinds were sent by Mayor Joseph Beard to Fort Drane and the posts on the St. John's, which were poorly equipped with ordnance and quartermaster's stores. He also sent a six-pounder cannon with necessary equipments of grape, canister, and round shot, ten thousand rounds of musket ball and buckshot cartridges, and a general supply of needful articles. Further supplies were drawn on their ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... abroad. Some said with confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St james's Park, one evening. There were many such whispers as these in circulation; but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... way to the front of the Opera House. While forming line here on the sidewalk, they were assailed so fiercely with paving-stones, that the soldiers fell rapidly. The rioters were in close quarters, and the heavy stones, hurled at such a short distance, were almost as deadly as musket-balls. Captain Pond soon fell wounded, when the second in command told the sheriff that if he did not give the order to fire, the troops would be withdrawn, for they couldn't stand it. Recorder Talmadge, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... this moment quite unmans me. I must not reflect. Well, I endeavored with all the faculties of my mind and body to keep awake. I kept steadily pacing to and fro, though I could scarcely drag one limb after the other, or even stand upright; sleep would arrest me while in motion, and I would drop my musket and wake up in a panic, with the impression of some awful, overhanging ruin appalling my soul. Herbert, will you think me a miserably weak wretch if I tell you that that night was a night of mental and physical horrors? Brain and nerves ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... remain on shore with you a little. First, we'll load the musket in case of need, and then you can put it out of the way of Tommy, who fingers everything, I observe. We will take up the sail between us. Juno, you can carry the tools; and then we can come back again for the spars, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... Look combined fire-eating and sword-swallowing in a rather startling manner. His best effect was the swallowing of a red-hot sword.[1] Another thriller consisted in fastening a long sword to the stock of a musket; when he had swallowed about half the length of the blade, he discharged the gun and the recoil drove the sword suddenly down his throat to the very hilt. Although Look always appeared in a Chinese make-up, Dean Kellar told me that ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... moved directly toward the town; the second—with a detachment of scouts—headed down the right-hand road to cross the Licking River and move in upon the enemies' rear. From the hill they could sight a stone-fence barricade glistening with the metal of waiting musket barrels. Then, suddenly, the old miracle came. Men who had clung through the hours to their saddles by sheer will power alone, tightened their lines and ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... the noise in the palace; female shrieks, commands, a shot from a musket. What in heaven's name had happened? Where was Kathlyn? Why did she not appear? He fingered his revolvers. But Ahmed signaled to him not to stir. The knowledge of whatever had happened must be brought to them; on their lives they dared ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... latter. The prisoner, mounted upon a tall steed, had pressed him very closely; nay, the Eletto's victory was not decided, until a musket-shot had stretched the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his inauguration as President, Maclay noted that "this great man was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket. He trembled, and several times could scarce make out to read [his speech], though it must be supposed he had often read it before," and Fisher Ames wrote, "He addressed the two Houses in the Senate-chamber; it was a very touching scene ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... sheriff comes to dispossess me I shall be there with my musket, and if I fall Ira will be there, and if he falls Ebenezer will have a musket, and if he, too, falls, then John will try what he can do. That is what ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... Montgomery—they wrought, heart and soul for the cause; yielded their warerooms for government use, contributed freely in money and stores, let their wives and daughters work on the soldiers' clothing like seamstresses, and put their first-born into the ranks, musket on shoulder. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... around him. As a young man he had been summoned to appear before the synod at Ipswich for not conforming to the rites of the Established Church.[25] In the first year of Charles's reign he had been indicted for refusing to exhibit his musket,[26] and he had twice later been indicted for witchcraft and once as a common imbarritor.[27] The very fact that he had been charged with witchcraft before would give color to the charge when made in 1645. We have indeed a clue to the motives for this accusation. A parishioner and a neighboring ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... parapet, he could see one of his fantastically uniformed soldiery pacing back and forth before a sentry-box, his musket jauntily shouldered, and a bayonet glinting at his belt. Karyl stood looking, and his lips curled skeptically as he wondered whether the man would ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... prove it—you and Colonel Shelby, and the rest of the neighbors who are saying things behind my back that they don't care to say to my face? Why don't you prove your loyalty to the South by shouldering a musket ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... their crests a-swim in floating cloud, all their rugged foothills dotted with the tentage of a sleeping army. Here, close at hand on the banks of the rushing river, a sentry paces slowly to and fro, the dew dripping from his shouldered musket and beading on his cartridge-box. The collar of his light-blue overcoat is muffled up about his ears, and his forage cap is pulled far down over his blinking eyes. As he paces southward he can see along the stream-bed ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... their power to stimulate the fanaticism of the frenzied populace. In the first religious war the Protestant soldiers broke open and plundered the great church of Orleans. The Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligni hastened to repress the disorder. The prince pointed a musket at a soldier who had ascended a ladder to break an image, threatening to shoot him if ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott |
