"Privates" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pretty cry of pleasure she leaped into the seat beside Thierry. Gayly she threw out her arms. "To Paris!" she commanded. The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with admiration, looked back into hers. He stooped, threw in the clutch, and the great gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates guarding the rear, ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... concluded that she would be a poor substitute for an able bodied man, and he compromised the matter by leaving one of the privates, instructing him not to let the woman or the children leave the house, and to remain ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... three of its four guns had been disabled. The captain of this battery had halted to make a report of its condition and receive instructions, and Lee, gazing at the group of begrimed and tattered privates behind the officer, ordered them to renew their desperate work before he recognized that among them ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... occasions it was necessary to retreat when threatened by overwhelming forces; and yet, however disorganized, the British soldier recovers his discipline the instant he is attacked, and fiercely turns upon his pursuers. At the bridge across the Esla two privates of the 3d gave an example of splendid courage and determination. It was night. Some of the baggage was still on the farther bank, and the two men were posted as sentries beyond the bridge, their orders being that if an enemy appeared, one should fire ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... sprang forward, ready for another. But another came not. The rebels' ammunition was giving out. Harry's heart fell. The British forced the breastwork, carrying him along. He found himself at the northern end of the redoubt. Some privates lifted him to the parapet; he and a sergeant mounted at the same time, and leaped together into the redoubt. They saw Lieutenant Richardson, of the Royal Irish Regiment, appear on the southern parapet, give a shout ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was "on guard," perhaps thinking sadly of his absent wife and boy, certainly never dreaming they were so near. As the ambulance drove into camp it was at once surrounded by soldiers, both officers and privates. As soon as my name was known, some one who evidently appreciated the situation rushed off in hot haste to notify and relieve the soldier most interested. Meantime a dozen hands clasped mine in kindly greeting. To whom they belonged ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Sherburne, Harry and the privates rode at a gallop across the field, straight for the Union sentinel. He did not see them until they had covered nearly half the distance, and then with aggravating slowness he turned and rode over the opposite side of the hill. Harry had been watching him intently, and when he ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from a long line of heroic and patriotic ancestors, he had not a particle of pretentious pride, but to all men, privates in the ranks as well as officers, so that they were but brave and good soldiers, he always found "time enough for courtesy." He never tried to appropriate another man's laurels, but he possessed in a high degree that ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... extremity or despair the scorpion will destroy itself. Well might Moses mention this animal as one of the dangers of the howling wilderness! They are still very numerous in the desert between Syria and Egypt. Dr. Clarke tells us that one of the privates of the British army, who had received a wound from one of them, lost the upper joint of his forefinger before it could be healed. The author of the Revelation considers them as emblematic of the evils which issue from the bottomless pit. "And there came out ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... Richmond, one of the best officers in the Regiment, and a brave, noble fellow. He was shot in the afternoon, when success began to turn on our side. None braver paid the penalty of death for his country. We had 2 privates killed, 10 wounded, and 5 ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... stately residence of the Naam-Hoi magistrate, one of the subordinate dignitaries of Canton. In the porch, as might have been in that of Pilate or Herod, were a number of official palanquins, and many officials and servants of the mandarin with red-crowned hats turned up from their faces, and privates of the city guard, mean and shabby persons. One of these, for a kum-sha of course, took us, not through the closed and curtained doors, but along some passages, from which we passed through a circular brickwork tunnel to the front of the judgment seat at which ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... greatly to waste. It gives no them direct advantage over the clod who stumbles against a trisyllable. So far as it makes them better men, of course they are better soldiers; but for all of military education which their college gives them, they are fit only for privates, whose sole duty is to obey. They know nothing of military drill or tactics or strategy. The State cannot afford this waste. She cannot afford to lose the fruits of mental toil and discipline. She needs trained mind even more than trained muscle. It is harder to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... ornaments rifled from the dwellings were brought together and deposited in a common heap; when a fifth was deducted for the Crown, and Pizarro distributed the remainder in due proportions among the officers and privates of his company. This was the usage invariably observed on the like occasions throughout the Conquest. The invaders had embarked in a common adventure. Their interest was common, and to have allowed every one to plunder on his own ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... three servants—two women and a man. They were very good servants, but all three had been pronounced utterly intractable before they went to him. Master and mistress dared not speak to them; but with Dr. Turnbull they were suppressed as completely as if he had been Napoleon and they had been privates. He was kind to them, it is true, but at times very severe, and they could neither reply to him nor leave him. He did not affect the dress nor the manners of the doctors who preceded him. He wore a simple, black necktie, a shirt with no frill, and ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... attack?" said Dan Dunn to their prisoner, while the two privates went through the pockets of the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... no cash value whatever, or so little that many neglected to draw it when due them. And this was concealed at their enlistment. Indeed, the hatred towards General Walker and the service seemed almost universal amongst the privates, and they would have revolted and thrown away their arms at any moment, had there been hope of escape in that. But they were held together by common danger in a treacherous or hostile country, separated by broad oceans and impassable forests from a land of safe refuge. There was, besides, distrust ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... we get to France the French officers will want to tip us off on this and that about the Germans and of course they won't talk to the privates but they will only talk to the officers and if I am a officer by that time which it looks like a cinch I will be one by that time at the outside why suppose I was standing by 1 of our genls. and a French genl. wanted to tell him what was what and etc. but ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... On the other side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the remainder of our party of marines: of whom we had lost two privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made a melancholy passage, under the hot sun over to the mainland. There, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. Mr. and Mrs. ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... of an ardent feeling of religion, which he owed to the anxious inculcations of his mother, from whom he received the rudiments of education, he is said in the absence of the chaplain, to have composed more than one sermon, and to have delivered them to the assembled officers and privates of his regiment. It never occurred to me to ask him whether there was truth in this report; but he has frequently talked to me of anecdotes which were circulated of him, some of which he confirmed while he contradicted others, and never spoke of this as unfounded; from my knowledge of his character ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... upon Yankee valor and to dispiriting declarations of intention conditional on my capture, as members of the Opposition passed and repassed and paused in the road to discuss the morning's events. In this way I learned that the three privates had been headed off and caught within ten minutes. Their destination would naturally be Andersonville; what further became of them God knows. Their captors passed the day making a careful canvass of the swamp ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... when the soldier walked, and blew in the wind. I think the coat was gray, and the skirts were buttoned back with buff, but I will not be sure of this; and somehow I cannot say how the officers differed from the privates in dress; it was impossible for them to be more magnificent. They walked backwards in front of the platoons, with their swords drawn, and held in their white-gloved hands at hilt and point, and kept holloing, "Shoulder-r-r—arms! ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... with our soldiers in the siege of Sebastopol in 1854, where Hetais, having shown great gallantry during one of the sorties, was adjudged that coveted decoration, the medaille militaire—a medal that is only given to privates ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... liberty of proposing the following queries, after further stating that it has been thought that it would be expedient, in case of a reform, to lessen the number of regiments so as to make fewer commissioned officers and privates in the regiments. It has been supposed that a considerable saving would arise from this measure, by not having so many officers in full pay, with their horses, servants, baggage, and other consequent expenses in the field. Or if they remain ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... of September 15, four months after the Rough Riders had been organized, the colors were lowered in camp, the men were mustered out, and officers and privates shook hands and ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... banners under which the noble regiment was sleeping. I lifted not the overshadowing laurels from the bloody trench in which horse and rider lay mangled together. But I told her how these dear children of England, privates and officers, had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gaily as hunters to the morning's chase. I told her how they rode their horses into the mists of death, (saying to myself, but not saying to her,) and laid down their young lives for thee, O mother England! as willingly—poured ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... excluded from these rewards, which have so powerful an influence upon the people? Are generals and officers the only ones that receive rewards in the army? And when we have remunerated the captains of this great and powerful army of industry, why should we neglect the privates? ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... privates; skirmishers, hand to hand, like legionaries. Blood flowed like water; and so fierce was the hatred of the combatants, so deadly the nature of the tremendous stabbing broadswords of the Romans, that few wounds were inflicted, and few men went down ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... to remove the friendly Indians from Fort Laramie to Fort Kearney, in order to get them away from the troubles. When about sixty miles south of Fort Laramie they attacked their guard, killed a captain and four privates, turned upon five of their chiefs who were disposed to be friendly, killed them, and then escaped, leaving their camps, etc., in our hands; so that now we have every Indian tribe capable of mischief ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... information in the letter from the British commissary of prisoners, that no officers of the Virginia line should be exchanged till Governor Hamilton's affair should be settled, we have stopped our flag, which was just hoisting anchor with a load of privates for New York. I must, therefore, ask the favor of your Excellency to forward the enclosed by flag, when an opportunity offers, as I suppose General Phillips will be in New York before ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Tracy City, Resaca, Peach Creek and Atlanta were the most severe, though many others were as sanguinary. Their losses in all these engagements were sixteen officers, killed or wounded in battle, and twenty-three privates, or total of thirty-nine. In addition, eight were taken prisoners, most of whom died in rebel prison pens; and thirty-six others died of disease or were disabled by it. Out of the one hundred hardy men who left Southton, only nineteen returned unharmed at the close of the war!—a record ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... which he had handed over to the transport—started, with its driver, to join those that were to carry up the baggage and stores of General Hunter, and his staff. These were in charge of a sergeant and three privates, of one of the Soudanese battalions. Gregory had got up a case of whisky, one of bottled fruit, and a stock of tea and sugar from Berber. No tents could be carried, and he left his tente d'abri at the stores with his canteen; taking on board, in his own ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... But his faithful officers were falling like standing grain under a hail-storm; his boy soldiers, though fighting like veterans, inspired little confidence, for there was the same uneasiness among the humble privates as among the great officers; he had neither cavalry nor artillery, and his available force was reduced to a hundred and twenty thousand, men and boys; Barclay might, as for a moment he contemplated doing, draw off into ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... skies as there are fishes in the sea." These scouts of the sidereal world constitute a regular army, and if we are only acquainted with the dazzling generals clad in gold, it is because the more modest privates can only be detected in the telescope. Long before the invention of the latter, these wanderers in the firmament roamed through space as in our own day, but they defied the human eye, too weak to detect them. Then they were regarded as rare and ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... tenacious; that was his merit, and we do not deny it to him, but the lowest of his privates and his troopers was quite as solid as he, and the iron soldier is as good as the iron duke. For our part, all our glorification is offered to the English soldier, the English army, the English nation; ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... are put in the battalion—that is, after they begin drilling, etc., with their companies —all cadets attend company drill at five o'clock. After attending a few of these drills the first class is excused from further attendance during the encampment. One officer and the requisite number of privates, however, are detailed from the class each day to act as officers ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to the guardroom, where the same Hun N.C.O. casually informed me that I was to be shot. In an unconvincing way I told myself this was nonsense. The next move was not at all reassuring. I was marched through the back door into a tiny courtyard, accompanied by the sergeant of the guard and several privates armed with rifles! I am glad to say that the bluff was soon over, and I was put into a half dark stone cell. In a short time I was fished out to see Lieutenant Schram, who told me that I was the first to escape from there, but that I should never get another opportunity. ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... ova of any other individual. Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former Terran Federation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the Uller Company, it had taken some time before he had become accustomed to the detailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of each platoon for baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have the squaw-trouble around army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, where ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each their imperceptible little,—if it had not been for the poor, unnoticed, faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work and bore the suffering? No one man saved our country, or could save ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... play the father took us to an inn, and gave us some supper; and when the meal was over he spoke to us of our sin, and wanted to see our privates. 'It's a great sin between two girls,' said he, 'but between a man and a woman it is a venial matter. Do you know how men are made?' We both knew, but we said no with one consent. 'Then would you like to know?' said he. We said we should like to know very much, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... began to lose much of the quaint diversity beloved of artists and poets; but it also gained much. No longer did the Count of Limburg-Styrum parade his army of one colonel, six officers, and two privates in the valley of the Roehr: he and his passed under the sway of Murat, and the lapse of these pigmy forces made a national army possible in the dim future. No more did the Imperial lawyers at Wetzlar browse ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... he said. "The privates have their custom-made by the mile and cut off in chunks for the individual. That was about it, wasn't ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the third day of the "big push" five "Y" men started with heavy packs of supplies to find our brave lads of the 37th who were somewhere in the line. We were given as guides two privates who were returning to the front for more prisoners. They had brought in many prisoners that morning. I was interested and drew one of ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... was given full discretion to employ his forces as he saw fit. He turned loose the soldiers under him with general instructions to act as their own good sense dictated, and it is to the eternal credit of the noncommissioned officers and the privates that every report sent to the war department and all the descriptions in the press reports indicated that the army had saved the situation ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... it; they will never forgive you for guessing their bad sentiments. And then you must be indulgent to them. You have your beautiful lieutenant's epaulettes, Violette, do not be too hard upon these poor privates. They also are fighting under the poetic flag, and ours is a poverty-stricken regiment. Now you must profit by your good luck. Here you are, celebrated in forty-eight hours. Do you see, even the political people look at you with curiosity, although ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... outlying districts—managed to furnish a company for the State regiment. One or two prominent citizens had been lured by commissions as officers; but neither of the two Rivermouthians who went in as privates was of the slightest civic importance. One of these men was named ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Point. All the fever and excitement of the swift foray had passed, and the inevitable reaction had set in. The men were haggard, weary, sombre, and harassed. There was no elation after success either among officers or privates; only a sullen grimness, the sullenness of repletion after an orgy—the grimness of disgust for an unwelcome duty only ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... upon all observers to notice that no State which had once voted in woman suffrage had ever voted it out. Once in use, local opposition to it ceased by reason of the self-evident good results. He offered congratulations to those who were humble privates in the ranks and to the famous and brave leaders who organized the victories. "As the Elizabethan and Victorian eras are the most distinguished for philanthropic, literary and economic advancement ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... the other scouts to guard the horses. We arrived at the scene just in time to see the last Indian fall. When it was good light the Indians could be seen lying around in every direction. The orderly sergeant and two privates were looking around in the sagebrush, thinking there might be some of them hiding there, and all of a sudden two young bucks started up and began to run, and for about three hundred yards they had what I thought to be the prettiest race I had ever witnessed. The two Indians on foot and ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string. The koom-pa-ra, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in close proximity to white settlements. (W. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the Northwest-Central-Queensland ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... complete. General Wayne's outpost was surprised and the British troops rushed into his encampment. Three hundred of the Americans were killed or wounded and 100 taken prisoners. The rest escaped through the woods. On the English side 1 officer was killed and 7 privates killed and wounded. ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... Captain Desbrisay, Lieutenant Mackay, Lieutenant Tamser, Ensign Hogan, Ensign Sterling, and Ensigns Wemyss and Howarth, and Adjutant Maxwell; Thomas Eyre, Surgeon and Mate; six sergeants, six corporals, five drummers, and one hundred and twenty-five privates. Before they could get down to the bar, a sudden squall of wind and storm of thunder and rain came on; and when it cleared up the vessel ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... recently been committed in Boston: the Barracks and Stores were by order of Government placed under the care of one of the inhabitants residing near the several Forts, specially authorized by Government for that service. In 1774, a corporal and six privates were sent to reside in the ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... was no need of severity. So officers and men alike were all released on the promise that they would not again take up arms against the United States. The officers were allowed to keep their swords, their horses and belongings. The privates also were allowed to keep their horses, for as Grant said, " they would need ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... control over more or less limited areas. The officers of the Force Publique rank as Commandant, Captain, Lieutenant and Under-Lieutenant, and there are also several white non-commissioned officers. The natives rank as sergeants, corporals and privates. ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Polhes. There was but little bloodshed on the side of the victors, thanks to the rapidity with which the victory was won. The losses of the French troops were not more than two killed, two officers and thirty-six privates wounded. Of the Pontifical force there were twenty killed and one hundred and twenty-three wounded. Several of ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Privates, freezing, starving, wounded, dying,—unloved, unsoothed, unpitied—giving their life with a last smile in the joy of martyrdom. Women, North, whose silent tears for husbands who never came back and sons who died of shell and fever, make a tiara around the head of our ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... according to the precedence of their respective countries, the Imperial, Spanish, and Neapolitan Ambassadors forming the van. The staircase was lined on both sides with grenadiers of the Legion of Honour, most of whom, privates as well as officers, were arrayed in the order. The officers, as we passed, exchanged salutes with the Ambassadors; and as the Imperial Ambassador, who led the procession, reached the door of the anti-chamber, two trumpeters on each side played a congratulatory flourish. The ushers ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... as an English aeroplane, flying low, came from somewhere behind, and passed directly over him, going eastwards. Before long it stopped its direct course, and began to mount in spirals, and when at a sufficient height, it resumed its onward journey towards the German lines. Then three or four privates, billeted in the village, and now resting after duty in the trenches, strolled along the road, laughing and talking. They sat down not a hundred yards from Michael and one began to whistle "Tipperary." Another and another took it up until all four were engaged on it. It was not ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... unfortunate result of the campaign, the conduct of Washington and his officers was properly appreciated, and they received a vote of thanks for their bravery, and gallant defence of their country. Three hundred pistoles (nearly eleven hundred dollars) also were voted to be distributed among the privates who ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... in my collection is a gold figure of a man, 7 centimeters in height. The head is ornamented with a diadem terminated on each side with the head of a frog. The body is nude, except a girdle, also in the form of a plait, supporting a flat piece intended to cover the privates, and two round ornaments on each side. The arms are extended from the body; the well drawn hands hold, one of them a short, round club, the other a musical instrument, of which one end is in the mouth and the other forms an enlargement like that of a flute, made of human bone. It ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... their rates of pay are not settled by any central authority. But there are capitalists, "undertakers" and labourers, merchants and retail dealers and contractors, and so forth, just as certainly as there are generals and privates, horse, foot, and artillery; and their mutual relations are equally definable. The economist has to explain the working of this industrial mechanism; and the thought may sometimes occur to us, that it is strange that he should find the task so difficult. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of stout poles, still these would prove formidable weapons in the hands of stout men. He rode back at the head of his little troop to join his brothers and other young gentlemen, some acting as officers, some as privates, at breakfast, not in those days a meal of toast, eggs, butter, and tea, but of beef, bread, and beer. They were still seated at table when the trampling of horses outside announced the arrival of another party. On ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... of the battle of Queenston Heights was the unconditional surrender of Brigadier Wadsworth and nine hundred and fifty officers and privates as prisoners of war. But this victory, brilliant as it was, was dearly bought with the death of the loved and honored Brock, the brave young Macdonnell, and those of humbler rank, whose fall brought sorrow to many a ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... first commands and the highest stations in the service are filled without distinction from every grade in society. It is this happy mixture which induces that high sense of honour, so peculiarly characteristic of our service; that acknowledged distinction between the officers and the privates; that true discipline which, tempered with justice and kindly feeling, wins the respect of the soldier, and induces him to place that reliance upon his commander everywhere so conspicuous, whether in the camp or field of battle. But this high feeling in the army causes no additional ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... had been filled up to one hundred privates, twelve non-commissioned officers, and one ordnance sergeant (Layton), making one hundred and thirteen enlisted men and five officers. Dr. James L. Ord had been employed as acting assistant surgeon to accompany the expedition, and Lieutenant ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... to the rank of Captains, their commissions duly signed, led the tramping men. There were many captains in this remarkable army of twenty-one. There were more officers than privates. The officers were commissioned to recruit their black companies when the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... tribunes, Antony, Cassius Longinus, and Curio, who were coming to him from Rome.[1] At Rimini the troops were again assembled. Curio told them what had passed. Caesar added a few more words. The legionaries, officers and privates, were perfectly satisfied; and Caesar, who, a resolution once taken, struck as swiftly as his own eagles, was preparing to go forward. He had but 5,000 men with him, but he understood the state of Italy, and knew that he had ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... hike we were paid weekly. Privates got five francs, corporals ten, and sergeants fifteen to twenty a week. That's a lot of money. Anything left over was held back to be paid when we got to Blighty. Parcels and mail came along with perfect regularity on that hike. It was and is a marvel to me how ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... Paterson had introduced some alterations and regulations in the corps of which he had now taken the command. Among others, his Majesty having been graciously pleased to augment the pay of the non-commissioned officers, drummers, and privates of the army, since the 25th day of May 1797, under certain regulations with respect to stoppages, the regiment was now to receive the benefit of such increase of pay. From this, three pence halfpenny per ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... are interned in this camp. Three imaums (priests) were not classed with the officers, as they had served as privates. ...
— Turkish Prisoners in Egypt - A Report By The Delegates Of The International Committee - Of The Red Cross • Various
... rode back to camp chuckling—chuckling with satisfaction and pride; but the chuckle passed when he caught sight of his tent. In front of it were his lieutenants and some half a dozen privates, all plainly in great agitation, and in the midst of them stood the lank messenger who had brought the first message from Black Tom, delivering another from the same source. Black Tom was coming, coming surer and ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... millionaire privates who have aroused such burnings in the heart of the French poilu, with his five sous a day! We left him there, and staggered across the Seine with our bags. A French officer approached us. "You come from America," he said. "Let me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Positivism until it looks, more than ever, like John Bunyan's Pope and Pagan rolled into one. There is a story often repeated, and I am afraid none the less mythical on that account, of a valiant and loud-voiced corporal in command of two full privates who, falling in with a regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under pain of instant annihilation by his force; and the enemy surrenders accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I read the positivist commands to the forces of Christianity ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... passed the night upon the battle-field, in the midst of twenty-five thousand dead, and marched towards Mons the next evening. They frankly admitted that in men killed and wounded, in general officers and privates, in flags and standards, they had lost more than we. The battle cost them, in fact, seven lieutenant-generals, five other generals, about eighteen hundred officers killed or wounded, and more than fifteen thousand ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... attachment, beyond all that Wallenstein or any commander, the most beloved amongst his troops, has ever experienced, that, on the breaking out of the civil war, not only did the centurions of every legion severally maintain a horse soldier, but even the privates volunteered to serve without pay— and (what might seem impossible) without their daily rations. This was accomplished by subscriptions amongst themselves, the more opulent undertaking for the maintenance of the needy. Their disinterested love for Csar appeared ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... that? Too probably, except in the case of here and there some specially intelligent or specially influential sepoy officer, indispensable as a go-between to the non-military conspirators moving in darkness behind the rebel army, nothing at all was communicated to the bulk of the privates, beyond the mere detail of movements required by the varying circumstantialities of each particular case. But of the ultimate purpose, of the main strategic policy, or of the transcendent interests over-riding the narrow counsels that fell under the knowledge of the illiterate soldier, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Loring, back from cadet furlough, had been made first sergeant of Company "D," in which as a private and first classman was the very cadet who had so soundly thrashed him. Loring proved strict. Certain "first-class privates" undertook to rebel against his authority, his former antagonist being the ringleader. Matters came to a crisis when Loring entered the names of three of the seniors on the delinquency book for "slow taking ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... that his eye swept the littered field from which Jabez Rockwell rose, as one from the dead, to rally his comrades, alone, undaunted, pathetic beyond words. A little later two privates were carrying to the rear the wounded lad, who had been picked up alive and conscious. They halted to salute their Commander-in-chief, and laid their burden down as the general ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Rutherford, on your life. Peter will have these atrocities. Here—Kaki, bring the doctor the other box.—That's better.—I don't believe what I said? Now listen. How could the fact that the world was turned into a military camp, officers commanding, privates obeying, rank, rank, rank everywhere throughout mankind, how could that fail to hinder democracy, which is in its essence the leveling ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... the head-watchman, a stocky corporal of the landsturm, with grey on his temples, growled and blustered good- naturedly. "Privates must be in bed by nine o'clock." To preserve a show of authority he added with poorly simulated bearishness: "Well, are you going ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... to obtain military aid from the British authorities, but failed. He then engaged four officers and over one hundred privates who had served in the late War with the United States to accompany him to the Red river. He was to pay them, give them lands, and send them home ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... mire. A close and desperate fight ensued, during which the five companies of the sixth infantry, who bore the brunt of the fray, lost every officer but one, and one of these companies saved only four privates unharmed. The enemy's line was at last broken, and their right flank turned. They were soon scattered in all directions, and were pursued till near night. The American loss was 26 killed and 112 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... farmers, who constituted the majority of the people. The only difference between us was that they had been colonels or generals in the Revolutionary War, or delegates to the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention, while we had been privates, corporals, or sergeants. They generally owned a thousand slaves, and we had from ten to thirty. I made up my mind that we should have a share of the honors, and they laughed at me. I organized the majority and put the old families out of business, and we became and ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... considered by the British an excellent partisan officer, but he was caught napping. Marion moved with equal secrecy and celerity. After riding all night, he came upon the enemy at dawn in the morning. The discovery and the attack were one. The surprise was complete. A captain and several privates were slain, and the party dispersed. Marion did not lose a man, and had but two wounded. In this engagement, our representative, Major James, distinguished himself, by singling out Major Gainey for personal combat. But Gainey shrank from his more powerful assailant, and sought safety in flight. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... into forgotten days. War seemed to end at the French quayside. Staff officers, brigadier-generals, captains, privates and lance-corporals—they were all just Englishmen off to their homes. They jostled one another up the gangway—I never heard a rough word in that dense crowd. They lay side by side outside the saloon of the Channel turbine steamer. A corporal with ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... deliberation. The army surrendered, and the most complete victory was obtained without bloodshed. Colours, baggage, and artillery all fell into the hands of the victors, the officers were taken into custody, the privates drafted into the army of Wallenstein. And now at last, after a banishment of fourteen years, after numberless changes of fortune, the author of the Bohemian insurrection, and the remote origin of this destructive war, the notorious Count Thurn, was in ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... in with the French advanced guard, who were also bewildered, and were trying to find their way to the fort. A smart skirmish ensued, and, at the first fire, Lord Howe, another officer, and several privates, were killed. The French were repulsed, with a loss of about three hundred killed, and one hundred and forty made prisoners. The English battalions were so much broken, confused, and fatigued, that Abercrombie ordered them back to the landing-place, where they bivouacked ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... components in this location. The pygopagous twins belong in this section. According to Bateman, twins were born in 1493 at Rome joined back to back, and survived their birth. The same authority speaks of a female child who was born with "2 bellies, 4 arms, 4 legs, 2 heads, and 2 sets of privates, and was exhibited throughout Italy for gain's sake." The "Biddenden Maids" were born in Biddenden, Kent, in 1100. Their names were Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, and their parents were fairly well-to-do people. They were supposed to have been united ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... under the command of Captains Lane of the thirty-two-gun frigate Astrea and Ryves of the bomb-vessel Bulldog, were landed to co-operate with the troops. Morne Chabot was attacked and carried that night with the loss of thirteen officers and privates killed, forty-nine wounded, and ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... a single focus. There is one dish to dominate the cloth, a single bulk to which all other dishes are subordinate. If there be turkey, it should mount from a central platter. Its protruding legs out-top the candles. All other foods are, as it were, privates in Caesar's army. They do no more than flank the pageant. Nor may the pantry hold too many secrets. Within reason, everything should be set out at once, or at least a gossip of its coming should run before. Otherwise, if the stew is savory, how shall one reserve a corner ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... a corporal and four; to be guilty of onanism: the thumb is the corporal, the four fingers the privates. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... choking dust; a larger hand deftly canted me out of the saddle; and two of the hugest hands in the world received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the special correspondent who falls into such hands as those of Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... and shod in fragile dress-shoes stood shivering upon the gleaming pavement beside Jewesses from the East-End. Fur-collared coats were pressed against wet working raiments, white gloved hands rested upon greasy shoulders. Officers jostled privates, sailors vied with soldiers in the scrum before the entrance to the microbic land of tunnels. War ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... final performance of the clock will follow. The sentry-boxes, which you may observe at each side, will both open at the same moment. In one of them you will see the sentinel appear; and from the other a corporal and two privates will march across the platform to relieve the guard, and will then disappear, leaving the new sentinel at his post. I must ask your kind allowances for this last part of the performance. The machinery is a little complicated, and there are defects in it which I am ashamed to say I ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Hosay, privates of the Ohio National Guard, were drowned while in acts of rescue. The body of an elderly woman floated down near Wyoming Street in the afternoon, but the current was so swift that ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... was lost from them, to continue to advance until halted by some one in authority, I moved ahead myself, hoping to find them later on. In making a rush forward three men of my squad were lost from me in some way. I still had two men with me, Privates Combs and Jackson, and in the next advance made I picked up a First Cavalry sergeant who had fallen out from exhaustion. After a terrific climb up the ridge in front of me, and a very regular though ineffective fire from the enemy kept up until we were ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... before, he would give them the proper orders at the proper time; and that if they obeyed those orders faithfully and intelligently, success would follow. But Captain Hardy was different in many respects from other commanders, and his subordinates were not at all like ordinary privates in an army. There was no question as to their loyalty, discretion, or intelligence; and their leader believed he could attain the greatest success by taking them into his confidence. So presently he answered the question that each boy was longing ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... their use of the Indians combined with that of the Hessians to exasperate the Americans, although they had the same kind of savage allies, and eventually called in foreigners also. In discipline the Americans were far inferior to the English. General Montgomery wrote: "The privates are all generals, but not soldiers;" and Baron Steuben wrote to a Prussian officer a little later: "You say to your soldier, 'Do this,' and he doeth it; but I am obliged to say to mine, 'This is the reason why you ought to do that,' and then he does it." The British officers ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... with the best division of the army of northern Virginia, Stonewall Jackson's old command, two generals, thirty colours, cannon, and small arms to correspond. John Noyes, a soldier of a class after us, told me that in the salient he and Barlow worked like privates in the confusion of the capture, turning with their own hands against the enemy a cannon that had just been taken. Barlow was as cool as when he fired off the old cannon in Cambridge ten years before. This stroke proved futile, but ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... embarrass us. Meanwhile, we must trust to the march of Democracy to de-Russianize Berlin and de-Prussianize Petrograd, and to put the nagaikas of the Cossacks and the riding-whips with which Junker officers slash German privates, and the forty tolerated homosexual brothels of Berlin, and all the other psychopathic symptoms of overfeeding and inculcated insolence and sham virility in their proper place, which I take to be ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... considerably agitated too, by a report of a mutiny in the Oxford Militia, who were quartered at Newhaven, in the neighbourhood of Brighton. This also arose in consequence of the high price of provisions. The privates of this regiment had seized a quantity of flour, and sold it to their comrades and others, at a reasonable price. I remember that this caused great alarm amongst the farmers, as they knew that without ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... which Lee accepted. The troops were to give their paroles not to take up arms again until properly exchanged, and officers might retain their side-arms, private horses, and baggage. Anxious to heal the wounds of the South, Grant, with rare thoughtfulness, allowed privates also to take home their own horses. "They will need them for the spring ploughing," he said. The 19,000 prisoners captured during the last ten days, together with deserters, left, in Lee's once magnificent army, but 28,356 soldiers to be paroled. The surrendering general was compelled ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the duties of the one being to prevent the distillation of potheen or illicit whiskey, those of the other to check the riots created by its consumption. These forces, for they are in fact military forces, have each their officers, sub-officers, and privates, as the army has; their dress, full dress, and half dress; their arms, field arms, and house arms; their barracks, stations, and military regulations; their captains, colonels, and commander-in-chief, but called by other names; and, in fact, each body is a regularly disciplined ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Wilsoned" him until he was sick of it and begged them to stop. Then, when they got back to the station, they popped him into the "jigger" along with privates charged with sassing the cook and other heinous offenses—a most humiliating experience for a brigadier general. Now he must die; and it came to him that it was as hard for a general officer to die as ever it was for ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... men, nearly three thousand were barefooted and otherwise naked. But the sufferings of the army were not the only causes of solicitude to the commander-in-chief, on whom chiefly rested the responsibility of the war. The officers were discontented, and were not prepared, any more than the privates, to make permanent sacrifices. They were obliged to break in upon their private property, and were without any prospect of future relief. Washington was willing to make any sacrifices himself, and refused any payment for his own expenses; but, while he exhibited the rarest magnanimity, he did not ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... of marines be raised, consisting of one colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, and other officers, as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to offices or enlisted into said battalions but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage on sea when required, that they be enlisted and commissioned ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... desperately for three days to escape. They were assisted by the rudimentary equipment of the Russian forces; rifles and ammunition were scarce, bayonets and hand-grenades were none too plentiful, and some of the privates are even said to have fought with pitchforks. By such hand-to-hand and bloody warfare the Germans were driven out of Prasnysz back towards Stegna and Chorzele and their flank attack on Warsaw foiled. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... Spoke to them about next Monday and canvas. They seemed surprised. Strange how the military authorities decline to take men into their confidence merely because they are privates. Let them upstairs. They went (for first and ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... take part in the great Olympic, Isthmian and other games took with them a tent, wherein to camp in the open. Further, there is an obscene allusion which the actor indicates by gesture, pointing to the girl's privates, signifying there is the lodging where he would fain find a delightful abode. The 'Isthmus' is the perineum, the narrow space betwixt ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... marched, back and forth; toward the cars—'going back to Harrisburg;' past the cars—'no, not to Harrisburg'—through the main street, and turned away from the town, still unconscious of officers' intentions. We privates never know anything of plans or objects. We never know where we are going till we get there, nor what we are to do till we do it, and then we don't know what we are going to do next. I soon got used to this; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... non-commissioned officers and men killed, 1762 wounded, showed the severe nature of the contest. Many gallant deeds were done, but the following men deserve especial notice, for bringing in wounded men from the advanced posts during daylight on the 8th:—Privates Thomas Johnson, Bedford, Chapman, and William Freeman, of the 62nd. A considerable number performed the same merciful but dangerous work during the night. It was intended to renew the attack on the following ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... your letter from Adrienne, has given a flourishing account of M. d'A. in his new uniform, though the uniform itself, he says, is very ugly. But so sought is the company of the garde du corps du roi that the very privates, M. de T. says, are gentlemen. M. d'A. himself has only the place of sous-lieutenant; but it is of consequence sufficient, in that company, to be signed by the king, who had rejected two officers that had been named to him just ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... ye have it up there in society, Miss Diana. Ye have the cat show and the horse show and the military tournaments where the privates look grand as generals and the generals try to look grand as floor-walkers. And ye have the Sportsmen's Show, where the girl that measures 36, 19, 45 cooks breakfast food in a birch-bark wigwam on the banks of the Grand Canal of Venice conducted by one of the Vanderbilts, Bernard McFadden, and ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... I manifested no signs of backing down (and I am sure my eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of the building where, in an open court, stood a tent. In the same sneering tone he informed a couple of privates standing there that "'ere is a fellow that 'as business an' 'e ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... he made as if to spring on Stafford, but a pistol suddenly faced him, and he knew well that what Stafford would not do in cold blood, he would do in the exercise of his duty and as a soldier before these Rooinek privates. He stood still; he made ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
