"Ramrod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the rustling and rattling of bandoleer and ramrod, and the twinkling of sparks of light, as the reloading went on; while from the angry orders being given, some distance back in the darkness, it was evident that the volley had sent the enemy off in a scare, which was made worse by the plunging, snorting, and galloping of ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... I shot out my ramrod. I seen a good chance, and blazed away 'fore I thought to take it out. It went through six of 'em, and stuck into a tree and hung 'em fast. Heigh! it's fun to ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... forms. A man hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without his name attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... called it, and baked the dough by spreading it on barrel-heads and propping them before the fire. When these boards were not to be had, we made the dough into long slender rolls, which, we twined about an iron ramrod and put before the fire on wooden forks stuck in the ground. My haversack of food brought from Richmond was exhausted; this night but one day's ration ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist with ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... them, and if it had not been for our plucky engine-driver calling out to them to stop, with the addition of a terrible oath, two or three of these poor men would have been wounded. I too had seized my revolver, but before I could have drawn out the ramrod which serves as a cog to prevent it from going off, any one would have had time to seize me, bind me, and kill me a ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... how we go on fancying, when we have nothing better to do. I gave the pistols to the servant, to clean and load. He was playing with the maid, and trying to frighten her, when the pistol went off—God knows how!—the ramrod was in the barrel; and it went straight through her right hand, and shattered the thumb. I had to endure all the lamentation, and to pay the surgeon's bill; so, since that time, I have kept all my weapons unloaded. ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... while you are seeing to the fire. Then we will spit them on a ramrod, and I will ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound it down with a ramrod, and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... salad; mule hoof, soused; mule brains a l'omelette; mule kidneys, braises on ramrod; mule tripe, on half (Parrot) shell; mule tongue, cold, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... moment or two they were crowded so thick round him that I could not perceive what they were doing, but after that they separated, and I beheld him bleeding profusely, his ears and nose having been cut off, and a broken iron ramrod passed through both cheeks. And now a scene took place, at the remembrance of which, even now, my blood curdles. Some caught up the burning sticks and applied them to his flesh, others stuck him full of small splints, the ends of ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the dark, 'tis to visit a sick friend; if she encourages young Antinoeus to be what ladies call continually "in her pocket," that is only in order to give the lad good advice and keep him out of mischief. Major Ramrod is never out of the house; but what then? The visits of fifty Major Ramrods would not entitle the world to breathe a whisper against a person of such strict propriety as Lady Straitlace. But how that same forbearing world indemnifies itself on poor Mrs. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... in all its repulsiveness. "You needn't reckon on that courage o' yourn, old fellow; this citizen can go two pins above it. If you wants a showin', just name the mark. I've seed ye times enough,—how ye would not stand ramrod when a nigger looked lightning at ye. Twice I seed a nigger make ye show flum; and ye darn't make the cussed critter toe the line trim up, nohow," he mumbles out, dropping his tumbler on the table, spilling his liquor. They are Graspum's ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... to the orchard—flush, Sam!" The old setter sprang forward and the birds arose from the ground with an exciting flutter. The guns roared and two birds fell. Doctor Hissong was reloading, ramming the charge home with a long hickory ramrod. With trembling hand, Major LeCroix drew the cork from his powder-horn, and endeavored to pour ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... seen in the wood, and an interview was obtained with two, who being made to understand that a hatchet would be given on the musket being returned, they went off to fetch it. In a little time it was actually brought, with the stock broken and ramrod gone, and the hatchet was paid; after which the natives came to the tents with confidence, and some would have remained all night, had ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... The Ramrod Broken; or the Bible History and Common Sense in Favor of the Moderate Use of Good Spirituous Liquors; showing the Advantage of a License System in Preference to Prohibition, and "Moral," in Preference to "Legal, Suasion." By a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... camp, a fellow by the name of Nigger Jim, one of those black negroes whose blood is undiluted by the white man's; a former slave; more than six feet tall and—to this very day—as straight as a ramrod. He had fought Apaches and on more than one occasion held his own against outlaws; and the early settlers, of whom he was one, treated him as ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... the part, suck the wound, and caustic it as soon as you can. Or, for want of caustic, explode gunpowder in the wound; of else do what Mr. Mansfield Parkyns well suggests, i.e., cut away with a knife, and afterwards burn out with the end of your iron ramrod, heated as near a white heat as you can readily get it. The arteries lie deep, and as much flesh may, without much danger, be cut or burnt into, as the fingers can pinch up. The next step is to use the utmost energy, and even cruelty, to prevent the patient's giving way to that ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... figure riding at her side, just now rather rigid with restraint and indignation, as though his vertebrae were threaded on a ramrod, and ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... eyes had an intenser spark than usual. The effect of all this was that Newman, for the first time in his life, was not himself; that he measured his movements, and counted his words, and resolved that if the occasion demanded that he should appear to have swallowed a ramrod, he would ...
— The American • Henry James
... carefully measured from the flask; then a circular patch of greased linen had to be laid on the muzzle of the weapon, and a ball laid on it and hammered into the barrel with a leaden or wooden mallet; then it had to be driven into its place with a ramrod (often requiring the aid of the mallet), and, lastly, there was a new cap to be fitted. Yet although so much time was occupied between the shots, the animal remained as motionless ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... other a mere peep-hole for a window: a wooden bench, a bed of skins and two or three stools were barely visible in the gloom. In the doorway Oncle Jazon sat whittling a slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for his long flint-lock ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... to exceed De Wardes in rapidity of execution. He advanced, therefore, so as to reach him before he should have had time to reload his pistol. De Wardes saw him approaching like a tempest. The ball was rather tight, and offered some resistance to the ramrod. To load it carelessly would be to expose himself to lose his last chance; to take the proper care in loading it would be to lose his time, or rather it would be throwing away his life. He made his horse bound on one side. De Guiche ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... into the gorge. This advantage only rendered the sight more tantalising: my gun was empty, and I had no means of reloading it. Was it certain the piece was empty? Why should the Indian have believed it to be loaded? Up to this moment, I had not thought of examining it. I drew the ramrod, and inverted it into the barrel. The head struck upon a soft substance. The screw stood four fingers above the muzzle: the gun was charged! There was no cap upon the nipple. There had been none! This accounted for the piece having missed fire. In all likelihood, I owed my life to the circumstance ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... "Old ramrod," began Lieutenant Holmes, turning to his chum and addressing him by the old West Point nickname, "I came to see you about your pet. He seems to be in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... Allan Quatermain, which figures so prominently in the history of this epoch of his life, has been sent to me by Mr. Curtis, and is before me as I write. It was made in the year 1835 by J. Purdey, of 314 1/2, Oxford Street, London, and is a beautiful piece of workmanship of its kind. Without the ramrod, which is now missing, it weighs only 5 lbs. 3 3/4 oz. The barrel is octagonal, and the rifled bore, designed to take a spherical bullet, is 1/2 in. in diameter. The hammer can be set to safety on the half-cock by means ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard |
