"Skirmish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... report bombardment of Lanaeken when civilians attack them; Germans closing in on Antwerp and have crossed the Nethe; fighting near Ghent; Allies drive German cavalry back from Lille and gain at Roye; skirmish at Ypres; Allies reinforced; ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... moment from his castle to visit his mistress; his imagination conjured up a war between the opposing towers of Cadurcis and Cherbury; and when his mother fell into a passion on his return, it passed with him only, according to its length and spirit, as a brisk skirmish or a general engagement. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... infancy, were a policy like this, now descanted upon, to guide its counsels? The general who risks nothing can win nothing. And the nation that should wait till absolutely sure of victory before unsheathing the sword would never draw it, or only in some poor skirmish, where victory would be as disgraceful as defeat. Besides, although such a nation were to rise by such victories, if victories those may be called won by a thousand over an hundred, who would not blush to own himself a citizen of it? Greatness lies not in pounds weight ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... back near the poppy-patch, one glorious riot of red summer flowers, they met their regiment returning. They had done their work, the Turks had ceased attacking and the weary regiment which had been kept busy the long, hot days in this outpost skirmish had been relieved. The tired troopers trailed homewards, carelessly tramping the dewy wild poppy heads on their way. A bathe and a drink, and ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... was how the little trouble we had begun. At least, it had a good deal to do with it. Isaac an' I had never got along, an' jes' befo' the war, we had some words about the Kentucky State Guards. But I wasn't bearin' any grudge, an' I never supposed Isaac was. However, in a skirmish near Cumberland Gap, I saw that he was jes' achin' to get me, an' the way he tried was jes' about the meanes' thing I ever heard o' any one doin' on ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... that undue prominence has been given to an affair which after all was one in which a few thousands only took part—little more than a skirmish, perhaps, judged by European standards. It has been done partly because this was the first time most of us had been under fire, but chiefly because the battle was so typical of many in the subsequent ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... occasions, and sometimes with striking success. At the age of fifty-six he took Syracuse, after one of the most memorable of sieges, in which he had Archimedes for an opponent. At sixty he was killed in a skirmish, leaving the most brilliant military name of the republican times, so highly are valor and energy rated, though in the higher qualities of generalship he was inferior to men whose names are hardly known. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the skirmish—for the conflict proved to be nothing more—there was a report that Colonel Wood was dead, and Theodore Roosevelt took it upon himself to restore the fighting line of Rough Riders to order. But happily the report proved false; and ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... Ohio River, and again back across Kentucky to Nashville, beside side marches as numerous as the branches on a tree; 50 per cent. of its number had fallen vicitms to sickness and hardship, and 10 per cent. more had been shot, here and there, a man or two at a time, on the picket or skirmish line, at fords or stockades guarding railroad bridges. But while other regiments which had suffered nothing like it had painted on their banners "Mill Springs," "Shiloh," and "Perryville," its colors had yet to receive their ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... were in motion, now here, now there; and, with a skirmish or two, the summer was upon us. Meanwhile, as I have said, things went more happily ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Being one of the skirmish line, I remember how cold and blue the water was, and that it was so deep as to come into our vest pockets. We walked up to the Indians and said "How," and gave some presents of copper cents and tobacco. We soon saw that they ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... or iron strong, But each a glaive had pendant by his side, Their bows and quivers at their shoulders hung, Their horses well inured to chase and ride, In diet spare, untired with labor long; Ready to charge, and to retire at will, Though broken, scattered, fled, they skirmish still; ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... observation car, painfully conscious of the scenery and the obligations it imposed. To experience some ecstasy, more or less, was imperative, and it was weary work for most of them. They stuck to it manfully and woman-fully, with abysmal furtive yawns; but the skirmish between the conductor and their fellow-passenger came as a sort of godsend, and when the transfer of a dollar bill, incredibly dirty and greasy and tattered, had brought warfare to a close, they still had the voluntary exile to stare at. He was a welcome change ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... hungry-looking priests were standing there to receive us; they live on backsheesh and sleep on the cold marble floors of the tombs. No dinner bell ever rings for them. They depend entirely upon charity, and send out their chelas, or disciples, every morning to skirmish for food among the market men and people in the neighborhood. While we stood talking to them a group of six naked young men standing upon the cornice of a temple attracted our attention by their violent gesticulations, and then, one after another, plunged headlong, fifty or sixty ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... to eight was an unpleasant disparity of numbers. The lieutenant and his men arrived back at the river the next morning, having been in the saddle nearly twenty-four hours. The result of the short skirmish was that one of the cavalrymen's horses was shot through the breast, and one Navajo was sent to his happy hunting-grounds ...
— Frontier service during the rebellion - or, A history of Company K, First Infantry, California Volunteers • George H. Pettis
... account extracted from the journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events which occurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of '41 towards the end of the first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Terada defile, and of the death of ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nephew, as their sovereign, and claimed the protection of the King of France, Philip II., surnamed Augustus; but he despairing of being able to retain these provinces against the will of their inhabitants, sacrificed Arthur and his followers to John, who in a skirmish with some of the Norman Lords, carried them all prisoners into Normandy, where Arthur soon disappeared: the Britons assert that he was murdered by his uncle; and the Normans that he was accidentally killed in endeavouring to escape. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... ballot box, repudiation of debts, stealing of arms, and finally cruel war, as if lying and robbing, in the long run, could upset free and honest industry. After the loss of California and the Pacific coast, the struggle for the Territories was but a, preliminary skirmish of the war for the conquest and desolation of the Union. The people had waged the battle of liberty with the gigantic agencies of material prosperity for forty years, and the aristocracy was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... be flogged, and he would do it. Whereupon he went to work; but William fought bravely, and the young master, finding he was getting the better of him, undertook to tie his hands behind him. He failed in that likewise. By dint of kicking and fisting, William came out of the skirmish none the worse for a ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... and faced his pursuers. Their fire was erratic, but his was cool and accurate, and after three or four rounds the Magyars kept their heads well down in the long marsh grass, which permitted the party to escape. The result of this skirmish, however, allowed the enemy armoured train to advance to a point dangerously near our defensive works, which, with a little more enterprise and determination, he might easily have enfiladed. But though the enemy train had ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... old colonel, who recollected that I had helped him out of the skirmish at Montereau by giving him my horse, and he had offered me bed and board at his house. I knew that the year before he had married a castle and no few farms, so that I might become permanent coat-brusher to a millionaire, which was not without its temptations. It remained to see if I had not anything ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... tide of battle. Not a road was there which had not been swept again and again by columns of infantry or squadrons of horse. Every thicket had been the hiding-place of refugees or spies; every wood or meadow had been the scene of a skirmish; and every house that had survived the struggle had its tale to tell of thrilling scenes that had taken place within its walls. These circumstances determined Cooper's choice of the place and period. Years before, while at the residence of John Jay, his host had given him, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Lieutenant Blackett and his friend Cornet Fairburn found themselves once more in the thick of war. They had had a preliminary skirmish or two not long before—the retaking of Huy, the frightening of Villeroy from Liege, and what not—but now something more serious was afoot. That the task the Duke had set himself was a difficult one, every man in his service knew, but they knew also ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... he quickly placed it in the hand of the morose old man. At first he refused to take it, but the missionary spoke kindly to him, and after a little, as he had been out of the stuff for days, his fingers closed on it; and then the missionary knew that he had conquered in the first skirmish. Tobacco among these Indians is like salt among the Arabs. Knowing this, the missionary, who never used it himself, adopted this plan to make friends with ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... warlike weapons that hang here Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection! This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate, Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish; Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero. Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses." Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... through their neighborhood, without giving them a blanket or any other article of goods, merely because they had no furs to barter in exchange, and he alluded, with menaces of vengeance, to the death of the Indian killed by the whites in the skirmish at the falls. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... that drum, and those events were disasters oftener than benefits." Few more words passed, and with another kiss the soldier scaled the wall and galloped away, the triple beat of his charger's hoofs sounding back into the maiden's ears like drum-taps. In a skirmish next day Colonel Howell was shot. He was carried to farmer Jarrett's house and left there, in spite of the old man's protest, for he was willing to give no shelter to his country's enemies. When Ruth saw her ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... suburbs of Lisbon, in which they found great riches; but the entreaties of don Antonio, and his anxiety to preserve the good will of the people, caused the general, to restrain his men from plunder. Essex distinguished himself in every skirmish; and, knocking at the gates of Lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or any other of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal was prudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, the total want of battering cannon in the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... instant he and his companions were prisoners. When they learned his rank, they danced around him like a pack of savages, shouting and holding their cocked pieces at his heart. The leader of the party had a few days before lost a brother in a skirmish with Wyman's force, and with loud oaths he swore that the Federal Major should die in expiation of his brother's death. He was about to carry his inhuman threat into execution, Major White boldly facing him and saying, "If my men were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... professors was very popular, beloved by all, passing for a sage, a great poet, and a man of advanced ideas. One day when he accompanied the collegians on their walk, he had a dispute with some cadets, which resulted in a skirmish and a challenge. No doubt recalling his brilliant youth, the professor preached a crusade and promised good marks to all who during the promenade on the following Sunday would take part in the fray. The week was a lively one—there were occasional ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... invaded Saxony with forty thousand troops. Whether the news be true I know not. This is a fine griffonage, to be sure! but I have not patience to write prettily; if you can only read it, it will do well enough. A propos, I saw in the papers that, in a skirmish between the Saxons and Croats, a Saxon captain of grenadiers named Hopfgarten had lost his life, and was much lamented. Can this be the kind, worthy Baron Hopfgarten whom we knew at Paris with Herr von Bose? I should grieve ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... shuttlecock in the plaisance to long days with the hounds or the hawks. Angela learnt to ride in less than a month, instructed by the stud-groom, a gentleman of considerable importance in the household; an old campaigner, who had groomed Fareham's horses after many a battle, and many a skirmish, and had suffered scant food and rough quarters without murmuring; and also with considerable assistance and counsel from Lord Fareham, and occasional lectures from Papillon, who was a Diana at ten years old, and rode with her father in the first flight. Angela was soon equal to accompanying ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made governor of Flushing—the key to the navigation of the North Seas—with the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed, seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs, prompted by mistaken but chivalrous ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... went into the dense bushes, a hail of bullets and a rush of arrows about our ears. But at this moment the clear notes of a cavalry trumpet sounded "deploy," and the California cavalry crashed through the willows and we were saved. They broke into a skirmish-line behind us, but only a few shots were fired and the Navajos ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... this number were among those who rode express to the "settlements" to carry the news of their gallant attack upon General Black Hawk and his British band. Such was the panic among the troops engaged in this skirmish, that they reported the Indian force at 1500 and even 2000 men! Black Hawk's statement has already been given, in which he places his number at forty; and one of the volunteers whose horse was lame, and who hid himself, and watched the Indians as they passed him in the pursuit ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... This was done under a heavy rifle fire, but so far as ever known no Indians were hurt. They left two of their ponies down on the river bank, which probably had been disabled. The Mexicans sustained no loss. After the skirmish was ended a few well directed shots dispersed the party that had remained on the hill; and one Indian, not exceeding 800 yards away, who seemed to be acting as a signal man, was directly fired at—the rifleman resting his piece on a wagon ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... graduates in medicine in America,—an earnest, true woman, whose ministrations to me in body and mind, in those months of dying hopes, flying leaves, and early snowfalls, were full of healing. I had had a skirmish with Cupid that summer, my first real passion, reciprocated by the subject of it, one of the ardent readers of "The Crayon," an enthusiast in art, and like me in Ruskin—an affair which ended in our double defeat under the merciless veto of the mother of my flame. In that affair Mrs. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the right, and K and A were sent over the ridge on which we stood down into the hollow to connect with General Young's column on the opposite side of the valley. F and E Troops were deployed in skirmish-line on the other side of the wire fence. Wood had discovered the enemy a few hundred yards from where he expected to find him, and so far from being "surprised," he had time, as I have just described, to get five of his troops into position before a shot was fired. The firing, when it ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... pushed out in a bulge at the north-west corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude breastwork of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery, packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging potshots with Skilkans on the ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... in close order) or, To the rear, MARCH (if in skirmish line). Extend the arm vertically above the head; carry it laterally downward to the side and swing it several times between ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... We had marching orders this morning and left camp about five o'clock; when we got outside the picket lines, our regiment was detailed to do skirmish duty and we immediately deployed on both sides of the road and into the woods, when we came to the remnants of a bridge that had been destroyed by the Confederates. We halted here and our regiment was sent out on picket duty ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... shore, for this was apposite to the conversation respecting the Caribs, with whom Guacanagari was at war. The king saw whence the lombard-shot came, and how it passed through the side of the ship and went far away over the sea. The Admiral also ordered a skirmish of the crews of the ships, fully armed, saying to the cacique that he need have no fear of the Caribs even if they should come. All this was done that the king might look upon the men who were left behind as friends, and that he might also have a proper fear of ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... reign were supported by the weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin—which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. "The favourite object" (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) "of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was THE UTTER EXTERMINATION of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland." The great rebellion took ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Colonies. Clayborne was the Jamestown man who made the most trouble. He had started a couple of town sites on the Maryland tract, plotted them, and sold lots to Yorkshire tenderfeet, and so when Lord Baltimore claimed the lands Clayborne attacked him, and there was a running skirmish for several years, till at last the Rebellion collapsed in 1645 ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... death of the nineteenth century—was of another range and power; more terrible a thousandfold in its merely physical grasp and grief; more terrible, incalculably, in its mystery and shame. What were the robber's casual pang, or the range of the flying skirmish, compared to the work of the axe, and the sword, and the famine, which was done during this man's youth on all the hills and plains of the Christian earth, from Moscow to Gibraltar? He was eighteen years old when Napoleon came down on Arcola. Look on the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shot into his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The men yielded at once, and then marched three miles ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... self-satisfied gentleman out of the house without breaking down. I can't stand here forever though," and so she took a seat, and as Arthur resumed his willow chair with an air of content, she could not but feel that as yet the skirmish was not in her favor. She called her angry spirit to her aid, and nerved herself to say something which would ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... Richmond, Va., northward, forming a broad advancing picket or skirmish line between the Blue Ridge and the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... letters in order to get back the thousand dollars which they had paid for them. I said that if they had acted fairly and honorably, and had allowed the country press to use the letters or portions of them, my lecture-skirmish on the coast would have paid me ten thousand dollars, whereas the "Alta" had lost me that amount. Then he offered a compromise: he would publish the book and allow me ten per cent. royalty on it. The compromise did not appeal to me, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... teach the ex-Marquis his place from the outset. He placed for him a stiff small chair; but the envoy quickly repelled the slight and vindicated the honour of the Republic by occupying the largest arm-chair available. After this preliminary skirmish things went more smoothly; but only the briefest summary of their conversation can be given here. Chauvelin assured Grenville of the desire of France to respect the neutrality of the Dutch, though ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... whereas Commodus had twenty-five myriads from the gladiatorial fund given him each day. There stood beside him during the contest Aemilius Laetus, the prefect, and Eclectus, his cubicularius. He went through a skirmish, and, of course, conquered, and then, just as he was, he kissed them [Footnote: Supplying [Greek: ois] (after Reimar).] with his helmet on. After this the rest did some fighting.—The first day he personally paired all the combatants, either down below, where he wore ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... for the first skirmish!" mused Berthe Louison, as she personally examined some matters, of more material interest to ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... the north-west: for three months and twenty days he saw no land. In 15 south, he discovered a small island; and another in 9 south. Continuing his course still in the same direction, he arrived at the Ladrones, and soon afterwards at the Phillippines, where he lost his life in a skirmish. His companions continued their voyage; and, on the twenty-seventh month after their departure from Spain, arrived at one of the Molucca islands. Here the Spaniards found plenty of spices, which they obtained ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Jose Marti, at the head of a new insurrection, set sail from New York with three ships, men, and munitions of war. But the United States authorities stopped them. Marti then joined Gomez in Cuba and was killed in a skirmish. He was succeeded in command by General Gomez, who still fights on with a hungry, ill-clad handful of men against the best of Spain's army. One hundred and forty-five thousand men have been sent against him but he still fights; ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... garrison combined in making a vigorous sortie into the road; but it was only to find the enemy in full retreat, and a few dropping shots at long range ended the skirmish. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... he had begun to suspect the error of his ways—a brutal sixty miles' journey it was, that left his hips and legs one mass of raw soreness and soldered all his bones together. A week later, after his first skirmish against the rebels, he understood every rule of the game. Luis Cervantes would have taken up a crucifix and solemnly sworn that as soon as the soldiers, gun in hand, stood ready to shoot, some profoundly eloquent voice had spoken behind them, saying, ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... liberty. Booth at last perceived her to be so uneasy, that, as he saw no hopes of contriving any fiction to satisfy her, he thought himself obliged to tell her the truth, or at least part of the truth, and confessed that he had had a little skirmish with Colonel Bath, in which, he said, the colonel had received a slight wound, not at all dangerous; "and this," says he, "is all the whole matter." "If it be so," cries Amelia, "I thank Heaven no worse hath happened; but why, my dear, will you ever ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... a smile looking upon Autobulus, he continued: But, sir, I perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images, and try the excellence of this old opinion, as you would a picture, by your nail. And Autobulus replied: Pray, sir, do not endeavor to cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make Aristotle's ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... no doubt brought arms for those escaped recruits. Now, if we try to outmarch them, they will catch us in the woods and shoot every one of us before we can get to Ernee. We must argue, as you call it, with cartridges. During the skirmish, which will last more time than you think for, some of us ought to go back and fetch the National Guard ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... to-day, boys, Tread each remembered spot. It will be a gleesome journey, On the swift-shod feet of thought; You can fight a bloodless battle, You can skirmish along the route, But it's not worth while to forage, There ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... skirmish of Edge Hill were, indeed, respectable, though most of them seem to have been incurred after the true fighting ceased, but with that exception, and especially upon the line of the Thames itself, ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... intimate of detail, binding the chronicle into a dramatic whole, which the iron pick of Research digs from the heap of bones, and wise men say: "That brilliant hero never lived; this great battle was but a skirmish; some old monk wrote that—it never happened." Many a glowing jewel, cherished tenderly and shining bravely through the dust of ages, has turned, in the white light of knowledge, to worthless glass. So do the old ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... little queer caps, knapsacks, and ragged beards, all carrying sticks. They were travelling boys like ourselves, bound from Berlin to Hamburg. "Halloo!" they cried. "Halloo!" we answered, shouting in unison as we approached each other. When we met, a little friendly skirmish with our sticks was the first act of greeting. A storm of questions and replies then followed. We all knew each other in a few minutes; carpenters, turners, glovers were there,—not a jeweller among them but myself. We parted soon, for time was precious. "Love to Berlin," cried one of them back ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... first really big battle in which the Cresville chums had taken part. They had been out on skirmish work and on night patrol, and they had come in conflict with parties of Germans, but no large bodies. They had even each been wounded slightly, but never before, in all their lives, had they had a ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... said he of Hereford. "Now I have a proposition: not a week passes but my retainers are in skirmish with those wildcats, the Welsh. Let the boy go and serve under my son, Lord Walter. He will put him in the way of earning ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... awaited the help of his liege lord, who prepared to invade Scotland in May. Meanwhile the patriotic party had failed to take advantage of their opportunity. Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, the regent chosen to succeed Mar (who had fallen at Dupplin), had been captured in a skirmish near Roxburgh, either in November, 1332, or in April, 1333, and was succeeded in turn by Sir Archibald Douglas, the hero of the Annan episode, but destined to be better known as "Tyneman the Unlucky". The young king had been ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... title of the battalion indicates, it was always in the front, on the advanced skirmish-line, pending a battle. It will be remembered by all the heroes of the Army of Tennessee that nearly every regiment in that army at the time of the battle of Chickamauga had on its battle-flag "cross-cannon," which signified ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... ride the animal in spite of the fact that on horseback he would be in much greater danger of discovery by the Indians than on foot. The horse had a bridle on, and had evidently escaped, probably during a skirmish, from its ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... however. It seems that not even a single pitched battle was fought. Josiah was picked off by a Libyan archer in the very first skirmish and wounded mortally, to the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... Some stragglers skirmish round their columns still. Some stragglers skirmish round the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... up the defile at the head of the artillery, had been prepared to find a lively skirmish in progress between his own comrades and the handful of Afghans who were luring them on. But when, on emerging on to the plain, he found himself and the guns more than half surrounded by the enemy, and no sign ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... George. "I know their ways; they will be back directly." And the old man pointed with his finger into the darkness. I listened, and heard distant howlings replying to the nearer ones. What we had as yet had was a mere skirmish. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... financial embarrassment and exhaustion, and the shadow of a coming debt,—not the maiming of strong men and their violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,—nor the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy of every bulletin,—nor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... remorse of conscience, the little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having repaired the damages of little Mara's toilet, she essayed the good old plan of shutting him into the closet. He fought and struggled so fiercely that Aunt Ruey's carroty frisette came off in the skirmish, and her head-gear, always rather original, assumed an aspect verging on the supernatural. Miss Ruey thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the other terrible people she had been reading about that morning, and came as near getting into ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst, under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very warm skirmish. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... sometimes sacrificed on such occasions. Henry the Minstrel tells us a romantic story of Wallace, founded on this circumstance. The hero's little band had been joined by an Irishman named Fawdon, or Fadzean, a dark, savage, and suspicious character. After a sharp skirmish at Black Erneside, Wallace was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers. The English pursued with a border sleuth-bratch, or bloodhound. In the retreat, Fawdon, tired, or affecting to be so, would go no farther. Wallace having ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... had reached the end of it nearest to the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, and the native regiments fell in behind them. Clay selected twenty of the best shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as a skirmish line. They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw any sign of the enemy. In this order the column of four thousand men ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... students; also Garrison County High School, also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the Daily Banner and the Index; fifty miles of paved streets; largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, famous as writer of war-songs, best known ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... was able to write that such a conflict had not yet occurred. Surely the powder required for a predestinarian conflagration was everywhere stored up in considerable quantities, within as well as without the Lutheran Church. Nor was a local skirmish lacking which might have served as the spark and been welcomed as a signal for a general attack. It was the conflict between Marbach and Zanchi, probably referred to by the words quoted above from Article XI: ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... he was the only one left at the end of twenty years. His three brothers died one after the other, and all by violent deaths; one from drunkenness, the second from illness, and the other from blows he had received in a skirmish. All three had been struck down suddenly, snatched as it were from the midst of life. Living among the bastards they had left, this last of the Villacourts was looked up to in the forest as the chieftain of a clan until 1854, when the game laws came into ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... degraded, no man with the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for by this time the 'Legale's' blood will be up, and he is certain to make reprisals on your ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... dispersed to plunder. Yet the Swede's great opportunity was lost. Lutzen, though in sight, proved not so near as flattering guides and eager eyes had made it. The deep-banked Rippach, its bridge all too narrow for the impetuous columns, the roads heavy from rain, delayed the march. A skirmish with some Imperial cavalry under Isolani wasted minutes when minutes were years; and the short November day was at an end when the Swede ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... expunged because I desire to obliterate the traces of a temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking and no less respect. I rejoice to think now of the (then) Bishop's cordial hail the first time we met after our little skirmish, "Well, is it to be peace or war?" I replied, "A little of both." But there was only peace when ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... troops, under the command of Major-General Sir John Maxwell, were assigned for the protection of the Canal. About the end of October it was reported that 2,000 Bedouins were marching on the Canal, and on November 21st a skirmish took place between this force and some of the English troops in which the Bedouins were repelled. Nothing more was heard for more than two months, but on January 28, 1915, a small advance party from the Turkish army was beaten back east of El-Kantara. British airmen watched ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... fifty British troops and 240 Indians. By the end of July Chauncey's squadron was once more strong enough to put to sea. It raided York on the 31st, but did not venture to join battle with Yeo; though a skirmish on August 10 enabled Yeo to capture ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the end of the day the rebel army broke and began to roll back through Liskeard and towards the passes of the Tamar, and Mark followed with his troops to Saltash, into Devonshire, and as far as Chagford, where he rode by Mr. Sydney Godolphin in the skirmish which gave that valiant young gentleman his mortal wound. Soon after the whole of the King's forces retired upon Tavistock, where a truce was patched up between the opposing factions in the West. But this did not release ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... infantry under Marmont to come up, Napoleon sent Nansouty's cavalry around to the left to head off Olsuvieff's advance and interpose between him and the rear guard of Sacken's division. Even the noise of the little battle—for the skirmish was a hot one—a mile down the road, did not apprise the Russian of his danger, and it was not until the long columns of the French came out of the wood and deployed and until the guns were hauled into the clearing and wheeled into action, that he awoke to the fact that an army was upon ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the Captain, with a sigh that was next of kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose; your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget made haste to assure her ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... narrow ravine opening into the valley. The Ghilzais were in force around the mouth of the defile, but a few cannon-shots broke them up. The advance guard pursued with over-rashness; the Ghilzais rallied, in the skirmish which ensued an officer and several men were killed, and the retirement of our people unfortunately degenerated into precipitate flight, with the Ghilzais in hot pursuit. The 13th, to which the fugitive detachment mainly belonged, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... preliminary skirmish. Real and bloody battle was joined twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the sum stipulated to be paid for their release, was 170,000 dollars. Our people accordingly set out for Sallee, attended by a bashaw and two soldiers on horseback. On the fourth day of their march, they had a skirmish with some of the country Moors. The dispute began in consequence of some of our men in the rear stopping at a village to buy some milk, for which, after they had drank it, the Moors demanded an exorbitant price. This our men refused ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... begotten of big lumps of armed friends approaching from the rear, determined to go on occupying. This, in a spirit of great courage, with slowly increasing forces, against rapidly increasing forces, they did, until the brisk and pliant skirmish which opened the business of the day had grown so in weight and ferocity that it was evident to the least astute that the decisive battle of the New World was ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... skirmish a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. Roger seized it with avidity, and, crouching on the floor, smoothed the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... away with him Don Jerome, the king's nephew, and a brother of his who was made prisoner in a skirmish with the natives, who was converted, and died at Goa. All the Jesuits agreed to desist from the mission of Madagascar, and departed along with Andrada much against his inclination; and thus ended the attempt ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Haerlem," a settlement established in 1658 by Gov. Peter Stuyvesant in the northeastern part of Manhattan Island. It existed for 200 years but is now lost under modern Harlem, which centers about 125th St. In this neighborhood to the west occurred the battle of Harlem Heights—a lively skirmish fought Sept. 16, 1776, opposite the west front of the present Columbia University, and resulting in a victory for the forces of Gen. Washington, who up to that time had suffered a number of reverses on Long Island and elsewhere. The battle was directed by Washington ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... stood off the whole Sioux nation over toward Crazy Woman's Fork. There were enough to cover the country, red and black, for a dozen miles. We sighted them yesterday about four o'clock and there were enough around us to eat us alive, but we just threw out skirmish lines and marched steadily ahead, so they thought best not to bother us. They're shy of our breech loaders, damn 'em! That's all that kept them ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... brigadier. "I don't like all these Free Staters about. They may be able to stir up the new crop of rebels into doing something desperate. Raw guerillas, with a leaven of hard-bitten cases, are always a source of danger. But I think that we worked our own salvation in the skirmish this morning. They would hardly believe that we should have such a small force with so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th. They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day in splendid ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... himself with looking on and chaffing the men, diversifying the amusement by an occasional skirmish with Stanley, who had armed himself with a brush, and ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... became 2nd Lord Brooke. This nobleman was imprisoned by Charles I. at York in 1639 for refusing to take the oath to fight for the king, and soon became an active member of the parliamentary party; taking part in the Civil War he defeated the Royalists in a skirmish at Kineton in August 1642. He was soon given a command in the midland counties, and having seized Lichfield he was killed there on the 2nd of March 1643. Brooke, who is eulogized as a friend of toleration by Milton, wrote on philosophical, theological and current political ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... "Disperse, ye rebels!" shouted the British officer. A volley was fired, and seven Americans fell dead. The king's troops, with a shout, pushed on to Concord. Most of the military stores, however, which they had come to destroy had been removed. A British detachment advanced to Concord Bridge, and in the skirmish here the Americans returned the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... frivolous which have had the sanction of a decree." The bulk of the Parliament was provoked at the President's unguarded expression, baited him very fiercely, and then I made some pretence to go out, leaving Quatresous, a young man of the warmest temper, in the House to skirmish with him in my stead, as having experienced more than once that the only way to get anything of moment passed in Parliamentary or other assemblies is to exasperate the young men against the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... creation down, have been left free to skirmish round and git a livin' for themselves and the females secreted in the holy ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... choice—to the battle-field away, To thy triumphs and thy trophies, since I am less than they. Thrust thy arm into thy buckler, gird on thy crooked brand, And call upon thy trusty squire to bring thy spears in hand. Lead forth thy band to skirmish, by mountain and by mead, On thy dappled Moorish barb, or thy fleeter border steed. Go, waste the Christian hamlets, and sweep away their flocks, From Almazan's broad meadows to Siguenza's rocks. Leave Zelinda altogether, whom thou leavest oft and long, And in the life thou lovest, forget whom thou ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... by the standard of such great battles as the King of Prussia's, or the famous victories won by Marlborough over the French, this affair of Plassy may seem to be but a trifling skirmish, yet the country whose fate was decided upon that field, namely the Subahdarship of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, is equal in magnitude to the whole of King Frederic's dominions. In fact the blow struck that day ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish; but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer. When the affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military attendant had not given us his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... cried Madelon, between whom and her uncle there was apparently a standing skirmish. "He was a very kind gentleman, and I like him very much; he gave me this little goldfish, and I shall keep it always, always," and she kissed ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... neighbors seemed less important. She preferred that her part in the cotillion should be observed by a frieze of unculled wall-flowers. A drive was always pleasanter if it were preceded by a skirmish with her mother in which Miss Knowles should come off victorious with the victoria, while Mrs. Knowles accepted the coup de grace and the coupe. A flirtation—if her languid, seeming innocent monopoly of a man's time and thoughts could ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... principal tower; and that the murderers lost their way in the darkness of the night, and by the breaking of the ice, were drowned in the loch of Forfar. Fordun's account is, however, somewhat different and more probable. He states that the King was mortally wounded in a skirmish, in the neighbourhood, by some of the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... newspaper tells what the President thought, What Stanton did or Seward taught, In columns long, With capitals strong; And the paper is filled As the editor willed: 'SLIGHT SKIRMISH!—one man killed.' But men must fight for the sleeping Right, And ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and dumb. "And it means, too, that we will get some real work to do here in this quarter. I thought at first that the army in the north would get all the fighting. We have been sitting here for nearly a week, doing nothing. This is the first skirmish we have had, for our orders are not to bring on an action, but only to prevent the enemy from coming toward us if they show ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine |
