"Sortie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... usually the sum total of our authorities. The country, sparsely settled, and frequently overrun by the barbarous enemy, was incapable of that patient industry and persevering care, which could chronicle the passing event, give place and date to the brilliant sortie, the gallant struggle, the individual deed of audacity, which, by a stroke, and at a moment, secures an undying remembrance in the bosoms of a people. The fame of Marion rests very much upon tradition. There is little in the books to justify the strong and exciting relish with which the name ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... made a sortie, and stealing from the main gate with four coolies, removed to the river certain relics that lay close under the wall, and would soon become intolerable. He had returned safely, with an ancient musket, a bag of bullets, a petroleum squirt, and a small bundle of pole-axes, and was ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... money by the use of Britt, going to any lengths of brutality the occasion might demand. To get at Britt they would be obliged to invade the Harnden home. The thought of what might develop from that sortie wrought havoc in Vaniman's soul! His fears for Vona and her mother spurred him to action even more effectively than his conviction that his own cause was lost if the men were able to force the money from Britt. If they were captured it would be like them to incriminate Vaniman as an ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the tent was a decided success. We went inside and hooked the flap laboriously from top to bottom. Then we remembered that the host's pyjamas were outside. He undid two hooks only and attempted to effect a sortie through the resultant interstice. He stuck. The position was undignified, and conducive to weak and futile laughter. At last Parker had to leave the washing-up of the saucepans to come to the rescue, while the dog barked and imagined that he ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... Begam's Sepoys and a field piece dashed up, under the command of her chief officer Mr. Thomas. The infantry deployed with the gun in the centre, and threw in a brisk fire of musketry and grape, which checked the sortie, and gave the Imperialists time to form. The Moghul horse lost their leader: on the other side the Chela (adopted son) of the chief was shot dead; Himmat Bahadur, at the head of his Gosains (a kind of fighting friars who were then beginning to be found useful as mercenaries), delivered ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... and his men returned from a successful sortie out of Henneboune, the chronicle tells us,' The Countess de Montfort came down from the castle to meet them, and with a most cheerful countenance kissed Sir Walter Manny and all his companions, one after the other, like a noble and valiant dame.'" Modern etiquette would ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... stopped with fear. He picked her up and fanned and patted her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately to the window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew him as far as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly to risk another sortie for food. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... all,' he said, 'considering the wind was the other way. I let them come on, and then poured a volley into the thickest part of their ranks—that made them waver, and then I made a sortie, and you should have ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... "Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... deliver our fire," he said; "they will believe it a sortie, and give way, or they ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... back, and they are stronger posted than before. I can not pass the Harlem with any chance of remaining, unless I leave here in New York a garrison of at least six thousand regulars. This gives me but three thousand regulars for a sortie." He moved his head slowly, his eyes traveled from one to another with that heavy, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the Kut Sang, and I realized that the striking ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... days before this, a sortie had been made from Dourlan; wherein many captains and brave soldiers had been killed or wounded: and among the wounded was Captain Saint Aubin, vaillant comme l' espce, a great friend of M. de Guise: for whose sake chiefly the King ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... she said, in her account of the affair, "that the savages would suppose it to be a ruse to draw them towards the fort, in order to make a sortie upon them. They did suppose so; and thus I was able to save the Fontaine family. When they were all landed, I made them march before me in full sight of the enemy. We put so bold a face on it, that they thought they had more ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... sortie from Fort Meigs on the same day and was drawn into an ambuscade. He was mortally wounded and lost six ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... 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 ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... Bourdon well knew, indicated the presence of some thing, or creature, that did not properly belong to the vicinity. After consulting with the corporal, Pigeonswing was called; and leaving him as a sentinel at the gate, the two others made a sortie. The corporal was as brave as a lion, and loved all such movements, though he fully anticipated encountering savages, while his companion expected ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... roof of the chamber there was a small trap-door, through which a thin ladder conducted to the roof of the house. It had evidently been constructed when the building was used as a fortification, and was probably intended to enable the garrison to make a sudden sortie on the enemy at an unexpected point. The outside entrance was blocked up by rubbish overgrown with vegetation; and my father had caused a strong door to be placed to the vault, to prevent any intruder, who might by chance have found his way ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... invaders was breeding in the Belgians a placating spirit. If a soldier fell out of line at the door of a house to ask for water, all within that house strove to bring the water to him. If an officer, returning from a small sortie into other streets, checked up to ask the way to rejoin his command, a dozen eager arms waved in chorus to point out the proper direction, and a babble of solicitous voices arose from the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... except the murders. In the night from the 2nd to the 3rd October, about ten o'clock, he came down into the plain and attacked Sommieres from two different points, setting fire to the houses. The inhabitants seizing their arms, made a sortie, but Cavalier charged them at the head of the Cavalry and forced them to retreat. Thereupon the governor, whose garrison was too small to leave the shelter of the walls, turned his guns on them and fired, less in the hope of inflicting injury on them than in ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the people rent the air with shouts; for this was the signal of the empress's sortie from the palace, and her people knew that she was coming to meet them. At last they saw her; leaning on the arm of the emperor, and followed by her other children, she came, proud and resolute as ever. It was a beautiful sight, this empress ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... all; how easily some people can forgive themselves! But Charley, my hearty, we are getting on slowly with the tipple; are they all empty? So they are! Let us make a sortie on the cellar; bring a candle with you, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the enfolding velvety darkness ahead of him, and looking towards those firefly sparks shining on the heights, came the sound of stealthy measured footsteps and muffled voices talking Dutch. The enemy had made a sortie. The defences had been rushed, the town surrounded! Yet there were only two of them—a big, slouching villain and a short thin one, who wore a giant hat. The chirping sound of a kiss damped the fierce martial ardour of William, and greatly reassured Billy. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... scarcely lit when the governor, taking his cue, made a determined sortie and drove back the French light troops, who in the darkness had no sort of notion of the numbers attacking them. So completely hoaxed, indeed, was their commander that he, who had come with two divisions to take Almeida, and held it in the hollow ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... being reduced from 500 or 600 to 100 men, surrendered by capitulation. Six of the principal Royalists were excepted from mercy: two escaped, but were retaken and executed at York; the third was killed in a sortie; and the three others concealing themselves among the ruins of the castle, escaped after the surrender; and two of the last ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... the matter to the patrol commander, who gave permission to any of his men to volunteer for the hazardous enterprise. There was no lack of aspirants, for practically every man expressed his wish to take part in the sortie. Finally the subaltern chose three Rhodesians ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... scattered in every direction. Only their chief remained in advance, and he, waving his sabre, seemed to be rallying them. Their piercing shouts, which had ceased an instant, redoubled again. "Now, children," ordered the Captain, "open the gate, beat the drum, and advance! Follow me, for a sortie!" ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... everything upon a last desperate sortie against the advancing things. With his club whistling around his head in crashing blows that wrought murderous havoc in the close-packed hordes, he drove them back for one breathless moment that gave him time to leap forward and snatch ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... novels, "The Two Admirals," makes his hero say to a cavilling friend that if he had not been in the way of good luck, he could not have profited by it. The sortie of the French, the subsequent gale, and the resulting damage were all what is commonly called luck; but if it had not been for Howe's presence off Point Judith threatening them, they would have ridden out the gale at their anchors inside. Howe's energy and ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... had changed their minds about the danger of Monckton's guns, though not a shot had yet been fired, and agitated loudly for a sortie across the river. Montcalm thought poorly of the plan; but a miscellaneous force of fifteen hundred Canadians, possessed of more ardor than cohesion, insisted on attempting a night assault. They landed some way up the river, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... don't know; try and think of a good dodge—a sortie, or doing something to make the Boers come on to-night. If we had a jolly good light he'd forget all about it, and I shouldn't hear any more about the miserable business. Here, what can we do to make ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... had got time to oppose to those of the besiegers, replied with effect to the fire of the more distant warlike instruments. Issuing forth by one of the breaches in the rampart, the Infidels made a sortie, and succeeded in burning some of the machines of the Christians, and spread disorder through their army. Towards the end of the day, the towers of Godfrey and Tancred were so shattered, that they could no longer be moved, while that of Raymond was falling into ruins. The combat had lasted eleven ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... century. It is the method of Wellington at Assaye, assuming that there must be a ford at a certain place on the river, because there was a village on each side. It is the method of Grant at Vicksburg, examining the knapsacks of the Confederate soldiers slain in a sortie to see if these contained rations, which would show that the garrison was seeking to break out because the place was untenable. It is also the method of Poe in the 'Gold-Bug' and in the 'Murders of the Rue Morgue.' In all probability Poe borrowed it directly from Voltaire, ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Sir Cuthbert shouted to the archers. "They are going to attempt a sortie." And hastily he retired to the main body ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... at Grant's headquarters at City Point, Lee, hoping to recover the use of the roads to the south-west, endeavoured to cause a diversion of the besiegers' strength by a sortie on his east front. It failed and gave the besiegers a further point of vantage. On April 1 Sheridan was sent far round the south of Lee's lines, and in a battle at a point called Five Forks established himself ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... a position which, it was admitted by all, they could hold with perfect safety during the day. From this position, the leaders were to try to communicate, by signals or otherwise, with the garrison, and in concert with it, act as circumstances might dictate. Should the garrison resolve to make a sortie, the main body of the Greek army advancing simultaneously from the Phalerum, it was confidently hoped that the combined attack on the enemy would prove victorious; or, at least, would be so far successful, as to enable the Greeks to save the garrison and bring away the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... the offensive. Several desperate sorties were made by the garrison to break through the wall, only to end in complete disaster. General Herman von Kusmanek, the commander in chief of the fortress, organized a special force, composed largely of Hungarians, for "sortie duty," under the command of a Hungarian, General von Tamassy. These sorties had been carried out during November and December, 1914, especially during the latter month, when the Austro-German armies were pouring across the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... down the stream, they reached the land beyond bowshot of the Danes, and they soon entered the town amid the loud acclamations of the citizens. The Danes now for the most part drew off from the neighbourhood, and the Abbe Ebble led out a sortie, which reached the Danish camp, and driving back those whom they found within it, set it on fire and effected their retreat to Paris without loss, in spite of the efforts of the enemy, who rapidly assembled at ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... A sortie of the garrison was repelled, but a number of Nobunaga's best officers were killed. After some two months of effort, three of the five fortresses were in the assailants' hands, and many thousands of the garrison had fallen or perished in the flames, the odor of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... told of pairs of skeletons found afterwards in the bog each with a bony hand which had driven a knife to the heart of the other. In the end the British, met by resolution so fierce, drew back. Meanwhile a sortie from the American fort on their rear had a menacing success. Sir John Johnson's camp was taken and sacked. The two sides were at last glad to separate, after the most bloody struggle in the whole ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Fort Henry was over, La Corne, with a body of Indians, occupied the road that led to Fort Edward; and Levis encamped close by, to support him, and check any sortie the English might make from their intrenched camp. Montcalm reconnoitred the position. He had, at first, intended to attack and carry the intrenched camp, but he found that it was too strong to be taken by a rush. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Scraggs fairly gurgled with delight at the results of the morning's work, and Mr. Gibney declared that his headache was gone. He and Captain Scraggs had spent the morning seated on deck under an awning, watching the beach for signs of a sortie on the part of the natives of Kandavu to recapture their king. Apparently, however, the destructive fire from the pom-pom gun the night before had so terrified them that the entire population had emigrated to the northern end of the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... coming. On the second night the garrison made a sortie and drove back the invaders, destroying their works with great slaughter. Night after night, and sometimes in the broad day, they returned to the charge, overwhelming the Swedes where least expected, capturing their guns, their supplies, and their outposts. Short ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... of the temple preparing for a sortie against the Saracen. The Chinese warrior equipping himself for battle. The Comanchee brave taking to the warpath were as nothing compared to Tartarin de Tarascon arming himself to go to the club at nine o'clock on a dark evening, ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... lines. They diminished, gave way, a thin ghostly pattern of the whole, falling back. An Austrian sortie of yellow-brown men ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... all. It was he who claimed the devotion of these lean, fighting Indians. It was he who had contrived thus far to hold at bay a force of at least five hundred Indians, largely armed with modern firearms. It was he who had led the faithful remnant of his outfit, in a desperate night sortie, from his indefensible camp on the river, and, by a reckless dash, had succeeded in reaching this ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... le jeudi suivant tait jour de sortie. Le soir M. le marquis ne rentra pas au dortoir. J'eus comme un pressentiment, et je ne dormis pas de ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... brothers, with the robber knights who had joined them, were obstinately defending their castles and making it difficult for Heinz Schorlin to perform his task. The day before news had come that the Absbach's strong mountain fortress had fallen; that the allied knights, in a sortie which merged into a miniature battle, had been defeated, and the Siebenburgs could not hold out much longer; but in the stress of his duties the knight seemed to have forgotten to make the slightest effort ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... will be apparent that a force of hostile submarines hemmed in in this way would run a double risk of losing a number of vessels on every occasion on which a sortie was made. This is what actually occurred to the German under-water flotillas in the years 1917-1919, and, in combination with the other methods employed by the Allied navies, was mainly responsible for the failure of ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places in the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portrait of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoated gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,—they looked like gentlemen and ladies, too; and Stuart's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... rebels have set all their hopes on this mine, and all their excitement on its present success. If they are kept occupied here by a Phorenice, who will give them some dainty fighting without checking them unduly, they will press on to the attack and forget all else, and never so much as dream of a sortie. And meanwhile, a Deucalion with his troop will march out of the city well away from here, without tuck of drum or blare of trumpet, and fall most unpleasantly upon their rear. After which, a Phorenice will burn the house here at the mine's head, which is of wood, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of the 10th the Russian batteries for the first time opened a heavy fire upon us. But the distance was too great for much harm to be done. On the 11th the Russians made their first sortie, which was easily repulsed. ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the first sign of a sortie. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... without a contest. Thence he proceeded to Fort Diego, situated on the plains, twenty-five miles from St. Augustine, defended by eleven guns, and fifty regulars, besides Indians and negroes. In his sortie upon this, he made use of a little stratagem, as well as force; which was by appointing three or four drums to beat, at the same time, in different places in the woods, and a few men now and then to appear suddenly, and withdraw out of sight again. At this, the ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... a salient post on Light-house Point Pepperell's guns were soon able to silence the island redoubt at the mouth of the harbour. The battle swayed from side to side as the desperate garrison made a sortie, or the besiegers impetuously rushed to the attack. But even the walls of Louisbourg could not for long withstand that furious and ceaseless cannonade, which shattered the heaviest bastions; and when the gallant ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... this sudden sortie, and disheartened by the loss of their chief, withdrew from the wall, and shortly desisted from their assault, for the English saints, they muttered to themselves, were this day evidently fighting on behalf of their ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... strength. After the invading army had established their camps out of range of the fire from the city, batteries were established, under cover of night, far to the front of the line where the troops lay. These batteries were intrenched and the approaches sufficiently protected. If a sortie had been made at any time by the Mexicans, the men serving the batteries could have been quickly reinforced without great exposure to the fire from the enemy's main line. No serious attempt was made to capture the batteries or to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... well that this engraving by Sharp was one of the few ornaments in the drawing-room of Macaulay when I last saw him, shortly before his lamented death. Next to the Doctors of the Church is his LEAR IN THE STORM, after the picture by West, now in the Boston Athenaeum, and his SORTIE FROM GIBRALTAR, after the picture by Trumbull, also in the Boston Athenaeum. Thus, through at least two of his masterpieces whose originals are among us, is our country associated with ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie. This was pure loyalty to the fallen Bonaparte, for Hugo had lost his all in Spain, his very savings having been sunk in real estate, through King Joseph's insistence on his adherents investing to prove they ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... donc, voyez donc! L'action s'engage sur les derrieres de l'ennemi. Ce doit etre le brave Basmanov, qui aurait fait une sortie. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... A common friend of theirs and hers had once described this little lady to Elsmere by a French sentence which originally applied to the Duchesse de Choiseul. 'Une charmante petite fee sortie d'un oeuf enchante!'—so it ran. Certainly, as Elsmere looked down upon her now, fresh from those squalid death-stricken hovels behind him, he was brought more abruptly than ever upon the contrasts of life. Lady Helen wore a green velvet and fur mantle, in the production of which even Worth ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he said, affecting a courage which his shaking voice belied, "here are only you and I and honest Desborough left behind in garrison, while all the others are absent on a sally. We must not hazard the whole troops in one sortie—that were unmilitary—Ha, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... appeared, and at length Oglethorpe, having discovered that the Spanish force was divided, decided to make a sortie and surprise one part of it. So with three hundred chosen men he marched out one dark night, and stole silently through the woods until he had almost ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... sortie, on the 27th of November, Gideon Spilett, who had ventured a quarter of a mile into the woods, towards the south of the mountain, remarked that Top scented something. The dog had no longer his unconcerned manner; ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... thousands of victims to the valhalla of victory. The surrender of Sedan followed, when the Germans passed on their way to the capital; but the brave general Urich still held out in besieged Strasbourg, and Bazaine had not yet made his last brilliant sortie from the invested Metz. The latter general especially kept the encircling armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz on the constant alert by his continuous endeavours to search out the weakest spot in the German armour. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... des travaux terrestres brisera probablement avant qu'il ait la dimension revee par l'auteur—cette grande figure une et multiple, lugubre et rayonnante, fatale et sacree, l'Homme; voila de quelle pensee, de quelle ambition, si l'on veut, est sortie La Legende ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... the fight was renewed, but this time it was the Aztecs and not the Spaniards who began it. There was no idea of a fresh sortie. All that the garrison could hope was to defend their position. So furiously did the natives attack that, for a time, they forced their way into the entrenchments; but the Spaniards, whose turn it was to fight with the bravery of despair, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... that No.522 Hospital Assistant Piara Singh, 11th Bengal Lancers, rendered valuable assistance, not only in the sortie on the 2nd, and at other times in bringing up ammunition, etc., to the men on the ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... life and ammunition the besieged sparingly returned the incessant fire of the Chinese soldiery, fighting only to repel attack or make an occasional successful sortie for strategic advantage, such as that of fifty-five American, British, and Russian marines led by Captain Myers, of the United States Marine Corps, which resulted in the capture of a formidable barricade on the wall that gravely menaced ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... consecration aux Divinites infernales. J'aime mieux voir dans cette reserve un scrupule religieux du poete laissant a la morte sa dignite d'Ombre. Alceste a ete nitiee aux profonds mysteres de la mort; elle a vu l'invisible, elle a entendu l'ineffable; toute parole sortie de ses levres serait une divulgation sacrilege. Ce silence mysterieux la spiritualise et la rattache par un dernier ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... taking their carbines and plenty of ammunition to attack the rear of the inn and set on fire the stables and the hay loft. The assassins shut in the inn, seeing that they were about to be caught in the flames, tried to make a sortie; but as soon as they appeared in the doorway our Chasseurs shot them with ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... already awake but lying glowering at the unconscious priest, I despatched him to the jutting platform, with instructions to keep close watch on all movements in the village. Then I busied myself with final preparations for our desperate sortie. The earliest shades of evening would have to be utilized, for then only could we hope for a clear path. Before those wild fanatics swarmed upward to their monthly sacrifice, we must traverse that narrow cliff path and penetrate the tunnel beyond as ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... night-firing of long-range rifled guns, as well as for preventing surprises, and also for illuminating the breach and the ditches at the time of an assault, and the entire field of battle at the time of a sortie. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... although true enough to-day, was not so yesterday. The Chinese pushed up a gun somewhere near the dangerous southwestern corner of the British Legation, and the fire became so annoying that it was decided to make a sortie and effect a capture if possible. Captain H——, the second captain of the British detachment, was selected to command the sortie, and with a small force of British marines who have been pining at their enforced inaction and dull sentry-go, and are ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a second time, encamping at our leisure, and despatching, on the evening of the 5th, Adam Helmer and two other scouts to penetrate to the fort and arrange a sortie by the garrison, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... here, alone and unattended, and thus serve as a hostage for his own good faith. Then shall we two together concert a plan whereby an attack by his men from the other side of the camp will be made at the same moment as a sortie by my men on this side, so that together we shall crush our common enemy as we would break a nut between ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... again called upon the city to yield. This citation being defied, the bombardment commenced the next day. The fleet anchored in front of a powder-magazine, took possession of the churches of Malate, Ermita, San Juan de Bagumbayan, and Santiago. Two picket-guards made an unsuccessful sortie against them. The whole force in Manila, at the time, was the King's regiment, which mustered about 600 men and 80 pieces of artillery. The British forces consisted of 1,500 European troops (one regiment of infantry and two companies of artillery), 3,000 seamen, 800 Sepoy ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... survey the caravan from a distance at which they are not likely to be discovered. Then they make their way ahead of it to some point where a dune or a gully will conceal them. Then, just as the end of the caravan drags by, there is a sudden sortie and a rattling musket fire. And before the guards can gather to the defence half a dozen camels are cut out of the train, a driver or two is shot down or pierced with assegais, and both the robbers and their loot are beyond ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Germans, including all that remained of the famous Prussian Guards Corps, that same body that had fought so marvelously on many occasions, and which had suffered the most cruelly in the affair of the marshes of St. Gond, made a sortie from the base line at Nogent l'Abbesse to destroy the railway line between Rheims and Verdun, this line was, indeed, the principal link of communication to that all-important fortress that protruded its bristling salient into the heart of the German position. A French aviator, who had climbed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... attack; assault, assault and battery; onset, onslaught, charge. aggression, offense; incursion, inroad, invasion; irruption; outbreak; estrapade[obs3], ruade[obs3]; coupe de main, sally, sortie, camisade[obs3], raid, foray; run at, run against; dead set at. storm, storming; boarding, escalade[obs3]; siege, investment, obsession|!, bombardment, cannonade. fire, volley; platoon fire, file fire; fusillade; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... suburbs, which they had entered without opposition, and these now opened an irritating fire on the Russians upon the wall. At eight o'clock the firing suddenly swelled into a roar. Doctorow, the Russian general in command of the troops in the town, made a sortie, and cleared the suburbs at the point of the bayonet. Napoleon, believing that the Russian army was coming out to attack him, drew up Ney and Davoust's troops in order of battle, with 70,000 infantry in the first line, supported by ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... was the fate of that mission—to their glory not one was dismayed. A party was chosen—and seven survived till the powder was laid. And they died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again A sortie is made—all too vainly. The bridge still ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... qu'un insecte semblable a une petite Ortie ou Poulpe. J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petits insectes s'epanouirent.—L'Ortie sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti hors ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... gun-belt from the fallen rat-man, Powell crammed new clips of ammunition into the two guns and wheeled to confront the rest of the rat-men. The detachment of guards, demoralized by the dazzling speed of the captives' sortie, were milling ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... had collected all hands below; and, being in possession of plenty of arms, the men having carried their muskets and pistols below with them, with all the ammunition, he was still extremely formidable. What course he would pursue, I was obliged to conjecture. A sortie would have been very hazardous, if practicable at all; and it was scarcely practicable, after the means taken by Smudge and the Dipper to secure the passages. Everything, so far as I was concerned, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Lucanians and Bruttians were defeated. On the other hand Milo, issuing from Tarentum, anticipated the Romans in their attempt to surprise Croton: whereupon the Epirot garrison made even a successful sortie against the besieging army. At length, however, the consul succeeded by a stratagem in inducing it to march forth, and in possessing himself of the undefended town (477). An incident of more moment was the slaughter ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the wall betrayed the labours of an idle hour. Around the ample hearth, during the long winter nights, the war-scarred veterans beguiled the tedium of a soldier's life with stories of battle, siege, and sortie, under Moore and Wellington, in the Peninsular wars; and one or two grizzled old war-dogs had ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... but a sortie by a large force of Okarians from an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and the men of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... do what I can for you," he replied. "We expect to make a sortie to-morrow morning. It will be very ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... count for everything. [The commentator here quotes Sun Tzu, V. SS. 5, 6 and 10.] Now the rebels have pitched their camp in the midst of thick grass which will easily burn when the wind blows. If we set fire to it at night, they will be thrown into a panic, and we can make a sortie and attack them on all sides at once, thus emulating the achievement of T'ien Tan.' [See p. 90.] That same evening, a strong breeze sprang up; so Huang-fu Sung instructed his soldiers to bind reeds together into torches and mount guard on the city walls, ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... freundlich (friendly)[61]. The full truth as to Bismarck's relations to the Commune is not known. The Germans, however, sent back a force of French prisoners, and these with other troops, after beating back the Communist sortie of April 3, began to threaten the defences of the city. The strife at once took on a savage character, as was inevitable after the murder of two Generals in Paris. The Versailles troops, treating the Communists as mere rebels, shot their ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... last battle.] When these instructions had all been given, the hero died at the appointed time, and his successor and the brave Ximena strove to carry out his every wish. A sortie was planned, and the Cid, fastened upon his war horse, rode in the van. Such was the terror which his mere presence inspired that the Moors fled before him. Most of them were slain, and Bucar beat a hasty retreat, thinking that seventy thousand Christians were about to fall ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... thought to be in a state of sufficient security, the party who composed what might be called the sortie, sallied forth on their anxious expedition. The advance was led by Esther in person, who, attired in a dress half masculine, and bearing a weapon like the rest, seemed no unfit leader for the group of wildly clad frontiermen, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... driven to take up arms by the sufferings of his countrymen, although he had naturally a horror of bloodshed, was subject to fits of melancholy at the contemplation of these horrors. Brave in the extreme, he led his men in every sortie, in every desperate struggle. Fighting without defensive armour he was always in the thick of the battle, and many of the Spaniards fell before his sword. On his return he invariably took to his bed, ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... at some distance from the city. Lausus headed an advanced guard, which had established itself strongly at a post which they had taken near the gates. In this state of things, Ascanius, one dark and stormy night, planned a sortie. He organized a desperate body of followers, and after watching the flashes of lightning for a time, to find omens from them indicating success, he gave the signal. The gates were opened and the column of armed men sallied forth, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the other was in danger. One day the Sultan scaled the Christian intrenchments, and advanced close to the walls of the city, before the Franks rallied sufficiently to drive him back by a desperate attack; but they soon took their revenge in a night sortie, when they attacked the Sultan in his very tent, and he narrowly escaped by rapid flight. Against the town their progress was very slow, as the garrison, under an able and energetic commander, Bohaeddin, showed itself resolute and indefatigable. One ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... 10 m. W. of Paris; belonged originally to Richelieu; saw the last days of Josephine, whose favourite residence it was, and was the scene of the repulse of Ducrot's sortie in October 1870. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... worked with Alphonse de Neuville on the panorama of Rezonville. In 1884 he exhibited at the Salon the "Evening at Rezonville," a panoramic study, and "The Dream" (1888), now in the Luxemburg. Detaille recorded other events in the military history of his country: the "Sortie of the Garrison of Huningue" (now in the Luxemburg), the "Vincendon Brigade," and "Bizerte," reminiscences of the expedition to Tunis. After a visit to Russia, Detaille exhibited "The Cossacks of the Ataman" and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... stood; being shored up with beams from behind. At ten o'clock twenty of the garrison were let down by ropes at the back of the castle, for Ned thought that scouts might be lurking near the gates, to give notice of any sortie. With great precaution and in perfect silence they made a way round, and were within a hundred yards of the battery before their approach ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... pound of bread allotted to each full-grown man, and to the rest in due proportion. At length the soldiers, and even some of the burghers began to murmur at their own inactivity; to give them confidence the commandant allowed a sortie to be made, promising a reward to each man who brought in the head of a Spaniard. The men of Leyden waited till nightfall, having previously carefully surveyed the point it was proposed to attack. All was still in the city, the Spaniards might ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... plan that evening they found that the wall was continued at an angle at either end for a distance of some twenty feet back so as to give a postern gate behind each of the corner towers through which a sortie might be made. Geoffrey and Walter talked the matter over, and together contrived a plan of ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... to kill or be killed;" but such was their case. The Countess therefore proposed that the next morning, a little while after daybreak, they should make a sortie; and though ordnance was planted against every passage, yet that they should sally forth, and stake their all ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... away. The little band was falling fast, right out in the open as it was; and at last the overwhelming tide returned and drove them back with the loss of half their numbers. Dr. Kelly, too, must in the sortie have received his mortal wound, for though he struggled back with the rest, he was never again seen alive. Requiescat in pace: physician and soldier, he died a ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... by heavy stones from the Scots' machines and ceaseless showers of arrows, their men scrambled upon the beach. And now Sir Piers de Currie again rode forward, followed by Kenric, Allan Redmain, Duncan Graham, many men of Bute, and others of Lanark and Ayr. This was the one sortie of the engagement that was in the nature of a real battle. In numbers the two ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... last midnight sortie roused a spirit of emulation in the breast of the gallant besieged, for another daring manoeuvre was secretly planned. It was decided that an effort should now be made to destroy an inconveniently active 4.7-inch ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of the party were making all the noise they could, and succeeding with jest and gibe in keeping the attention of those outside, the barricade against the door had been quietly removed, and decks cleared for the sortie. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... said the old General; "it iss I who am here to answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!" ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... unable to offer further resistance, and they resolved on a general sortie to break through the enemy's line to a place of safety. The women of the town put on male attire, and armed themselves with pistols and daggers. The whole population,—men, women, and children,—on the night of the 22d of April, 1826, issued from their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... men with half a dozen veteran soldiers to defend the gateway against a sudden attack; with the rest we can issue out, and marching round, enter by the gate and breaches, sweeping the streets as we go, and then uniting, burst through any guard they may have placed to prevent a sortie, ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... Meanwhile, the Koschevoi's words proved not unfounded, for a scarcity of provisions arose in the city. According to a custom of past centuries, the army did not separate as much as was necessary. They tried to make a sortie; but half of those who did so were instantly killed by the Cossacks, and the other half driven back into the city with no results. But the Jews availed themselves of the opportunity to find out everything; whither and ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Secord. My name is Secord—Captain Secord's wife, Who fought at Queenston;—and my errand is To Beaver Dam to see Fitzgibbon, And warn him of a sortie from Fort George To move to-night. Five hundred men, with guns, And baggage-waggons for the spoil, are sent. For, with such force, the enemy is sure Our stores are theirs; ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... that FitzStephen was closely besieged in Wexford. It was then at once determined to force a passage through the Irish army. Raymond le Gros led the van, Miles de Cogan followed; Strongbow and Maurice FitzGerald, who had proposed the sortie, with the remainder of their force, brought up the rere. The Irish army was totally unprepared for this sudden move; they fled in panic, and Roderic, who was bathing in ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... for two or three days. The rain has soaked the plains, the cannon-wheels would sink into the ground, and the sortie has therefore had to be deferred. For two days Paris has been living on salt meat. A rat ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... by day, and he had caused deep trenches to be dug and a covered way made in the Prison compound, so that the fire-swept area could be crossed, when necessary, with the minimum of risk. Until the night of the convoy-sortie, however, the enemy had not had the ordinary common sense to grasp the fact that the hill was the key of the situation ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... mother 'coon's mate, who had heard the noise of combat where he was foraging by himself, far down the brook. At sight of this most timely reinforcement, the beleaguered raccoon made a sortie. Recognizing the weak point in the assailing forces, she darted straight upon the hesitating setter, and snapped ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to the abandonment of the attack on Medeba, and to the hurried march of its besiegers to relieve Rabbath. Probably the Syrian allies had been before Medeba, and suddenly appeared in Joab's rear. Their advance led the besieged to attempt a sortie, so that Joab was between two fires. It was a difficult position. Whichever foe he attacked, his retreat was cut off, and another enemy was ready to hurl itself on his rear. There was no time for manoeuvring, and nothing for it but to face both assailants. So, without ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... for the priests, received the sacrament, and although full of health, took a last farewell of all his friends, telling them that he was about to leave this world. A few hours afterwards, the enemy having made a sortie, Anselme went out against them sword in hand, and was struck on the forehead by a stone from a Turkish sling, which sent him to heaven, to the beautiful palace that was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Orleans Silvain Nevillon said 'qu'il vit a la cheminee vn homme noir duquel on ne voyoit pas la teste. Vit aussi vn grand homme noir a l'opposite de celuy de la cheminee, & que ledit ho[m]e noir parloit comme si la voix fut sortie d'vn poinson. Dit: Que le Diable dit le Sermo au Sabbat, mais qu'on n'entend ce qu'il dit, parce qu'il parle co[m]e en grodant.'[163] The devil who appeared to Joan Wallis, the Huntingdonshire witch, in 1649, was in the shape of a man dressed in black, but he 'was not as her husband, which speaks ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... assault. But so strong and so well defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. Then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named Matts Kettilmundson, made a sortie against the Russians and drove them back in panic flight, many more of them ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... the guns from the fortress were tearing up the soil. From this spot a large body of troops were seen rushing from the gate of the fortress, and plunging into the valley. The result of this powerful sortie was soon heard, for every thing was invisible under the thick cloud, which grew thicker every moment, in the volleys of musketry, and the shouts of the troops on both sides. Varnhorst now received an order from the chief of the staff, which produced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Antonio, Texas, on the 19th of March. He was a native of Virginia, and entered the army in 1808. He was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1814, for "gallant conduct in the defense of Fort Erie." A month later he received the rank of Brevet Colonel, for "distinguished and meritorious services in the sortie from Fort Erie." In 1824, he was made Brevet Brigadier-General for "ten years' faithful service as Colonel." In 1848, he was brevetted as Major-General for "meritorious conduct, particularly in the performance of his duties in the prosecution of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... in the glacis of a place to afford free egress to the troops in case of a sortie. Also, a large port on each quarter of a fire-ship, out of which the officers and crew make their escape into the boats as soon as the train is fired. Also, a place at Portsmouth exclusively ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... all his men, was received in state, on the 15th of June, by the Parisians, to the great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others. The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a sortie from Paris to attack them. . . . On a certain day the besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle. The King of Navarre issued forth, armed, with his men, and drawing near to the besiegers, had long ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... endeavoured to fortify Hamburg an so extended a scale that, in the opinion of the most experienced military men, it would have required a garrison of 60,000 men to defend it in a regular and protracted siege. At the commencement of the siege Davoust lost Vandamme, who was killed in a sortie at the head of a numerous corps ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... during the battle. The sound of the combat had been borne to their ears, and immediately after the cessation of the rain Colonel Willett made a sally from the fort, at the head of two hundred and fifty men. The camp of the enemy had been depleted for the battle, and the sortie proved highly successful. The remnants of Johnson's regiment were soon driven from their camp. The Indian encampment beyond was demolished, its savage guards flying in terror from "the Devil," by which expressive name they ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
