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Bivouac   /bˈɪvwæk/   Listen
Bivouac

noun
1.
Temporary living quarters specially built by the army for soldiers.  Synonyms: camp, cantonment, encampment.
2.
A site where people on holiday can pitch a tent.  Synonyms: campground, camping area, camping ground, camping site, campsite, encampment.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bivouac" Quotes from Famous Books



... with this portion of the country: it quite resembles the park-like features of Port Phillip. We heard the kangaroos thumping the ground all night, as they hopped along round our bivouac, the heavier fall of the male being plainly distinguishable. It was now determined to shape a southward course for Ungerup, one of Lady Spencer's farms on the Hay River; and after laying down our position by a sort of dead reckoning I had kept to ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... reputation. We do not hear of him electrifying his disordered troops by any deed comparable with that of Caesar, when, shield in hand, he flung himself among the legionaries to stem the torrent of the Nervii. At the climax of the fight he uttered the words "Soldiers, remember it is my custom to bivouac on the field of battle"—tame and egotistical words considering ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... its bivouac just over Long Bridge, almost on the identical spot where four years before I had camped my company of three months' volunteers. With what experiences of march and battle were those four years filled! For three of these years Gulnare had ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... in Barry Lyndon's military reminiscences, done with great vigour and fidelity of detail, we have a very early example of the realistic as contrasted with the romantic treatment of campaigns, of life in the bivouac and the barrack. This method, which has latterly had immense vogue, seems to have been first invented in France, where Thackeray may have taken the hint from Stendhal; but we are disposed to believe that he was the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... will. I wish we had that firmness. Yes, Sir, I wish we had adherence. I wish we could gather something from the spirit of our brave forces, who have met the enemy under circumstances most adverse and have stood the shock. I wish we could imitate Zachary Taylor in his bivouac on the field of Buena Vista. He said he "would remain for the night; he would feel the enemy in the morning, and try his position." I wish, before we surrender, we could make up our minds to "feel the enemy, and try his position," and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... a certain series of pictures, which he contemplated beginning at once, my admiration increased to wonder, and I examined with awe the great fireplace which had been constructed at his orders, and admired the iron pot which hung by a chain above an artificial bivouac fire. This detail will suggest the rest of the studio—the Turkey carpet, the brass harem lamps, the Japanese screen, the pieces of drapery, the oak chairs covered with red Utrecht velvet, the oak wardrobe that had been picked up somewhere,—a ridiculous bargain, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... to our bivouac farther on, gentlemen," said the general, with a wave of his hand, as if to dismiss them. "Captain Harding will introduce you to your brother officers and later on I will ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... Verendrye left Fort St. Charles, Francois carrying the French flag, with ten soldiers, wearing snow-shoes, in line behind, and two or three hundred Crees swathed in furs bringing up a ragged rear. The bright uniforms of the soldiers were patches of red among the snowy everglades. Bivouac was made on beds of pine boughs,—feet to the camp-fire, the night frost snapping like a whiplash, the stars flashing with a steely clearness known only in northern climes. The march was at a swift pace, for three weeks by canoe is short enough ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... those who had unwittingly kept him prisoner took their departure, the sun had passed its meridian, and Ridge, parched with thirst, was suffering as much from the breathless heat as he had with cold a few hours earlier. As he cautiously approached the scene of the recent bivouac he found it to be where a small stream crossed a narrow trail, and, after quenching his thirst, he followed the latter in what he believed to be the direction of Daiquiri. At any rate, it was the opposite one from that taken by his recent unwelcome neighbors. Up hill and ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... soldierly face peered in on the scene of light, of merriment and laughter under the canvas roof of the only home he knew in the world—the soldier home of one whose life had been spent following the flag through bivouac, camp or garrison, through many a march, battle and campaign all over the broad lands of the United States until now, at the hour when most men turned for the placid joys of the fireside, the love of devoted ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... had his troops placed, and his dispositions taken, to carry out the orders to pursue, on the Bowling-Green road, an enemy indicated to him as in rapid retreat from Hooker's front; and was actually in bivouac along that road, while a strong picket-line was still engaged skirmishing with the force in his front. By this time the vanguard of his columns had proceeded a distance variously given as from one to three miles below the bridges in this direction; ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... camp, we gathered quantities of wood, stacking it upon the fire, which when we left it was a wild tower of flame lighting up the whole mountain-side in the direction we had come, and seeming, in some sort, to atone for a long succession of shivering days in tireless bivouac. We followed the same stage road through the scattering settlement of Casher's Valley in Jackson County, North Carolina. A little farther on, two houses, of hewn logs, with verandas and green blinds, just fitted the description we had received of the home of old Tom Handcock. ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... solitary place—on a path rarely trodden—there is no great danger; and knowing this, they dismount and make their bivouac sans souci. The spot chosen is the same as was occupied by Borlasse and his band. Near the bank of the river is a spreading tree, underneath which a log affords sitting accommodation for at least a score of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... other was a stranger to him. The herdsman was travelling on the same route, and followed them at some distance behind. At a place where certain signs showed that the two travellers had made their bivouac, the herdsman had found the traces of a terrible struggle. The grass was bent down, and saturated with blood. There were tracks of blood leading to a precipice that hung over a stream of water; and most likely over this the victim was precipitated. This victim must have ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... say: 'We could see, in the distance, almost as far as Porte Saint-Denis, the immense bivouac-fires of the infantry. The light from them, with the exception of that from a few rare lamps, was all we had to guide us amid that horrible carnage. The fighting in the daytime was nothing compared to those corpses and that silence. R. and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead." ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... wondering and increasing admiration. In securing a fire, they escaped all immediate danger, and she became as cheery as if the disaster, which had threatened even a fatal termination, were only an episode, and the long, wintry bivouac, in that desolate place, but a picnic ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... heart now. [Applause.] Whenever this country shall call upon her sons to do battle against a common foe, when North and South Carolina with Massachusetts and Vermont, when Georgia and Ohio, when all the South and all the North march side by side in behalf of Old Glory, then at the bivouac, then around our council fires, the sons will recall the valorous deeds their fathers wrought upon either side and under opposing flags during the civil strife, as the loudest call and the strongest inspiration to awaken effort in behalf of the rescued ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... extremely warm, and our animals were as thirsty as ourselves. Hope never forsakes the human breast; and thence it was that, after we had secured the horses, we began to wander round our lonely bivouac. It was almost dark, when one of my men came to inform me that he had found a small puddle of water, to which he had been led by ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... 'We'll bivouac here to-night,' said the Major; 'I have a notion that the Gurkhas will get caught. They may want us to re-form on. Stand easy till the ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... sound of splashing and struggling in the water and mud had not raised any of these sleepers, now all at once, as though by some intuition, the whole bivouac sprang into life. The presence of so many men could ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... The noonday bivouac was in a shady place nigh-hand the road, where a group of solemn trees made a shadow on the dusty grass. It was a day of robust heat; the sky arched cloudless over Sussex, and the road was soft with white dust that rose like smoke under the feet. Trotter no sooner saw the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... later they reached Leirya. The April sun rendered shelter unnecessary for the Portuguese, and after establishing them, for the present, a quarter of a mile away from the British camp, he went and reported his arrival to the officer in command, and was told that he could not do better than bivouac on the ground he had selected. Leaving the headquarters he soon found where the Mayo regiment was encamped, and made his way to the officers' marquee. They were just sitting down to lunch when, at the entry of an officer ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... found the well where he had got some water for his horse; here the green pond he had fixed upon as the last resource for his troop; here the cottage where he had slept on the 17th; here the breach he had made in the hedge for his horses to get into the field to bivouac; here the spot where he had fired the first gun; here the hole in which he sat for the surgeon to dress his wound. He had never been on the field since the day of the battle, and his interest in seeing it again and discovering every spot under ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... a high altitude. When struck by shrapnel, however, an aeroplane (one witness says) "just crumples up like a broken egg." On the other hand, bombs dropped from aeroplanes do great damage, if properly directed. A petrol bomb was dropped by an English airman at night into a German bivouac with alarming results, and another thrown at a cavalry column struck an ammunition wagon and killed fifteen men. A French airman wiped out a cavalry troop with a bomb, and the effect of the steel arrows ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick

... my life has been passed in all the vicissitudes of war and peace. The camp and the bivouac—the reckless gaiety of the mess-table —the comfortless solitude of a French prison—the exciting turmoils of active service—the wearisome monotony of garrison duty, I have alike partaken of, and experienced. A career of this kind, with a temperament ever ready to go ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... over a mile when, on surmounting an eminence, he saw by dying fires in a grove beneath him that he was near the bivouac of a body of soldiers. He hardly hoped they could be a detachment of Union men; and yet the thought that it was possible led him to approach stealthily within earshot. At last he heard one patrol speak to another ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... entire circumference of the bivouac, for the outlaw knew full well that he had put his head within the lion's jaw when he had ridden thus boldly to the seat of English power. He had no faith in the gratitude of De Montfort, and he knew full well what the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... bivouac at the Rotunda, as the morning wore on, the Republican officers declared that the game was up, and that there was nothing for it but to disperse and await the consequences. They themselves actually made off; and it was then that Machado dos Santos came to the front, taking command of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... presence of a lounging officer or waiting orderly could not entirely dissipate, and the scent of the rose and jasmine from his windows overcame him with sad memories. He began to chafe under this inaction, and long again for the excitement of the march and bivouac, in which, for the past four years, he had buried ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... think I know the cause now. I spent the evening before I had that nightmare with a sergeant who had returned from the service in India." This friend amongst other things had mentioned that whenever they were about to bivouac they had to search every hole under a stone and every tuft of grass to see that there were no snakes there. This, which had been received as an ordinary item of information, had been the stimulus which had set his memory mechanism into action and the nightmare between ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... command, crossed the river during the night, Gordon's troops at the High Bridge going into bivouac on the opposite side, while Longstreet occupied the hills at the river near ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman

... of Zephyrs, among the Douars of Spahis, on sandy soil under African stars, above the heaped plunder brought in from a razzia, in the yellow light of candles fastened to bayonets stuck in the earth at a bivouac, on the broad deal table of a barrack-room full of black-browed conscrits indigenes, amid the thundering echoes of the Marseillaise des Bataillons shouted from the brawny chests of Zouaves, Cigarette had danced, danced, danced; till her ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still again, as ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... A summer bivouac had collected together a little troop of soldiers from Joppa, under the shelter of a grove, where they had spread their sheep-skins, tethered their horses, and pitched a single tent. With the carelessness of soldiers, they were chatting away the time ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle; Be a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... in, combs her hair, slips a pair of stockings and her best gown over her dirt, and awaits the coming guests, who make a few long faces at the "mucksy sort of a place," but prefer to spend the night there than to bivouac close to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... along. He looked at the rocks again and pointed, to them, stroked his knees, turned up and pointed to the soles of his boots, which certainly were suffering from the lava, and once more solemnly shook his head. This was conclusive: so I conveyed to him my pantomime that he had better go back to the bivouac where my friend was, rather than remain here alone, and that I hoped to meet him there in the evening; took an affectionate farewell, and turned towards the rocks. There was evidently nothing for it but to go on alone. It was half-past ten o'clock, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... hard bread. After our meal, the three men sat down by the light of a tallow candle, with a pack of greasy Spanish cards, to the favorite game of "treinte uno,'' a sort of Spanish "everlasting.'' I left them and went out to take up my bivouac among the hides. It was now dark; the vessel was hidden from sight, and except the three men in the house there was not a living soul within a league. The coyotes (a wild animal of a nature and appearance between that of the fox ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... accord they flung themselves, tired and panting, on the sheltered level of the bivouac. Some sticks were found, a fire was lighted, tea was once more made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as the flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouching, kneeling, sitting, and the rocks ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... not very encouraging start I continued my journey. We had gone for some hours, when we saw a bivouac fire of the detachment belonging to the advance guard which I had left at Taragona. The sub-lieutenant in command, having no tidings of Ney, was prepared to return to Taragona at daybreak, in pursuance of his orders. He knew that we were ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... night upon the cold ground huddled together like sheep, surrounded by a strong guard. It was a night of horror. The sentinels watched every motion, and shot at any hand or head that dared to stir. In the morning they were marched from their mossy bivouac, leaving the green field dotted with crimson pools, and strewn with the dead who had received fatal shots; there they lay in garments rolled ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... dropped eggs on the German Somme headquarters. An hour later they deranged the railway station of a large garrison town. For the remaining time before sunset they were not so busy. They merely destroyed an ammunition train, cut two railway lines, damaged an important railhead, and sprayed a bivouac ground. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... impossible for me to reach the emperor. He had left Olmutz. All the night long I was conducted from bivouac to bivouac, in order to find Prince Bagration, who could alone ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... Capitol square, and wheeled, And there in the moonlight stood revealed A well-known form that in State and field Had led our patriot sires; Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp, Afar through the river's fog and damp, That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp, Nor wasted bivouac fires. ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... and we were halted to bivouac for the night, at a spot about seventeen miles from Jackson, on ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... seat; nor did the two occupants of Tom Osby's freight wagon often emerge from the reticence habitual in a land where spaces were vast, men infrequent, and mountains ever looking down. The team of gnarled gray horses kept on their steady walk, hour after hour, and day after day; and bivouac after bivouac lay behind them, marked by the rude heap of brush piled up at night as an excuse for shelter against the wind or by the tiny circle of ashes where had been a small but sufficient fire. At last the line of the bivouacs ended, far up toward the crest of the heavily timbered Sacramentos, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... Moreover, with the tactics and mode of encampment of former times it was much easier than it is now to examine the position of the enemy. A line of tents is much easier to distinguish than a line of huts or a bivouac; and an encampment on a line of front, fully and regularly drawn out, also easier than one of Divisions formed in columns, the mode often used at present. We may have the ground on which a Division bivouacs in that ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... down at the bivouac really feel about this conduit business, Major," said Tom Cantrell as he moved his chair close around by the major's after the last swish and rustle had left the men alone in the dining-room for a few moments. "Just a question ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the strong flood, was nearly a league wide; it was lashed by a fierce wind, and we could hear the waves roaring. It was pitch-dark, and the rain fell in torrents, but we could see on the other side a long line of bivouac fires. Napoleon, Marshal Lannes, and I being alone on the balcony, the marshal said, "On the other side of the river you see an Austrian camp. Now, the emperor is keenly desirous to know whether General Hiller's corps is there, or still on this bank. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... speak, with pith helmets and grass shoes, we again set forth at dawn of day to hunt the bear. Breakfast under the same tree, sitting on the same patch of rose-coloured flowers—a sort of fumitory (Corydalus rutaefolia)—followed by another nine-hour bivouac, brought us to 5 P.M. and the extreme limit of boredom, when lo! the shikaris burst upon us in a state of frenzied excitement to announce the bear! Off we went up a steep track for a quarter of an hour, until, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... part was thirty feet or so above the general level. Round this the band of El Zeres was encamped. Rube and I guessed them at four hundred strong. There was an attempt at military order, for, by the bundles of wearing apparel, etc., it was evident that the men slept round a series of bivouac fires, extending in a circle round the foot of the mound. Within the line of fires the horses were picketed in two rows. In the centre of the circle, upon the highest point of the rise, was a small house. As we approached we could see a stir in the camp: a party of men were mounting ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... as she listened, there came to the girl a dim sort of understanding. There was a permeating tonal effect in the music, striking at times, merely suggestive at others, which seemed to breathe the spirit of bivouac and battle, of suffering and patriotism, and the yearning of great devotion. A lump came into her throat. An indefinable emotion swept her with an appreciation of the spirit of a soldier which renders him happy at the thought of dying in his country's battles. The flood-gates of Peggy's ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... lass forlorn of kith and kin * (Who to Hijazian willow wand and myrtle[FN497] cloth incline, And who, when meeting caravan, shall with love-lowe set light * To bivouac fire, and bang for conk her tears of pain and pine) Exceeds not mine for him nor more devotion shows, but he * Seeing my heart is wholly his spurns love as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... the end of the village. At rare intervals, from somewhere far beyond the Terek in those parts whence Olenin had just come (the Chechen or the Kumytsk plain), came muffled sounds of firing. Olenin was feeling very well contented after three months of bivouac life. His newly washed face was fresh and his powerful body clean (an unaccustomed sensation after the campaign) and in all his rested limbs he was conscious of a feeling of tranquillity and strength. His ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... ourselves at no great distance from that part of the inland sea where a yet more exciting chase was to employ the rest of the day. Failing to bring both adventures within the sixteen hours of light which at this season and in this latitude we should enjoy, we were to bivouac for the night on the northern sea-coast and pursue our aquatic game in the morning of the morrow, returning ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... to me that if I should come out of the deathly struggle safe and sound, it would be a pleasure to me some day to read over these notes of battle or bivouac. I thought, further, that my people would be interested in them. So I tried to set down my impressions in my intervals of leisure. Days of misery, days of joy, days of battle.... What volumes one might write, if one were to follow our squadrons day ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... that afternoon the bivouac ground was empty and my composite column dispersed. I at once set to work to gather up the threads of my own especial work. The first thing was to establish a depot at Kroonstad for my brigade supplies. The next, to bespeak horses at the Remount Depot, just established ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... instrument, and with his head bowed upon his breast, began to play with an expression and a life that might be called inspired. It was one of the wild Maliserknud's most genial compositions. Was it imagined with the army, in the bivouac under the free nightly heaven, or in—"slavery," amid evil-doers? Nobody knows; but in both situations has it charmed forth tones, like his own restless life, which never will pass from the memory of the people. Now took the Hardanger-fiddle for the ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... had ever imagined of ferocity and rabble triumph. Though it was still night, the multitude thronged the streets; the windows were all lighted up, huge fires were blazing in all directions, torches were carried about at the head of every troop of the banditti; it was the bivouac of a hundred thousand bedlamites. It was now that I owned the lucky chance which had made me a Federe. In any other dress I should have been a suspicious person, and have probably been put to death; but in the brown coat, sabre, and red cap of the Sectionaire, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... of history, What bivouac of the marching stars, Has given the sign for you to see ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... there'll be no attack 'gainst this pirates' bivouac, right under the guns of the ships. The Indians are too wise to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... and sucked meditatively at his cigar. The new moon was just rising over the elephant's hindquarters, and the poetry of the incident appeared to move the manager profoundly. He turned and surveyed the dim bivouac, the two silent tents, the monstrous, shadowy bulk of the elephant, rocking monotonously against the sky. "Kind of Silurian an' solemn, ain't it," he murmured, "the moon shinin' onto the rump of that primeval pachyderm. It's like the dark ages of the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... train, I returned to the Artillery bivouac, managed a hasty dinner, mounted a fresh horse, and, about 9 p.m., started off, accompanied by Younghusband, Hugh Gough, the unlucky Ordnance officer, two squadrons of Cavalry, and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... the excitement of this first bivouac, as soon as the meal was over Jack stretched himself out upon the ground and fell fast asleep, only returning to consciousness when wakened by the flies and midday heat; and so ended his first ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... in a vision, those other wanderers of the Hungarian desert, her ancestors, the Tzigani, camped in the puszta, the boundless plain, crouched down in the long grass beneath the shade of the bushes, and playing their beautiful national airs. She saw the distant fires of the bivouac of those unknown Tzigani whose daughter she was; she seemed to breathe again the air of that country she had seen but once, when upon a mournful pilgrimage; and, in the presence of that poor bargeman's ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Cases, "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... evening of the 15th of July, and on a number of gently sloping fields, interspersed with vineyards and dotted with trees, a Christino brigade, including a regiment of cavalry, had established its bivouac. In such weather as it then was, it became a luxury to pass a night in the open air, with turf for a mattrass, a cloak for a pillow, and the branches for bed-curtains, instead of being cramped and crowded into smoky, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... and fen her sweet deserters back— But he,—no long roll of the impatient drum, for battle trumpet eager for the fray, From the far shores of blue Lake Erie blown, shall rouse the soldier's last long bivouac. ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... should say, Herrara, that if you get no orders to join in the pursuit, you had best get all the wounded collected and brought here, and let the regiment light fires and bivouac. There is no chance of getting medical assistance, outside the regiment, tonight. Of course, all the British surgeons will have their hands full with their own men. Still, I only suggest this, for of course ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... warder, spear in hand, appeared with his lantern, but recognising the voice, ran to the gate. Within the gate a few yards there were the embers of a fire, and round it a bivouac of footmen who had been to the feast, and had returned thus far before nightfall. Hearing the noise, some of them arose, and came round him, when one immediately exclaimed and asked if he was wounded. Felix replied that he was not, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... African shrubs near Geryville, in her little campaign cradle. And do you know what was found in her cradle? The charred skeleton of the poor chameleon, which had been the indirect cause of her death. Before leaving the bivouac, where she had committed her crime, she had picked it out of the glowing embers, and brought it into the cradle, and that is why her little fingers were burned. Since the beginning of the meningitis the major had never been able to explain ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... Examples of Youthful Courage in the storm of Combat; Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry in line of action—the tramp and onset; extraordinary fortitude under suffering; undaunted heroism in death; the roll of fame and story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, Hand-to-Hand Encounters, Startling Surprises, Ingenious Strategy, Celebrated Tactics, Wonderful Escapes, Comical and Ludicrous ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... our right rose considerably above the plain. "I think I see an island ahead," cried Stanley. "If so, it may suit us for a bivouac, and may be more secure than the mainland." As we went on we found that he was right. The island appeared to be about four or five hundred yards in circumference, with numerous trees growing on it, which would afford us the means of forming huts, and give us wood for our fires besides. Fortunately, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... a Bedouin maid, whose folks are far away, * Who yearns after the willow of the Hejaz and the bay,[FN190]— Whose tears, when she on travellers lights, might for their water serve * And eke her her passion, with its heat, their bivouac-fire purvey,— Is not more fierce nor ardent than my longing for my love, * Who deems that I commit a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... dark eventually, and we decided, or rather got orders, to remain where we were for the night. Given a choice we would have done nothing of the sort; it was chilly weather outside canvas; we had not come prepared for a bivouac, and we had no great coats nor blankets. But they were subsequently sent out to us. To satisfy the pangs of hunger, which were asserting themselves with increasing importunity, we tried (advisedly) the pockets of the coats, and ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... be cross when the supper was not ready, apt to come late and make you cross when the supper was ready and waiting,—who ever guessed what nobleness was in him! His country called, and he rose up a patriot. The fatigue of marches, the hardships of camp and bivouac, the hard fare, the injustice that must be submitted to, all the terrible trials of the body's strength and the soul's patient endurance,—these he bore with the superb buoyancy of spirit which denotes ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... site for the Squadron proved to be in a wide gully, leading up from the Wadi Ghuzze, between two hills. After watering in the wadi (to reach which a rather steep slope had to be negotiated), "lines" were put up and the new bivouac sheets recently issued, erected, after which, having had something to eat, the Squadron was able to enjoy a well-earned rest. In the very early hours of the following morning "C" Sub-section, under Sec.-Lieut. ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... was very scant—our whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and, in short, our arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Our new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I had the bedroom over it, and Tom the back bedroom on the same floor, which nothing could have ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... he approved, for from that moment he treated Dickson with a new respect. Formerly when he had referred to him at all it had been as "auld McCunn." Now it was "Mister McCunn." He was given rank as a worthy civilian ally. The bivouac was a cheerful place in the wet night. A great fire of pine roots and old paling posts hissed in the fine rain, and around it crouched several urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers. On one side a respectable ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... gave the necessary orders, returned, and after making arrangements for our bivouac that night, Dost was summoned to a consultation, the result being that the Hindu stole off as soon as it was dark, and did not ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... the career of the same disease at Awapuni Camp when out on an extensive movement one night near Feilding. His officer had given him a goodly nip of strong Scotch whisky and had advised him to remain at the first bivouac, but Mac thought that influenza was as bad at one place as at another. So he successfully guarded a road all night, his horse picketed to a fence, and himself in a greatcoat stretched asleep in the middle of ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... tempest still mutter along the track of its former desolation, the storm is over. The conflict is ended. No more conscription of husbands, sons, and brothers for the weary work of destruction; no more the forced march by day, the bivouac at night, and to-morrow the delirium of carnage. No more anxious waiting in distant homes for tidings from the front, and breathless conning of the death-list to know if the loved ones are among the slain. No more the fresh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... repair Hermitage Castle, and live, like Robin Hood and his merry men, at the expense of all round us. But this presupposed a grand bouleversement of society. In the mean while, I think my noble friend is something like my old peacock, who chooses to bivouac apart from his lady, and sit below my bedroom window, to keep me awake with his screeching lamentation. Only I own he is not equal in melody to Lord Byron, for Fare-thee-well—and if for ever, etc., is a very sweet dirge indeed. After all, C'est genie mal loge, and that's all ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... severe, and he does not grumble at its penalties. In battle, he does not abandon his chief; he watches over him, will die for his safety, will not let him fall into the hands of the enemy if wounded. At the bivouac he makes the officer's fire, though his own should die for want of fuel; cares for his horse, arranges his furniture; if any delicacy in the way of food can be procured, he brings it to the chief. Convinced of the desire of their master ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... of hundred pounds, maybe," said Alex. "The green head, this way, might make fifty of that, I don't know. We'll have to make two trips down to the bivouac, that's one thing sure. Maybe we can lighten the heads by ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... there was no lack of wood now, so that his night bivouac was not so cold or dreary as might have ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... protected by cavalry, then probably a cavalry combat will ensue. Prince Kraft says: "The action of the masses of German cavalry at Mars-la-Tour excited wonder and admiration; they surprised the enemy's cavalry when in bivouac, they met and surrounded the hostile infantry in a threatening manner, and thus 8,000 cavalry occupied 65,000 infantry, until the Prussian infantry came up. The cavalry made no charges which could not have been successful, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various

... bowed to the inevitable, but like Ulus I said things. There was no chance of reaching the abodes of men by any other route. We were booked till the gale chose to ease—at any rate till morning; and for myself, I contemplated a moist bivouac under streaming Jove, with one clammy ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... feels about his work, as a great artist about his art. To war it was that he owed his power and glory. Without it, he said, he would have been nothing; by it, he was everything. Hence he felt for it not merely love, but gratitude; loving it both by instinct and calculation. He preferred the bivouac to the Tuileries. Just as the snipe-shooter prefers a marsh to a drawing-room, he was more at home under a tent than in a palace. To men who like the battle-field, war is the most intense of pleasures. They love it as the gamester loves play, with ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... no hurry for the bird to cease its singing. Indeed, it was long after the usual bed-time when at length he consented to leave the bivouac fire. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... the little army rode away, back toward Howrah City, and the other half proceeded to bivouac where they could watch the iron-shuttered entrance and cut off the little garrison from ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... lake was about three-quarters of a mile long. Mr. Smith's feet had latterly become so sore that he had been compelled to tie pieces of kangaroo skin over them, and thus equipped to walk without his half-boots; and, on coming in to our bivouac, I had the mortification to hear that, having been put carelessly on the horses, one of these boots had fallen down; I saw therefore that it would be necessary to let him and a native go back the next day upon the two horses we had with us for the purpose of finding ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... day's travel the Indians selected some attractive spot for the night's encampment or bivouac, according to the state of the weather, near some spring or stream. Here they built a rousing fire, roasted choice cuts from the game they had taken, and feasted abundantly with jokes and laughter, and many boastful stories of their ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... during the day, but at nightfall Lyttelton's Brigade was relieved by Hildyard's, which marched across the new pontoon (No. 4) under a desultory shell fire from an extreme range. Lyttelton's Brigade returned under cover of darkness to a bivouac underneath the Zwartkop guns. Their losses in the two days' operations had been 225 officers ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... flash bivouac-fires into gloom, And with crashing of forests the rains sheet down,— Or when ships plunge onward where night-clouds loom, Defiant of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... much gun ammunition as they have been, but they continue to fire at insignificant targets. They have the habit of suddenly dropping heavy shells without warning in localities of villages far behind our front line, possibly on the chance of catching some of our troops in bivouac or billets. They also fire ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the revolution never for a moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... nearly sundown, and the captain decided to bivouac for the night. The camp was laid out in a field, and the tents were pitched. A supper was cooked for the men, though the commissioned officers were invited to a private house; but they declined the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... deserters from Fort Morgan, though if they were they would hardly bivouac so near it," replied Christy, who did not seem to his companion to be at all disturbed by the discovery of the men. "They are more likely to be sailors from some intending blockade-runner at anchor off the point, who have come on shore to make a ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... to bivouac for the night some ten miles or so above the town and at early dawn we would steam down the river on our gunboat. If there were any signs of hostility we were at once to open up on the village with the pom pom mounted on board our cruiser, and the infantry were to ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... general had confessed his faith, and that day they made ribald songs about him in the camp. But on the morrow when they learned how that the man whom the prince spared had been seized by a lion and taken away as he sat at night with his companions in the bivouac, his mouth full of boasting of his own courage in offering insult to the prince and the new faith, then they looked at each other askance and said little more of the matter. Doubtless it was chance, and yet this Spirit Whom the Messenger preached was ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... hundred men had gathered at the rendezvous in the mountains. John divided the force into four bodies, and gave each their orders as to the part that they were to take; and then marched down the hill, crossed the river, and advanced towards the Roman bivouac. ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... began to chew tobacco ravenously. After a decent interval, however, Brigadier Downright—who, it would seem, in spite of his military appellation, was neither more nor less than a practising attorney and counsellor in the city of Bivouac, the commercial capital of the Republic of Leaplow—arose, and claimed a right to be heard in reply. The court now took it into its head to start the objection, for the first time, that the advocate had not been duly qualified to plead, or to argue, at their bar. My brother Downright ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... think," said Nyoda. "If the thief comes again he'll find a bivouac." Accordingly that night they all stayed up, sitting in the shadow of the shack. The tents were plainly visible in the moonlight. The place was as calm and still as a churchyard, and did not look as if it could be the scene ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... This bivouac was a pleasant scene to look upon; but its peace was like the stillness that precedes a storm. A few hours might change these light-hearted human beings into mangled corpses, and dye this velvet sward with ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... would convey her back to the Town House; but already the snow lay a foot and a half deep, and was still falling. He himself, after packing her off with Narcissus, would remain and attend to the comfort of the guests, many of whom must bivouac at "The Dogs" for the ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... traced with ease. The afternoon of the first day brought the travellers well within, view of this timber line, but the rough country along the stream was not yet reached when they were forced to quit the trail and make their rough bivouac for ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... journey led us. Every now and then we caught a sight of the pointed cone of the volcano of Orizava, which assisted us in taking our bearings. At last, four days after taking leave of Coyotepec, we established our bivouac at the foot of a mountain, close to a clear ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... posting sentinels on all sides, as we expected an attack at this place. Camp fires were kindled, supper prepared and eaten, after which preparations were made for the night. The 71st New York coming up and halting at our bivouac, we exchanged greetings with them, furnished them with hot coffee, and informed them, as they took their departure on the road, that it was a short march for them to the Junction—"only nine more miles." A member of the 71st afterwards ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke



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