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Cannonade

verb
(past & past part. cannonade; pres. part. cannonading)
1.
Attack with cannons or artillery.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cannonade" Quotes from Famous Books



... where they were originally stationed; their number was about 300.... I met a few in the course of the day who were, like ourselves, contemplating the field of battle, and who spoke like the rest of their countrymen of the baseness of Marmont and treachery of the day. The cannonade must have been pretty sharp while it lasted, as about 5,000 Russians perished before they got possession of the heights—though the actual operation of storming did not occupy half an hour—but their lines were ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... British army beheld the chevaleresque legions of the enemy, in all its superior numbers, ranged in order of battle on the rising ground. The sun at mid-day flashed its brilliant radiance over their military casques and arms. The cannonade then became general; the Duke of Wellington exposed himself like a subaltern; his personal venture in the strife excited anxiety; it was in vain that the officers of his staff urged him to be less ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... He had heretofore known only in the indirectness of theory the sudden capriciousness of mountain weather; storms that burst and cannonade without warning; trickling waters that leap overnight into maddened freshets. Now he was seeing in its blood-raw ferocity the primal combat between man and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... even the soldiers in the trenches upon the far-flung battle lines pause to listen, look to see as for a moment dies away the cannonade? Do not even the sailors of war and trade peer across the tossing waters of the great deep, longing for a truce of God if only for an ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... enough to hold an easy conversation with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool it would have been in Homer's hands! How trivial, to the author of the book of Job, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... moment to himself. "See, they are working their way through the forest to the rear, just beyond our range. Soon we shall be hemmed in, and they will bring up their guns. We have done what we can for these poor walls; but they will not long stand the cannonade of all those guns we see lying yonder on the platoons upon ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... one hundred thousand men was opposed by only twenty-nine or thirty thousand French. Souvarow began as usual with a thundering blow. On 20th April he appeared before Brescia, which made a vain attempt at resistance; after a cannonade of about half an hour's duration, the Preschiera gate was forced, and the Korsakow division, of which Foedor's regiment formed the vanguard, charged into the town, pursuing the garrison, which only consisted of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... to die where they stood. Suddenly, however, a third power took a hand in the fray, and smote both assailants and defenders with equal fury. The black clouds that had been gathering over the battle-field opened and began such a cannonade as neither side could withstand. Wind, hail, lightning, and thunder, accompanied by an ominous darkness in which friend was indistinguishable from foe, played such havoc with the puny combatants and their mimic artillery, that all were forced to seek shelter and safety ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... right. The cannonade of the Isle of Re presaged to him the dragonnades of the Cevennes; the taking of La Rochelle was the preface to the revocation of the Edict ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the pride she felt in her lover. 'I am like a cartridge rammed into a gun, to be discharged at a certain hour tomorrow,' she wrote; and she sealed a letter so frigid that she could not decide to post it. All day she imagined hearing a distant cannonade. The light of the day following was not like earthly light. Danvers assured her there was no fog ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... assaults upon the enemy's works carried dismay and victory day after day? Herr Faust trills on, but you see the sombre field and the desperate battle and the glorious cause. Gretchen musically sighs, but you see the brave boys lying where they fell: you hear the deep, sullen roar of the cannonade; you catch far away through the tumult of war the fierce shout of victory. And there sits the slight, pale figure with eyes languidly fixed upon the stage; his heart musing upon other scenes; himself the unconscious hero of a ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... infantry about to be attacked by the enemy. Leaving three or four of the company to follow the carts, we started immediately at hard gallop for Virgin Bay. When we arrived there, we found that the enemy, after a trifling cannonade of the town from one of the steamers, had put back to the island again, leaving no greater damage than a shot-hole in one of the row-boats,—which still lay at Virgin Bay awaiting the bungling delay (better worthy of greasers than earnest filibusters) about the brig. This demonstration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... One morn we woke with the first flush of light, Our windows jarring with the cannonade That ushered in the nation's festal day. The village streets were full of men and boys, And resonant with rattling mimicry Of the black-throated monsters on the hill,— A crashing, crepitating war of fire,— And as we listened to the fitful feud, Dull detonations came from far away, ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... horizon, caught at intervals above the boiling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore, with towers and buildings. . . The people came to their doors all aslant, and with streaming hair." David dreams of a cannonade, when at last he "fell—off a tower and down a precipice—into the depths of sleep." In the morning, "the wind might have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of had been diminished by the silencing ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... back to Laon through the falling dusk. The western sky was all a deep saffron pink—the color of a salmon's belly—and we could hear the constant blaspheming of the big siege guns, taking up the evening cannonade along the center. Pretty soon we caught up with the column that was headed for the right wing. At that hour it was still in motion, which probably meant forced marching for an indefinite time. Viewed against the sunset yellow, the figures of the dragoons ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... HIS LORDSHIP'S being wounded till his death, a period of about two hours and forty-five minutes elapsed; but a knowledge of the decisive victory which was gained, he acquired of Captain HARDY within the first hour-and-a-quarter of this period. A partial cannonade, however, was still maintained, in consequence of the Enemy's running ships passing the British at different points; and the last distant guns which were fired at their van ships that were making off, were heard a minute or two before His ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... details of the recent battle her irritation against Merwyn had passed away, and she now felt for him only pity. Her own brave spirit had been awed and overwhelmed by the accounts of the terrific cannonade and the murderous hand-to-hand struggles. At night she would start up from vivid dreams wherein she saw the field with thousands of ghastly faces turned towards the white moonlight. In her belief Merwyn was incapable of looking upon such scenes. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... Clanrickarde, more zealous than the English themselves for the triumph of England. The harbour was blockaded by ten ships of war, under Sir Richard Leviston, and the forts at the entrance, Rincorran and Castlenepark, being taken by cannonade, the investment on all sides was complete. Don Juan's messengers found O'Neil and O'Donnell busily engaged on their own frontiers, but both instantly resolved to muster all their strength for a winter campaign in Munster. O'Donnell rendezvoused at Ballymote, from which ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... flying low overhead dropped some fire-balls. Immediately a violent artillery cannonade began. Looking towards the French line we saw this yellowish green cloud rising on a front of at least three miles and drifting at a height of perhaps a hundred ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... to be greatly affected by that cannonade, which was enough to rouse the dead. Something must be happening, he mused; then, his meditations concluded, turned on his other side. He slept well into the morning, and found his breakfast appetisingly laid out in ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... two miles down the Run, by Mitchell's Ford, rolling, echoing, and reverberating through the forests, are other thunderings. General Richardson has been waiting impatiently to hear the signal gun. He is to make a feint of attacking. His cannonade is to begin furiously. He has six guns, and all of them are in position, throwing solid shot and shells into the wood ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... which, were occasionally seen on the shipping on our larboard bow. The Dutch flag was to be seen flying at the fore of the Dutch Admiral, who, with his squadron, were engaging the batteries to the eastward of the mole. The fresh breeze which brought us in was gradually driven away by the cannonade, and the smoke of our guns so hung about us, that we were obliged to wait until it cleared; for the men took deliberate and certain aims, training their guns until they were fully satisfied of their precision. But our enemies gave us no reason to suppose that they were idle; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... commenced to do so, Leigh called up the men with muskets from each flank, and sent word to the main body to descend the hill again, as the cannonade would cease as soon as the attack began. Three times the assault was made and repulsed, the peasants fighting with a fury that the Blues, already disheartened with their heavy losses, could not withstand. As they fell back for the third ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... cannonade, cannoneer, linstock, calibre, bore, cascabel, breech, reenforce, chase, muzzle, trunnion, rimbase, chamber, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... within musket shot of the American lines and opened the attack with a battery of three-pounders. They might have rushed the camp with bayonet and tomahawk and killed most of the defenders asleep, but the cannonade alarmed the Kentuckians and they took cover behind a picket fence, using their long rifles so expertly that they killed or wounded a hundred and eighty-five of the British regulars, who thereupon had to abandon their ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... heard the noise of the keel cutting the waves as a bird's wing cuts the air, and he would have cried: 'Ship ahoy!' A ship was indeed quite close to Desclieux's vessel, and the token it gave of its vicinity was a cannonade which awoke up every one in a moment, both crew and passengers. It was a pirate vessel of Tunis, a poor chebeck, but formidable in the night—a time that magnifies every fear—and formidable, too, from the desperate bravery of the banditti who manned her. Believing themselves assailed by ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... I had five of the feluccas cannonade them. When they scampered away at the sound of the terrific explosions, and at sight of the smoke and the iron balls I landed a couple of hundred red warriors and led them to the opposite end of the hill into the tunnel that ran ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... us the first night with a thundering cannonade, and placed his army en masse on the plain before us, almost within gun shot. I was told that, while Lord Wellington was riding along the line, under a fire of artillery, and accompanied by a numerous staff, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... alacrity. I was directed to make all requisite preparations at Headquarters. In this work I was busied till near eleven p.m., with but few converts, however, to my convictions, when, worn down by fatigue, I stretched myself on my mattrass. After a slumber of a few hours I was aroused by a distant cannonade soon after two a.m., 13th October, but without surprise, well knowing the quarters where the ominous sound came. The General who, himself, had all in readiness at once mounted his horse and proceeded for the post attacked. His Aides-de-Camp ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... cannonade the walls were breached in many places, and the Imperialists advanced to the assault. The Scotch defended them with great resolution, and again and again the Imperialists recoiled, unable to burst their way through ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Ana. I have sustained a continued bombardment and cannonade for twenty-four hours and have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender at discretion; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the summons with a cannon shot, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... with so much diligence and secrecy that, by the dawn of day, they had thrown up a small square redoubt, without alarming some ships of war which lay in the river at no great distance. As soon as the returning light discovered this work to the ships, a heavy cannonade was commenced upon it, which the provincials sustained with firmness. They continued to labour until they had thrown up a small breast work stretching from the east side of the redoubt to the bottom of the hill, so as to extend considerably their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... had been localised it was possible to examine them more carefully. There were two kinds of reports: one almost a boom, the explosion evidently of some very heavy piece of ordnance; the other only a penetrating whisper, that of ordinary field guns. A heavy cannonade was proceeding. The smaller pieces fired at brief intervals, sometimes three or four shots followed in quick succession. Every few minutes the heavier gun or guns intervened. What was happening? We could only try to guess, nor do we yet know whether our guesses were right. It seems ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... suffered a heavy loss by the distant cannonade, which no metal he possessed could retort upon his enemy; but he struggled nobly to repair the error in judgment with which he had begun the contest. The two vessels gradually drew nigher to each other, until they both entered into the common cloud created by their ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... vessels in suit, the Texas and the Oregon leading. As the admiral predicted, it was "a dreadful holocaust." One by one his vessels had to head for the beach, silenced, crippled, flames bursting from decks, portholes, and the rents torn by our cannonade. Two destroyers, Furor and Pluton, met their fate near the harbor. Only the Colon remained any time afloat, but her doom was sealed. Outdoing the other pursuers and her own contract speed the grand Oregon, pride ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... It was not difficult to distinguish Lord Howe, the centre of a group of officers. He was evidently issuing orders to re-form the broken lines. Colonels, majors, and captains were rallying the disheartened men. In the intervals of the cannonade from the fleet a confused hum of voices could be heard, officers shouting their orders. Beyond the prostrate forms, behind the low stone wall and screen of hay were the provincials, biding their time. Officers were walking to and fro,—one middle-aged, with a colonel's epaulets, evidently commanding ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... o' silent in the din. Let us enter that silence ere the belchings re-begin. Through a ragged rift aslant in the cannonade's smoke An iron-clad reveals her repellent broadside Bodily intact. But a frigate, all oak, Shows honeycombed by shot, and her deck crimson-dyed. And a trumpet from port of the iron-clad hails, Summoning the other, whose flag never trails: "Surrender that frigate, Will! Surrender, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... this was the morning after we heard the horrible rumor of the cannonade of Boston. I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Mentchikof had sent to crush them, and repelled the enemy with immense slaughter; but this battle made the capture of Sebastopol, as planned by the allies, impossible. The forces of the Russians were double in number to those of the allies, and held possession of a fortress against which a tremendous cannonade had been in vain. The prompt sagacity and tremendous energy of Todleben repaired every breach as fast as it was made; and by his concentration of great numbers of laborers at the needed points, huge earthworks arose like magic before the astonished allies. They made no headway; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... ability, but the backs were not of much account. Pate M'Wherry and Luke M'Tavish did the work at half-back, but their kicking was somewhat feeble when compared with those of the Conquerors, Tom James and Willie Keith. The Conquerors were far too anxious to score, and for some time kept up a close cannonade at their opponents' goal without effect. Bob Prentice used his hands cleverly, and, though the goal was again and again endangered, not one of the forwards on my master's side could get the ball under the tape. A fine run was made by Wild, Lucky, Grind, Short, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... the works. General McClellan and his immense suite rode to the point from which the attack was to be made, and communicating a few minutes with Generals Keyes and Smith, left the field. Mott's battery was now brought into position on the open plateau and opened a fierce cannonade, to which the rebels replied with spirit, dismounting one of our guns and killing several of the gunners at the very start. Mott was reinforced by Kennedy's and Wheeler's batteries, and the hostile guns were soon silenced. Our batteries then advanced within five ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... forsook this heritage of theirs. The period of achievement was no more extraordinary than was its swift declension. A maritime race whose topsails flecked every ocean, whose captains courageous from father to son had fought with pike and cannonade to defend the freedom of the seas, turned inland to seek a different destiny and took no more thought for the tall ships and rich cargoes which had earned so ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... her cargo. So unaware of danger was {158} the captain that he thought Drake some messenger sent by the viceroy, and instead of getting arms in readiness and pressing sail, he lowered canvas, came to anchor, and waited![8] Drake's announcement was a roaring cannonade that blew the mast poles off the Spanish ship, crippling her like a bird with wings broken. For the rest, the scene was what has been enacted wherever pirates have played their game—a furious fusillade from the cannon mouths belching ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... be difficult to imagine a more desolate scene. The artillery of the first years of the seventeenth century was not the terrible enginery of destruction that it has become in the last third of the nineteenth, but a cannonade, continued so steadily and so long, had done its work. There were no churches, no houses, no redoubts, no bastions, no walls, nothing but a vague and confused mass of ruin. Spinola conducted his imperial guests along the edge of extinct volcanoes, amid upturned cemeteries, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... remaining subordinate, Longstreet, disapproved of any assault, and on this and the following day obeyed his orders reluctantly and too slowly. On July 3, 1863, Lee renewed his attack. In previous battles the Northern troops had been contending with invisible enemies in woods; now, after a heavy cannonade, the whole Southern line could be seen advancing in the open to a desperate assault. This attack was crushed by the Northern fire. First and last in the fighting round Gettysburg the North lost 23,000 out of about 93,000 men, and the South about an equal number ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... one with the weary look and the crooked nose, got a knot in her twine and this is how it happened. I was crossing this Minnie-something street, when a shrill siren and the cannonade of a powerful exhaust warned me to stay my tootsies. I wasn't looking for a big white aseptic machine out here or any other kind, so the blooming thing crashed into us and rather than have Bunky hurt, I ran the risk (not quite, but nearly) ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... way, I met with the said Archbishop at Anatolico (where I went by invitation of the Primates a few days ago, and was received with a heavier cannonade than the Turks, probably,) for the second time (I had known him here before); and he and P. Mavrocordato, and the Chiefs and Primates and I, all dined together, and I thought the metropolitan the merriest ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... But I never felt as if I could have bottled up what you knew, supposing you really knew it. Well, the long and the short of it is that I've got a conscience; and now, at last, I've also got a chance. I've been put in charge of a big independent paper, with a free hand, and we're going to open a cannonade on corruption." ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... American sloop; then in the light air the latter luffed round, firing her guns as they bore, and the two ships engaged yard-arm to yard-arm. The guns leaped and thundered as the grimy gunners hurled them out to fire and back again to load, working like demons. For a few minutes the cannonade was tremendous, and the men in the tops could hardly see the decks for the wreck of flying splinters. Then the vessels ground together, and through the open ports the rival gunners hewed, hacked, and thrust ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is paradise for hell! Let France, let France's king, Thank the man that did the thing!" What a shout, and all one word, "Herve ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... Grandfather, "in March, 1776, General Washington, who had now a good supply of powder, began a terrible cannonade and bombardment from Dorchester heights. One of the cannon balls which he fired into the town, struck the tower of the Brattle Street church, where it may still be seen. Sir William Howe made preparations to cross over in boats, and drive the Americans from their batteries, but was ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... them had been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror—a wild, unreasoning terror—filled Maurice's soul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold sweat ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... republican fire. They were 34,000. Kellermann opposed them with 36,000 men, and 40 guns against 58. It soon appeared that things were not going as the invaders had expected. The French soldiers were not frightened by the cannonade. Beurnonville rode up to one of his regiments and told them to lie down, to make way for shot. They refused to obey whilst he exposed himself on horseback. After time had been allowed for artillery to produce its effect on republican nerve, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... that we saw was at Dumfries where there was a Confederate fort, to which we marched to act as a support in case the Yankees came ashore. Three vessels of the Federal navy passed slowly down the river, between which and the fort there was a brief but lively cannonade; but so far as I know there was no resulting damage ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... happy idea of this sham monitor suggested itself to some one. It was prepared, and one morning before daybreak it was sent floating in on the tide. The other monitors opened up a heavy fire from their position. The Rebels manned their guns and replied vigorously, by concentrating a terrible cannonade on the sham monitor, which sailed grandly on, undisturbed by the heavy rifled bolts tearing through her canvas turret. Almost frantic with apprehension of the result if she could not be checked, every gun that would bear was turned upon ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... lively cannonade had broken out on the left, and both officers, followed by their retinues of aides and orderlies making a great jingle and clank, rode rapidly toward the spot. But they were soon impeded, for they were compelled by the fog to keep within sight of the line-of-battle, behind which ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... "I repeat that I am the enemy of the 'order' of to-day, and I repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it, 'If you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you.' You laugh! Perhaps you think, 'You'll throw no more bombs'; but let me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and, when you shall ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... did the noise of the enemy's cannonade, the crashing of the balls against the thick walls of the Seminary, the rattle of the enemy's musketry, and the louder roar of the muskets of the defenders, blended on both sides with shouts and cheers, break out, that for a minute ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... ferocious. His wife, a descendant of those terrible Frankish women-warriors, stemming from barbarian times, could under stress exercise a barbarian's stark freedom of speech; and when Bismarck, furious at some insult, was replying with a political cannonade, she would infuriate him to still greater exertions ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... the defence, and the struggle now began upon a great scale—thirty cannon and eight culverins opening fire upon the walls. The heaviest fire was on St. James' day, the 25th of July, when 4000 shots were fired between three in the morning and five in the afternoon. While this tremendous cannonade was going on, the boys could not but admire the calmness shown by the population. Many of the shots, flying over the top of the walls, struck the houses in the city, and the chimneys, tiles, and masses of masonry fell ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... of Guise commenced his attack on January 2d, when he stormed and took the castle of Ruysbank, which commanded the approach by water. On the 3d he carried the castle of Newenham bridge, which commanded the approach by land. He then commenced a cannonade of the citadel, which surrendered on the 6th. On the 7th the town capitulated. Lord Wentworth, the Governor, and fifty others remained as prisoners. The English inhabitants, about four thousand, were ejected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... been kept up on several other points of the wall, the enemy advancing within fifty yards of this and firing their muskets, loaded with heavy charges of slugs, at the defenders, who replied vigorously to them. Their cannonade was not resumed that afternoon, the Dahomans contenting themselves with skirmishing ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... However, it was not all Latin at the priest's house, where Catharine Dillon heard what she declared on oath. How slow the priest was to admit her (Eliza Mead) in the beginning, and to believe that she had his sable majesty in her, until it manifested uneasiness under the cannonade of ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... his position desperate. The boy plunged into the sea, amid the cheers of the sailors, and was soon lost to sight. The battle raged fiercer, and, as the time went on, defeat seemed inevitable. But, just as hope was fading, a thundering cannonade was heard from the right, and the reserves were seen bearing down upon the enemy. By sunset the Dutch fleet was scattered far and wide, and the cabin-boy, the hero of the hour, was called in to receive the honor due to him. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... seven they rose, however, and surveyed The Russ flotilla getting under way; 'T was nine, when still advancing undismayed, Within a cable's length their vessels lay Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade, Which was returned with interest, I may say, And by a fire of musketry and grape, And shells and shot of every size ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... charge of the hussars until night, the battalion remained in the same position, skirmishing with the Prussians. We kept them from occupying the wood; but they prevented us from ascending to the ridge. The next day we knew why. The hill commanded the entire course of the Partha, and the fierce cannonade we heard came from Dombrowski's division, which was attacking the Prussian left wing, in order to aid General Marmont at Mockern, where twenty thousand French, posted in a ravine, were holding eighty thousand of Bluecher's troops ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in order to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rockets from the slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals the Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll trouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... made a rush for their ships. But Zerebrinow, with coolness and sagacity which no horrors could disturb, had already planted his batteries to sweep them with a storm of bullets and balls. The cannonade was instantly commenced. The missiles of death fell like hail stones into the crowded boats and upon the crowded decks. Many of the ships were sunk, others disabled, and but a few, torn and riddled, succeeded in escaping to sea, where the most of them also perished beneath the waves of ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... in their charge. The commandant succeeded with difficulty in shutting himself up in the citadel with the royal Corsican regiment. It was inaccessible by assault, but the French dragged some heavy guns to a commanding height, and after a cannonade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... created such a sensation in the village, was also the means of causing great disturbance in sundry breasts, as shall be seen. She had called for water. Being in a hurry, her captain had resolved not to waste time by conciliating the natives, but, rather, to frighten them away by a cannonade of blank cartridge, land a strong party to procure water while they were panic-stricken, and then up anchor and away. His surprise was great, therefore, when the natives came fearlessly off to him (for he had been warned to beware of them), and he was about to give them a warm reception, when ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavy cannonade as coolly as ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, and a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a languid cannonade between the two seemingly opposed parts of Dumont's army. Under cover of this he captured most of the available actual shares of Great Lakes—valuable aids toward making his position, his "corner," impregnable. But before he had accomplished ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are staunched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for Hell! Let France, let France's King Thank the man ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... remain here for three days more, unwashed and unshaved! It was so cold last night; I was up most of the time doing business, but in between whiles got a little sleep. To-day I have been seeing to my hospital and the graves, and have a four-hour walk before me to-night with the Engineers. Such a cannonade has been going on in Ypres for the last three days. The roar of cannon is quite continuous. Your watch is keeping most excellent time, by-the-bye. I expect this battle will have a great effect on the war. One wonders how many are being killed in it—poor things!... Please send all you have ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... cannon filled the weary space of that day. Some of the barricades fronting the city gates had been battered down by nightfall; they were restored within an hour. Their defenders entered the houses right and left during the cannonade, waiting to meet the charge; but the Austrians held off. "They have no plan," Romara said on his second visit of inspection; "they are waiting on Fortune, and starve meanwhile. We can ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... this farce was over, obliged Hyder to come down from labour-in-vain hill and to give them battle in earnest. As the historian observes, "The ridiculous cannonade at the top of the hill had exhausted his ammunition, his great guns were useless to him, and he lost the day by his premature rejoicings before the battle." A still more ancient precedent for this preposterous practical bull, of rejoicing for an anticipated victory, was given ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... guns replied to the enemy as long as possible, but his battery was soon largely disabled, the horses mostly killed, and most of the ammunition chests exploded. Two of his guns only could be kept in position for the anticipated assault. About 6 P.M., under cover of the cannonade, and protected by some timber and the nature of the ground, Hays' Louisiana brigade of five regiments, supported by Smith and Hoke's brigades, advanced to the assault. My men stood well to their work, and the two guns fired canister into the enemy. Many Confederate ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... off Sulu, a white and a red flag were hoisted from the principal fort, for the Spaniards to elect either peace or war. Several Sulus approached the fleet with white flags, to inquire for the Sultan. Evasive answers were given, followed by a sudden cannonade. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... limb, and burying the mutilated dead beneath the ruins of their dwellings. The booming of the cannon, from the distant batteries, was answered by the thunder of the guns from the citadel and the walls, and blended with all this uproar rose the uninterrupted shrieks of the wounded and the dying. The cannonade from the Prussian batteries was so destructive, that in a few days one quarter of the entire ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... whereupon the column was again put in motion, and in a short time arrived in the streets of Bladensburg, and within range of the American artillery. Immediately on our reaching this point, several of their guns opened upon us, and kept up a quick and well-directed cannonade, from which, as we were again commanded to halt, the men were directed to shelter themselves as much as possible behind the houses. The object of this halt, it was conjectured, was to give the General ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... Morris Island fired a shot across the bow of his vessel to bring her to. Very much astonished at this proceeding, he ran up the Stars and Stripes to show that he was all right. This was regarded as a direct defiance, and a heavy cannonade was at once opened on the vessel. Very much puzzled to account for this hostility, he lowered his flag, and the firing ceased. A boat's crew now put off from the shore to ascertain his character and purpose in entering the harbor. While this was going on, we were formed at our guns, in readiness ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... comparative peace, there being no firing on either side; but the next morning about 5 a.m. the Boers opened with 'Long Tom' from Pepworth Hill, and commenced a duel of some hour's duration with our naval 4.7, which was placed on Junction Hill. They also kept up a continual cannonade with their long-range twelve-pounders, but did little or no damage, as they had not yet discovered the ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... front of which an open space then extended to the Tuileries gardens, that Bonaparte ordered the first cannon to be fired upon the royalists who rose against the National Convention, and thus prevented a counter-revolution. Traces of this cannonade of 13 Vendmiaire are still to be seen at the angle of the church and the Rue ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... the skin in a moment; dazzled and giddy from the flashes; stunned by the everlasting roar, peal over-rushing peal, echo out-shooting echo, till rocks and air quivered alike beneath the continuous battle-cannonade.—"What matter? What fitter guide for such a path as mine ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... in the blood of the slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes in every five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to correct. The audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but when the cannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose to four in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held their ground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the true inwardness out of the "cries of the wounded," they struck their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... intermittently threw shells, was Noeux-les-Mines, where Lord French had his forward headquarters during the fighting. But even then there was an abundance of the sound of battle, for on the second evening a furious cannonade burst out to the south-east, which signalled the recapture by the enemy of Souchez Cemetery: the last scene in that terrific fight which had endured almost incessantly since ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... he neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonius, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... coming half a dozen at once. There was not a portion of the work which was not taken in reverse from mortars. * * * During Friday, the officers' barracks were three times set on fire by the shells and three times put out under the most galling and destructive cannonade. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... pieces of cannon were to batter the place all at once, near enough to facilitate the assault. On the 13th of September, at 9 A. M., the Spaniards opened fire: all the artillery in the fort replied at once; the surrounding mountains repeated the cannonade; the whole army covered the shore awaiting with anxiety the result of the enterprise. Already the fortifications seemed to be beginning to totter; the batteries had been firing for five hours; all at once the Prince of Nassau, who commanded a detachment, thought he perceived flames mastering ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... a weapon of defense when disturbed by an enemy. It is a very sociable little bug, and will gather in a crowd under big flat stones in damp places. If the stone is suddenly overturned, the bombardiers at once begin a cannonade like the explosion of a grain of gunpowder, and throw out a puff of whitish vapor resembling smoke. The bombardiers of South America, China, and other warm countries, are much larger than those found in England, and the fluid they eject, which causes the tiny explosion, is capable of ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout, are past; Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that never more may feel ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... city, both the houses of the inhabitants and the temples of their deities receiving incredible damage. So great was the consternation, that the zamorin fled from his palace, and one of his chief nayres was killed by a ball close beside him. Part even of the palace was destroyed by the cannonade. Towards afternoon two ships were seen approaching the harbour, which immediately changed their course on seeing how our fleet was employed; on which the general ceased firing against Calicut, and made all sail after these two ships to Pandarane, where they took shelter among other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... does—that it is a school of character; that it sobers men, cleans them, strengthens them, knits their hearts; makes them brave, patient, humble, tender, prone to self-sacrifice. Watered by 'war's red rain,' one Bishop tells us, virtue grows; a cannonade, he points out, is an 'oratorio'—almost a form of worship. True; and to the Church men look for help to save their souls from starving for lack of this good school, this kindly rain, this sacred ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... when needful, yet having voice, it appears, of what musicians call tenor-quality, of a rare kind. Rubini-esque, even, but scarcely producible to fastidious ears at opera. The seizure of the forest of Argonne follows—the cannonade of Valmy. The Prussians do not march on Paris this time, the autumnal hours of fate pass on—ca ira—and on the 6th of November, Dumouriez meets the Austrians also. 'Dumouriez wide-winged, they wide-winged—at and around Jemappes, its green heights ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... has come," exclaimed Pueckler. "Opinions and suppositions are out of the question here, for we can distinctly see what is going on in the front of Breslau. I beg the other officers to state whether they do not share my opinion—whether it is not a regular cannonade that we hear, and a real fight between ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... great natural philosopher Newton thought that the sun touched us in the first of these ways, and that sunbeams were made of very minute atoms of matter thrown out by the sun, and making a perpetual cannonade on our eyes. It is easy to understand that this would make us see light and feel heat, just as a blow in the eye makes us see starts, or on the body makes it feel hot: and for a long time this explanation was supposed to be the true one. But we know now ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... the chapel, listening to the organ, having in his illness grown fond of hearing Delaware play. The brisker the cannonade, the blind youth always praised the louder, and had the main stops now in full blast; but through it all, Scudamore heard the sound of horses' feet on the stones, and running along the minstrels' gallery and out on the top of the porch, saw over fifty horsemen ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... harbor with a small vessel which he warped alongside the Philadelphia, in the character of a ship in distress. As the two vessels struck, the pirates first suspected his design. Instantly he leaped aboard with his men, swept the affrighted crew into the sea, set the ship on fire, and amid a tremendous cannonade from the shore ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... from these steps, in front of which an open space then extended to the Tuileries gardens, that Bonaparte ordered the first cannon to be fired upon the royalists who rose against the National Convention, and thus prevented a counter-revolution. Traces of this cannonade of 13 Vendemiaire are still to be seen at the angle of the church and the Rue Neuve ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... Arnold, of the Howard Mission, was determined to achieve the prayer-meeting. And during the fourth week in May last, when there were many of his clerical friends in the city, Mr. Arnold thought he'd bring a heavy spiritual cannonade to bear on Allen, and see what would come of it. So, on Monday night, May 25th, after a carefully conducted preliminary season of prayer, an assaulting party was formed, including six clergymen from different parts of the country, to march upon the citadel of the enemy. When we arrived, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... was made by Lincoln, to Sir Henry Clinton, and rejected. The batteries of the besiegers, having now obtained a decided superiority over those of the besieged, when the third parallel had opened its cannonade, and the British having crossed the wet ditch by sap, they opened a fire of rifles within twenty-five yards of the Americans. The caution of Sir Henry Clinton, in advancing so slowly, had been extreme, and the unsuspecting security of the Americans was still great; but Gen. Duportail, a ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... 13th the cannonade began again, as well from the batteries planted against Chapultepec as from Steptoe's guns, which were served against the southern defences of the city in order to divert the attention of the enemy. At 8 A.M. the firing from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... country was watching the garrison in Charleston Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Marston Moor, 'Midst lightning's flash and thunder's roar; As murky clouds sweep o'er the sky, God's cannonade with man's will vie. The Royalists in phalanx strong, By fiery Rupert led along, From Bolton's cruel massacre Towards York, in hope to keep it free From the Roundheads at any cost. "If York be lost, my ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... action; and in that open plain there was no cover for the fighting line, the reserves, or the supporting horse. All of them sustained heavy losses from the unusually accurate aim of the Afghan gunners. But the enemy had also suffered under our cannonade and musketry; and it is consonant with the traditions of Indian warfare to suppose that a charge firmly pushed home at the first signs of wavering in the hostile mass would have retrieved the day. Plassey ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... from the Scipio, coming on with steady velocity, these intentions and circumstances created every human probability that she would soon be passing her weather beam, within a quarter of a mile, and, consequently, that a cannonade, far more serious than what had yet occurred, must follow. The few intervening minutes gave Sir Gervaise time to throw a glance around him, and to come to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Spanish flag was shot away whilst a heavy cannonade was going on; but Cochrane, though the bullets were whistling about in every direction, calmly stepped down into the ditch, and ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... the action, as usual, with a cannonade which lasted three hours, when they made their attack, advancing in twelve lines, four of foot and four of horse, upon the allied troops in the wood where we were posted. Their infantry behaved ill; they were ordered to charge with the bayonet, but, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... suffered much. It was broad daylight before the Russians were driven back. Some of the more fiery men of the company pursued them too far, and were cut off. At last all the survivors returned to the trenches, and then the enemy commenced a furious cannonade, as if to revenge themselves for the repulse. Their sharpshooters, too, were on the alert, and if a man chanced to show the top of his shako above the earthworks, several bullets went through ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... out by the Lake View Inn. She, too, saw the threatening cloud and hastened her steps. Sharp lightnings flickered along its lower edge, lacing it with pale blue and saffron. The mutter of the thunder in the distance was like a heavy cannonade. ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... in the way of defence had been accomplished, but in the face of such imposing naval strength the assault was awaited with anxiety. The women and children repaired to the stone convents for refuge, and the men stood by the guns. The siege, however, was not to open with a cannonade, but a parley. A boat put out from the Six Friends with a flag of truce, and soon an English lieutenant landed at the Cul-de-sac, bearing a letter for the commander of the garrison. Before receiving the missive, Frontenac devised a useful and whimsical stratagem to raise the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... While this cannonade was going on, the Dutch Admirals manned their boats with a land force of six hundred men, and they were disembarked upon the shore of the island without encountering any foe. The little band of English soldiers was powerless, and the Dutch inhabitants were much more disposed ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... orders not to come to close fight with the Spaniards; where the size of the ships, he suspected, and the numbers of the soldiers, would be a disadvantage to the English; but to cannonade them at a distance, and to wait the opportunity which winds, currents, or various accidents must afford him of intercepting some scattered vessels of the enemy. Nor was it long before the event answered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... became more frequent and more violent, and at last succeeded each other with such rapidity that it seemed almost as though a vigorous cannonade were in progress. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... the crushing superiority of the Germans, vainly hoping that the report of the cannonade would attract assistance from a corps stationed in the neighbourhood of the battle-field; but in this heroic fight their lines were sadly decimated. At first they fought in the village, then they were forced out by ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai



Words linked to "Cannonade" :   assail, attack, cannon fire, artillery fire



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