“At one point they passed a newly abandoned Rebel encampment, and Captain Bowers was surprised to see that it looked just like one of their own. “In every respect it was as good a camp as any we have had. . . .” (Rummaging through this campsite, men of the 2nd Maine came upon a packet of photographs of Federal soldiers. Someone recognized a name on one of them as a man in their brigade, and before long Sergeant Walter Carter, 22nd Massachusetts, was handed the pictures he had lost on the Fredericksburg battlefield five months earlier. And scavengers in the 83rd Pennsylvania recovered some of the fancy French knapsacks they had lost at Gaines’s Mill the previous June.)”
― Chancellorsville
― Chancellorsville
“He and Willoughby preferred that the Pentagon and the Truman administration be completely dependent upon them for any information about what was going on in their area of Asia—with no countervailing intelligence to limit his hand. Control intelligence, and you control decision-making.”
― The Coldest Winter
― The Coldest Winter
“There is no Weatherfax map on the Stella Lykes—only the barometer, the barographs, the teletypes from NOAA. The radar can see a storm, but that is like seeing a fist just before it hits you. When a storm is out there, somewhere, beyond the visible sky, the ship will let him know. “When you get close to a big storm, you can feel it. For some reason, the ship takes on almost a little uncertainty. She’s almost like a live thing—like they say animals can sense bad weather coming. Sometimes I almost believe a ship can. I know that doesn’t make sense, because she’s steel and wood and metal, but she picks up a little uncertainty, probably something that is being transmitted through the water. It’s hard to define. It’s just a tiny little different motion, a little hesitancy, a little tremble from time to time.” Off”
― Looking for a Ship
― Looking for a Ship
“By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named Night, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of Space—out of Time. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover … For the spirit that walks in shadow ’Tis—oh, ’tis an Eldorado! But the traveller, travelling through it, May not—dare not openly view it; Never its mysteries are exposed To the weak human eyes unclosed; So wills its King, who hath forbid The uplifting of the fringed lid; And thus the sad Soul that here passes Beholds it but through darkened glasses.”
― Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51
― Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51
“My friends,” he began with good cheer, “how do you like this way of coming back into the Union?” He went on to explain that he and his fellow soldiers had felt the need of a summer outing, “and thought we would take it at the North.” They might be conquerors, he said—“this part of Pennsylvania is ours today; we’ve got it, we hold it, we can destroy it, or do what we please with it”—but they were also Christian gentlemen and would act accordingly. “You are quite welcome to remain here and to make yourselves entirely at home—so long as you behave yourselves pleasantly and agreeably as you are doing now. Are we not a fine set of fellows?” With his honeyed words he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, only to be interrupted by a querulous, impatient Jubal Early. Old Jube forced his way through the onlookers to confront Extra Billy and snarled, “General Smith, what the devil are you about? Stopping the head of this column in this cursed town!” Not the least taken aback, Extra Billy replied, “Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, and at the same time teaching these people something that will be good for them and won’t do us any harm.”
― Gettysburg
― Gettysburg
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