For some days there were no serious engagements, but slight skirmishes in the marshy plain which extended between the two camps.

A mixed company of soldiers and civilians, with ten or twelve guns, marched, as had been arranged, upon the Necessidades Palace, to demand the abdication of the King; but they were met on the heights behind the palace by a body of the "guardia municipal," and, after a sharp skirmish, were forced to retire, leaving three of their guns disabled behind them.

While the fossil-hunters were out on their expedition, we had several lively little skirmishes with the Indians.

Stuart preceded it, and after a brisk skirmish drove the enemy from Warrenton Springsadvancing in person in front of his column as it charged through the river and up the hill beyond, where a considerable body of Federal marksmen were put to flight.

Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they hold in natural distrust.

Between John Effingham and Mr. Howel, there were constant amicable skirmishes in the way of discussion; for, while the latter was so dependent, limited in knowledge by unavoidable circumstances, and disposed to an innocent credulity, the first was original in his views, accustomed to see and think for himself, and, moreover, a little apt to estimate his own advantages at their full value.

Oh, they had occasional small skirmishes among themselves.

We had many a lively skirmish with the bushwhackers and Younger brothers, and when we were not hunting them, we were generally employed in carrying dispatches between Forts Dodge, Gibson, Leavenworth, and other posts.

The Wars of the Roses passed it by; and the Civil Wars in Stuart days also, except for an unimportant skirmish; and the only part Corbridge saw of the Jacobite rising of "The Fifteen" was the little cavalcade from Dilston which clattered over the old bridge on its way to Beaufront.

In the meantime there were frequent skirmishes across the marsh, a few on both sides sallying out between the two camps.

He brings the news of a smart skirmish which has taken place during the day; of the English "Excursionists" being ordered out in advance; of their rushing with alacrity into the thickest of the fight, and bravely sustaining the conflict,being, indeed, with difficulty withheld by their officers from needlessly exposing themselves.

These encounters indeed were mere skirmishes for the most part, and the silences and embarrassments that followed ended sooner or later in a "making up," tacit or definite, though once or twice this making up only re-opened the healing wound.

XIII.In the meantime daily skirmishes take place continually in view of both camps; these were fought at the ford and pass of the morass.

And now a severe skirmishing took place, in which Macbeth, though feebly supported by those who called themselves his friends, but in reality hated the tyrant and inclined to the party of Malcolm and Macduff, yet fought with the extreme of rage and valour, cutting to pieces all who were opposed to him, till he came to where Macduff was fighting.

Becoming unintentionally mixed up in a petty skirmish between the court party and the Frondes, he was badly wounded, and narrowly escaped hanging as an enemy of the Frondeurs.

The controversy began seriously, after some preliminary skirmishing in the newspapers and lighter reviews, with Mr. Churchill Babington's Mr. Macaulay's Characters of the Clergy in the Latter Part of the Seventeenth Century Considered, published shortly after the appearance of the History.

For several hours sharp skirmishing went on, and Essex was forced to halt his army at Hungerford.

Guess we had better do a little skirmishing about.

According to his usual gallant custom, as the army retired with forced marches towards the Alps, Bayard took command of the rear-guard, and as the Spaniards followed day by day he bore all the brunt of the constant skirmishing which took place.

Continuous skirmishing ensued throughout the rest of the dayStuart's object being to occupy the enemy, and divert attention from the infantry movement in his rear.

They were not wrong from their point of view, which was that of immediate action, but the field of the mind is greater, its battles cover a wider space; it does not waste its energies in bloody skirmishes.

These innumerable and infinitely varied skirmishes, as petty as they were bloody, were not so decisive at the moment as the campaigns against the gathered tribes, but were often more important in their ultimate results.

A fierce skirmish ensued.

The infantry was not, however, engaged on either side, unless the Federal infantry participated in the initial skirmish near Beverley's Ford, and General Lee's numbers and position were not discovered.

It was often reported that many times more Americans had fallen in some insignificant skirmish than were actually killed in the whole war, while generals perished by the dozen and colonels by the thousand.