Sentry duty

“ The two sentries, not men of B company, we are most heartily glad to say, were stretched across the ties, sound asleep, with their loaded rifles lying by their sides. No punishment is too severe for such a crime. Little account need be taken of such an occurrence were the worthless lives of the culprits the only ones in jeopardy; but a sentry on duty at a camp, where the lives of his comrades depend on his watchfulness, or when on any other important guard duty, who deliberately lies down and sleeps at his post, as these two had evidently done, merits any punishment, no matter how severe. ”

“ Our youthful unknown followed the example of the worthy sentinel, and, having walked on a short distance to avoid observation, but not so far as to lose sight of the door, he heroically began his amorous sentry-go.
If the reader has ever done sentry duty in the course of his life, he must have noticed that one of the surest means of making the time pass quickly is to commune with one's self. Our hero doubtless was accustomed to such duty, for he had hardly begun his promenade when he addressed the following monologue to himself:—
"Assuredly it cannot be that she lives in yonder prison. ”

“ They make a fellow do guard duty on a frosty night, to catch guard-runners, and then some one kicks when he does it. No, I'm in earnest, and if some of the other fellows who do sentry-go would be the same, they'd stop this. I don't care enough about war tactics to be a sentry, but as long as I am here no one can run the guard on me. ”

“ The Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt in his pocket for his handkerchief, and, moistening a corner with his tongue, wiped his face. Then he wiped his shoes. Then, with his hands in his trousers pockets, he sauntered into the light.
Now sentries are trained to be impassive. The model of a sentry is a wooden soldier. A really good sentry does not sneeze or cough on duty. ”

“ In reference to the discipline maintained in the camp, I must admit that proper precautions are used to prevent spies entering the lines. The sentries are posted closely and permit no one to go in without a pass in the day and a countersign at night. A conversation [75] with General Prentiss in the front of the hotel was interrupted this evening by an Irishman, who ran past us towards the camp, hotly pursued by two policemen. The sentry on duty at the point of the lines close to us brought him up by the point of the bayonet. “Who goes tere?” “A friend, shure your honour; I’m a friend.” ”

“ No sentry is posted, for an officer is supposed to be on honor to observe the prescribed restrictions, and only when he breaks his arrest, by visiting the quarters of some brother officer or by going outside of camp, is he in danger of other humiliation. ”

“ A sentry will only challenge a person or party approaching his post when it is necessary for his own safety, when he is doubtful as to whether the person or party approaching is authorised to pass, when it is ordered for a special reason, such as in the case of a sentry posted on a fortress or prison, or when there is a countersign to be delivered.
2. When challenging on the part of a sentry is necessary, it will be carried out as follows:—
i.⁠When a person or party approaches the post, the sentry will, as soon as the person or party is within speaking distance, call out, Halt—Advance one ”

“ In that second of time I remembered a story which I had heard the day before of a sentry at Modder, who, when the guard came up in the dark to relieve him, made the usual challenge. "It's only us, old man," said the sergeant. "None of your blooming us," said the sentry, and shot the sergeant dead.
However the sentry was soon persuaded, and when I passed the outpost, the sentry who should really have stopped me and examined my passport treated me as a field-officer and presented arms, so I rode away back to the dust of Modder. ”

“ Now I am going to take you prisoner, as though I were the sentry, and so we can go together and find the officer who commands the sentries, and take him prisoner or kill him.'
'All right,' he said with a laugh. 'I surrender. [Pg 226] This isn't quite what we call civilised warfare, but I suppose it can't be helped.'
We went back together to the place where the sentry that I had killed had stood, and then we saw two or three others coming in towards the place, no doubt to see why the other sentry should have left his post. ”

“ The officer of the guard was inspecting the sentries, when the guard on Post Number Four saw a haggard, white-faced young fellow, with hat gone, clothes torn, hands bleeding from scratches, pull himself up the bank of the creek, and at the sentry's "Halt!" look up with anxious appeal and ask for the captain. ”

“ Your sentries guard it. Captain Hanford, the commissary, says he called on you last night to notify you that he had placed the sergeant under arrest, but considered the case so grave that he asked that a sentry be placed over him, and it wasn’t done.” 192
“I dislike very much to inflict such indignity on deserving soldiers, General,” said Canker, stumbling into a self-made trap. “Until their guilt is established they are innocent under the law.”
“Apparently you apply a different rule in case of officers,” calmly responded the General, “vide Mr. Gray. No further words are necessary. ”

“ Any officer or soldier, who, during the heat of an engagement, shall quit his ranks, may be shot, or otherwise dispatched upon the spot. A sentry who quits his post before he is regularly relieved, is ordered to suffer death, or such other punishment as may be inflicted by a general court-martial. ”

“ I waited patiently for a few minutes, thinking hard to discover some ruse to get away, but retaining a perfectly calm and collected demeanour. If I moved I feared the sentry would raise the alarm. Yet as I stood there it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the sentry, with typical Teuton denseness of thought, might consider that I was a friend of the officer, and that I was only waiting for him. ”

“ The military rule that a sentry must challenge everybody, and not pass unchallenged even those whom he knew to be all right, was often as slow in taking possession of the officers' minds as those of the least experienced of the men. ”

“ My husband, soldier-like, put the utmost faith in the guard, and I, though only so short a time before mortally afraid of the stern, unswerving warrior myself, had soon forgotten that there were many timid women in the world who knew nothing of sleeping without locks or bolts, and thought, perhaps, that at the slightest ignorance or dereliction of duty the sentinel would fire on an offender, whether man or woman. ”

“ Being a good army [Pg 316] girl, that packing box had all the elements of comfort, but first there was cleaning to be done. My brother was the commanding officer in that town, his house being at the corner of the Plaza, and an outpost. So he sent me a police party—that is, ten native prisoners and an American sentry; they were armed with brooms and buckets. I said, 'Sentry, this room is very dirty. The Captain sent these men here to clean it for me.' 'Yes, mam,' said the sentry. ”

“ There is an appeal allowed from the sentence of a regimental court-martial to the opinion of a general one.
is a private soldier, placed in some post, to watch the approach of the enemy, to prevent surprises, to stop such as would pass without order, or discovering who they are. Sentries are placed before the arms of all guards, at the tents and doors of general officers, colonels of regiments, &c.
All sentries are to be vigilant on their posts; they are not, on any account to sing, smoke tobacco, nor suffer any noise to be made near them. ”

“ Their sentinels are singing half the time, and it is no uncommon thing for them to quit their post to come to the fire, go for water, etc.—in fact, after the officer is in bed, frequently the whole guard comes in; yet I never knew any man punished for those breaches of military duty. ”

“ Time would clear it up, no doubt; but meanwhile the sentry despatched to his post felt like a man marked out for death. It was worse. Many men who would have marched with firm step to death in any familiar shape, would go with pale cheeks and bowed knees to this fate of which nothing was known except that nothing was left of the victim.
Matters at length grew intolerable. One morning, the sentinels having been set as usual overnight, the guard went as soon as dawn began to break to relieve a post that extended far into the woods. ”

“ A command is the signification of a desire or wish, accompanied with the power and the purpose to inflict evil if that desire is not complied with. The person so desired is bound or obliged, or placed under a duty, to obey. Refusal is disobedience, or violation of duty. The evil to be inflicted is called a sanction, or an enforcement of obedience; the term punishment expresses one class of sanctions. ”

“ Jellypod, bent on testing the soldier’s knowledge of and fidelity to his orders, announced himself an officer and repeated his demand. The soldier recognised him, and saw his way to make reprisals on this man who pried by day into the tongues of buckles, and by night went on the prowl to trip up sentries.
“Here,” exclaimed the sentry, “I don’t care who you are; officer or no officer, you have no business comin’ molestin’ me on my post, an’ tryin’ to make me commit myself by givin’ up my orders. Into the sentry-box with you, or I’ll fell you with my carbine. Jump lively, or I’ll brain you!” ”

“ I hold a warrant for your father's arrest. And, if he had not been from home, I should have carried him to prison along with the Jesuit priest whom, I suspect, is concealed within your chamber. Open the door, I command you; and do not hinder me in the execution of my duty. ”

“ Respect for the person and office of a sentinel is as strictly enjoined by military law as that required to be paid to an officer. As it is expressed in the Manual of Guard Duty, "All persons of whatever rank in the service are required to observe respect toward sentinels." Invested as the private soldier frequently is, while on his post, with a grave responsibility, it is proper that he should be fully protected in the discharge of his duty. ”

“ Long life to ye. We’ve got the better of that dirty German. Hoora’ for Giniral Prentiss.” He preferred a chance of more whisky in the police office and a light punishment to the work in camp and a heavy drill in the morning. An officer who was challenged by a sentry the other evening, asked him, “do you know the countersign yourself?” “No, sir, it’s not nine o’clock and they have not given it out yet.” Another sentry who stopped a man because he did not know the countersign. ”

“ In all cases the sentinel must satisfy himself beyond a reasonable doubt that the parties are what they represent themselves to be and have a right to pass. If he is not satisfied, he must cause them to stand and call the corporal of the guard. So, likewise, if he have no authority to pass persons with the countersign, or when the party has not the countersign, or gives an incorrect one. ”

“ The closing sentences of the speech—which resulted in the conviction and execution of the prisoner—will endure in our literature unsurpassed as an inspiration to duty:
"There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. ”

“ Men, seize the ruffians."
"Listen," said the Dr., sternly, "you are oversteping the bounds of your authority. You are taking for granted, what remains to be proved. You must find the body, and then it is theirs in whose possession you find it to show how and where they procured it."
"I know my duty, sir," said the magistrate in a severe and consequential tone. "You are my prisoners. ”

“ In the face of an overwhelming force, obedience in such matters may often be a necessity, and, in the interests of order, a duty. No concession is thus made to the rightfulness of the authority exercised. ”

“ When one of these men of peace is on sentry, another of them, a comrade of his, marches up to his sentry box, shouts out words of command at him in a warlike tone of voice, and makes hostile and threatening gestures in close proximity to his nose; the one who is on sentry also cries out in a similar voice, goes through certain motions with his weapon, and then lays it down and gets away as fast as he can ”

“ There must not be a finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers upon their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the promise you desire. No one shall be arrested on suspicion. Your own eyes shall bear me out. ”

“ Leave it to us men-at-arms to chase them home again. For yourselves, go sleep, or pray if you cannot sleep.
A Man
But tell us ...
First Sentry
Naught to tell. There has been too much talking already; the time has come for blows. Away, away!
[The two sentries roughly clear the loiterers from the wall. The crowd disappears in the darkness down the steps leading from the wall into the shadow. When all have gone, quiet reigns. In the white moonlight the sentries stand like figures of brass]
First Sentry
They give way to despair at the first gleam of an enemy’s spear. ”

“ Grant that an officer, who may be in command of an army or of a body of armed men, after the surrender of his men and their arms, can, after "notice that he is absolved from further observance of it," be arrested is a flagrant breach of faith.
Promise of protection is given to a man with arms in his hand, that if he will surrender them he shall have protection as long as he observes his parole. ”

“ If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers anticipate aught amiss from them is the tacit rule in a military ship. And the more that some sort of trouble should really be apprehended the more do the officers keep that apprehension to themselves; tho' not the less unostentatious vigilance may be augmented.
In the present instance the sentry placed over the prisoner had strict orders to let no one have communication with him but the Chaplain. And certain unobtrusive measures were taken absolutely to insure this point. ”