wagon-trains

It has been suggested that this expression originated in the wagon-trains, where the captain (or as he was later sometimes called, the major) was elected by vote of all the men present, candidates standing apart and their supporters tailing on behind them, the supposition being that as his "tail" grew a candidate had to run ahead to give it room.

Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

Those first ten days lull you to sleep, as you roll gently down over that changeless plain, through the well-used camp-places to Council Grove, which is the great assembly point where little caravans like ours form them-selves into regular wagon-trains for the long haul to the mountains-there!

Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

By shifting to the left, Merritt gained the Rice's Station road west of the creek, making havoc of the wagon-trains, while Crook struck them further on and planted himself square across the road.

She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

While the events just narrated were taking place, General Grant had made a visit to Knoxville -- about the last of December -- and arranged to open the railroad between there and Chattanooga, with a view to supplying the troops in East Tennessee by rail in the future, instead of through Cumberland Gap by a tedious line of wagon-trains.

She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

In those days the Sioux had been lords of the prairie from the Santa Fe Trail to the British border, from Kansas to the Rockies, tolerating the wagon-trains (give or take a raid now and then) and rubbing along quietly enough with the few troops that the Americans sent into the West.

Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

The enemy was rapidly retiring, and though many of his troops, with disorganized wagon-trains and several pieces of artillery, could be distinctly seen in much confusion about half a mile distant in the valley below, yet he was covering them with a pretty well organized line that continued to give us a desultory fire.

She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

There are many authorities for the conduct of wagon-trains, and prairie pioneering in general; most of them are infinitely more detailed than Flashman, but his descriptions are well supported by other early writers.

Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

The Federation's response is to build enormous 600-foot-long wagon-trains and send them into Mute territory to begin the process of conquest and purification.

Archive 2009-05-01 Adam Whitehead 2009

The Federation's response is to build enormous 600-foot-long wagon-trains and send them into Mute territory to begin the process of conquest and purification.

Cloud Warrior by Patrick Tilley Adam Whitehead 2009

The Boers were in full retreat; the shears were up over their big gun on Bulwana Hill, and the dust of the wagon-trains trekking northward rose from many quarters of the horizon.

MY EARLY LIFE WINSTON CHURCHILL 2003