quaker gun

Example Sentences

• "Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns—rearing a stupendous flag-staff in the centre which overtopped the whole city—and moreover by building a great windmill on one of the bastions."
• "The captain examined the marks left on the grass, and was of opinion that more than one man had been employed to set up the decoy figure, […] "At all events, your honour, I will carry the quaker in," said Joyce, tossing the stuffed figure on a shoulder. "He will do to man the quaker gun at least, and may be of use in frightening some one of the other side, more than he has yet frightened us.""
• "No one would imagine, from the appearance of the troops on Munson's Hill and the vicinity, that they were new comers. […] Fortifications are already so complete as to forbid all hopes of the rebels regaining possession of these localities. The Quaker gun found there was consigned to the flames to-day, and in its stead heavy artillery, of the genuine sort, commands all the surrounding country."
• "Those who watched from the shore as the beautiful vessel moved upstream saw that she too carried guns, but when they boarded her they found that the 'guns' were dummies made of wood. 'Yes,' explained the crew in answer to their wondering questions, 'them's Quaker guns. "Quakers" would be no use in a fight, but they look all right at a distance. They frighten the pirates away – and they cost much less than the real thing!'"
• "In late September the southerners withdrew from one exposed position on Munson's Hill a few miles southwest of Washington. When the Federals moved in, instead of the large cannon they had expected they found a log shaped and painted to resemble a cannon. This "Quaker gun" embarrassed [General George Brinton] McClellan and called into question his reports of superior Confederate forces. […] The Quaker gun incident further dissipated the once-enormous reservoir of support and adulation for McClellan."