What is "railbed"

Usage examples of "railbed".

This new wood was interrupted by small patches of rough meadowland and cut by two streams and a railbed that had been graded but never finished with ties and rails.

It was on the railbed that Jackson stopped with his twenty-four thousand men.

That change in topography also meant that the cutting became shallow as the railbed rose toward an embankment, while the existence of a deep spoil pit behind the line only made the defense line even more confusing.

It was hard to tell just what had provoked the fight, but plainly some rebel troops had crossed the railbed to intercept some Yankees among the trees, where Starbuck now led the Legion.

Sweet Jesus, Starbuck thought, but if Company D had been thrown out of the railbed, then the Legion must be unraveling all along its length.

This captured howitzer was not a heavy gun, but even so it would need a half-dozen men to drag it through the trees and back to the railbed, and Starbuck knew that the absence of even a half-dozen men would weaken his line enough to let the Yankees surge back.

Most were sheltering behind trees, just as the Yankees were, which meant that the firefight was settling into a stalemate, but soon the Legion must withdraw to its railbed trench, and Starbuck was determined that the retreat should be made in good order.

Yankees who had breached the line, just as someone else must worry about the possibility of more Yankees crossing the railbed to join this duel of rifles.

Yankees had suddenly learned the value of the railbed and were using its protection to start a galling rifle fire on the Legion.

The Yankees in the railbed responded with a volley that billowed smoke along the lip of their makeshift parapet.

Most of the Yankees decided that fleeing through the shells offered a better chance of survival than being disemboweled in a blood-sodden trench, and so a horde of Northerners scrambled out of the railbed and ran across the open ground.

He had been half expecting a reprimand for disobeying the order to charge the railbed, and his tone suggested the scorn in which he now held Starbuck for not daring to impose discipline.

North Carolinians made a new abatis in front of the railbed, where neither the cutting nor its adjacent embankment offered a real obstacle to the Yankee attackers.

The Legion had twice been driven from its position, and though it had twice regained the railbed, it had suffered cruelly in the process.

Northern skirmishers was expected to capture the railbed on their own.