Part 135
=Tegea.= An ancient city of Greece, forming one of the most powerful states in Arcadia. The Tegeatæ long resisted the supremacy of Sparta, and it was not till the Spartans discovered the bones of Orestes that they were enabled to conquer this people. The Tegeatæ sent 3000 men to the battle of Platææ, in which they were distinguished for their bravery. They remained faithful to Sparta in the Peloponnesian war; but after the battle of Leuctra they joined the rest of the Arcadians in establishing their independence. During the wars of the Achæan league, Tegea was taken both by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, and Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and the ally of the Achæans.
=Tekrit= (anc. _Birtha_). A town situated on the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia. It was unsuccessfully besieged by Sapor I., king of Persia, in 260.
=Telegraph, Field= or =Flying=. During the civil war (1861-65) in the United States a signal corps was organized, whose duties extended to the management of field telegraphs, and light lines, when the formation of the country was such that aerial signals could not be used, or it was for any reason desirable that short electric lines be extended. It has been demonstrated that electric instruments may be of the most simple construction; and electric lines can be set up, and be utilized in places where a few years ago it was deemed impracticable to employ them; and can be worked without other skilled labor than that of the soldiers attached to the posts, and with no apparatus but such as can be had at a trivial expense. There is no reason why, with properly drilled parties, electric lines may not be thrown out in the moments which precede, or even during the progress of, a battle, and be so worked as to lessen infinitely that difficulty of rapid communication which has so often caused disaster. With a corps well organized and well equipped, the connection between the corps of an army, and between the corps headquarters and general headquarters, ought to be perfected in a very few hours after the halt of the army. The field lines of the Signal Corps consist of rolls of wire carried in light-wheeled vehicles, and light “lance poles,” us they are called, on which the wire is stretched when necessary. The wire made for the purpose is of small strands of iron and copper twisted, to give it strength and flexibility. It is insulated with prepared india-rubber, or other material, and wound on reels which, in an emergency, can be carried anywhere by hand, while the wire reeling out can be raised upon fences, fastened to trees, or laid along the ground. The instruments used at first were of a kind known as the Beardslee instrument. These instruments are worked without batteries, the electric current being generated by revolving magnets. They were “indicating,” an index upon a dial pointing, at the receiving station, to whatever letter was designated by the index handle upon a similar dial at the sending station. There were as advantages attaching to this instrument, that it was portable and compact, could be set at work anywhere, required no batteries, acids, or fluids; and what was thought of importance in the early days of the civil war, and while the corps was a temporary organization, it could be worked by soldiers without skill as operators. The defects were, that messages could not be sent as rapidly or as far as by some other instruments. Nor could several instruments work easily upon a single circuit. For some uses on the field of battle, or under fire, where the attention of the reader is disturbed, it is, perhaps, as good an instrument as has been devised. With a permanent corps, or at secure stations, it gives place to some of the forms of signal or of sound instruments. The instruments upon field lines may be of very simple structure. The signal instruments, either the needle or the letter instruments, can be used in actual conflict, if the reports of heavy guns or other disturbances of action render reading by sound unreliable. The manufacture of both instruments and batteries has been improved, until there is now no trouble in carrying either in the field in the roughest campaigns. The difficulty in reading from telegraphic instruments by sound, which has been the greatest obstacle to their use, can be almost done away with by using them with codes of easy signals. In the Prussian army, also, the electric telegraph is applied for field purposes. Morse’s system is used. Each headquarters of an army and each army corps, has a telegraphic division of 3 officers, 137 men, 73 horses, and 10 wagons. Two of the latter are fitted up as operating-rooms, and the other 8 are used for carrying poles and other material, including 5 miles of wire to each wagon, which can be reeled off by the moving of the vehicle. Of the whole 40 miles, 5 are insulated, and can be run along the ground. It will be seen that each army corps can put out 40 miles of line without recourse to other wires, but use is always made of lines found in the country, in case they will answer. Single poles of light material are used, without joints, and about 10 feet long, and only every third pole is put in the ground. The _personnel_ is brought into the army from the civil telegraphic service at home. While in the field, the operators assume military rank, and, like agents of the Post-office Department, are known as “military officials,” not as “military officers.” The men are on a footing with train-soldiers. The operating-wagons are a little larger than the Rucker ambulances of the U. S. service, but much heavier. Just in the rear of the driver is a partition shutting off the rear portion of the carriage. At his back, and under his seat, is a capacious box, in which are carried tools, and the material necessary in telegraphing. On one side of the rear closed portion is a neat table with a compact operating instrument on it, and a battery under it; and on the opposite side is the operator’s bench, the space underneath it being also economized. On the outside near the table are sockets, with thumb-screws connected with the battery, to receive the wires. During the Franco-Prussian war, besides keeping the king in telegraphic communication with his ministers, lines were run from Gen. von Moltke’s headquarters to all the different corps in the field. The telegraph corps always evinced admirable promptness in keeping the lines closed up as the army moved forward. In Great Britain, the system of military telegraphy forms part of the duties of the Royal Engineers.
=Telemeter.= An instrument for determining long distances. (See RANGE-FINDER.) One of the best-known telemeters is the invention of Capt. A. Gautier of the French army. It consists of a short tube containing two mirrors set at an angle of 45° with each other, one of which is fixed; the other admits of a slight rotation. A hole in the side of the tube allows the image of a secondary distant object on the prolongation of the base-line to be brought in line with that of the distant object whose distance is to be measured. An observation is next taken from the other end of the short base-line, and the image of the secondary object again brought in contact with that of the principal object by rotating a ring on the front of the tube. The extent of this rotation (as denoted by a scale), gives a factor which, multiplied by the base-line, gives the required distance.
The Boulongè telemeter is an instrument devised for ascertaining the distance to a point by means of sound proceeding from the point to the place of observation. The one used for artillery consists of a glass tube about 6 inches in length, filled with a transparent liquid that does not freeze except with intense cold. In the liquid is a metallic disk, which moves freely from one end of the tube to the other. It is so adjusted that the motion will be uniform and comparatively slow. The tube is inclosed in a brass case, to which is attached a scale, after the fashion of a thermometer. This scale is marked for each hundred yards up to 4000. The divisions on the scale show the distance, in yards, through which sound will travel in air during the time required for the disk to descend over the space on the scale marked by the corresponding number of yards. The instrument must be held vertically, or as nearly so as possible. To arrest the motion of the disk at any point, the instrument is quickly turned to a horizontal position.
To use it for determining the time of flight of shells it is held in the right hand, back of the hand up, with the zero of the instrument to the left; a turn of the wrist to the right brings the instrument vertical, with the zero end uppermost; the disk then descends, and a turn of the wrist to the left arrests its motion. The observer, holding the instrument as described, watches for the flash of the shell, and upon seeing it instantly brings the instrument to a vertical position; upon hearing the report from the shell he instantly turns it back again. The position of the disk indicates the number of yards from the observer to where the shell exploded.
To ascertain the distance to an enemy’s battery, the instrument is held and turned in the same manner. The observer watches for the flash of a gun; observing which, he turns the instrument, and when he hears the report turns it back and reads off the distance. Each hundred yards on the scale is subdivided into quarters.
The telemeter invented by Capt. A. Gautier of the French army is an instrument for measuring, with a great degree of approximation, any difference, not exceeding three degrees, which may be exhibited in the bearing of a distant object by viewing it from different points of a base-line transverse to its general direction from the observer. The instrument, in its simplicity, accuracy, and portability, recommends itself in all cases where a knowledge of distances is desired at any moment and with the least possible delay; such, for instance, as range-finding, river-crossing, reconnoitring, and the like. A slight acquaintance with its use on such occasions enables the observer to estimate, with more than ordinary promptitude and precision, the distance which it might be all-important to obtain.
The instrument resembles in shape and size one barrel of an ordinary reconnoitring- or field-glass. The case in which it is carried is fashioned so as to answer as a handle for holding the instrument when making observations. Within the barrel of the instrument are placed two mirrors at an angle of 45° with each other; this angle can be varied within certain limits by means of a milled-headed screw acting on one of them. The mirrors are thus made to operate upon the principle of the sextant. A slot on one side of the barrel permits the rays of light from an object to fall upon one of the mirrors, from whence they are reflected upon the other mirror, and the image is seen through the eye-glass at the small end of the instrument. At the front or large end is fixed, in a ring surrounding the barrel, a prism, whose displacement modifies the direction of an object seen through it. At the rear of the instrument is a small eye-glass, by means of which the observer sees, _over_ the mirrors and through the prism, the object which is before him, and by double reflection in the mirrors the object to the side of him.
The American general Berdan has invented a large telemeter for garrison and sea-coast service which has been tested in Germany in 1875 and 1876 and found to be very exact in the determination of distances. He has also constructed a new model for field and mountain artillery which can be packed up and transported on horseback.
=Telephone.= An instrument for reproducing sounds, especially articulate speech, at a distance, by the aid of electricity or electro-magnetism. It consists essentially of a device by which currents of electricity, produced by the sounds, and exactly corresponding in duration and intensity to the vibrations of the air which attend them, are transmitted to a distant station, and there, acting on suitable mechanism, reproduce similar sounds by repeating the vibrations. Telephones were recently used by Sir Garnet Wolseley in the war in Zululand, and are being rapidly adopted in European armies.
=Tell Off.= A military term, expressing the dividing and practicing a regiment or company in the several formations, preparatory to marching to the general parade for field exercise.
=Tellenon= (_Fr._). An ancient machine used at sieges. See TOLENON.
=Tellevas= (_Fr._). A large shield formerly used, similar to the _pavois_.
=Tembu=, =Abatempu=, or =Tambookie=. Is the name of an important tribe of Kaffirs, occupying the region east of the present boundary of the Cape Colony. In the earlier Kaffir wars, and even in the great one of 1835-36, the Tambookie Kaffirs remained neutral, and even friendly to the colonists; but in the war of 1848-49, they were induced to join the other tribes, and were defeated with great loss by a small colonial force. In the war of 1851, they were much broken and scattered; but eventually submitting to the British authority, they have quietly located themselves in the unoccupied country east of the White Kei and Tsomo Rivers.
=Temesvar=, or =Temeswar=. A town of the Austrian empire, capital of a circle of the same name, and of the crownland of Banat. It is strongly fortified with walls, moats, and outworks. Temesvar has played an important part in modern history. It was in the hands of the Turks from its capture in 1552 till 1718, when it was regained by Prince Eugène, and strongly fortified. In 1849, it was besieged for 107 days by the Hungarian insurgents, but it held out until it was relieved by Gen. Haynau.
=Templar, Knights.= A celebrated religious and military order, founded at Jerusalem in the beginning of the 12th century, by Hugues de Paganes, Geoffroy de St. Omer, and seven other French knights, for the protection of the Holy Sepulchre and of pilgrims resorting thither. The knights were bound by their rule to hear the holy office every day, or if prevented by their military duties, to say a certain number of paternosters instead, and were compelled to abstain from certain articles of food on certain days of the week. They might have three horses and an esquire each, but were forbidden to hunt or fowl. After the conquest of Jerusalem by the Saracens, the Templars spread over Europe; their valor became everywhere celebrated; immense donations in money and land were showered on them, and members of the most distinguished families thought themselves honored by enrollment in the order. As the power and prosperity of the Templars increased, so did their luxury, arrogance, and other vices, which gave the French kings a pretext for endeavoring to suppress them, and lay hold of their possessions. Their principal enemy was Philippe IV. of France, who induced Pope Clement V. to accede to a scheme by which the whole members of the order were seized and imprisoned, their lands confiscated, and many of them tried, convicted, and executed for capital crimes. The English Templars were arrested by command of Edward II. In 1312, the whole order throughout Europe was suppressed by the Council of Vienne, and its property bestowed on the Knights of St. John. The habit of the Templars was white, with a red cross of eight points of the Maltese form worn on the left shoulder. Their war-cry was “Beau séant”; and their banner, which bore the same name, was parted per fess sable and argent. They also displayed above their lances a white banner charged with the cross of the order. Their badges were the _Agnus Dei_, and a representation of two knights mounted on one horse,--indicative of the original poverty of the order.
=Ten Thousand, Retreat of the.= See RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS.
=Tenable.= Such as may be maintained against opposition; such as may be held against attack.
=Tenaille.= In fortification, is a low work, constructed in the main ditch, upon the lines of defense, between the bastions, before the curtain, composed of two faces, and sometimes of two flanks and a small curtain.
=Tenaillons.= In fortification, are works sometimes found constructed in an old fortress, on each side of the ravelin,--the short faces being traced, on the prolongations of the faces of the ravelin, from the counterscarp of its ditch; the long faces are directed for flanking defense, to about the middle of the faces of the bastions.
_Demi-tenaillons_ are very similar to tenaillons, excepting that their short faces are directed, perpendicular to the faces of the ravelin, about one-third or one-half down from the flanked angle.
=Tencteri=, or =Tenctheri=. A people of Germany, dwelling on the Rhine between the Ruhr and Sieg, south of the Usipetes, in conjunction with whom their name usually occurs. They crossed the Rhine together with the Usipetes, with the intention of settling in Gaul; but they were defeated by Cæsar with great slaughter, and those who escaped took refuge in the territories of their southern neighbors, the Sygambri. The Tencteri afterward belonged to the league of the Cherusci, and at a still later period they are mentioned as a portion of the confederacy of the Franks.
=Tenedos.= A small island belonging to Turkey, in the northeast of the Ægean Sea, off the coast of the Troad. It appears in the legend of the Trojan war, as the station to which the Greeks withdrew their fleet in order to induce the Trojans to think they had departed, and to receive the wooden horse. In the Persian war it was used by Xerxes as a naval station. It afterward became a tributary ally of Athens, and adhered to her during the whole of the Peloponnesian war, and down to the peace of Antalcidas, by which it was surrendered to the Persians. At the Macedonian conquest, the Tenedians regained their liberty. In the war against Philip III., Attalus and the Romans used Tenedos as a naval station, and in the Mithridatic war, Lucullus gained a naval victory over Mithridates off the island. About this time the Tenedians placed themselves under the protection of Alexandrea Troas.
=Tennessee.= A Central State of the American Union, and third admitted under the Federal Constitution. It is bounded on the north by Kentucky and Virginia, and on the south by Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The early settlers of Tennessee were slaughtered by Cherokee Indians in 1754; but in 1756 a settlement was formed near Knoxville, then a part of North Carolina. Nashville was settled near the close of the Revolution; in 1790, Tennessee was organized as a Territory with Kentucky, and in 1796 was admitted into the Union as a separate State. In January, 1861, a proposal to secede from the Union was defeated, but in June it was carried by a majority of 57,667. In ten months the State raised 50 regiments for the Confederacy; 5 or 6 were also raised for the Union. The State was the scene, at Knoxville and Chattanooga, of some of the most important operations of the war, and eventually almost the whole State became a battle-ground. The State was readmitted into the Union in 1866.
=Tenney.= In heraldry, orange color, one of the tinctures enumerated by heralds, but not of frequent occurrence in coat-armor. It is indicated in engravings by lines in bend sinister, crossed by others barways.
=Tent= (Lat. _tentorium_, from _tentus_, “stretched”). A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of canvas or other coarse cloth, stretched and sustained by poles; used for sheltering persons from the weather, especially soldiers in camp. The early Greek, and afterward the Macedonian tents, were small coverings of skin, under each of which two soldiers slept. Alexander the Great is said to have had a pavilion of extraordinary magnificence, which could contain 100 beds. The Roman soldiers seem to have used two sorts of tents,--one, a tent proper, of canvas or some analogous material, and constructed with two solid upright poles, and a roof-piece between them; the other more resembling a light hut, of a wooden skeleton, covered by bark, hides, mud, straw, or any material which afforded warmth. The Roman tent held 10 soldiers, with their _decanus_, or corporal. Modern military tents are all made of linen or cotton canvas, supported by one or more poles, according to shape, and held extended by pegs driven into the ground. The tents used in the military service of the United States comprise the following:
_Common_, or _A tent_, for the use of enlisted men, is 6 feet 10 inches in height, 8 feet 4 inches in width, and 6 feet 10 inches long; it holds 6 men.
The officers’ tents are somewhat larger than the common tents, and are supplied with low side-walls of canvas; they are generally called _wall-tents_.
The _tente-d’abri_, which was introduced into the American from the French service, with some modifications, consists of a tissue of cotton-cloth impregnated with caoutchouc, and thus made water-proof. Every man carries a square of this cloth, with buttons and button-holes around, by which it is attached to the squares carried by his comrades; 3 men generally sleep together in a tent made of those pieces.
The _Sibley tent_ (invented by Maj. Sibley, 2d Dragoons) is conical, light, easily pitched, erected on a tripod holding a single pole, and will comfortably accommodate 12 soldiers with their accoutrements. A fire can be made in the centre of this tent, and all soldiers sleep with their feet to the fire. This tent is hardly ever used.
There is also a _hospital tent_, which is made of heavy cotton-duck. In length it is 14 feet; in width, 15 feet; in height (centre), 11 feet; with a wall 4¹⁄₂ feet, and a “fly” of appropriate size; the ridge-pole is made in two sections, and measures 14 feet when joined. This tent accommodates from 8 to 10 persons comfortably.
=Tent.= To cover with tents; to pitch tents upon; as, a tented plain.
=Tent, Laboratory.= In artillery, is a large tent, which is sometimes carried to the field for the conveniences of the laboratory men.
=Tent-bedstead.= See CAMP-BEDSTEAD.
=Tentful.= As much or as many as a tent will hold.
=Tent-pins.= Are pieces of wood, which are indented at the top, and made sharp at the bottom, to keep the cords of a tent firm to the earth.
=Tent-poles.= The poles upon which a tent is supported.
=Teramo= (anc. _Interamma_). A town of Southern Italy, in the province of Abruzzo Ultra I., at the junction of the Tordina and Vezzola, 28 miles northeast of Aquila. In the plain below Teramo took place, July 27, 1460, between the army of John, duke of Anjou, and the Milanese allies of Ferdinand I. of Aragon, one of the most sanguinary battles ever fought in Italy. After the contest at Castelfidardo (1860), Teramo was the first Neapolitan city that opened its gates and gave joyful welcome to King Victor Emmanuel.
=Termini= (anc. _Thermæ Himærenses_). A seaport town on the north coast of Sicily, 21 miles east-southeast from Palermo, at the mouth of the river Termini. The ancient _Thermæ_ was founded 408 B.C. Here the Carthaginians defeated the Romans with heavy loss (260 B.C.) during the first Punic war.
=Ternate.= The northernmost of a chain of islands, on the west coast of Gilolo, and formerly the seat of sovereignty over all the adjacent Molucca Islands. It was taken from the Dutch by the English in 1797, but it was restored at the peace of Amiens. It was again taken in August, 1810, and once more restored to the Dutch, with their other possessions in India and the East, by the treaty of Paris in 1814.
=Terre-plein.= In field fortification, the plane of site or level country around a work. The terre-plein of the rampart in permanent fortification, is the broad surface which remains after constructing the parapet and banquette.
=Terror, Reign of.= See REIGN OF TERROR.