{"id":12264,"date":"2021-08-11T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotcw.com\/?p=4437"},"modified":"2021-08-03T00:07:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T05:07:24","slug":"william-howard-russell-128","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/william-howard-russell-128\/","title":{"rendered":"William Howard Russell\u2019s Diary: A sudden storm."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>August 11th.<\/em>\u2013On the old Indian principle, I rode out this morning very early, and was rewarded by a breath of cold, fresh air, and by the sight of some very disorderly regiments just turning out to parade in the camps; but I was not particularly gratified by being mistaken for Prince Napoleon by some Irish recruits, who shouted out, &#8220;Bonaparte forever,&#8221; and gradually subsided into requests for &#8220;something to drink your Royal Highness&#8217;s health with.&#8221; As I returned I saw on the steps of General Mansfield&#8217;s quarters, a tall, soldierly-looking young man, whose breast was covered with Crimean ribbons and medals, and I recognised him as one who had called upon me a few days before, renewing our slight acquaintance before Sebastopol, where his courage was conspicuous, to ask me for information respecting the mode of obtaining a commission in the Federal army.<\/p>\n<p>Towards mid-day an ebony sheet of clouds swept over the city. I went out, regardless of the threatening storm, to avail myself of the coolness to make a few visits; but soon a violent wind arose bearing clouds like those of an Indian dust-storm down the streets. The black sheet overhead became agitated like the sea, and tossed about grey clouds, which careered against each other and burst into lightning; then suddenly, without other warning, down came the rain\u2013a perfect tornado<em>; <\/em>sheets of water flooding the streets in a moment, turning the bed into watercourses and the channels into deep rivers. I waded up the centre of Pennsylvania Avenue, past the President&#8217;s house, in a current which would have made a respectable trout stream<em>; <\/em>and on getting opposite my own door, made a rush for the porch, but forgetting the deep channel at the side, stepped into a rivulet which was literally above my hips, and I was carried off my legs, till I succeeded in catching the kerbstone, and escaped into the hall as if I had just swum across the Potomac.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August 11th.\u2013On the old Indian principle, I rode out this morning very early, and was rewarded by a breath of cold, fresh air, and by the sight of some very disorderly regiments just turning out to parade in the camps; but I was not particularly gratified by being mistaken for Prince Napoleon by some Irish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":66679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-my-diary-north-and-south-william-howard-russell"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/William-Howard-Russell.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}