the country, was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris at its
junction with the stream of the Khosr. The walls of Nineveh are
described as about 55 miles in circumference, 100 feet high, and thick
enough to allow three chariots to pass each other on them; with 1500
towers, 200 feet in height. The city is said to have been entirely
destroyed by fire, when it was taken by the Medes and Babylonians, about
606 B.C.
=Ninians, St.= A town and parish of Scotland, in Stirlingshire, about a
mile south from Stirling. Several battles have been fought in this
parish. The first was between the Scottish followers of Wallace and the
English, who were defeated, the second was the famous battle of
Bannockburn, and the third was that in which James III. of Scotland was
defeated and slain by his rebellious nobles.
=Nipple.= Any small projection in which there is an orifice for
discharging a fluid, or for other purposes, as the nipple of a
percussion-lock, or that part on which the cap is put to be fired.
=Niquibs= (_Ind._). Men whose military functions among the Sepoys
correspond with those of corporals in other services.
=Nisbet=, or =Nesbit= (Northumberland, Eng.). Here a battle was fought
between the English and Scotch armies, the latter greatly
disproportioned in strength to the former. Several thousands of the
Scots were slain upon the field and in the pursuit, May 7, 1402.
=Nishapoor=, or =Nishapur=. A town of Persia, province of Khorassan. The
town is said to be very ancient, and to have existed in the time of
Alexander the Great, by whom it was destroyed. In 1269 it was sacked by
the Tartars, again by Ihengiz-khan, and in 1749 by Nadir Shah, from
which last calamity it has never recovered.
=Nisibis.= The capital of ancient Mygdonia, the northeastern part of
Mesopotamia. It was a place of great importance as a military post, was
twice taken by the Romans (under Lucullus and Trajan), and again given
up by them to the Armenians; but being a third time taken by Lucius
Verus in 165, it remained the chief bulwark of the Roman empire against
the Persians, till it was surrendered to them by Jovian after the death
of Julian in 363.
=Nissa=, or =Nish=. A well-fortified town of Turkey in Europe, in the
province of Servia, about 120 miles southeast from Belgrade. It commands
the communication between the provinces of Servia, Bulgaria, and
Roumelia. It was taken by Amurath II. in 1389, and again by the
Austrians in 1737.
=Nithing.= A coward or poltroon.
=Nitre.= Potassium nitrate or saltpetre, the most important ingredient
of gunpowder. It is obtained principally from the East Indies. It has
been the policy of the American government to keep large quantities in
store. See SALTPETRE.
=Nitro-cellulose.= See GUN-COTTON.
=Nitro-glycerine.= Is a light, yellow, oily liquid, inodorous, with a
sweet, pungent, aromatic taste. It received its name from Sobrero, a
chemist, who in 1847 discovered that glycerine when treated with nitric
acid was converted into a highly-explosive substance. This liquid
appears to have been almost forgotten by chemists until in 1864 Nobel, a
Swedish engineer, succeeded in applying it to a very important branch of
his art, namely, blasting. It is now prepared by introducing glycerine
into a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids, the whole being kept at a
temperature below freezing-point. When uncongealed this preparation
explodes by concussion, and is therefore unfit for transportation, and
very dangerous to handle while in that state. The chief advantage for
mining purposes which nitro-glycerine possesses is, that it requires a
much smaller hole or chamber than gunpowder does, the strength of the
latter being scarcely one-tenth of the former. Hence the miner’s work,
which, according to the hardness of the rock, represents from five to
twenty times the price of the gunpowder used, is so short that the cost
of blasting is often reduced 50 per cent. The process is very easy: if
the chamber of a mine presents fissures it must first be lined with
clay, to make it water-tight; this done, the nitro-glycerine is poured
in, and water after it, which, being the lighter liquid, remains at the
top. A slow-match, with a well-charged percussion-cap at one end, is
then introduced into the nitro-glycerine. The mine may then be sprung by
lighting the match, there being no need of tamping. Submarine mines may
be sprung by electricity. In this manner the obstructions of Hell Gate,
N. Y., were removed by Gen. Newton, one of the greatest engineering
feats of the time. On account of its liability to spontaneous explosion,
the great danger in handling it, and its liability to decomposition,
nitro-glycerine is now almost entirely superseded for ordinary mining
purposes by dynamite.
=Nitroleum.= Nitro-glycerine; a name given it by Shaffner, an American
patentee of high explosives.
=Nitro-mannite.= See MANNITE, NITRO-.
=Nive.= A river in the southwest of France, the scene of an important
battle, December, 1813. After Wellington had forced Marshal Sault to
fall back on Bayonne from the Pyrenees, the former determined to cross
the Nive in order to place the right of his own army upon the Adour,
with the double purpose of establishing a communication with the
interior of France, and cutting off the enemy’s means of obtaining
supplies. The brunt of this enterprise fell upon the right division of
Wellington’s army under Lord Hill, a good deal of work, however, being
done by the left division under Sir John Hope. Hill’s success was
complete, and after five days’ fighting (December 9-13), the passage of
the Nive had been effected, with the loss on the part of the British of
650 killed and 3459 wounded.
=Nivelle.= A small river which rises in Spain, and, after a short
course, falls into the Bay of Biscay at St. Jean-de-Luz, in the French
department of the Lower Pyrenees, near which the Duke of Wellington
crossed the river in 1812, after carrying the French posts.
=Nizam’s Dominions=, or =Hyderabad=. An extensive territory in the
interior of Southern India, lying to the northwest of the Presidency of
Madras. In 1687 the territory now known as the Nizam’s Dominions, became
a province of the Mogul empire; but in 1719 the governor or viceroy of
the Deccan, Azoph Jah, made himself independent, and took the title of
_Nizam-ool-Moolk_ (Regulator of the State). After his death, in 1748,
two claimants appeared for the throne,--his son Nazir Jung, and his
grandson Mirzapha Jung. The cause of the former was espoused by the East
India Company, and that of the latter by a party of French adventurers
under Gen. Dupleix. Then followed a period of strife and anarchy. In
1761, Nizam Ali obtained the supreme power, and after some vacillation
signed a treaty of alliance with the English in 1768. He aided them in
the war with Tippoo Sahib, sultan of Mysore, and at the termination of
that war, in 1799, a new treaty was formed, by which, in return for
certain territorial concessions, the East India company bound itself to
maintain a subsidiary force of 8000 men for the defense of the Nizam’s
dominions. The Nizam or ruler, _Afzul-ul-Dowlah_, remained faithful to
the British during the mutiny of 1857-58.
=Nizza-Montferrato.= A town of northern Italy, province of Alessandria,
on the Belbo. It was a strongly-fortified place during the Middle Ages,
was besieged unsuccessfully for forty days by Charles of Anjou, and
afterwards suffered severely from the Spanish and French armies.
=Noblesse Militaire= (_Fr._). Military nobility. Although most of the
orders may be considered as appendages which confer a species of
military nobility, especially that of the British “Garter,” which was
instituted by King Edward III. on January 19, 1344, yet the British
cannot be strictly said to have among them that species of military
nobility or distinction that was peculiarly known in France under the
immediate title of _noblesse militaire_. In order to reward military
merit, an edict was issued by the French court at Fontainebleau, in
November, 1750, and enregistered on the 25th of the same month by the
Parliament of Paris, whereby a _noblesse militaire_, or military
nobility, was created; the acquisition of which depended wholly upon
martial character, but did not require any letters patent for the
purpose of ennobling the individual. By the first article of this
perpetual and irrevocable edict, as it was then stated, it was decreed
that no person serving in the capacity and quality of officer in any of
the king’s troops, should be liable to the land- or poll-tax, so long as
he continued in that situation. (2) That by virtue of this edict, and
from the date thereof, all general officers, not being otherwise
ennobled, but being actually and bona fide in the service, should be
considered as noble, and remain so, together with their children, born
or to be born in lawful wedlock. (3) That in future the rank of general
officer should of itself be sufficient to confer the full right of
nobility upon all those who should arrive at that degree of military
promotion; and that their heirs and successors, as well as their
children, actually born and lawfully begotten, should be entitled to the
same distinction; and that all general officers should enjoy all the
rights and privileges of nobility from the date of their commissions. In
Articles IV., V., VI., and VII., it was specifically provided upon what
conditions those officers, who were not noble, and were inferior in rank
to that of maréchal-de-camp, but who had been chevaliers or knights of
the royal and military order of St. Louis, and who should retire from
the service after having been in the army during thirty years without
intermission, were to be exempted from the payment of the land- and
poll-tax, and how the same privileges were to be transferred to their
sons, provided they were in the service. By Article VIII. it was
enacted, that those officers who had risen to the rank of captain, and
were chevaliers or knights of the order of St. Louis, but who were
disabled by wounds, or diseases contracted in the service, should not be
obliged to fill up the period of thirty years as prescribed by the
recited articles. By Article IX. it was provided that when any officer,
not under the rank of captain, died in the actual exercise of the
functions or bearing the commission of captain, the services he had
already rendered should be of use to his sons, lawfully begotten, who
were either in the service or were intended for it. It was specified in
Articles X. and XI. that every officer born in wedlock, whose father and
grandfather had been exempted from the land- or poll-tax, should be
noble in his own right, provided he got created a chevalier or knight of
St. Louis, had served the prescribed period, or was entitled to the
exemption mentioned in Article VIII.; that if he should die in the
service, he would be considered as having acquired the rank of nobility,
and that the title so obtained should descend, as a matter of right, to
the children, lawfully begotten, of such officers as had acquired it. It
further specified, that even those who should have been born previous to
their fathers being ennobled, were entitled to the same privilege.
Article XII. pointed out the method by which proofs of military nobility
were to be exhibited in conformity to the then existing edict. Articles
XIII. and XIV. provided for those officers, who were actually in the
service at the promulgation of the edict, in proportion as the
prescribed periods were filled up. This provision related wholly to the
personal services of officers; as no proof was acknowledged relative to
services done by their fathers or grandfathers, who might have retired
from the army, or have died prior to the publication of the edict. The
XVth or last Article was a sort of register, in which were preserved the
different titles that enabled individuals to lay claim to military
nobility. The whole of this edict may be seen, page 206, in the 3d
volume “Des Elemens Militaires.” The French emperor Bonaparte instituted
an order of nobility called the “Legion of Honor,” the political
influence of which appears to be greater than any order ever
established, even than that of the Jesuits. He also adopted the ancient
military title of duke, which was conferred only on men who had merited
renown by their military greatness. The title of count was also
established, and all the members of the Legion of Honor held a rank
corresponding with the knights of feudal institution. Private soldiers
and tradesmen, for acts of public virtue, have been created members of
the Legion of Honor.
=Noblesse Oblige.= A French phrase,--rank has its obligations.
=Nocera dei Pagani= (anc. _Nuceria Alfaterna_). A town of Southern
Italy, province and 8 miles northwest of Salerno. During the second
Samnite war (315 B.C.) the Nucerians, who were on friendly terms with
the Romans, were induced to abandon their alliance and make common cause
with the Samnites, for which they were punished in 308 by the Roman
consul Fabius, who invaded their territory, laid siege to their city,
and compelled them to unqualified submission. In the second Punic war
the city was besieged by Hannibal, and after a vigorous resistance was
compelled by famine to surrender; it was given up to plunder and totally
destroyed, while the surviving inhabitants took refuge in the other
cities of Campania. It again became a flourishing town, and its
territory was ravaged in the Social war, 90 B.C. The decisive battle
between Narses and Teïas, which put an end to the Gothic monarchy in
Italy (533 A.D.), was fought in its neighborhood. Its modern appellation
is derived from the circumstance that in the 13th century a body of
Saracens were established there by the emperor Frederick II.
=Nogent-le-Rotrou.= A parish and town of France, in the department of
the Eure and Loire, 33 miles southwest from Chartres. Taken by the
English in 1428.
=Nola.= A city of Italy, province of Terra di Lavoro, 14 miles
east-northeast of Naples. The ancient Nola was founded by the Ausonians,
but afterwards fell into the hands of the Tyrrheni (Etruscans). In 327
B.C. it was sufficiently powerful to send 2000 soldiers to the
assistance of Neapolis. In 313 the town was taken by the Romans. It
remained faithful to the Romans even after the battle of Cannæ, when the
other Campanian towns revolted to Hannibal; and in consequence retained
its own constitution as an ally of the Romans. In the Social war it fell
into the hands of the confederates, and when taken by Sulla it was burnt
to the ground by the Samnite garrison.
=Nolan’s Range-finder.= See RANGE-FINDER.
=Nolle Prosequi= (_Practice_). An entry made on the record of
courts-martial, by which the prosecutor or plaintiff declares that he
will proceed no further. The effect of a _nolle prosequi_, when
obtained, is to put the defendant without day, but it does not operate
as an acquittal; for he may be afterwards re-indicted, and even upon the
same indictment fresh process may be awarded.
=Nomenclature.= Technical designation. For nomenclature of ordnance, see
appropriate headings in this work.
=Nominal.= By name, hence _nominal call_, which corresponds with the
French _appel nominatif_; and, in a military sense, with our roll-call.
=Non-combatant.= Any person connected with an army, or within the lines
of an army, who does not make it his business to fight, as any one of
the medical officers and their assistants, chaplains, and others, also
any of the citizens of a place occupied by an army; also, any one
holding a similar position with respect to the navy.
=Non-commissioned Officers= (Fr. _sous-officers_, Ger.
_unter-offizieren_). Are the subordinate officers of the general staff,
regiments, and companies who are appointed, not by commission, but by
the secretary of war or commanding officers of regiments; and they are
usually selected on account of good conduct or superior abilities.
=Non-effective.= Signifies men not fit or available for duty, in
contradistinction to effective (which see).
=Noose.= A running knot, which binds the closer the more it is drawn.
=Nootkas=, or =Ahts=. The generic name of the Indians residing on
Vancouver Island and the shore of the mainland along the sound of the
same name. They are subdivided into many tribes and number about 14,000,
some of whom are partially civilized.
=Nora.= A mountain fortress of Cappadocia, on the borders of Lycaonia,
on the northern side of the Taurus, noted for the siege sustained in it
by Eumenes against Antigonus for a whole winter.
=Norba=, or =Norbanus= (now _Norma_). A strongly fortified town in
Latium, on the slope of the Volscian Mountains, and near the sources of
the Nymphæus, originally belonged to the Latin and subsequently to the
Volscian league. The Romans founded a colony at Norba in 492 B.C. It
espoused the cause of Marius in the civil war, and was destroyed by fire
by its own inhabitants when it was taken by one of Sulla’s generals.
=Nordlingen.= A walled town of Bavaria, in the circle of Swabia, 48
miles southwest from Nuremberg. Here the Swedes under Count Horn were
defeated by the Austrians, August 27, 1634; and the Austrians and allies
by Turenne in 1645.
=Noreia= (now _Neumarkt_, in Styria, Austria). The ancient capital of
the Taurisci, or Norici, in Noricum. It was situated in the centre of
Noricum, a little south of the river Murius, and on the road from
Virunum to Ovilaba. It is celebrated as the place where Carbo was
defeated by the Cimbri, 113 B.C. It was besieged by the Boii in the time
of Julius Cæsar.
=Norfolk.= A city and capital of Norfolk Co., Va., on the Elizabeth
River, an arm of Chesapeake Bay, about 18 miles from Fortress Monroe,
has a fine harbor, safe, commodious, and of sufficient depth to admit
the largest vessels. It is the largest naval station in the United
States. Its navy-yard was destroyed on April 21, 1861, by the Federals,
to prevent the ships of war and naval stores that were there from being
appropriated and used by the seceding States.
=Noricum.= A Roman province south of the Danube, was bounded on the
north by the Danube, on the west by Rhætia and Vindelicia, on the east
by Pannonia, and on the south by Pannonia and Italy. Its inhabitants,
the most important of which were the Taurisci, also called Norici, were
conquered by the Romans toward the end of the reign of Augustus, after
the subjugation of Rhætia by Tiberius and Drusus, and their country was
formed into a Roman colony.
=Normandy= (Fr. _Normandie_). Formerly a province in the north of
France, bordering on the English Channel; now divided into the
departments of Seine-Inférieure, Eure, Orne, Calvados, and Manche. In
the time of the Romans, the country bore the name of _Gallia Lugdunensis
II._ Under the Frankish monarchs it formed a part of Neustria. From the
beginning of the 9th century it was continually devastated by the
Scandinavians, termed Northmen, or Normans, from whose irruptions
Charles the Simple of France purchased immunity by ceding the duchy to
their leader, Rollo, 905. Rollo, the first duke, and several of his
successors held it as a fief of the crown of France, until William, the
seventh duke, acquired England in 1066; it was reunited to France in
1204; was reconquered by Henry V. 1418, and held by England partially
till 1450.
=Normans= (the Northmen). Toward the end of the 8th century Western
Europe began to be scourged by the inroads of Scandinavian pirates,
known to the inhabitants of the British Isles as “East-men” and
“Danes,”--to those of the continent as “North-men.” These Northmen were
of Germanic stock, a vigorous, seafaring race, not yet Christianized,
peopling the coasts of the Baltic and of the two peninsulas which form
the Norway and Sweden and the Denmark of to-day. Need and the national
thirst for adventure and for strife drove forth from the thickening
population, down upon the sunnier, richer, weaker South, swarms of
vikings,--_i.e._ warriors,--who scourged the coasts of England, Germany,
and France, pressed with their small, sharp, open vessels up the
narrowest streams, burned, slew, and plundered, and sailed away laden
with booty and with slaves. About the middle of the 9th century these
raids began to assume an altogether new character and importance. The
consolidation of the three great Scandinavian kingdoms broke the power
of the petty kinglets and independent nobles, and drove many a jarl
forth with his followers to seek a freer life in some new home. Northmen
threw themselves in larger bands upon England, which the Wessex kings
had not yet fairly centralized; upon the Frankish kingdoms, fast falling
asunder under the later Karlings; harried the country, besieged and
sacked the cities, wintered at the mouths of the rivers, and by the end
of the century had wrested from Alfred half his kingdom, and begun to
plant colonies on the coasts of France. Northmen ravaged Spain and the
shores of the Mediterranean, fell upon Western Italy, penetrated Greece
and Asia Minor, and there met others of their countrymen, who had
pressed down through Russia. For in the Russia of that day, under the
name of Verangians, Northmen had become the ruling class, a military
aristocracy; while those who made their way still farther south had
formed the famous Verangian body-guard of the Byzantine emperors, which
maintained its existence and its distinctive character for five
centuries. During the latter half of the 9th century, also,
Scandinavians, sailing westward, found and settled Iceland. With the
establishment, early in the 10th century, of settlements upon the
continent, with the occupation Scandinavian energy now found at home in
wars between the three new kingdoms, and with the gradual triumph of
Christianity in the North, Europe gained, at last, comparative rest.
England’s period of misery and humiliation under Ethelred the Unready
(979-1016), ended by the establishment of a Danish dynasty (1017-42),
marks the last great outburst of the pent-up heathenism.
=Northallerton.= A town of Yorkshire, England, 31 miles northwest from
York. Near here was fought the “battle of the Standard,” where the
English under the Earls of Albemarle and Ferrers totally defeated the
Scotch armies, August 22, 1138. The archbishop of York brought forth a
consecrated standard on a carriage at the moment when they were hotly
pressed by the invaders, headed by King David.
=Northampton.= The chief town of Northamptonshire, situated on the Nen,
or Nene, 60 miles northwest from London. It was held by the Danes at the
beginning of the 10th century, and was burnt by them in 1010. Its castle
was besieged by the barons in 1215, during the civil wars of King John.
On July 10, 1460, a conflict took place between the Duke of York and
Henry VI. of England, in which the king was defeated, and made prisoner
(the second time) after a sanguinary fight which took place in the
meadows below the town. It was seized and fortified by the Parliamentary
forces in 1642. On March 30, 1645, Cromwell marched from it with 1500
horse and two regiments of foot to Rugby. After the restoration, October
17, 1661, the walls of Northampton were demolished, it having taken the
side of the Parliament.