corporal's guard

noun — 2 senses

corporal's guard

noun

1

Government, Military, Politics, War A small detachment of guards under the charge of a corporal.

2

Broadly A very small number of people.

Our thousand did the Capitol little harm that a corporal’s guard of Biddies with mops and tubs could not repair in a forenoon’s campaign.1863, Theodore Winthrop, edited by G. W. Curtis, Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers, Washington as a Camp:

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