I listened again to this list of
the dead with a profound interest because of the mixture of the names,
for the names bear the marks of the several national stocks from which
these men came. But they are not Irishmen or Germans or Frenchmen or
Hebrews or Italians any more. They were not when they went to Vera Cruz;
they were Americans, every one of them, and with no difference in their
Americanism because of the stock from which they came. They were in a
peculiar sense of our blood, and they proved it by showing that they
were of our spirit--that no matter what their derivation, no matter
where their people came from, they thought and wished and did the things
that were American; and the flag under which they served was a flag in
which all the blood of mankind is united to make a free Nation.
War, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic representation, a sort of
dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms of duty. I never went into battle;
I never was under fire; but I fancy that there are some things just as
hard to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just as hard to do
your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121