May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face of the Austrian batteries, trained upon the French end of the structure.  Behind them were six thousand troops.  Napoleon massed four thousand grenadiers at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers in front.  At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from the cover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and canister, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge.  The front ranks went down like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled by the task before them.  Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his side.  Forward again over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a quick run counted by seconds only carried the column across two hundred yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. The guns of the enemy were not aimed at the advance.  The advance was too quick for the Austrian gunners.  So sudden and so miraculous was it all, that the Austrian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the front and meeting the French onslaught.  This Napoleon had counted on in making the bold attack.

What was Napoleon but the thunderbolt of war?  He once journeyed from Spain to Paris at seventeen miles an hour in the saddle.

“Is it possible to cross the path?” asked Napoleon of the engineers who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard.

“Perhaps,” was the hesitating reply, “it is within the limits of possibility.”

“Forward, then.”

Yet Ulysses S. Grant, a young man unknown to fame, with neither money nor influence, with no patrons or friends, in six years fought more battles, gained more victories, captured more prisoners, took more spoils, commanded more men, than Napoleon did in twenty years.  “The great thing about him,” said Lincoln, “is cool persistence.”

“DON’T SWEAR—­FIGHT.”

When the Spanish fire on San Juan Hill became almost unbearable, some of the Rough Riders began to swear.  Colonel Wood, with the wisdom of a good leader, called out, amid the whistle of the Mauser bullets:  “Don’t swear—­fight!”

In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy’s guns were pouring shot into his regiment, Sir William Napier’s men became disobedient.  He at once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire.  The men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavy cannonade as coolly as if it were a review.

When Pellisier, the Crimean chief of Zouaves, struck an officer with a whip, the man drew a pistol that missed fire.  The chief replied:  “Fellow, I order you a three days’ arrest for not having your arms in better order.”