“Fellow citizens.”  As soon as he heard his voice, his hand began to shake like that, his knees began to tremble, and then he shook all over.  He coughed and choked and finally came around to look at his manuscript.  Then he began again:  “Fellow citizens:  We—­are—­we are—­we are—­we are—­We are very happy—­we are very happy—­we are very happy—­to welcome back to their native town these soldiers who have fought and bled—­and come back again to their native town.  We are especially—­we are especially—­we are especially—­we are especially pleased to see with us to-day this young hero (that meant me)—­this young hero who in imagination (friends, remember, he said “imagination,” for if he had not said that, I would not be egotistical enough to refer to it)—­this young hero who, in imagination, we have seen leading his troops—­leading—­we have seen leading—­we have seen leading his troops on to the deadly breach.  We have seen his shining—­his shining—­we have seen his shining—­we have seen his shining—­his shining sword—­flashing in the sunlight as he shouted to his troops, ‘Come on!’”

Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear!  How little that good, old man knew about war.  If he had known anything about war, he ought to have known what any soldier in this audience knows is true, that it is next to a crime for an officer of infantry ever in time of danger to go ahead of his men.  I, with my shining sword flashing in the sunlight, shouting to my troops:  “Come on.”  I never did it.  Do you suppose I would go ahead of my men to be shot in the front by the enemy and in the back by my own men?  That is no place for an officer.  The place for the officer is behind the private soldier in actual fighting.  How often, as a staff officer, I rode down the line when the Rebel cry and yell was coming out of the woods, sweeping along over the fields, and shouted, “Officers to the rear!  Officers to the rear!” and then every officer goes behind the line of battle, and the higher the officer’s rank, the farther behind he goes.  Not because he is any the less brave, but because the laws of war require that to be done.  If the general came up on the front line and were killed you would lose your battle anyhow, because he has the plan of the battle in his brain, and must be kept in comparative safety.  I, with my “shining sword flashing in the sunlight.”  Ah!  There sat in the hall that day men who had given that boy their last hard-tack, who had carried him on their backs through deep rivers.  But some were not there; they had gone down to death for their country.  The speaker mentioned them, but they were but little noticed, and yet they had gone down to death for their country, gone down for a cause they believed was right and still believe was right, though I grant to the other side the same that I ask for myself.  Yet these men who had actually died for their country were little noticed, and the hero of the hour was this boy.  Why was he the hero?  Simply because that man fell into that same foolishness.