Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1898 — FEAR IN BATTLE. [ARTICLE]

FEAR IN BATTLE.

The Colonel Saxe No Man Went Throiish the War Without Kxperiencing It. They were talking about a soldier’* feelings in battle and some expressed the opinion that man men went through the dvll war without being frightened at any time by their personal danger. It was the colonel, who had gained honors on the battlefield, who answered him as follows: “When 1 started out I felt sure thait I would never know what the feeling of fear was, and experience taught me that all soldiers went forth with the same Impression. Gad, how I changed my mind during my first skirmish! VV’e were behind an embankment and I was In command. It just rained lead across our heads. lively time a man raised his head above the breastworks it came wliiisiriug off Ills shoulders as sure as shootlug. 1 got scareti. I could feel myself growing colorless. I couldn’t articulate. My arms grew rigid, aud to save me I couldn’t have pui In a load. All of n sudden it esune to me that the men under me know that I was scared. This thought loosened up my tongue and joints a bit. Then it flashed over me that it would never do for me to let my men know that I was afraid, and that I must do sometihlng to prove that I was not. What could I do 7 The man next to me poked his head up at that point and a mlnie ball took him right between the eyes. A cold sweat broke out on me, and I was ready to collapse, when all of a sudden it came to me that all would be lost; that I should be ruined If I let my men go on thinking that I was a coward. I seized my field glasses and with a shout lea;led to Ihe top of the breastworks. I raised those glasses to my eyes, and for a lecond our enemy almost stopped firing they were so astonished. I looked from one end of their lines to the oilier.

“ ‘Come down from there, you d d little fool!’ said a rough voice behind me, and 'I was jerked back tnrto the ditch by a powerful force. ‘Do you want to get killed?’ It was my cob onel’s voice and ills hand that saved me. What did I see through the field glasses? Nott a thing. I was too scared. A blind man could have seen more. But I saved my reputation. Many times after that I was frightened in battle, but never so much so, and I never shirked. From tliat day until the war closed my men adored me, and they thought I never knew what fear was during the whole of those four bloody years.” “What did they think ailed you that day ?” “It went the rounds in my company that I had an attack of heart trouble,” answered the colonel with a laugh, “and I never took the trouble to correct the story. It was true In a way, for I was so frightened that my heart almost stopped beating. It’s bosh to talk about any man going through the war without feeling fear. Any brave old soldier will tell you of experiences such as I have told.”