Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 130, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1910 — PROVED HIS BRAVERY. [ARTICLE]

PROVED HIS BRAVERY.

How a New Hainpaliire I.ad Resented Kpitbet of “Coward.” A Washington newspaper man, one of the few survivors of the Fiftyninth Massachusetts regiment, recently told this story: “A young New Hampshire lad of sixteen, Sumner Elliott, was a member of Company I, my company. In some way a companion had been moved to call him a coward at Spottsylvania. The epithet was undeserved, for Elliott was a brave boy. He thrashed the man- who called him a coward, bat the insult rankled. On the march to North Ann river he brooded over it. We led the corps across the river and advanced on the enemy. A rattling musketry fire was dotting the ground with our dead and wounded. “Presently young Elliott sprang ahead of the advancing line, and as he waved his musket over his head he shouted out in broad New England accent: “’Sergeant Mertin, am I a coward?* “The enemy opened a masked battery full on our front and under a thousand yards from their line. The guns were loaded to the muzzles with grape and canister, and as the sward we were tripping over was perfectly level great grips were made in our ranks. Nevertheless we rushed on, cheering, Sumner well in the lead. Presently he went down, full length, and as we swept over him the gallant lad was still faintly shouting: “ ‘Sergeant Mertin, a-m I a c-o-w----a-r-d?’ “His kneecap had been broken with jrgrapesbot, and when subsequently removed to the field hospital our first sergeant, John H. Mertin. managed to

visit him. As the poor boy, laid out on the rude operating table, grasped the sergeant’s hand he faintly muttered, ‘S-e-r-g-e-a-n-t M-e-r-t-i-n, am I a c-o-w-a-r-d?’ “The sergeant pressed his hand and replied with tears in his eyes, ‘No, Sumner, my lad; New Hampshire never raised a coward.’ ”