Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1894 — IN TWENTY-EIGHT BATTLES [ARTICLE]

IN TWENTY-EIGHT BATTLES

And Can Freely Say That He Never Got “Used to It.” Colonel James M. Thompson gave his opinion as follows: “The quality of courage in battle I regard as being to a large extent a physical attribute. I have heard a good deal of talk about the nonchalance of men in action and their ease and composure after the first gun was fired, but I never took much stock in it I went through the war in the army, and it was my fortune to be in a portion of the service in Virginia, where there was a good deal of hard fighting to do, and there wasn’t any creditable way to get out of it either. I saw r service in twenty-eight battles and I can freely say that I for one never got ‘used to it.’ I never went into a fight without an all prevading sense of d mger and was always glad when it was over. Of course moral courage, high patriotism and the military spirit kept tho great majority of men right up to the mark, but there were notable instances of men whose physical natures simply failed to respond when called on. They could not possibly go into a fight. A clear head and a full conception of the enormous consequences of cowardice to themselves failed to spur them to the staying point, and on the first whiz of a bullet their signals of distress wore visible to all in sight A well known New York colonel, a perfect gentleman, a scholar, a patriot, and a really noble fellow, was so weak in point of courage and his humiliation so great at really being afraid to face danger that he was forced to retire from the army, went to Washington, pined away and died in a few weeks. I knew another prominent officer whose friends, out of consideration for his well known failing, used to manage, on one pretext or another, to keep him out of engagements and thus shield him from exposure. Men like that are to be pitied, not blamed. They want to fight, but their bodies actually refuse to obey their will."—St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat