Of The Latter
Description Of Courage It Cannot Be Expected That Much Should Be
Found Among The Privates Of Any Army, And Perhaps Not Very Many
Examples Among The Officers.
It is a courage self-sustained, based
on a knowledge of the right, and on a life-long calculation that any
results coming from adherence to the right will be preferable to any
that can be produced by a departure from it.
This is the courage
which will enable a man to stand his ground, in battle or elsewhere,
though broken worlds should fall around him. The other courage,
which is mainly an affair of the heart or blood and not of the
brain, always requires some outward support. The man who finds
himself prominent in danger bears himself gallantly, because the
eyes of many will see him; whether as an old man he leads an army,
or as a young man goes on a forlorn hope, or as a private carries
his officer on his back out of the fire, he is sustained by the love
of praise. And the men who are not individually prominent in
danger, who stand their ground shoulder to shoulder, bear themselves
gallantly also, each trusting in the combined strength of his
comrades. When such combined courage has been acquired, that useful
courage is engendered which we may rather call confidence, and which
of all courage is the most serviceable in the army. At the battle
of Bull's Run the army of the North became panic-stricken, and fled.
From this fact many have been led to believe that the American
soldiers would not fight well, and that they could not be brought to
stand their ground under fire.
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