Call to arms

“ I have answered the summons with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then I call on you in the name of liberty, patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honour and that of his country. Victory or death! ”

“ The highest view of the profession of arms is, that the soldier, deterring evil-doers and maintaining order at home, on the one hand, and prepared, on the other, to resist hostile invasion, is in reality, notwithstanding his deadly weapons and warlike garb, an officer or instrument of peace. ”

“ When the children of our dead soldiers charge across No Man's Land in the battle of life they will think of their lost fathers, and the agonizing cry of the young wounded soldier will rise to their lips, "Oh my arm, my beautiful arm." The State is providing artificial arms for our wounded soldiers. ”

“ With heads bowed, and limbs moving wearily, guns held at will, they swept by in unbroken column--cavalry, artillery, infantry--scarcely a face lifted to glance toward the house, with here and there a straggler limping to the roadside, or an aide spurring past--just a stream of armed men, who had been plodding on since daylight, footsore, hungry, unseeing, yet ready to die in battle at their commander's word. ”

“ In the rear of the fort was a stretch of open plain, also covered with fragments of shell, over which the fugitives had passed in their final rout, leaving behind arms, knapsacks, blankets, and everything that could impede their flight. Traveling over this field, half a mile or so from the fort, I came upon the body of a stout fellow, who had [Pg 58] been struck down while running for his life. ”

“ This civilian dress has always been the dress of our order and of our plebs and ever will be, unless at any time we receive from you arms for your defence. We are grateful to your generals and to your armies because they trusted their eyes rather than their ears, and did not make enemies where none existed. We ask of you the peace which we have ourselves observed, and pray you to turn the tide of war where a state of war exists; if we are to learn by painful experience the power which your arms can exert against us, we will learn it without using arms ourselves. ”

“ Reinforcements keep joining us, both French and English, almost every day; and we have a splendid army, in spite of our heavy losses, ready at our commander’s call to advance with the flag of old England, and plant it on the proud walls of this noble fortress, which has put all others in the shade. Hardly a day passes but more guns and mortars are being mounted, and what the next bombardment will be I do not know. ”

“ As they rose to their knees in the dust they saw men gathering—soldiers of all arms, infantry, dismounted cavalrymen, hospital guards, limping convalescents, officers armed' with rifles, waggon drivers, negroes. ”

“ Call our wretched force an Army! Why, to quote a writer, whose letters have been published in our leading journal, "Nobody could tell the Secretary of State for War how a force of forty thousand men, if it had to be supplemented for defensive purposes by Volunteers, could be supplied with ammunition for six weeks." Call our force an Army! ”

“ Or a little carbine rifle, or a musket on my shoulder,
Or just a snare-drum, snarling in the middle of the band;
I want to hear, high overhead, The Old Flag flap her wings
While all the Army, following, in chorus cheers and sings;
I want to hear the tramp and jar
Of patriots a million,
As gayly dancing off to war
As dancing a cotillion.
I want to be a Soldier!—
A Soldier!—
A Soldier!—
I want to be a Soldier, with a sabre in my hand
Or a little carbine rifle, or a musket on my shoulder,
Or just a snare-drum, snarling in the middle of the band. ”

“ The infantry is the Oliver Twist of incessant demand. It would like a score of batteries turned on one machine gun, all the batteries in the army against a battalion front, and a sheet of shells in the air night and day, as you yourself would wish if you were up in the firing-line.
Guardians of the precious lives of their own men and destroyers of the enemy's, the guns keep vigil. Every night the flashes on the horizon are a reminder to those in the distance that the battle never ends. Their voices are like none other except guns ”

“ To the army that has handled rifle and pick in turn, fighting Arabs or fever as they came, facing an inglorious death in hospital with stoic resignation, and which by its brilliant valour has preserved the most famous traditions of our arms among our youthful soldiers. ”

“ Who ever heard of an army marching, without artillery and cavalry, one way, while these arms travelled by a different road entirely, and that not for a march of twenty miles, but for a march of three hundred? One battery is to go with us. But what will be the use of six guns against an enemy with sixty? Every day the baggage is being cut down owing to these blackguard Portuguese breaking their engagements to furnish waggons, and we shall have to march pretty nearly as we stand, and to take with us nothing beyond one change of clothes. ”

“ Hold the helpless in thy keeping, Warder of the Right!
By the guns that scarred thee, By the guns that guard thee,
Thine e'gles soar; from war to war, But never stain has marred thee!
We thy sons shall fail thee never! Time nor tide our faith shall
sever! all for thee, and thou forever, Flag of victory! ”

“ These sound tactics—the only tactics appropriate to modern firearms—cannot be hurried, for to charge men armed with the magazine rifle and not yet shaken is to sacrifice your troops to their own bravery. ”

“ When such a time comes happily, if the nation does not disarm as rapidly and completely as she is now arming, it will, we firmly believe, be owing mainly to her having, in the meanwhile, made of the rifle a national toy, and of martial exercise a national pastime. ”

“ Close upon eight thousand men follow our standards, and as many more have been turned away for want of arms. We have twice met the enemy, with the effect that we have armed ourselves with their muskets and field-pieces. ”

“ It is observable that there and here the armouries are said to be furnished with shields and helmets, defensive arms, not with swords and spears, offensive, though it is probable that there were such, to intimate that the military force of a people must be intended only for their own protection and not to invade and annoy their neighbours, to secure their own right, not to encroach upon the rights of others. ”

“ What in hell do we want of zouaves in French uniforms, cavalry, armed with Austrian lances, ridiculous rocket-batteries, Polish riders, Hungarian hussars, grenadiers, mounted rifles, militia and volunteers in every garb, carrying every arm ever created by foreign armourers and military tailors! ”

“ This is a free country, and each soldier on his own terms, in his own good time, obeys the adjutant's command. In the aggregate, every movement in the manual of arms, and many more, are attempted; in the ultimate, the entire battalion gets there. ”

“ Therefore you see an infantry soldier has one weapon and one only—the rifle. You fellows will be out at the Front pretty soon. Now, if a man gets up the line, no matter how strong he is, how well drilled, if he can't use his rifle he might just as well not be there for all the good he is to his country. ”

“ To entitle troops to the special privileges attaching to belligerency, chapter i. provides that all regular, militia or volunteer forces shall alike be commanded by persons responsible for the acts of their men, that all such shall carry distinctive emblems, recognizable at a distance, that arms shall be carried openly and operations conducted in accordance with the usages of war observed among civilized mankind. ”

“ Gather an army and go forth with guns, and you may be laid in the dust. But the gathered forces of peace are as the fingers on God's hand, one with His strength, one with His will. Friends, friends, we have been searching earth for the weapon already in our grasp. The woman at the loom, the mujik in the field, the workman on the housetop, the man at the wire, the throttle, the wheel, hold it in their hands. ”

“ The sooner we are strong the less the chance of more fighting. We muster now some 30,000 all told, though not all armed. We want arms and ammunition, and caps—Minie rifles. Or the rifle corps pattern the General would as soon have. He is well and radiant with joy and hope, though sighing over the necessity to shed blood. ”

“ But as he said of the law, that without this sword it is but paper, so he might have thought of this sword, that without a hand it is but cold iron. The hand which holds this sword is the militia of a nation; and the militia of a nation is either an army in the field, or ready for the field upon occasion. ”

“ And forged helm, and shield of seven times beaten brass,
Are idle trophies of the vanquisher.
When confusion rages, when the field is in a flame,
When the cries of blood tear horror from heaven,
And yelling death runs up and down the ranks,
Let Liberty, the charter'd right of Englishmen,
Won by our fathers in many a glorious field,
Enerve my soldiers; let Liberty
Blaze in each countenance, and fire the battle.
The enemy fight in chains, invisible chains, but heavy ”

“ Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us; confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight ”

“ While we were closely hugging the intrenchments, to avoid as far as [Pg 258] possible the enemy's fire, every man grasping his musket, and waiting for the word of command, a staff officer, possessing more courage than discretion, came along, with pistol in one hand and sword in the other, and gave the order to commence firing. In an instant the men were on their feet, and the utmost confusion prevailed. ”

“ In the very act of leading those valiant men, with his hand uplifted in an effort to cheer them on, and his noble face turned partly to his command, but not altogether away from the enemy, a bullet pierced him, and he fell, regretted not only by his devoted little army, but by every man, woman and child who ever heard how bravely he fought for the flag they love. ”

“ To dig for the guns of a bullock-brigade....
Now the Line’s but a man with a gun in his hand,
An’ Cavalry’s only what horses can stand.
Artillery moves by the leave o’ the ground;
But we are the men that do something all round:
For we are her Majesty’s Royal Engineers,
With the rank and pay of a Sapper!”
Epaulment.—An earthwork thrown up to conceal and protect guns and gunners from the fire of the enemy.
Esprit de Corps.—It is described in James’ “Military Dictionary” as the “feeling of attachment a soldier has for his regiment, even to the point of thinking it the best in the army. ”

“ With musket, pike, or knife;
He wields the deadliest blade of all
Who lightest holds his life.
The arm that drives its unbought blows
With all a patriot's scorn,
Might brain a tyrant with a rose,
Or stab him with a thorn. ”

“ Without arms, without money of effect, without a regular soldier in the State, or a regular officer, except Steuben, a militia scattered over the country, and called at a moment's warning to leave their families and firesides, in the dead of winter, to meet an enemy ready marshalled, and prepared at all points to receive them. ”

“ To a coat of arms no man, literally speaking, has pretensions, who is not the representative of somebody that bore arms in the old English wars; but when the necessity for military virtue decreased, arms gave way to the gown; and shields had honourable, but fantastic augmentations, for the peaceful triumphs of lawyers and statesmen. ”

“ When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells
Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue
Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.
Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." ”

“ In the United States all of the forces are now provided with standard arms or weapons. The army, the Marine Corps and the organized militia of the States, absorbed into the body proper of national troops, have the same firearms—the same service rifles, the same machine guns and field guns and the same automatic pistols. ”

“ I am too well acquainted, my lords, with the lenity of our ministers to the enemies of their country, and am too well convinced of the prudence and tenderness of the restrictions by which the power of our admirals is limited, to expect that our guns should be ever used but in salutations of respect, or exultations on the conclusion of a peace. ”

“ It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. ”

“ Indeed, our military law makes it the duty of every man, not exempted by law, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, to arm himself with a musket, rifle, or some firelock, with a certain quantity of ammunition, etc. ”