Wager of battle

“ Not a man of them, while in the heyday of life and manhood, would have hesitated for a moment in choosing a death under shield, a death of violence and anguish, winning renown and conferring deathless honor, to the gentlest decay, the most peaceful dissolution. Not a man would have shed a tear, or shown a sign of sorrow, had he seen his favorite son, his most familiar friend, his noblest brother in arms, felled from his saddle in the mêlée, and trampled out of the very form of humanity beneath the hoofs of the charging cavalry. ”

“ The great pictures of the desperate battles of the mail-clad warriors of the cross and the Saracens are given with graphic fidelity, the figures in the huge tableaux nearly or quite the size of life, and the hand-to-hand encounter of sword, cimeter, battle-axe, and mace, or the desperate struggles in the "imminent deadly breach," the fierce escalade, the terrific charge, or the desperate assault, represented with a force, vigor, and expression that almost make one's blood tingle to look upon them. ”

“ As long as our country shall prosper, as long as our banner shall wave,
Sever the bonds of oppression as they severed the bonds of the slave.
37
ARISE, MY SOUL!
Arise, my soul! forsake the shadows dreary,
Where dark and dread battalions line the way;
The grandest heights refuse to make us weary
When we can struggle upward day by day.
Arise, my soul! do swift and valiant battle,
Tread down the foe beneath thy steadfast feet;
Fear not the stern assault, the cannon's rattle,
A moment's failure makes the end more sweet. ”

“ Strength exhausted, arrows spent, bow-strings snapped, swords shattered, the two armies fall upon one another in the supreme struggle for life or death. To yield is to become the barbarian's slave: to fight is to mingle our bones with the desert sand... ”

“ I cannot forbear to wish, that this commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued by terrour rather than by violence; and therefore recommend such a force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope of resistance, and by conquering without a battle, fave many from the sword. ”

“ The noble hero feels no fatigue; him no challenger need call to the combat. It was the slave alone that drove back the horsemen whilst the flame of battle was blazing,—then speeded away their troops in terror of my arm,—light they fled, burthened though they had been. Crushing were the stamps and tramplings on their necks, and the horse shoes dashed and pounded their skulls. How many warriors were laid low by my sword, whilst they tore, in very rage, their hands with their teeth. ”

“ It is the vexation of this conviction that hath brought my face to the meagreness and sallow tint that accused the scorching sun of Barbary. I love the rush of battle. The clash of swords or roaring of artillery is music to me. There is joy in contending, life for life, with a traitor, and marshaling the fierce battalions on the field. ”

“ I came hither in the belief that I should find here brave men ready for battle; who, at the appointed hour, would range themselves in fighting order, and declare war upon their oppressors as do we, who fight in open battle—as do we who, in open and honorable warfare, settle on whose side is the right. ”

“ The strife once more, and with his battle-shout
Woke victory; again his forces whirled
The hostile troops, and drove them on in rout.
The strength of ten battalions seemed to yield
Before his arm; and so he won that field,
And slew with his own hand the vengeful king,
And with that death-stroke brought the war to end,
Conquering the common foe, and conquering
The hate, from which he would not else defend
His clear renown than with such manful deeds
As fall to faith and valor at their needs. ”

“ How soon shall their words rise mid wrath of the battle Into wrangle unheeded of clanging and rattle, And no man shall note then the gold on the sword When the runes have no meaning, the mouth-cry no word, When all mingled together, the war-sea of men Shall toss up the steel-spray round fourscore and ten. ”

“ If it was the hero of the fight, possession of the field of battle and the enemy's country, established his claim as victor; but if only an ally, the fortune of the day still remains in the dark, and, like many other great battles, may be claimed by both parties. ”

“ The iron hand of a mercenary soldiery may keep for a time both classes tied down in common oppression. But the battle must break out in ever growing dimensions, and there can be no doubt as to who will be the victor in the end—the appropriating few, or the immense working majority. ”

“ The world is full of warfare 'twixt the evil and the good;
I watched the battle from afar as one who understood
The shouting and confusion, the bloody, blundering fight—
How few there are that see it clear, how few that wage it right! ”

“ Whatever be the disparity of strength, wealth and numbers, and whatever may be the result of encounters upon the battle-field, such a terrible war as both sides are capable of waging can never build up or sustain a fabric whose cement must be brotherhood and kindly feeling. ”

“ And it does seem awful that this bloodshed, misery, madness, and sorrow should have [113] been thrust on a happy world by men whose real aim is power, wealth, loot, and lust. This war ought to end war. Ordeal by battle may suit our pagan philosophers. ”

“ With all due allowance for poetical license, the conception of this battle which long ago became fixed in the public mind, does a cruel injustice to the gallant men who were maimed or killed on that hard fought field. ”

“ A strange and unprecedented contest it was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle in a sponge of ways and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun under the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudes untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless labour and enervated by the tradition of two hundred years of servile security against multitudes demoralised by lives of venial privilege and sensual indulgence. ”

“ You have patiently endured privations, hardships, and difficulties unappalled; you have encountered odds of two to one of the enemy against you, and borne yourselves, in the onset and conflict of battle, in a manner unknown in the annals of modern warfare. ”

“ But let me drop this strain of woe: I told thee of the coming foe, And he did come, in such array As well foretold a stubborn day. Few words I spoke to those who stood, With ready arms, within that wood; But, when I ceas’d, the battle cry Rung long and loudly—strike or die! Erst trampling horse, in armor bright, Pricked to the front and wooed the fight, [Pg 46] With volley quick and furious tread Essayed th’ assault, and, wheeling, fled. I forward sprang, and at one yell A thousand warriors served me well, And urging ball and feather’d dart, Play’d hot and strong the warrior’s part ”

“ A man must win or lose in business and many are the weapons used. I struck with the first one at hand and hit the man in front of me. Do you blame a soldier for the suffering of the dependents of those he kills in battle? ”

“ The men whose duty it was to follow the line of battle and bury our dead soldiers tell us that in the dying hour the soldier's hand unclasped his weapon and reached for the inner pocket to touch some faded letter; some little keepsake, some likeness of wife or mother. This pathetic fact tells us that soldiers have won their battles not by holding before the mind some abstract thought about the rights of man. ”

“ What money can a wounded soldier like your humble servant have amassed, with but his sword-hand left, which, being necessarily occupied, places not a finger at his command with which to scrape together the spoils of a routed enemy? ”

“ The cynical saying that God is on the side of the big battalions is true at bottom. We laugh to-day at the old custom of “Trial by battle,” recognizing that the innocent combatant was often the weaker or less skilful, and that the guilty consequently triumphed. ”

“ And to resent with arms all injuries, Or snares and pit-falls for a neighbor lay, Absurd he deems, as it would be, upon The field, surrounded by the enemy, The foe forgetting, bitter war With one’s own friends to wage, And in the hottest of the fight, With cruel and misguided sword, One’s fellow soldiers put to flight. ”

“ If thus your souls resolve to triumph in the fight!
V.
The felon foe, no more
Trampling the sacred shore,
Shall leave defiling footprint on the sod;
Where, desperate in the strife,
Reckless of wounds and life,
Ye brave your myriad foes beneath the eye of God!
VI.
On brothers, comrades, men,
Rush to the field again;
Home, peace, love, safety--freedom--are the prize!
Strike! while an arm can bear
Weapon--and do not spare--
Ye break a felon bond in every foe that dies! ”

“ Sometimes the victory which gives possession of the battle-field and drives a hated antagonist away is purchased at a dear price. The carcass of the victor is often found in the wallow, where his brief triumph has soon terminated from the effects of his wounds. ”

“ They were impatient for battles, charges, the kind of fighting that is done between great armies on the open field, when there is the roar and smoke of cannon, the rattle of small firearms, the clash of steel, the cries of captains, the shrieks and groans of wounded, the plenteous spilling of blood. ”

“ Is it any wonder that soldiers flushed with victory, after one of the hardest campaigns ever endured by men, should indulge—some of them—in unwarranted atrocities after finding such evidence of barbarism, and while more than forty of their comrades were weltering in their own blood upon the field? ”

“ The battle being fought and lost, it is your first duty to do away the moral effect of defeat,—the want of that self-respect and self-confidence, which are its immediate followers, and which, so long as they last, are the most powerful auxiliaries of your enemy. ”

“ As a general might have examined the list of killed and wounded after an action, computing with himself the cost of victory or defeat, so did this veteran warrior of a world's campaign go carefully over all the signs of wear and tear, the hard lines of pain or checkered coloring of agitation, which his last engagement might have inflicted. ”

“ The second edition of a paper containing the account of a battle in which some 5,000 were killed and 10,000 wounded, is eagerly perused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims hundreds of thousands, is allowed to rage without the uplifting of a weapon against the common enemy. ”

“ Because morale is not studied and because historical accounts are taken too literally, each epoch complains that cavalry forces are no longer seen charging and fighting with the sword, that too much prudence dictates running away instead of clashing with the enemy. ”

“ Nor, in counting up the cost of this dread struggle, must we overlook that great army of stricken and wounded men who, although they have survived the conflict of arms, have returned to us maimed and crippled for life. ”

“ They broke through the lines and all assailed the one in whom they saw the compensation for their loss. The end you know! Now accept a word of advice from an old soldier: The assault is not a race; not he who first, but he who most surely meets the enemy, approaches victory. ”

“ In that distressed land to the south of us, though cannon no longer boom, and though the sword is sheathed, a great war still wages—the war of faction and political turmoil that must always exist where men are unscrupulous and where measures are unjust. ”

“ Some finding themselves surrounded, out-numbered, and in all the perilous circumstances of desperate warfare, were obliged to supply by politic conduct the helplessness of their condition. These therefore, hastily mounting their horses, agreed with much resolution to break through the opposing ranks, sword in hand, with the words of mutual encouragement, “Come on! come on! all is our own,” thinking that the enemy, by these ambiguous shouts, fearing an ambuscade, would leave to them an easy passage by the sudden confusion of their alarm. ”

“ Thus while perjury became an every-day occurrence, the victorious army began to be itself vanquished by a powerful enemy which it had scarcely calculated upon, and was utterly unprepared to meet, and finally resting from its labors, enjoyed the sweets of peace and the fat of the land. ”

“ If war is to be confined to sieges, pitched battles, etc., then every method of wearying, annoying and discouraging an adversary, of keeping him in doubt, or goading him to desperation, must be equally condemned. ”

“ The army will be the peasant, the weaver, the trader, the student, the whole of the pacific multitude of life turned into the materials of war; the ten thousand rills that silently water the plain of society suddenly united into one 17inundation; the eyes of every man looking only for the enemy; the feet of every man pursuing him; the hands of every man slaying him. The insolence of the Frenchman has contrived to convey a sting of the bitterness of conquest into every heart of our millions, and our millions will return it with resistless retribution. ”

“ If the civilized world insists upon maintaining the trained soldier, and continues to hunger after the alleged glories of wars of conquest, we must get accustomed to the results. Wars of conquest are waged for very practical purposes. We combat the enemy because he happens to be in possession of something which we want and which we mean to have. ”

“ The idea would occur spontaneously to persons practising the ancient forms of Warfare, when victory dissolved the organisation of the conquering army and dismissed the soldiers to indiscriminate plunder. ”