"That is the reason, sir, that I have not written. I have not forgotten her, sir. I have prayed for her, and I thank God for giving me so dear a mother."
Then turning aside the sheet farther, the chaplain saw that his left leg was gone. Sitting down beside the young hero the chaplain wrote as he dictated.
"Tell mother that I have given my right arm and my left leg to my country, and that I am ready to give both of my other limbs!" said he.[55]
The courage and patriotism of Spartan mothers is immortalized in story and song. "Return with your shield, or upon it," has been held up for admiration through three thousand years. The Greek fire is not extinguished; it burns to-day as bright and pure as ever at Salamis or Marathon.
Riding in the cars through the State of New York after the battle of Gettysburg, I fell in conversation with a middle-aged woman who had two sons in the army.
"Have they been in battle?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; one has been in fifteen battles. He was taken prisoner at Chancellorsville and was wounded at Gettysburg. The other is in the Medical Department."
"The one who was wounded at Gettysburg must have seen some hard fighting."
"Yes, sir; and I hear a good account of him from his captain. He says my son behaves well. I told him, when he went away, that I would rather hear he was dead than that he had disgraced himself."
"His time must be nearly out."