Seeing York must be taken at any cost, a German lieutenant and seven men sprang up from behind one of the machine-guns, only about one hundred feet distant, and charged upon the red-headed American who was fighting a whole company. The officer who ordered the Germans to charge knew of course that some of them would be killed, but he was sure the remaining ones would capture or kill the American; but York, the man from Tennessee, who was not sure at one time that it was right to fight, did not lose his coolness, his courage, or his skill with the automatic pistol, and a German lieutenant and seven German privates fell before his unerring aim.
Then the German commander offered to surrender, and Corporal York and his seven American privates escorted one hundred and thirty-two German prisoners back to the American lines. About forty of these were added to the original number by the capture of another German machine-gun nest on the way back.
Corporal York showed the extreme modesty which is characteristic of very brave men, in not mentioning his exploit when he reached his own battalion headquarters. The prisoners had been delivered at another, and it was only by accident that York's superior officers learned of it later.
When Sergeant York returned to America, he was received with great pride by the Tennessee Society of New York City, and was granted his first wish to talk over the long-distance telephone with his old mother in Tennessee. He was taken to see the New York Stock Exchange where business was suspended for half an hour while the members cheered him. Thousands of persons on the streets recognized him and crowded around the automobile in which he rode so that the police had to clear a path for the car.
At the banquet given in his honor at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, generals, admirals, noted bankers, and members of Congress united in his praise. During the dinner, Sergeant York was unanimously elected an honorary life-member of the Tennessee Society.
From New York, he went to Washington, where he was similarly received because of these and other acts of heroism which distinguish him as one of the great soldiers of the World War. After being honorably discharged, he returned to the Tennessee Mountains to marry the girl who had been waiting for him to return from the war. The wedding which took place in a humble mountain home was attended by thousands of people from all over the state. The Governor of Tennessee, a former judge of the district, performed the ceremony, after which York and his bride were his guests at the Executive Mansion in Nashville, where a public reception was given in his honor.
Through these tributes to Sergeant York the people of the United States attempted to show their true appreciation and admiration of the courage and fortitude of the non-commissioned officer.
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY
[Transcriber's note: Because of the quantity of Unicode characters in these four pages, it was decided to just display them as images. Also, some of the "characters" on these pages are composite, e.g. the double-oh in the Abdul Hamid pronunciation, and not present even in Unicode.]