He was an amiable old fellow, with gray hair carefully combed back from his curved forehead, a florid countenance, boyish blue eyes, puffed cheeks, a smooth chin, and very military-looking gray moustache. He was manifestly a man who ate ample dinners and amply digested them. He would glance contentedly downward at his broad, round body, and smilingly remark:
“I didn't have that girth in my fightin' days. I got it after the war was over.”
All who knew him admired him. He would tell with simple frankness how, after distinguishing himself at Antietam, he chose to remain a private rather than take the lieutenancy that was placed within his reach. He would frequently say:
“I ain't none o' them that thinks the country belongs to the soldiers because they saved it. No, sir! If they want the country as a reward, where's the credit in savin' it?”
How could one help exclaiming: “What a really noble old man!”
Finally some of the young men who received daily inspiration from his autobiographical narratives arranged a surprise for the old soldier. They presented him with a finely framed picture of the battle of Gettysburg, under which was the inscription:
“To a True Patriot. Who Fought and Suffered Not for Self-Interest or Glory, but for Love of His Country.”
This hung in his shop until the day of his death. Then his brother came from his native village to attend to his burial. The brother stared at the picture, inquired as to the meaning of the inscription, and then laughed vociferously.
In the old soldier's trunk was found a faded newspaper that had been published in his village in 1865. It contained an account of an accident by which a grocer's clerk had lost his arm in a thrashing-machine. The grocer's clerk and the old soldier were one person.
He had never seen a battle, but so often had he told his war stories that in his last days he believed them.