Pat, evidently finding that if the bombardment continued much longer he would have to strike his flag, concluded to do so at once, and with a face as rosy as a boiled lobster and a humorous twinkle in his eye replied: "Sure, leddies, it's not deaf that I am; but since ye're determined to know where I've been hurted, it's—it's where I can't sit down to take my males. The rascally bullet entered the behind o' me coat!"
Sudden locomotion followed, and the story circulated among the fair sex like quicksilver on a plate of glass; but while Paddy had plenty of sympathy, the pestered him with no more questions of "Where are you hurt?"
HENRY W. B. HOWARD.
INDIVIDUAL HEROISM AND THRILLING INCIDENTS.
KINDNESS TO FEDERAL PRISONERS BY MEMBERS OF THE FIFTY-FOURTH VIRGINIA REGIMENT—AN ORATION ON PATRIOTISM—THE LAST WORDS OF AN HEROIC SOLDIER—HE DIES FOR US—MATCHING GALLANT AND CHIVALROUS DEEDS OF PREVIOUS WARS—AN INCIDENT OF GETTYSBURG—HOW GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON GAVE AID AND COMFORT TO HIS ENEMY, GENERAL BARLOW—WOMEN WHO DARED AND SUFFERED FOR THE FLAG—MRS. BROMWELL, A BRAVE COLOR-BEARER IN TIME OF DANGER—A MODERN ANDRÉ—THE SULTANA DISASTER—THE HERO OF BURNSIDE'S MINE.
AN ORATION ON PATRIOTISM.
I have listened to the best speakers our country has possessed in the thirty years which have elapsed since the war, but not one of them has made the impression on my mind which a few words, falling from the lips of a private soldier, did away back in 1862.
It was the night of the 30th of August, 1862, and I, with others, was lying in the Van Pelt farmhouse, on the field of the Second Bull Run. The time of night I do not know. I had been semi-unconscious from the joint effect of chloroform and amputations. The room in the old farmhouse in which I lay was crowded with desperately wounded men, or boys, for some of us were not nineteen years of age—one hundred and seventy odd men in and around the house. With returned consciousness, sometime in the night, I became aware of voices near me.