That officer knew how to suffer whom one of my brothers met on the battle field of Lorraine. An artillery officer, his arm was shattered, a few bits of flesh barely holding it fast to his shoulder. My brother, when he saw the man painfully dragging himself along, asked him whether or not he needed help.
"I don't need help," replied the wounded man, "but my battery down there does. It is retreating."
"If it is retreating, it can't be helped and it is a waste of time for me to get it ammunition...."
"No," begged the lieutenant, "get the munitions. We Colonials fight until the last man falls...."
He offered to guide my brother, mounted beside him on the artillery caisson, and stayed there all day. For after he had supplied his own battery, it was the battery next it, and then the one next to that, which he wanted to supply.... Finally, in the evening, at nightfall, they came to take him off in the ambulance. The major looked at his shattered arm, examined his frightful wound, and muttered:
"You are in a bad way. Couldn't you have come here sooner?"
The lieutenant replied humbly:
"Pardon me, I lost a lot of time on the way."