After Julius Cæsar had conquered Gaul, Britain, and Egypt, and had even overcome the great Pompey at Pharsalia, he found a victory over Pompey's two sons, mere lads, in Spain, a very different enterprise. Encountering them at the great battle of Munda, his army was about to yield before their intrepid leadership, when he rushed among his men, exclaiming, "Will you deliver me into the hands of boys?" He afterwards said he had often fought for victory, but it was the first time he had fought for his life.
Mr. Bryan, in a speech in Congress, made good use of an incident recorded by Muelbach, who narrated that at Marengo, when Napoleon gave up the battle as lost, and ordered a drummer-boy to beat a retreat, the lad's face saddened as he said: "Sire, I do not know how. Dessaix has never taught me retreat, but I can beat a charge. Oh, I can beat a charge that would make the dead fall into line! I beat it at Mount Tabor; I beat it at the Pyramids. Oh, may I beat it here?" The charge was ordered, and victory plucked from the jaws of defeat by the little hands of that heroic lad.
The incident is fanciful, but it is illustrative. There is a stone wall in a cemetery at Paris where many Communists were executed. When I saw it the wall still bore marks of shot, and fragments of the skin and hair of the victims were matted to the masonry. A lad who had been among the fiercest of the fighters was one of the condemned. While marching near his home and to the place of execution, he told the officer in command that he had a locket which he had just taken from the body of his dead father, and begged that he might bear it to his mother, promising to return and resume his place in the fated line. The officer, touched by his tender age, gave the permission, hoping and believing he would not return, thus sparing him the necessity of executing a mere child. Before the line reached its destination, however, the lad came up with hasty steps, stood against the wall, and faced the soldiers. The first volley tore out his brave little heart.
The cradles of France furnished the troops who fought and won the desperate battle of Wagram. "In my young soldiers," said Napoleon, "I have found all the valor of my old companions in arms."
The small boy as a soldier has never had a historian. No Foy or Napier or Thiers has done justice to his heroism; but he furnishes much of the enthusiasm, the dash and fury, of every triumphant army. It was the small boy of France who helped to win those marvellous victories under the revolutionary government of 1789, and, later, under Napoleon. When Wellington was contending against Marshal Soult in Spain, he got a number of young recruits from England whose smooth faces and dudish uniforms excited the derision of veterans. But when the conflict came they were foremost in the charge. The Duke, who had shared the contempt for these "parlor soldiers," was forced to admit that "the puppies fought well. They report oftener for duty, are capable of more endurance, and are irresistible in a charge. They need only a few veterans to steady them in action. Some are timid in the first encounter, as was Frederick the Great, but they soon overcome it." It was "a narrow lane, an old man and two boys," that saved the battle in Cymbeline, and forced on the Romans better thought of Britons than when Julius Cæsar "smiled at their lack of skill." The soul contributes more than the body to results. Take a boy of eighteen, inspire him with enthusiasm, and however fragile in form, he will outstrip, both on the march and in the field, the less impressible men with twice his physical strength. I have seen trudging in the ranks of Lee's army striplings whose equipments almost outweighed their delicate bodies. But they straggled less, were sick less, and were foremost in the fight. When the hour of battle came their faces brightened with a beautiful light, a smile would play over their features, and their disposition to cheer and charge became irrepressible. It has been said that the most dangerous antagonists are those who value their own lives the least; and these lads seemed not to think of either life or death, but the foe, the foe, and to be up and at them. Must a battery be captured? They rushed at it, and recked not of the terror and death it belched forth. Must a redoubt be carried? Forward they leaped so swift and brave, not counting the bristling mass that defended it.
"I AM THE KING'S DRUMMER AND CANNOT BEAT FOR REBELS."
Another and well-known incident of the bravery of a boy is the one which is told of a young drummer in 1798 who, in an engagement between the rebels and the King's troops, was captured. During the fight he was ordered by his captors to beat the drum for them. Without a moment's hesitation he placed his drum on the ground and put his foot through both heads, then sitting down he said, "I am the King's drummer and cannot beat for rebels."
All who have seen anything of war appreciate the presence of the small boy in the ranks, for he must be reckoned with in the hours of battle. A fury blazes in his little frame that nerves his delicate arm and gives a tiger-spring to his step.