It seems as though
America’s military history is filled with stories of inter-combatant dialogues
between private soldiers. Whether it is a
picket standing guard over his camp and shouting to his counterpart across the
way or a soldier in a trench calling out to the enemy on the other side of “no
man’s land,” these anecdotes seem to reach across the years and reveal to us
the indomitable spirit of the American soldier.
I believe we’re blessed, in this regard, insofar as we’ve been engaged
in several conflicts involving English-speaking soldiers on both sides and this has certainly contributed to the abundance of these
anecdotes. As I was finishing my reading
of Joseph Plumb Martin’s narrative of his service in the Continental Army, I discovered one such anecdote that I found especially humorous and I figured I would share
it.
I saw four or five
British horsemen on their horses a considerable distance from me, on the
island. When they saw me they hallooed
to me, calling me, “a white livered son of a b---h,” (I was dressed in a white
hunting shirt, or was without my coat, the latter, I think, as it was warm, and
I wore a white under dress.) We then
became quite sociable; they advised me to come over to their side and they
would give me roast turkeys. I told them
that they must wait till we left the coast clear, ere they could get into the
country to steal them, as they used to do.
They then said they would give me pork and lasses; and then inquired
what execution some cannon had done, just before fired from the island, if they
had not killed and wounded some of our men; and if we did not want help, as our
surgeons were a pack of ignoramuses. I
told them, in reply, that they had done no other execution with their guns than
wounding a dog, (which was the case,) and as they and their surgeons were of
the same species of animals, I supposed the poor wounded dog would account it a
particular favour to have some of his own kind to assist him. While we were carrying on this very polite
conversation, I observed at a house on the Island, in a different direction
from the horsemen, a large number of men, - but as they appeared to be a motley
group, I did not pay them much attention.
Just as I was finishing the last sentence of my conversation with the
horsemen, happening to cast my eyes toward the house (and very providentially
too) I saw the flash of a gun; I instinctively dropped, as quick as a loon
could dive, when the ball passed directly over me and lodged in the tree under
which my comrades were standing. They
saw the upper part of my gun drop as I fell, and said, “They have killed him;”
but they were mistaken. The people at
the house set up a shouting, thinking they had done the job for one poor
Yankee, but they were mistaken too, for I immediately rose up, and slapping my
backsides to them, slowly moved off. 1
The wit and resolve of the American soldier is
priceless! Thank God for those who
fought and died to keep us free!
Christ, not man, is King!
Dale
1) Joseph Plumb
Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York, NY: Signet Classics,
2010), p. 185-86.
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