The men who die in this cause
die well; they could wish for no more honorable end of life.
The honor lost in our recent defeat cannot be regained,--but it is
indeed one of the advantages of defeat to teach men the preciousness of
honor, the necessity of winning and keeping it at any cost. Honor and
duty are but two names for the same thing in war. But the novelty of war
is so great to us, we are so unpractised in it, and we have thought so
little of it heretofore as concerning ourselves, that there is danger
lest we fail at first to appreciate its finer elements, and neglect the
opportunities it affords for the practice of virtues rarely called out
in civil life. The common boast of the South, that there alone was to be
found the chivalry of America, and that among the Southern people was
a higher strain of courage and a keener sense of honor than among the
people of the North, is now to be brought to the test. There is not
need to repeat the commonplaces about bravery and honor. But we and our
soldiers should remember that it is not the mere performance of set work
that is required of them, but the valiant and generous alacrity of noble
minds in deeds of daring and of courtesy. Though the science of war
has in modern times changed the relations and the duties of men on the
battle-field from what they were in the old days of knighthood, yet
there is still room for the display of stainless valor and of manful
virtue.
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