Part 1 — INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IV

By General O. O. Howard

“Maintain your rank, vulgarity despise,

To swear is neither brave, polite nor wise;

You would not swear upon a bed of death;

Reflect—your Maker now may stop your breath.”

Anonymous.

One moonlight night I was passing near a sentinel’s post. It was during the winter of 1861–2, in front of Alexandria, Virginia, at Camp California. The sentinel, in some trouble, used rough, coarse language, closing with an oath. Approaching him, till I could see his face, think of my astonishment to find him, instead of a burly man of low life, a handsome boy of seventeen. I said to him pleasantly: “How could your mother have taught you to swear?” Dropping his head with a sudden shame, he answered, “She didn’t, General. I learned it here.” And indeed, it came from the influence of his associates.

One’s language always gauges him.

47