Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1905-10-19
The Red Badge Of Courage.
on Ninete o fApnl,lo

"He lests at scars who never felt wound. =
1t is no small thing to fight battle. He who
stands where military duty places him stands
like an anvil, and strikes like hammer-who
faces shot and shell and biting steel until his own
likelihood has marked brow or breast, he who thus
wears the red badge of courage is justly account
ed hero. 1t is not always heroic to fight. He
who in the fight is slain will never live to beget
Sons of the American Revolution. To retreat is
sometimes soldiers duty, duty he owes his
commander, his country and his children. But
to the world in general, blood is the red badge of
courage, the stamp of heroism as well as of sor-
row and suffering. Blood as the type of courage
may be considered under four heads.
First, the blood of the slave Not every cap
tive has slavish spirit; many slave is the slave
of circumstances, and endures because he cannot
resist. Slavery is by no means permanent in
stituton. The Man of Nazareth came to set at
liberty them that are bruised. But humanity, in
its upward march toward the divine, has often
trampled upon the weak. Do not despise the
slave unknown unwept, aforementioned, unappre.
ciated, and often accomplishing; the marks of the
lash upon his back have often been the red badge
of courage.
Closely associated with this is the blood of the
martyr. Like the slave he has not the power to
resist and conquer like the slave he endures: but
unlike the slave, he has clear vision. He knows
what it all means; he is conscious that he is, as
the word literally signifies, Witness that the red
badge of courage which he wears will teach future
generations the meaning and the power of truth.
In religious progress, the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church. So the patriot martyrs
have worn that badge, even to the end, and worn
it for you and me. Lowell was thinking of nat
ional and social life, though he used the Ian
guage of religion, when he wrote:-
SPY the light of burning heretics
Christ's bleeding feet track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number
How each generation learned
One word of that grand Credo
Which in prophet-h hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered
With his face to heaven upturned."
The men in whose memory we are met here to-
night were offered the red badge of the slave and
they refused it, They were offered the martyrs
badge but they said, "No. that is good, it is
pure and holy, but it has had its day. The
martyrs have witnessed to the truth, it is time
now to make truth triumphant" They chose
another red badge of courage, the badge of the
patriot, the soldier patriot. John Stark the hero
of New Hampshire, held the post of honor, that
is of greatest danger, at the battle of Bunker
Hil-the Massachusetts boys sheltered by
hastily constructed earth-works; but the New
Hampshire boys were protected only by brush
wood "Will those Colonials really stand and
fght?' inquired British officer, just landed
from another who had had experience in America
YES replied the latter '"They surely will if
one John Stark is there" He had seen one John
Stark fight Indians and Frenchmen, and had
learned the granite grit of the New Hampshire
hills. This same John Stark violated the laws of
military etiquette by urging Washington in blunt
language to cross the Delaware at Christmas and
attack the Hessians. And a reward he was
permitted to lead the van into Trenton. Later on,
he gathered the farmer boys from the back-woods
of New Hampshire and Vermont to check the
advance of Burgoyne While the Continental
Congress was passing vote OF censure upon
him for raising an army without their authority
because he was willing to wear the red badge of