336 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



Thick with green foliage — so that piteously 

 Each passer-by that ruin shuddereth, 

 And saith "The gap this branch hath left is wide ; 

 The loss thereof can never be supplied." 



One sentence among the tributes to his memory has 

 deeply stirred me. It runs thus : " Please accept my thanks 

 as an army officer for your interest in and desire to pay 

 tribute to the memory of a fellow officer who sacrificed his 

 life in his country's service. It is the knowledge that friends 

 at home do not forget, that encourages the soldier in the 

 field and gives to him the feeling that he is truly a champion 

 of the people and not a hireling. It is sentiment that wins 

 our battles, not brute courage or love of carnage." 



That gallant army to which Walter Dickinson belonged 

 and of which he was so justly proud is an army of trained 

 and educated patriots. If "This war has taught us the 

 morality of education," and "if the schools have fought 

 it," none the less has it been fought and brought to a close 

 by that little band, the regulars, — scholars, patriots and 

 soldiers. The thinking bayonet, the scholarly sword, have 

 gone hand in hand with the most marvelous exhibitions of 

 courage and undying patriotism. An army of heroes — 

 bearing the summer's heat and wintry cold without a mur- 

 mur — enduring all things — suffering all things — with 

 too often the certainty that politics and influence would 

 play their part in preferment, rather than merit. Yet never 

 for an instant swerving from the path of duty, though that 

 duty led them unto death : officers leading their men and 

 men vying with their officers : performing such prodigies of 

 bravery that the foreign attache in breathless surprise ex- 

 claimed: "This is not war, but it is magnificent." This is 



