Captain Macklin
Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916
English
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[Illustration: "Go, Royal!" he cried, "and--God bless you!"]
CAPTAIN MACKLIN
HIS MEMOIRS
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
Illustrated By
WALTER APPLETON CLARK
To MY MOTHER
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Go, Royal!" he cried, "and--God bless you!" FRONTISPIECE
He made our meeting something of a ceremony
We walked out to the woods
I was sure life in Sagua la Grande would always suit me
The moon rose over the camp ... but still we sat
And the next instant I fell sprawling inside the barrack yard
I sprang back against the cabin
I
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT
It may seem presumptuous that so young a man as myself should propose
to write his life and memoirs, for, as a rule, one waits until he has
accomplished something in the world, or until he has reached old age,
before he ventures to tell of the times in which he has lived, and of
his part in them. But the profession to which I belong, which is that
of a soldier, and which is the noblest profession a man can follow, is
a hazardous one, and were I to delay until to-morrow to write down
what I have seen and done, these memoirs might never be written, for,
such being the fortune of war, to-morrow might not come.
So I propose to tell now of the little I have accomplished in the
first twenty-three years of my life, and, from month to month, to add
to these memoirs in order that, should I be suddenly taken off, my
debit and credit pages may be found carefully written up to date and
carried forward. On the other hand, should I live to be an old man,
this record of my career will furnish me with material for a more
complete autobiography, and will serve as a safeguard against a
failing memory.
In writing a personal narrative I take it that the most important
events to be chronicled in the life of a man are his choice of a wife
and his choice of a profession. As I am unmarried, the chief event in
my life is my choice of a profession, and as to that, as a matter of
fact, I was given no choice, but from my earliest childhood was
destined to be a soldier. My education and my daily environment each
pointed to that career, and even if I had shown a remarkable aptitude
for any other calling, which I did not, I doubt if I would have
pursued it. I am confident that had my education been directed in an
entirely different channel, I should have followed my destiny, and
come out a soldier in the end. For by inheritance as well as by
instinct I was foreordained to follow the fortunes of war, to delight
in the clash of arms and the smoke of battle; and I expect that when I
do hear the clash of arms and smell the smoke of battle, the last of
the Macklins will prove himself worthy of his ancestors.
I call myself the last of the Macklins for the reason that last year,
on my twenty-second birthday, I determined I should never marry. Women
I respect and admire, several of them, especially two of the young
ladies at Miss Butler's Academy I have deeply loved, but a soldier
cannot devote himself both to a woman and to his country. As one of
our young professors said, "The flag is a jealous mistress."
The one who, in my earliest childhood, arranged that I should follow
the profession of arms, was my mother's father, and my only surviving
grandparent. He was no less a personage than Major-General John M.
Hamilton. I am not a writer; my sword, I fear and hope, will always be
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