g for them was obliged to take the shape of
exposing them to the most fatigue and hardship, of demanding from them
the greatest service, and of making them incur the greatest risk. Once
I kept Greenway and Goodrich at work for forty-eight hours, without
sleeping, and with very little food, fighting and digging trenches. I
freely sent the men for whom I cared most, to where death might smite
them; and death often smote them--as it did the two best officers in my
regiment, Allyn Capron and Bucky O'Neil. My men would not have respected
me had I acted otherwise. Their creed was my creed. The life even of the
most useful man, of the best citizen, is not to be hoarded if there be
need to spend it. I felt, and feel, this about others; and of course
also about myself. This is one reason why I have always felt impatient
contempt for the effort to abolish the death penalty on account of
sympathy with criminals. I am willing to listen to arguments in favor of
abolishing the death penalty so far as they are based purely on grounds
of public expediency, although these arguments have never convinced me.
But inasmuch as, without hesitation, in the performance of duty, I have
again and again sent good and gallant and upright men to die, it seems
to me the height of a folly both mischievous and mawkish to contend
that criminals who have deserved death should nevertheless be allowed
to shirk it. No brave and good man can properly shirk death; and no
criminal who has earned death should be allowed to shirk it.

One of the best men with our regiment was the British military attache,
Captain Arthur Lee, an old friend. The other military attaches were
herded together at headquarters and saw little. Captain Lee, who had
known me in Washington, escaped and stayed with the regiment. We grew to
feel that he was one of us, and made him an honorary member. There were
two other honorary members. One was Richard Harding Davis, who was with
us continually and who performed valuable service on the fighting line.
The other was a regular officer, Lieutenant Parker, who had a battery
of gatlings. We were with this battery throughout the San Juan fighting,
and we grew to have the strongest admiration for Parker as a soldier and
the strongest liking for him as a man. During our brief campaign we were
closely and intimately thrown with various regular officers of the type
of Mills, Howze, and Parker. We felt not merely fondness for them as
officers and gentl