This text is part of:
[284] an “order,” thus throwing the colonel off his guard, cocked his piece (which he could easily do, being so short), and suddenly bringing his piece to his shoulder, fired, the colonel falling dead with a bullet through his breast. The little fellow told his story simply and modestly, and the general determined to honor his bravery. He gave him the badge of the “Roll of honor,” which Mrs. Saunders, wife of the host of the Burnet House, sewed upon Johnny's coat. His eyes glistened with pride as he looked upon the badge, and little Johnny seemed suddenly to have grown an inch or two taller, he stood so erect. He left his photograph with General Rosecrans, who exhibits it with pride. We may hear again of Johnny Clem, the youngest soldier in the Army of the Cumberland. “God's flag :” --As one of the brigades of the reserve corps which came up to the rescue of General Thomas at Chickamauga was marching through the town of Athens, a bright-eyed girl of four summers was looking intently at the sturdy fellows as they tramped by. When she saw the sun glancing through the stripes of dazzling red and on the golden stars of the flag, she exclaimed, clapping her hands: “Oh, pa! pa! God made that flag! --see the stars!-it's God's flag!” A shout, deep arid loud, went up from that column, and many a bronzed veteran lifted his hat as he passed the sunny-haired, child of bright and happy thoughts, resolving, if his good right arm availed any thing, God's flag should conquer. What a sweet and happy christening the glorious ensign received from those artless lips-“God's flag!” and so it is,
Thayer and Eldridge, 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.