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WOULD NOT DRINK BRANDY

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 18, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 7.

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WOULD NOT DRINK BRANDY.

By V. G. Ramsey

THE following true incident is related from the lips of Capt. Henry H. Ayer, of the Third Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers:—
“We were lying on Morris Island, that God-forsaken place, digging trenches, watching, fighting, taking our chances from bullets, shells, and fever; but our men were patient and brave, heroes every one of them, with the granite of their hills in their blood. To show you what stuff they were made of, I will tell you of one of the boys, a member of my company.
“One day this fellow, not more than nineteen years old, was brought in from the picket line, badly wounded. A painful surgical operation was necessary. The surgeon examined him, and prepared a glass of brandy, which he offered him. He refused to drink it. The surgeon appealed to me, saying: ‘He has lost much blood, and his vitality is low. If he does not take this, I can not answer for his life.’ I said, ‘Frank, to oblige me you will drink this brandy.’
“He said, ‘Captain, I would do almost anything to oblige you, but not this.’
“Frank, you have never disobeyed me. You must not now. I command you to drink this.”
“He looked up to me, his blue eyes dim with the anguish he endured, and replied, ‘Captain, when you command me to go to the cannon’s mouth, I will do it if I can, but this I will not do.’
“I was getting excited, for I loved this boy as if he had been my brother, and tears I could not restrain began to flow. I cried: ‘Why do you pain me so? You are putting your life in peril. You have no right to do it. Drink this for your mother’s sake.’
“He trembled, and tears his agony had not wrung from him, came to his eyes as he replied: ‘Captain, it is for my mother’s sake that I will not drink this brandy. My father died a drunkard, and she has told me I may have inherited his terrible appetite, and I promised her never to taste the deadly poison that made her a widow, and me an orphan. If I die, tell her I kept my promise.’
“By that time we were both crying like girls.”
“Did he die?” I cried.
“O, no, he made a rapid recovery! From that time my faith in brandy has been growing less.”—V. G. Ramsey, in N. Y. Voice.