”My dear Colonel:
“I enclose a circular with a humble request for its interpretation. It is, without doubt, clear as crystal to the military mind, but to my peaceful mind it is as dark as theology, or a pocket, or midnight, or a wolf’s mouth.
“It orders, first and beginning, that we are to come in fatigue uniform, without side-arms.
“It ends by ordering us to bring our best coat, knots, and swords. I humbly inquire whether one end of this letter does not seem to eat up the other.
“Shall I wear my resplendent chapeau or my ridiculous cap, in which I look like a pumpkin with a ribbon around it? Shall I wear my coat and golden straps, or my other military coat, which I have not got, and never had?
“Lastly, may I go directly to Historical Hall, and not to the armory?
“I am, your ignorant chaplain and captain,
“Are overcoats forbidden? Thermometer nearly down to zero!”
On another occasion receiving a circular printed by one of the reduplicating processes then in vogue, but which was nearly illegible from the paleness of the ink, he wrote the colonel:
”My dear Colonel:
“I do admire black ink and legible writing. I return you a model. Do help me.
“(1) Is this a spiritual communication—from some feeble spirit to some pale-ink medium? How shall I reply? Do you keep a heavenly mail?
“(2) Or is it from Wolseley, asking me to come to the Soudan? I cannot go, of course, without your permission.
“(3) Or is it merely an advertisement of a writing-master, showing how to increase piety by teaching men to live (and read) by faith, and not by sight?
“(4) In that case have you got any more clerks—who can write invisible messages? I might want them for my Sunday-schools.
“(5) You ought to send out a reader (if this is a military document) to inform all who read it what it says.
“(6) On the theory that it is a regimental order, I shall soon commence studying the tactics, and be ready for a parade—which, if it resembles the writing, ought to take place at midnight, after the moon is gone, by the light of oil street-lamps.
As chaplain he enjoyed the “rank and pay” of captain, and on all military occasions was addressed as “Captain Beecher.” A few years after his appointment, being at the New England dinner with General Grant, the latter referred to him several times as “major.” Supposing it to be a slip of the tongue, “Captain” Beecher said nothing about it. A few nights later they met again at some other public dinner, when the general persisted in calling him “colonel”; then the captain protested, but Grant assured him laughingly that the next time he should promote him to be general, “and if you don’t keep on going higher it will be because the titles give out.” We believe he never got above “general.”
All of those who were familiar with Mr. Beecher, either in the pulpit, on the platform, or in social life, are familiar with that moral courage which led him to face unhesitatingly an adverse public sentiment in defence of what he believed to be right. The preceding pages are filled with many illustrations of this.
His physical courage, though perhaps not so well known to the public, was quite as pronounced as his moral courage. Athletic, self-reliant, and in his younger days wonderfully agile, he faced the most threatening danger without a tremor of his nerve.
In his advocacy of the slave he daily carried his life in his hands. At Liverpool he faced undaunted an imminent danger, no doubt largely averted by the utter fearlessness of his bearing. But in more marked degree was his courage shown in an incident, never made public, that occurred soon after he settled in Brooklyn.
A rabid dog, with lolling tongue and dripping jaws, threatening death in its most frightful form, appeared suddenly in the street near his house, and fortunately ran for a moment into the area under the front-door steps of a neighbor’s house, where he lay crouching in the corner, with his glaring eyes turned to the doorway. In the street children were playing; at any moment, the impulse to spring out might seize the beast. Seeing the danger, Mr. Beecher sprang instantly to the area-door, within less than four feet of the crouching brute, and closed the gate. Stepping back to his house, he got his axe. When he returned the dog was rushing furiously around in the confined space, striving to get out. Raising the axe with one hand, with the other Mr. Beecher opened the area-door, and as the dog sprang at him struck him dead with one blow.