Captain Macklin

Captain Macklin

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Macklin, by Richard Harding
Davis (#35 in our series by Richard Harding Davis)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Captain Macklin
Author: Richard Harding Davis
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6015] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 17, 2002]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CAPTAIN
MACKLIN ***

Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

[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