Captain Macklin | Page 3

his playmate.
I knew nothing then, and I know very little now, either of my father or
my mother. Whenever I asked my grandfather concerning them he
always answered vaguely that he would tell me some day, "when you
are of age," but whether he meant when I was twenty-one or of an age
when I was best fitted to hear the truth, I shall never know. But I
guessed the truth from what he let fall, and from what I have since
heard from others, although that is but little, for I could not ask
strangers to tell me of my own people. For some reason, soon after they
were married my mother and father separated and she brought me to
live with her father, and he entered the Southern army.
I like to think that I can remember my mother, and it seems I must, for
very dimly I recollect a young girl who used to sit by the window
looking out at the passing vessels. There is a daguerreotype of my
mother, and it may be that my recollection of her is builded upon that
portrait. She died soon after we came to live with my grandfather, when
I was only three years old, but I am sure I remember her, for no other
woman was ever in the house, and the figure of the young girl looking
out across at the Palisades is very clear to me.
My father was an Irish officer and gentleman, who came to the States
to better his fortunes. This was just before the war; and as soon as it
began, although he lived in the North, in New York City, he joined the
Southern army and was killed. I believe, from what little I have learned

of him, that he was both wild and reckless, but the few who remember
him all say that he had many noble qualities, and was much loved by
men, and, I am afraid, by women. I do not know more than that, except
the one story of him, which my grandfather often told me.
"Whatever a man may say of your father," he would tell me, "you need
not believe; for they may not have understood him, and all that you
need to remember, until when you are of age I shall tell you the whole
truth, is how he died." It is a brief story. My father was occupying a
trench which for some hours his company had held under a heavy fire.
When the Yankees charged with the bayonet he rose to meet them, but
at the same moment the bugle sounded the retreat, and half of his
company broke and ran. My father sprang to the top of the trench and
called, "Come back, boys, we'll give them one more volley." It may
have been that he had misunderstood the call of the bugle, and
disobeyed through ignorance, or it may have been that in his education
the signal to retreat had been omitted, for he did not heed it, and stood
outlined against the sky, looking back and waving his hand to his men.
But they did not come to him, and the advancing troop fired, and he fell
upon the trench with his body stretched along its length. The Union
officer was far in advance of his own company, and when he leaped
upon the trench he found that it was empty and that the Confederate
troops were in retreat. He turned, and shouted, laughing: "Come on!
there's only one man here--and he's dead!"
But my father reached up his hand, to where the officer stood above
him, and pulled at his scabbard.
"Not dead, but dying, Captain," my father said. "And that's better than
retreating, isn't it?"
"And that is the story," my grandfather used to say to me, "you must
remember of your father, and whatever else he did does not count."
At the age of ten my grandfather sent me to a military academy near
Dobbs Ferry, where boys were prepared for college and for West Point
and Annapolis. I was a very poor scholar, and, with the exception of
what I learned in the drill-hall and the gymnasium, the academy did me
very little good, and I certainly did not, at that time at least, reflect any
credit on the academy. Had I been able to take half the interest in my
studies my grandfather showed in them, I would have won prizes in
every branch; but even my desire to please him could not make me

understand the simplest problems in long division; and later here at the
Point, the higher branches of mathematics, combined with other causes,
have nearly deprived the United States Army of a gallant officer. I
believe I have it in me