I never saw him the
least excited in my life. His face was a face of bronze. His form was
somewhat slender, but when you looked at him you saw at the first glance
that this would be a dangerous man in a ground skuffle, a foot race,
or a fight. There was nothing repulsive or forbidding or even
domineering in his looks. A child or a dog would make up with him on
first sight. He knew not what fear was, or the meaning of the word fear.
He had no nerves, or rather, has a rock or tree any nerves? You might as
well try to shake the nerves of a rock or tree as those of Colonel Field.
He was the bravest man, I think, I ever knew. Later in the war he was
known by every soldier in the army; and the First Tennessee Regiment,
by his manipulations, became the regiment to occupy "tight places."
He knew his men. When he struck the Yankee line they felt the blow.
He had, himself, set the example, and so trained his regiment that all
the armies in the world could not whip it. They might kill every man in
it, is true, but they would die game to the last man. His men all loved
him. He was no disciplinarian, but made his regiment what it was by his
own example. And every day on the march you would see some poor old
ragged rebel riding his fine gray mare, and he was walking.
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