For discipline's sake, if for nothing else, you gentlemen that make up this court-martial find the prisoner guilty.

It is necessary for you to be firm, gentlemen, for upon your decision depends the safety of our country.

When he had finished, thinks I to myself, "Gone up the spout, sure; we will have a first-class funeral here before night." Well, as to the lawyer who defended him, I cannot now remember his speeches; but he represented a fair-haired boy leaving his home and family, telling his father and aged mother and darling little sister farewell, and spoke of his proud step, though a mere boy, going to defend his country and his loved ones; but at one weak moment, when nature, tasked and taxed beyond the bounds of human endurance, could stand no longer, and upon the still and silent picket post, when the whole army was hushed in slumber, what wonder is it that he, too, may have fallen asleep while at his post of duty.
Some of you gentlemen of this court-martial may have sons, may have brothers; yes, even fathers, in the army.

Where are they tonight?
You love your children, or your brother or father.

This mere youth has a father and mother and sister away back in Tennessee.