The Glory of the Coming by Irvin S. Cobb

THE deadlier end of a snake is the head end, where the snake carries its stingers. Since something happened in the Garden of Eden this fact has been a matter of common knowledge, giving to all mankind for all time respect for the snake and fear of him. But what not everybody knows is that before a constrictor can exert his squeezing powers to the uttermost degree he must have a dependable grip for his tail, else those mighty muscles of his are impotent; because a snake, being a physical thing, is subject to the immutable laws of physics. There must be a fulcrum for the lever, always; the coiled spring that is loose at both ends becomes merely a piece of twisted metal; and a constrictor in action is part a living lever and part a living spring. And another thing that not everybody knows is that before a snake with fangs can fling itself forward and bite it must have a purchase for the greater part of its length against some reasonably solid object, such as the earth or a slab of rock.

Now an army might very well be likened to a snake, which sometimes squeezes its enemy by an enveloping movement but more often strikes at him with sudden blows. In the case of our own Army I particularly like the simile of a great snake -- a rattlesnake, by preference, since in the first place the rattlesnake is essentially an American institution, and since once before our ancestors fought for their own freedom, much as we now are fighting for the freedom of the world, under a banner that carried the device of a rattler coiled. Moreover, the rattlesnake, which craves only to be let alone and which does not attack save on intrusion or provocation, never quits fighting, once it has started, until it is absolutely no more. You may scotch it and you may bruise and crush and break it, but until you have killed it exceedingly dead and cut it to bits and buried the bits you can never be sure that the job from your standpoint is finished. So for the purpose of introducing the subject in hand a rattlesnake it is and a rattlesnake it shall be to the end of the narrative, the reader kindly consenting -- a rattlesnake whose bite is very, very fatal and whose vibrating tail bears a rattle for every star in the flag.