The Queen of Sheba and my Cousin the Colonel by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

With the departure of Our Country's Gallant Defenders, as they were / loosely denominated by some -- the Idiots, as they were compactly / described by others -- monotony again settled down upon Rivermouth. / Sergeant O'Neil's heraldic emblems disappeared from Anchor Street, and / the quick rattle of the tenor drum at five o'clock in the morning no / longer disturbed the repose of peace-loving citizens. The tide of / battle rolled afar, and its echoes were not of a quality to startle the / drowsy old seaport. Indeed, it had little at stake. Only four men had / gone from the town proper. One, Captain Kittery, died before reaching / the seat of war; one deserted on the way; one, Lieutenant Bangs, was / sent home invalided; and only James Dutton was left to represent the / land force of his native town. He might as well have died or deserted, / for he was promptly forgotten.

From time to time accounts of battles and bombardments were given in / the columns of the Rivermouth Barnacle, on which occasions the Stars / and Stripes, held in the claws of a spread eagle, decorated the / editorial page -- a cut which until then had been used only to celebrate / the bloodless victories of the ballot. The lists of dead, wounded, and / missing were always read with interest or anxiety, as might happen, for / one had friends and country acquaintances, if not fellow-townsmen, with / the army on the Rio Grande. Meanwhile nobody took the trouble to bestow / a thought on James Dutton. He was as remote and shadowy in men's / memories as if he had been killed at Thermopylae or Bunker's Hill. But / one day the name of James Dutton blazed forth in a despatch that / electrified the community. At the storming of Chapultepec, Private / James Dutton, Company K, Rivermouth, had done a very valorous deed. He / had crawled back to a plateau on the heights, from which the American / troops had been driven, and had brought off his captain, who had been / momentarily stunned by the wind of a round-shot. Not content with that, / Private Dutton had returned to the dangerous plateau, and, under a / heavy fire, had secured a small field-piece which was about to fall / into the hands of the enemy. Later in the day this little howitzer did / eminent service. After touching on one or two other minor matters, the / despatch remarked, incidentally, that Private James Dutton had had his / left leg blown off.