Explore "Brother against Brother" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The planter of Riverlawn was not a fighting character; he had always been one of the most peaceful of men. He had never raised a hand against one of his fellow-beings, and it required the stimulus of an occasion like the present to rouse a belligerent feeling in him, if the groundwork of any such emotion existed in his nature. It was hardly that, but rather a sense of his solemn duty, which he was called upon to perform, as a surgeon is required to amputate a limb to save life; and he was impelled to save the life of the Union.
Noah Lyon was not physically a large man, but one who weighed a hundred and a half; yet his frame was well knit, firmly compacted, and inured by hard labor from his boyhood. As he rose to his feet and marched down the middle aisle of the schoolroom, his face exhibited more strength than his form; for all the determination of his nature was concentrated in his eyes and the muscles of his countenance.