In
its ranks it carries the best that New York has to offer. The
polished metal gorgets of its officers reflect a past unstained;
its pedigree stretches to the cannon smoke fringing the Revolution.
To America the 7th was always The Guard; and now, in the lurid
obscurity of national disaster, where all things traditional were
crashing down, where doubt, distrust, the agony of indecision
turned government to ridicule and law to anarchy, there was no
doubt, no indecision in The Guard. Above the terrible clamour of
political confusion rolled the drums of the 7th steadily beating
the assembly; out of the dust of catastrophe emerged its
disciplined gray columns. Doubters no longer doubted, uncertainty
became conviction; in a situation without a precedent, the
precedent was established; the _corps d'elite_ of all state
soldiery was answering the national summons; and once more the
associated states of North America understood that they were first
of all a nation indivisible.
Down from window and balcony and roof, sifting among the bayonets,
fluttered an unbroken shower of tokens--gloves, flowers,
handkerchiefs, tricoloured bunches of ribbon; and here and there a
bracelet or some gem-set chain fell flashing through the sun.
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