The Whites of Their Eyes

“Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows,” said Old Putnam, "don’t throw away a single shot, but take good aim; nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes.”

A. Lincoln

"If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I may seize the nearest stick and kill it. But if I found that snake in bed with my children that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide."

Ba’alzevuv

“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill.. You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? I’m the reason why… things are what they are.”

The Lion of Little Round Top

As my year of studying the Civil War draws to a close, I wanted to share my thoughts on my favorite figure: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. My first encounter with Chamberlain was through a reference in Ken Burns' PBS documentary series. Although not a primary figure, his contributions and background immediately appealed to me. He was... Continue Reading →

Rage, Achilles 

This year I decided to fill in a gaping gap in my liberal arts knowledge of antiquity by committing to sitting down and reading one of the most influential works in the Western cannon – Homer’s Iliad. The Iliad is a collection of books in the style of a poem; it contains 24 books arranged... Continue Reading →

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