The Daily Dispatch: August 26, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Buchanan death.

The Rev.Heney Ward Brecher has lately delivered a discourse, in which he sets forth with great energy the advantages of dying on the field of battle, over dying a natural death. He maintains that it is vastly more comfortable and pleasant to be smashed up by a Minnie ball than to die by the lingering tortures of disease. He is, in fact, quite disgusted with the ordinary mode of dying, which he considers more painful, as well as less glorious, than to fall by a bayonet or a bullet.--Whether he succeeded in impressing this conviction upon his congregation, is not stated. It is evident, however, that "the Grand Army" at Manassas did not concur with this opinion.

We admire the characteristic magnanimity of Bercher in declining himself to die in that way, which he says is so agreeable, and leaving the pleasure and honor of it to other men. He once glorified the raid of John Brown into Virginia; but the exemplary Brown expressed surprise that he did not himself participate in what he considered so noble and delightful. It is evident John Brown did not appreciate the spirit of abnegation and self sacrifice which is so charming a characteristic of the heavenly Bercher. Who can forbear admiring that heroic and undaunted man who denies himself the luxury of a ball through his lungs, and cold steel under his waistband, when either might be had by a trip to Virginia, and resolutely takes his chances of dying by a fever or old age? Oh, sacred idol of the Puritan religionists! What must be the worshipper, when such is the God!