Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcribers's Notes]

This book complements "History of The World War" (Gutenberg 18993)--a broad view of many events and persons--with a personal and dramatic view of an Ideal American Soldier: thoughtful, brave, modest, charitable, loyal.

A photograph from the national archives accompanies this file.

www.archives.gov/southeast/exhibit/popups.php?p=4.1.11

photo-4-1-11.jpg

Here are some unfamiliar (to me) words.

badinage
Light, playful banter.

Chapultepec
Hill south of Mexico City, Mexico; site of an American victory on
September 13, 1847 in the Mexican War.

condoling
Express sympathy or sorrow.

currycomb
Square comb with rows of small teeth used to groom (curry) horses.

enured
Made tough by habitual exposure.

fastness
Strongly fortified defensive structure; stronghold.

kamerad
Comrade [German].

lagnappe
Trifling present given to customers; a gratuity.

levee
Formal reception, as at a royal court.

predial
Relating to, containing, or possessing land; attached to, bound to, or
arising from the land.

puncheon
Short wooden upright used in structural framing; Piece of broad,
heavy, roughly dressed timber with one face finished flat.

scantlings
Small timber used in construction.

tho
Though

[End Transcribers's Notes]

SERGEANT YORK AND HIS PEOPLE

BY SAM K. COWAN

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK By Arrangement with Funk & Wagnalls Company

[Stamped: 1610 Capital Heights Jr. High School Library Montgomery, Alabama]

Copyright, 1922, By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [Printed in the United States of America] Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention of the Pan-American Republics and the United States August 11, 1910.

To FLOY PASCAL COWAN THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, WITH A LOVE THAT WANES NOT, BUT GROWS AS THE YEARS ROLL ON

CONTENTS I. A FIGHT IN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE II. A "LONG HUNTER" COMES TO THE VALLEY III. THE PEOPLE OF THE MOUNTAINS IV. THE MOLDING OF A MAN V. THE PEOPLE OF PALL MALL VI. SERGEANT YORK'S OWN STORY VII. TWO MORE DEEDS OF DISTINCTION

SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORK

From a cabin back in the mountains of Tennessee, forty-eight miles from the railroad, a young man went to the World War. He was untutored in the ways of the world.

Caught by the enemy in the cove of a hill in the Forest of Argonne, he did not run; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a battalion of German machine gunners until he made them come down that hill to him with their hands in air. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them left, and he marched them, prisoners, into the American line.

Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said, "What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of Europe."

His ancestors were cane-cutters and Indian fighters. Their lives were rich in the romance of adventure. They were men of strong hate and gentle love. His people have lived in the simplicity of the pioneer.

This is not a war-story, but the tale of the making of a man. His ancestors were able to leave him but one legacy--an idea of American manhood.

In the period that has elapsed since he came down from the mountains he has done three things--and any one of them would have marked him for distinction.

SAM K. COWAN.