n dress parade. Whoso drew a white bean was to be held prisoner of war;
whoso drew a black bean was to die.

In the early part of the drawing Wake drew a white bean. Toward the
close the turn of a neighbor and comrade from Owen county who had left
a wife and baby at home was called. He and Wake were standing together,
Holman brushed him aside, walked out in his place and drew his bean.
It turned out to be a white one. Twice within the half hour death had
looked him in the eye and found no blinking there.

I have seen quite a deal of hardihood, endurance, suffering, in
both women and men; splendid courage on the field of action; perfect
self-possession in the face of danger; but I rather think that Wake
Holman's exploit that day--next to actually dying for a friend, what
can be nobler than being willing to die for him?--is the bravest thing I
know or have ever been told of mortal man.

Wake Holman went to Cuba in the Lopez Rebellion of 1851, and fought
under Pickett at the Battle of Cardenas. In 1855-56 he was in Nicaragua,
with Walker. He commanded a Kentucky regiment of cavalry on the Union
side in our War of Sections. After the war he lived the life of a hunter
and fisher at his home in Kentucky; a cheery, unambitious, big-brained
and big-hearted cherub, whom it would not do to "projeck" with, albeit
with entire safety you could pick his pocket; the soul of simplicity and
amiability.

To have known him was an education in primal manhood. To sit at his
hospitable board, with him at the head of the table, was an inspiration
in the genius of life and the art of living. One of his familiars
started the joke that when Wake drew the second white bean "he got a
peep." He took it kindly; though in my intimacy with him, extending
over thirty years, I never heard him refer to any of his adventures as a
soldier.

It was not possible that such a man should provide for his old age.
He had little forecast. He knew not the value of money. He had humor,
affection and courage. I held him in real love and honor. When the
Mexican War Pension Act was passed by Congress I took his papers to
General Black, the Commissioner of Pensions, and related this story.

"I have promised Gen. Cerro Gordo Williams," said General Black,
referring to the then senior United States Senator from Kentucky,
"that his name shall go first on the roll of these Mexican pensioners.
But"--and the General looked beamingly in my face, a bit tearful, and
says