road, they plunged into
the swamp, that swept up black and dismal to the very edge of the
highway. The Confederate prisoners with them, warned them of their
danger, but the men were not to be stayed when a deadly rain of the
enemy's balls was thinning their ranks every minute. The swamp was one
black ooze with water up to their waists, a tangle of grass, reeds,
cypress trees, bushes. Loaded down with their heavy clothing, and
their army accoutrements, one after another the men sank from sheer
exhaustion. No man could succor his brother. It was all he could do to
drag himself through the mire that sucked him down like some terrible,
silent monster of the black, slimy depths. But Captain Conwell would
not desert a man. He could not see his comrades left to die before his
very eyes, those men who came right from his own mountain town, his
own boy friends, the ones who had enlisted under him, marched and
drilled with him. Rather would he perish in the swamp with them. He
worked like a Hercules, encouraging, helping, carrying some of the
more exhausted. A wet, straggling remnant reached Newberne. Even then,
when Captain Conwell found that two of his own company were missing,
he plunged back into the swamp to rescue them. Hours passed, and just
as a relief expedition was starting to search for him, he came back,
his hat gone, his uniform torn into rags, but with one of the men with
him and the other left on a fallen tree with a path blazed to lead the
rescuers to him. No heart could withstand such devotion as that. Young
and old, it touched his men so deeply, they could not speak of it
unmoved. They would gladly have died for him if need be, as one
did later, changing by his heroic act the whole current of Russell
Conwell's life.

This same earnest desire to save that made him plunge back into that
swamp, regardless of self, is with him still to-day, now that his
whole soul is consumed with a longing to save men from moral death. He
lets nothing stand in his way of reaching out a succoring hand. Then
it was his comrades that he loved with such unselfish devotion. Now,
every man is his brother and his heart goes out with the same earnest
desire to help those who need help. The genuineness, the unselfishness
of it goes straight to every man's heart. It binds men to him as in
the old days, and it gives them new faith in themselves. The love
of humanity in his heart is, and always has been, a clear spring,
unpolluted by love of