Crider - McDowell Family Tree

His only watchword as a scholar, teacher or soldier, was duty. When his fellow teachers and pupils expressed the fear on parting with him that they should never see his face again, he replied "I never think of that; I am persuaded that it is my duty to do what I can to save my country." In writing to them afterwards from camp he said, "I do not know that in all my life, I ever so truly desired and earnestly endeavored to have my heart right and my words and actions unexceptionable as since I came to this den of wickedness, the military camp of the Potomac." Again he says, "When I have been entering the crash of battle I have felt that prayer and faith have been the hands wherewith a soul clings to heaven and safety. I have learned to trust all hopes for this world and the next to him who died that I might live."