It is purely a matter of sentiment that prompts any particular disposition of the bodies of those who fall in a fight, or who succumb to the ravages of fever; but to the fighting man in the field it is a tender sentiment that means much. The body of every American soldier who falls on a foreign shore is sooner or later brought home and buried, with all the honors of war. If his family or friends want his body for private burial, they are aided in securing it; but if it is not so claimed, it is then taken to one of the great national cemeteries and laid away with proper ceremonies. If one were to ask a soldier in good health whether he wanted to be taken home to be buried, he would probably reply that it did not matter at all what was done with his body after he got through with it. But if the time came when death seemed near, that same man would find sensible satisfaction in thinking that some day his own family would stand beside the box that served as the narrow cell of his last sleep. I have seen many a man die soothed by the feeling that he would eventually be taken home. In a severe campaign in a distant or foreign land, the idea of home finds a meaning to matter-of-fact and apparently unimaginative soldiers which they cannot express, but which stirs infinite pathos. When a soldier lies weak from a burning fever, but with all his mental faculties more than ever alert, or when he is on solitary outpost duty against an active enemy, with time to turn the situation over in his mind, it is then that he thinks of home as at no other time, and it is then that he will appreciate all that he knows will be done for him should he happen to be found by death. Whenever an American soldier falls in action or dies of disease, he receives as good a burial as the circumstances permit, and his grave is distinctly marked, so that there will be no possibility of its not being found when the time for removal comes. It may be months before the day arrives, but it is sure to come at last, and then the bodies are taken up and put in leaden-lined coffins and transported home. [Illustration: Burial at Arlington of 426 American soldiers who fell in Cuba.]