To authorize generals or other officers to lay down their arms in
virtue of a particular capitulation, under any other circumstances
than when they are composing the garrison of a fortress, affords a
dangerous latitude. It is destructive of all military character in a
nation to open such a door to the cowardly, the weak, or even to the
misdirected brave. Great extremities require extraordinary resolution.
The more obstinate the resistance of an army, the greater the chances
of assistance or of success.
How many seeming impossibilities have been accomplished by men whose
only resource was death!