Imaginary wars and battles -- Fiction; Science fiction
"All day the battle raged with terrible fury until long after the shades
of night had fallen. Indeed, the heaviest musketry I ever heard occurred
some time after pitch darkness had completely enveloped us. My supper
that night was a very plain one. A piece of corn bread, or hoe cake,
that I had abstracted from the haversack of a dead Southerner, and a
canteen of cold water constituted that simple meal. I really felt a
sense of gratitude toward the poor Confederate, who had undoubtedly
baked the corn bread that morning, little thinking that it was destined
to be eaten by a miserable Yankee drummer boy. But such is the fate of
war.
"It had been very hot during the day, but the night was bitterly cold.
There was a heavy frost that night, and under a thick blanket upon the
bare ground, I slept by fitful snatches. Let me tell you, friends, that
the most terrible place upon earth is a battlefield at night. The groans
of the wounded men and horses are awful beyond anything I ever heard.
All night I could hear their heartrending cries, but in the pitch
darkness could do nothing to help them. How many times I thought of my
far away northern home during that awful night. Should I live through
the morrow? for the battle would certainly be resumed with the return of
daylight. Should I ever see mother, brothers and sisters, home and
friends again?"
Here the Doctor sang softly and slowly part of the pathetic old war
song:
"Comrades brave around me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God;
For well they know that on the morrow
Some must sleep beneath the sod."
The little party were deeply impressed, for the Doctor was a good story
teller, and was himself much affected at this point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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