What he saw caused him to drop the stick he had been whittling. One brief glance had shown him that he was surrounded by Confederate soldiers, all staring intently into the Union encampment, all unaware that he was in their midst. If they noticed him, he would be shot at once. He pushed himself deeper into his crevice, gripping his knife with both hands, and tried to figure out how many of them there were. Two right in front now, still moving toward the right, and two others just behind and to the left. A few more up ahead were loading their muskets and scurrying on their bellies to line up a shot into the oblivious Union camp. The Rebels were mostly barefoot and looked skinny and dirty. Many wore bloodied clothes, some of them U.S. Government issue, and the young soldier recoiled at the thought of these men stripping clothes from dead Yanks. He resisted the temptation to bolt into the dark woods—he would surely be shot in the back.

There was a footfall, this one very near, and suddenly standing before his tree was an officer, his back to the young man, a long cavalry sword dangling from his belt, a shiny Colt .36 holstered at each side. The officer was not four feet in front of him, whispering orders to the men ahead—"Take aim…pull hammer…"—and here is my chance, he thought—"Fire!"

There was no time to think. At the explosion of the muskets, the area was enveloped in smoke, and the young man rose from his hiding place, took one step, and leapt onto the officer's back with the bowie knife at his throat. The older man recovered quickly, grabbed his arm, and with the knife an inch from his throat, stopped the upward progression of the blade. The young man realized that the Rebel was stronger than he, so he shifted his left hand up to threaten the officer's eyes, and the man instinctively moved a hand up to protect his face. With his right hand, the private plunged the knife into the side of the man's throat and pulled it firmly across the flesh above his larynx. The Rebel commander grunted, and grabbed the back of his attacker's head. He struggled and fought and pulled the young man's hair, as blood ran down the front of the Confederate officer's uniform. The private was thrown off the man's back and found himself lying face-up, staring into the barrel of a pearl-handled revolver. Blood gushed from the wound in the officer's neck, and the young man kicked desperately at the officer's legs, managing to knock him off balance. The gun wobbled in the officer's hand and fell onto the private's chest. He grabbed it and began rolling in the dirt.

Another roar from a dozen muskets—the troops were still firing into the camp, clueless to the struggle going on a few yards away, obscured by the smoke and the dark and the sounds of battle.

And yet the officer still stood, woozily reaching now for the left-handed holster, but the young private was on his feet now and behind him. He grabbed the officer around the chest, pinning his left arm against his body. He could feel the officer weaken, and the man started to topple over. He held the swaying man up with his left arm. There was a huge sound, a cannon firing nearby. The private could feel the vibrations of a solid shot bouncing across the camp, destroying everything in its path. He could see, in the distance, that the Rebs were coming up from over the railroad embankment, a classic encirclement, the pickets long since silenced, and no one ever thought to find out why. The Union camp was in complete chaos.