The young man smelled the officer's blood and felt its warmth penetrating his shirtsleeves. He became dizzy, disgusted, wanted to retch. In his right hand, the private held the nickel-plated revolver, sticky with blood, and with his left arm, he was now holding up a dead man. The soldier to his right was watching him with furrowed brow, trying to figure out what he was seeing in the near total darkness, and the young man did not hesitate to raise the revolver and fire it into the Rebel's chest. But there was another enemy soldier behind that one, and he raised his musket and fired, striking the corpse that the private still held upright with his left arm. Two shots from the revolver took down that Rebel. He heard noises to his left, and swung the dead man in that direction. One, two, and then three minie balls thumped into the lifeless body of their commanding officer. He fired the remaining three rounds, knocking down two more Rebels. He threw down the empty gun and began searching for the commander's other gun. His left hand got a grip on the other revolver, and the dead officer began to fall away. Then he saw the skinny kid, aiming with his ancient musket, hands shaking. The private began to raise the revolver, but it was too late—the kid fired, and he felt the round slap into his belly. The kid was frantically reloading, fumbling with paper cartridge and lead ball, but the private shot him through the throat with his left hand, and then turned his attention to who else might be alive near him. There was no one. He was terribly disoriented, and became aware finally of the pain in his side, the blood pouring from the hole in his stomach and mixing with the Rebel's blood on his trousers. He took off his shirt and tied it around his midsection, then collapsed onto the body of the Confederate officer.

Stay awake. Breathe in, breathe out. Head spinning, got to clear my head. Breathe in, breathe out.

He heard footsteps now, tried to play dead, with no idea where he dropped the second revolver. Then the footsteps were gone, and he was still conscious, breathing, alive. He opened his eyes but could see nothing in the pitch black. He pushed himself to his knees. Got to get back to camp, can't die out here in the woods. One hand covering his wound, he began to crawl toward the distant flames, the sounds of men screaming and horses whinnying. The gunfire was a continuous blur of pops and bangs, most of it in the distance as the Union troops withdrew from the camp. After a few yards, he pulled himself to his feet with the help of a birch tree and walked the remaining twenty yards to the clearing.

It was awful. Everyone was dead and everything was on fire, the air thick with smoke. In the dark, he stepped on someone's leg and instinctively apologized, but there was just the leg, no one to apologize to. He saw some men standing by the officers' tents, and stumbled in that direction, avoiding the bodies of the wounded and dead as best he could. Had to talk to an officer, and there's one standing up ahead. But he reached the man and saw that there wasn't much left; a shell had exploded at his feet, and the shrapnel had nailed him to the telegraph pole against which he had been leaning. The young man swooned, and now he was on his back, staring up at the dead officer still standing at attention, and as he blacked out, he heard the footfalls of cavalry.