AN: Like I said in 'Trapped in a Murral', I am forced to publish my miserable creations for English. This is just a descriptive short paper through the views of a young man fighting in the Civil War. I guess it's okay. But I hate my writing, so I don't know.

Fighting at Shiloh

It was early in the cool morning on April 6, just a few days ago, I was packing up my overnight camp, and General Grant was planning on marching us south to take control of the Tennessee. I was getting in formation, standing in straight lines, six across on the tapered roads. The drums started pounding out the steady beat of the pace. I was near the church of Shiloh, then from out of the green pastures came the Rebels, almost as if they just grown out as blades of grass, in perfect lines spanning the horizon. The strong, stable sounds of the drums instantly changed to the hasty, swift beating of a battle cry. They took the first shots, starting the battle on what should have been a peaceful six square miles of plentiful fields. Men fell to the ground with a hard thump and a groan of pain; they were carried and dragged off to the re-propped-up hospital tents by their arms, legs, or anything else a brave nurse or fellow soldier could grab. The familiar scent of gunpowder and the light smoke from the rifles drifted slowly throughout the air across the wide field into the rain-filled clouds as the next shots were fired. More men crumpled over, down with a scream of pain and a cry of defeat. The new bullets were flying constant and close, close enough to hear the whistling. The man next to me was hit in the shoulder; his blood splattered across my miss-matched uniform as his arm ripped off his body, and then he fell a few feet from it. Instinct made me want to bend over and help him, but basic war courage forced me to press on in the fight, to take revenge on his life and struggle to protect my own. It felt as if everything, the people, the shots, the screams, were in slow motion. Nothing seemed real, and then more shots were hurled from the rifles, hitting men all around me and brushing my leg. The hot lead seared my calf causing a sharp, burning pain that forced me to crease my face and misfire my gun. I bent to one knee. As I became accustomed to the pain, I regained my composure, stood up, and took another shot before I was the next victim. The smoke gathered from the deadly rifles and filled the air like a dense rolling fog, blocking vision and stinging my eyes. The once straight lines now corked about as men were shot down. Many of the young men fled, no longer able to be boys in this war, fearful of death and afraid of killing. After dusk and the first day of battle, the groups separated for the night: one to Corinth and the other to Pittsburg Landing. I walked pass the tents that served as temporary hospitals, the ground just as bloodied as the field where I fought. There were piles surrounding the tents: random piles of fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, and legs. Another pile, one of the fallen men, who died trying to reunite our country or free the slaves of the south, was close by. Another ligament was added and one more body was stacked to the pile. The rain came down still. The air was scented with the grotesque smell of death and burning flesh as surgeons tried to close wounds and stop bleeding. I could still hear the singing of the bone saw, removing an arm or leg and hopefully any infection, and the new sound of the trickling of the nearby river. The blood-soaked nurses carried out more parts to be thrown and mixed with the others in the pile.

At camp, as the watchman stood guard, we counted our supplies and totaled the missing, wounded, and dead. I then had a brief moment to breathe and realized the man I had cold coffee with this morning, a man I had come to know, trust, and care about, a man who was my old neighbor, an old schoolmate, or friend was now gone from the earth. It was my turn to be on guard, while the other men washed themselves and were fed some of the routine food. I was tired after the first hour of waiting; I called out to the southerners just over the field, a common phrase of "Johnny Reb" replied with a "Billy Yank". A conversation went on between to enemies, who might have been brothers, neighbors, or acquaintances. After being relieved by another round of guards, trying to sleep was the next challenging task, always hearing the screams of now dead comrades, the booming of the rifles, the rattle of the muskets, and the ever present, though distant, beat of the drum. The next morning we awoke before sunrise, not eager to die or eager to fight, but instead anxious to finish the battle and the war and go home. The rain, still coming down, had washed away the blood to the creek at hand and had helped to disperse the smoke for a clean start. The drums from both sides pounded out the thrash of commands, signaling that the battle was once again starting. It was much like the day before: screams of anguish, blasts of triumph of a hit target, and the smoke screen - denser than the previous day. It blinded men from seeing the enemy causing them to only be able to aim in an approximate direction. I aimed for a gray uniform, but they all looked the same in the clouds of dust. I took a shot but now I was not sure if the target was one of our men or theirs. General Grant would not let us retreat; we outnumbered them and were going to forge through the fight. The battle ceased after the second day. Many of us began flipping over bodies, trying to identify men, hoping to see a breath, any glimmer of life from the motionless bodies. Seeing torn pieces of tape covered in the blood of the person who wrote his name on it, made the idea of death real.

Twenty-four thousand lay dead across the span of the battlefield. The casualties from the north numbered close to thirteen thousand and around eleven thousand from the south. Approximately one out of every four soldiers who fought died. The rest would go on to fight another battle, at another time, and another place. General Grant is getting much criticism from the newspaper and people of the north for being careless with his men, but you understand; these are desperate times, and they call for decisive actions. It was the bloodiest battle of the war yet - let's hope it stays that way.