What was left of my regiment formed in fours to join the advancing column.  Horses were galloping riderless, rein and stirrup flying, some horribly wounded.  One hobbled near me, a front leg gone at the knee.

Shells were flying overhead; cannonballs were ricocheting over the level valley, throwing turf in the air, tossing the dead and wounded that lay thick and helpless.

Some were crumpled like a rag, as if the pain of death had withered them in their clothes; some swollen to the girth of horses; some bent backward, with arms outreaching like one trying an odd trick, some lay as if listening eagerly, an ear close to the ground; some like a sleeper, their heads upon their arms; one shrieked loudly, gesturing with bloody hands, ’Lord God Almighty, have mercy on me!

I had come suddenly to a new world, where the lives of men were cheaper than blind puppies.  I was a new sort of creature, and reckless of what came, careless of all I saw and heard.

A staff officer stepped up to me as we joined the main body.

‘You ve been shot, young man,’ he said, pointing to my left hand.

Before he could turn I felt a rush of air and saw him fly into pieces, some of which hit me as I fell backward.  I did not know what had happened; I know not now more than that I have written.  I remember feeling something under me, like a stick of wood, bearing hard upon my ribs.  I tried to roll off it, but somehow, it was tied to me and kept hurting.  I put my hand over my hip and felt it there behind me — my own arm!  The hand was like that of a dead man — cold and senseless.  I pulled it from under me and it lay helpless; it could not lift itself.  I knew now that I, too, had become one of the bloody horrors of the battle.

I struggled to my feet, weak and trembling, and sick with nausea.  I must have been lying there a long time.  The firing was now at a distance:  the sun had gone half down the sky.  They were picking up the wounded in the near field.  A man stood looking at me.  ‘Good God!’ he shouted, and then ran away like one afraid.  There was a great mass of our men back of me some twenty rods.  I staggered toward them, my knees quivering.

‘I can never get there,’ I heard myself whisper.

I thought of my little flask of whiskey, and, pulling the cork with my teeth, drank the half of it.  That steadied me and I made better headway.  I could hear the soldiers talking as I neared them.

‘Look a there!’ I heard many saying.  ’See ’em come!  My God!  Look at ’em on the hill there!

The words went quicidy from mouth to mouth.  In a moment I could hear the murmur of thousands.  I turned to see what they were looking at.  Across the valley there was a long ridge, and back of it the main position of the Southern army.  A grey host was pouring over it — thousand upon thousand — in close order, debouching into the valley.

A big force of our men lay between us and them.  As I looked I could see a mighty stir in it.  Every man of them seemed to be jumping up in the air.  From afar came the sound of bugles calling ’retreat , the shouting of men, the rumbling of wagons.  It grew louder.  An officer rode by me hatless, and halted, shading his eyes.  Then he rode back hurriedly.