Till Death Do Us Part

Now all hell broke loose. A massive unseen Rebel attack hit like a sudden wave. To Sam it seemed like a bolt of lightning when hundreds if muskets went off all at once right at him and around him. Cannon fire...no time to think, just point and fire. They were everywhere, running, screaming, ducking, hiding, and coming back up. They loaded and fired repeatedly. Officers were yelling commands that now could not be heard. There was no time to even think, if you wanted to survive. You had to fight. You could not take an eye off the enemy for a second, except to reload and hope the man firing in your turn was doing some good. Killing wasn't as hard as he dreamed it would be, not now, not here, with slaughter going on everywhere around him. It was insane. Blood spraying all around, chunks of bone, brains and all happening so quick. Sam stood and fired into a mass of gray coming right at his line. When the gun went off he had killed two with one shot. He crouched down to reload, and the men behind stood and fired. Now the front line stood and fired off a volley. Seconds later about half of them were riddled with holes; the bowel contents of the man to the front left of Sam flew in his face. Now they were everywhere again, endless streams on the left, in front, on the right, moving past, firing on the New Yorkers in behind. You could shoot only one direction at a time. Men were hit at all angles. What remained of the 125^th were lying flat to reload and firing from the ground. The roar was deafening; nothing mattered but surviving.

Their faces were turning black from burnt powder, and heat waves were rolling off the rifle barrels from repeated firing. Sam watched one of his own men in line trading off rifles with some of the fallen men in order to get a cooler barrel to work with. So he started doing the same thing; and two of them he picked up were all ready to fire, with their owners being dead or too badly wounded to fight any longer. Sam found himself back-to-back with three other men. It was an automatic move governed by the situation of being surrounded. They were protecting each other from the screaming Rebel yells in all direction. They continued swapping rifles and firing at the gray masses.

Men were running low on ammunition and grabbing cartridges from dead men. Some were rushed so badly, they didn't take time to remove the ramrod; and it went to the target with the ball. They were still caught by three sides, the enemy line to their front stopped in place, giving the 125^th time to load and regroup their thoughts. The Rebs had to stop; from all the smoke, they could not see more than twenty-five feet ahead of them. They knew the Yankees were there but not how many. Through the smoke came a shout, "Throw down your arms and surrender!" Sam thought, "NO! Go to hell, not on your life!" About then a man in front of Sam stood, shouting back, "Come and get us!" All three ranks fired in order, and a moan went up less than fifty yards away. A lieutenant stood up in the back line, shot through the shoulder, and yelled for the 125^th to retreat to the left and rear. So they left, down on ammunition and strength. The lieutenant saw a break in the assault, and it was now or never. On the retreat from the woods, bodies were scattered around everywhere. One in Sam's path caught his attention. He looked quickly and then had to move on at the run. It was John, his new friend, staring straight into the sky with a hole in the center of his forehead. They ran across the open field back towards the East Woods, hoping not to catch one in the back.