Their words are ringing in my head once more. Trudging through mud in a godforsaken county in Pennsylvania – blood and bodies scattered, artillery pellets entrenched in the ground - I hope this is just the beginning. The Confederacy would pull through; I’d be dead if it didn’t.
There’s fewer places in the world more beautiful than where I hail from, in the rural, rolling hills of the Southern States. My hometown of Walhalla, South Carolina, is perched above the streams and lakes so dominant in the countryside; its farms stretch out for miles beyond its tiny urban centre, dotted peacefully throughout the landscape, their crops in fruition. This was no place for war; war was, instead, to find its place here.
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Of course, the battle was a fairly insignificant one, but a victory in our first encounter raised our spirits further. Each day, we’d march on, while hoping the entire time the war would just come to a close. The Union simply needed to allow us to become free; they’d find the right in our cause as soon as we won the war.
Then, we went on further. Towards north once more; we needed to assist the Confederates in Pennsylvania. We never found ourselves in any particularly grand battles, only a few causal skirmishes.
That said, there was one shootout I remember particularly well. Having just marched over the hills near the forests, and we were exhausted. For more or less the entire day, we were walking over treacherous slopes. Of course, I was perfectly settled, ready to rest, when – crack! – The Union artillery began firing. I found myself almost two feet out of my boots when I heard it, I’m telling you. They’d sneaked into the forest, without a single one of us noticing. Accordingly, I grabbed my rifle, and rushed straight to the rocky outcrop where we had a sentry, and I started firing, oblivious to anything returned to our positions; I counted each man I shot – one, two, three, and maybe four – before they decided to scatter. Nevertheless, that forced us to move, too, before they brought in