Chickamauga

by Ambrose Bierce

"He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with perhaps a
tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial environment, but as
heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make
the glory."

Portrait of a boy soldier in the U.S. Civil War,

Nashville, TN

One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a
small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense of
freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and adventure;
for this child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years
been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest--victories in
battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose victors' camps were
cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its race it had conquered its way
through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated a third, there
to be born to war and dominion as a heritage.

The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In his
younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked
savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized
race to the far South. In the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire
survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military
books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to make himself a
wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it
for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an
heroic race, and pausing now and again in the sunny space of the forest
assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures of aggression and defense
that he had been taught by the engraver's art. Made reckless by the ease
with which he overcame invisible foes attempting to stay his advance, he
committed the common enough military error of pushing the pursuit to a
dangerous extreme, until he found himself upon the margin of a wide but
shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his direct advance against the
flying foe that had crossed with illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not
to be baffled; the spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned
unconquerable in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place
where some bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart,
he made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary
foe, putting all to the sword.

Now that the battle had been won, prudence

required that he withdraw to his base of operations. Alas; like many a
mightier conqueror, and like one, the mightiest, he could not curb the lust for
war, nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted
with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following,
sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit!
With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction,
calling with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his tender
skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with terror--
breathless, blind with tears--lost in the forest! Then, for more than an hour,
he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at last,
overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space between two rocks,
within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a
weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang
merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran
barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far
away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in
celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And
back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily
searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart was breaking for
her missing child.

Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of the
evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he had
rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which impelled to
action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and came to a more
open ground--on his right the brook, to the left a gentle acclivity studded
with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly
mist rose along the water. It frightened and repelled him; instead of
recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his back upon it,
and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before
him a strange moving object which he took to be some large animal--a dog, a
pig--he could not name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of
bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet
one. But something in form or movement of this object--something in the
awkwardness of its approach--told him that it was not a bear, and curiosity
was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on gained courage
every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the long, menacing ears of
the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was half conscious of something
familiar in its shambling, awkward gait. Before it had approached near
enough to resolve his doubts he saw that it was followed by another and
another. To right and to left were many more; the whole open space about
him was alive with them--all moving toward the brook.
They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their
hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms
hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in
the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to
advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in pairs and in little
groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting now and again while
others crept slowly past them, then resuming their movement. They came by
dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as one could see in the
deepening gloom they extended and the black wood behind them appeared
to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in motion toward the creek.
Occasionally one who had paused did not again go on, but lay motionless. He
was dead. Some, pausing, made strange gestures with their hands, erected
their arms and lowered them again, clasped their heads; spread their palms
upward, as men are sometimes seen to do in public prayer.

Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by an
elder observer; he saw little but that these were men, yet crept like babes.
Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad. He moved
among them freely, going from one to another and peering into their faces
with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly white and many were
streaked and gouted with red. Something in this-- something too, perhaps, in
their grotesque attitudes and movements-- reminded him of the painted
clown whom he had seen last summer in the circus, and he laughed as he
watched them. But on and ever on they crept, these maimed and bleeding
men, as heedless as he of the dramatic contrast between his laughter and
their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a merry spectacle. He had seen his
father's negroes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement--had
ridden them so, "making believe" they were his horses. He now approached
one of these crawling figures from behind and with an agile movement
mounted it astride. The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small
boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned
upon him a face that lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat
was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of
bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce
eyes, gave this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in
throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the
child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at last,
ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took a more serious
view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude dragged itself slowly and
painfully along in hideous pantomime--moved forward down the slope like a
swarm of great black beetles, with never a sound of going--in silence
profound, absolute.

Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through the

belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and
branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the
creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their
movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching their whiteness
with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were
freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in their
clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward the growing splendor and
moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had
passed the foremost of the throng--not much of a feat, considering his
advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand,
and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and
occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a
leader never before had such a following.

Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment
of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader's
mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional blanket, tightly
rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a
heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle--such things, in short, as are
found in the rear of retreating troops, the "spoor" of men flying from their
hunters. Everywhere near the creek, which here had a margin of lowland, the
earth was trodden into mud by the feet of men and horses. An observer of
better experience in the use of his eyes would have noticed that these
footprints pointed in both directions; the ground had been twice passed
over--in advance and in retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken
men, with their more fortunate and now distant comrades, had penetrated
the forest in thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms
and re-forming in lines, had passed the child on every side--had almost
trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not
awakened him. Almost within a stone's throw of where he lay they had
fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry, the
shock of the cannon, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting." He had
slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with perhaps a tighter
clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial environment, but as
heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make
the glory.
The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek, reflected
to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing the whole
landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the vapor of gold. The
water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the stones
protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the less desperately
wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the child now crossed
with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he stood upon the farther bank
he turned about to look at the companions of his march. The advance was
arriving at the creek. The stronger had already drawn themselves to the
brink and plunged their faces into the flood. Three or four who lay without
motion appeared to have no heads. At this the child's eyes expanded with
wonder; even his hospitable understanding could not accept a phenomenon
implying such vitality as that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had
the strength to back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it.
They were drowned. In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed
the leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not
nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement
and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding light--a
pillar of fire to this strange exodus.

Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of woods,
passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a fence, ran across a
field, turning now and again to coquet with his responsive shadow, and so
approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere! In all the
wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared nothing for that; the
spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering
flames. He ran about, collecting fuel, but every object that he found was too
heavy for him to cast in from the distance to which the heat limited his
approach. In despair he flung in his sword--a surrender to the superior forces
of nature. His military career was at an end.

Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an oddly
familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood considering
them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with its inclosing
forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little world swung half around;
the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing building
as his own home!

For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran
with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There, conspicuous in
the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman--the white face
turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing
deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater
part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain
protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with
clusters of crimson bubbles--the work of a shell.

The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered
a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries--something between the
chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey--a startling, soulless,
unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.

Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.