Savannah Library Edition

In the end, his devotion to duty, the bond he felt with the other men, and his hatred of the Yankees and everything they had done to the South carried him ahead. Clouds of powder smoke rolled across the battlefield, choking and blinding him, but he pressed on, fighting his way through some thick brush, until he saw the Union breastworks no more than fifty yards in front of him. All was chaos around him now, the air filled with the hum of flying lead and the rattle of musketry and the screams of hurt and dying men. Henry fired once, twice, as he ran forward. He was blinded for a second by the smoke, then it cleared and revealed to him the Yankees firing over the barriers of earth and stone and logs. The leading edge of the Confederate attack reached the breastworks and surged up and over them. Flags from both sides waved above the mass of fighting and dying humanity, bits of cloth darting back and forth, weaving around each other as if they were doing battle along with the men who carried them. Henry screamed incoherently as he reached the breastworks and started to clamber up them. He thrust the pistol toward the blue-clad shapes that swam before his eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand. He pulled the hammer back and fired again, repeating the near-mindless action until the pistol was empty. The hammer may have clicked harmlessly on an empty chamber several times before Henry realized what was happening; he never knew for certain about that. But he knew in this bloody madness that he would never have a chance to reload. He jammed the empty gun behind his belt and reached for a saber some officer had dropped. Union, Confederate, it didn't matter. All that was important was that the blade was sharp enough to hack the life out of the enemy, to cut through flesh and spill blood ... Henry's hand had just closed over the saber's grip when something smashed into his head and sent him tumbling backward into darkness.Reasoner, James is the author of 'Savannah Library Edition' with ISBN 9781581823288 and ISBN 1581823282.