A lost letter of the true nature of war

The battle is over,
the damage has been done,
 
it is another draw, that weak kneed historians will
argue about for decades,
some getting enough mileage out of this
processional of death,
to complete their doctorate and forever feel
as if they, themselves,
were crowned battle royal!
 
School children from both North and South
will travel from surrounding universes
and realities to be told,
 
this is what made America great!
 
some will even include this specifics of
this battle in their benedictions and doxologies,
declaring before well dressed men and women,
each wearing a version of their own Easter bonnet,
that God was on the side of said righteous,
 
that this proved, the War Between Broken Hearts
and Field Amputations was the last conflict
between gentlemen,
 
yet, walk with me tonight,
as we survey the first night's carnage,
 
and listen to the cries of the wounded,
at such places now called The Cornfield,
The Pit, and the The Bloody Lane,
 
see that movement down below, where a young man
is holding what looks like spaghetti,
that is in eviscerated bowels,
torn open by a canon ball filled with chain link,
striking him dead on center,
but not with enough force to kill him,
 
this Billy Yank will stay alive for days,
until the Maryland buzzards pick his guts enough,
that he dies of shock and awe!
 
Where is the nobility in that,
what did this fine young man from Maine,
do to deserve this,
 
he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,
thinking not of slavery and the Constitution,
but of a young girl with auburn hair,
back in Portland town,
who promises to marry him
once this madness is over,
 
just down the pike a bit,
here is a Johnny Reb,
both his legs are broken,
and the pain is indescribable,
 
yet, he might be a lucky one,
for next to him lies a Confederate pistol,
 
he will end his fight, tonight,
yet, the chamber is empty,
 
he hears only clicks,
they will find him six days later,
and the surgeons will amputate both legs
without anesthesia or morphine,
that blessing has been used up days and hundreds
of dilation and curettage before,
 
Johny Reb will live a month,
overcome by the greatest enemy of all,
 
infection.
 
You hear men from both sides not calling
for Lincoln or Davis,
Lee or Little Mac,
 
they want their mothers to come save them,
and you know what, my student of war,
 
if these precious mothers could hear the sounds
of their sons,
 
they would move heaven and earth to give comfort,
to the enemy and the common man,
the rebel and the Yank,
the learned and the country boy!
 
After it is all over,
all battlefields sound the same,
 
lonely and dying men crying out in the
dark and lonely night,
 
Momma, come here quick,
because I'm scared,
 
and I want to go home.
 
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in a letter to his father, March, 1863.
 
Copyright, William "Wild Bill" Taylor,