battle

From time to time, in my reading, I encounter excerpts of descriptive writing that strike me so forcibly that I feel moved to share them. The following anonymous piece comes from a book titled With Fife and Drum, True Stories of Military Life and Adventure in Camp and Field, Told at First hand by Officers, Privates and Other Eyewitnesses, edited by Alfred H. Miles and published by Hutchinson and Co of London, perhaps around 1890. I'm not certain that every word of it is true. The ending, in particular, seems a little implausible, but the description…