• It would be noon for we tread. Most faces fresh but no longer shaped with the innocence that was once upon them only months before, they had spilt blood, blood upon which makes a mans soul ragged and ill. My eyes were shot, my hands torn from days of pain stacking work to camp and feet blistered from the dreadful walking on which we did for long hours to ready us for the next tearful battle that would pill us against our brothers, fathers, and good men alike. I soon fear the General would break insanity from constant drink and sorrow. The men around me were shaken by the fought of battle, for they had no sense of telling there own survival from this day or tommorrow.Yet this left a sense of security a way to get them out of this blood drenched soil, away to free them from this hell on men.

    It had been many a long week since I had seen my brother, Leaving our home land to fight for the North. Sometimes I wonder if I made the wright decision staying in the South. For days now I have pondered, "What makes a man?" A soul upon which has a pure song, is the answer that I had formed, but is it the correct one? Who is to say that I am a man, my heart is no longer pure, no longer white but a blood red. Who is to say that men still exist through war? "War..." A way upon which to have men bleed senseless blood for governmental right or control. I thought at first this would be a adventure, a right of passage. But now I see the ignorance behind my actions, I left a family, a home, and many friends. For what? To fight in a war that may never end or have no ending for me.

    A drum begins to beat, men stand on sore legs with muskets and percussion guns at arm. The beat is a familiar one. Men begin to cry for they know what it holds between the awkward taps.Gunfire, moans, and the splatter of blood on dewed ground. I'm trembling, eyes watering, but I move on. Moments pass till we reach a clearing in the trees. A gun is fired a man falls, blood gushing from his mouth. Another is fired from affront of myself. I break formation to hide behind a tree with some roughs of bushes for some indecent camouflage. From the corner of my eye I see a opponent solider with his back turned. Before I think I fire, striking his ribs. Was this the right decision, committing a dreadful of sins from the instinct that the Leaders of this war had put in every men. Do I have no thoughts differ from savages of war?

    "Brother..." a bleeding voice calls. I turn to seen my brother whom I shot upon the ground bleeding from his mouth and body. I rush to his side begging to feel the sting of my deed. With his head in my lap, My trembling and sobbing keep my wounded brother awake. "I'm so sorry!" I plead in between sobs. "It's okay..." he answers weakly. "I want you to remember our childhood not the war my brother..." He says to me, he is fading. "Yes..."I cry as tear streams down my cheek to his. "War..." he says to me. "War, is prevented by love by all men." I say to him. "Love among brothers" my brother said in his dying words.

    A rain drop fell down with my tears. "The answer to what makes a man is: A love among strangers and brothers alike." This is the correct answer to the question. I placed my hand over my brothers eyes and shut them as I laid his body to rest beside the very tree upon which I took his life. With my tears still flowing I pleaded for a end to this war. But no instant solution came. I took my brothers watch from his pocket, as a sentimental token for my actions. I decided to run back home through the trees, not knowing what laid beyond the next. I ran without musket but with many regret.