Through the Gauntlet

By Menotomy we had been marching and fighting for hours. Ammunition running low, men dropping from exhaustion and wounds. Every wall, every window, every tree seemed to hide a rebel with a musket. Percy's flankers searched the houses, but the shooting never stopped. We killed everyone we found—there was no time for prisoners, no certainty who was a fighter. I saw things that day I do not wish to remember. The rebels were not soldiers by any standard we knew, but they fought with a fury that made us fear for our lives.