Voices of boys and men, Homesick, stubborn, talking of little things, “We get better food. I’m getting to be a good cook. The food’s bad. The whole company yelled ‘Hard Bread!’ today. There are only three professed Christians in my whole regiment, I feel sad about that I wish you could see the way we have to live here, I wish everybody at home could see what it’s like. It’s muddy. It’s cold. My shoes gave out on the march. We lost the battle. The general was drunk. This is the roughest life that you ever saw. If I ever get back home⁠—” And, over and over, in stiff, patriotic phrases, “I am resigned to die for the Union, mother. If we die in this battle, we will have died for the right, We will have died bravely⁠—you can trust us for that. It is only right to die for our noble Union. We will save it or die for it. There’s just one thing. I hope I die quick. I hope I don’t have to die In the hospital. There is one thought that to me is worse than death.