A northern soldier who fought at Antietam gave as good an explanation of behavior in battle as one is likely to find anywhere. “We heard all through the war that the army ‘was eager to be led against the enemy,’ “ he wrote with a nice sense of irony. “It must have been so, for truthful correspondents said so, and editors confirmed it. But when you came to hunt for this particular itch, it was always the next regiment that had it. The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree-trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg-shells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man
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