![]() His reply was: "It don't hurt as badly when I am cursing." He begged the surgeons to operate, but when they started cutting he howled so profanely that they threatened to abandon him. His detailed description of his subsequent sensations and experiences is one of the most interesting portions of his narrative. At Second Manassas, Fletcher was struck by a bullet that grazed his bowels and lodged in his hip. And in his last fight at Bentonville he risked his life on a rash and futile impulse to capture a whole squad of Federals. Once, just before Fredericksburg, he slipped out to a haystack in the no-man's-land near the Rappahannock so that he could watch the Yankees build a bridge. He was restless and venturesome and during the lulls between fighting would sometimes ask for permission to go on dangerous scouts into enemy territory. The attack of jitters lasted about fifteen minutes, and then he fell asleep while awaiting the order to advance.īut Fletcher could be brave to a fault. "I tried to force manhood to the front, but fright would drive it back with a shudder," he confessed. ![]() Private Fletcher tells how at Gettysburg he was overcome by a "bad case of cowardly horror" when an order came on the third day to get ready to charge. ![]() Click here to purchase from Rakuten Kobo Rebel Private Front and Rear is a line soldier's account of the Civil War without heroics. ![]()
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