Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen

two of you can’t fix something up.”
    â€œWith what?” The attendant looked around. “There’s nothing here.”
    The doctor looked around, then back, then at the bodies. “Use
them
.”
    â€œThe dead?”
    â€œThey won’t feel it. You”—he pointed abloody hand at Charley—“give him help there. Pile them up to stop the wind from the side of the tent.”
    And so they did. Each taking an end, they moved the bodies, stacking them like bricks and angling them at the corners so they would not tip over, until they had a stout frozen wall five feet high and thirty feet long to stop the wind.
    When it was done Charley lay on the ground in the lee of the dead men’s wall, just to get out of the wind for a minute and get warm, and slept there for five hours, sheltered by the dead.
    Third battle.

CHAPTER NINE
GETTYSBURG
    I t was in many respects exactly the same and yet completely different.
    He had been in more skirmishes and he had killed more men. He had had men die next to him. But he had not been in another major battle.
    Now he was at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on top of a gradually sloping hill, looking down at what seemed to be the entire Southern army assembling to attack.
    What was the same was the meadow. Therewas always a forest and always a meadow. In this case the forest where the Rebels were assembling was over a mile away and well below the Union army. In between was a large meadow a mile or more wide. The Rebels would have to leave the trees and walk, under constant fire from artillery, across the meadow and up the incline to the fences and rock walls where the Union soldiers waited.
    What was different about this battle was that Charley was above the Rebs, in a sheltered position, with all the guns in the world behind him.
    It was a warm day and he sipped some water from his canteen and checked his rifle. He had taken a new one from a dead man after his own had been destroyed. This rifle had a tendency to foul its nipple, so he carried a small needle stuck in his shirt to clean the hole out if it plugged. He did so now and put a fresh cap on the nipple, then tightened his shoelaces incase he had to run. That was always in his mind—either run at them or run away. He did not want to stumble.
    He peeked through the rock wall again and saw the Confederate artillery wheeling their cannon into place. The Rebs would try to prepare the hill with artillery before their charge, and as Charley looked the first batteries began firing. Soon they were all hammering away. It was the worst barrage Charley had undergone. Shells burst overhead and killed men and horses and destroyed some Union artillery and rear positions.
    But it could have been far worse. The line of Union troops waiting to take the Confederate attack were at the brow of the hill, which dropped away to their rear as well. The Rebel artillery was massed and firing heavily, but rounds aimed at the top of the hill that went even slightly high just passed over and exploded down the back side.
    Casualties were not as heavy as all the noise and smoke indicated. When shooting tapered off and the Rebels started moving their massed troops across the meadow and up the hill, the Union artillery wheeled into position and tore into them with exploding rounds: chain and grapeshot. The Confederates had to march through a storm of fire and Charley lay and watched them and nearly felt sorry for them.
    They were so brave, he thought—or foolish. They kept coming, even when thousands of them were down and dying. The cannon ripped them to pieces, wiping them out before they were even within rifle range, slaughtering them like sheep as they marched in even rows. Sometimes whole rows were dropped where they stood, so the dead lay in orderly lines. And still they came on.
    At first it all seemed so distant, as if it was a staged tableau. Men marched, then they spun and fell, exploding red bursts into the air.
    But as