"Any minute now it would all begin. All hell would break loose and then no more worrying and fretting and fuming; he'd hit straight up that road with everything he had. Never been afraid of that. Never been afraid to lose it all if necessary. Longstreet knew himself. There was no fear there. The only fear was not of death, was not of the war, was of blind stupid human frailty, of blind proud foolishness that could lose it all. He was thinking very clearly now. Mind seemed to uncloud like washed glass. Everything cool and crystal."
--Michael Shaara, from
The Killer Angels, channeling a solitary pre-battle moment with Confederate General James Longstreet, possibly the CSA's most logical brain, and the one nobody wanted to listen to.
So many of those battles were fought pretty much right on the land I grew up on, and it's all just utterly fascinating and overwhelmingly tragic.
