Innocence lost. Children play at war. Men and children play at war until they meet war or war meets them, and they find that war is not a game; those who have seen, smelled, and tasted it do not glorify war. Ambrose Bierce participated in one of the bloodiest wars in American history, and though he survived, the war haunted him the rest of his life.

Today we have a name for the demon that haunts many of those "more fortunate" who survive: post-traumatic stress disorder. In World War I and World War II they called it shell-shocked. The battle of Chickamauga was surpassed in casualties only by the battle of Gettysburg.