My Darling Shannon,

I have seen the elephant, the horrible spector of war as it tramples men to death. I have heard the agonizing shrecks of the wounded and dying. I have passed over the battlefield and have seen the mangled forms of men and horses in frightful abundance. All this I have witnessed until my heart sickens.

War is not glory as such novelists' would have us believe. It is only when we are in the heat and flush of battle that it is fascinating, and we forget ourselves and revel in the destruction we are dealing around us. I am now ashamed of the feelings I had in those hours of danger. The whistling of bullets and shells was music to me.

I gloried in it.

It delighted and fascinated me.

I feared not death in any form.

But when the battle was won and I visited the field, a change came over me. For the first time I saw the real horror of war. Its not just the men you killed, but the lives you kill.

The families, the wives, the mothers, the children who will never see their men again.

Col. Jackson said today was our baptism under fire.

If that is so, it was a baptism in blood.