Can Such Things Be? By Ambrose Bierce
HAZEN’S BRIGADE
To The Memory of Its Soldiers who fell at Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862.
The man fell back from the wall, faint and sick. Almost
within an arm’s length was a little depression in the
earth; it had been filled by a recent rain - a pool of clear
water. He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the upper part
of his body on his trembling arms, thrust forward his head and
saw the reflection of his face, as in a mirror. He uttered a
terrible cry. His arms gave way; he fell, face downward, into
the pool and yielded up the life that had spanned another
life.