The day was cold, the soldier's body was colder, inside the coffin, where he was sleeping in eternal rest. The boy cried soft tears as his father was set into the grave, the reverend standing over the grave, reciting out the lines that would cause the boy to cry harder. As he cried, his mother put her hand on his shoulder, the sounds of the marines who were once lined up on the side of the grave, in a full blue uniform, lifted their weapons and fired three rounds of shots.
The boy softly cried as he climbed back into the wagon, remembering the moments he had with his father, which reminded him of how brave his father was. Once stopping a man from slitting another's throat, this is what showed his braveness, and his kindness to the child was overwhelming. He looked out of the window, as it started raining, the wagon already halfway to his home, and already he felt as if he was halfway to die of tears.
The boy opened the wagon door, and jumped out, it stung his legs as he fell to the ground, and he could hear a snap in his right leg. Ignoring it, he knew that his father was more important, he tried to run to the graveyard in which his father was just so recently buried, yet he was slowed down by his broken leg. Rain fell on his face, as though it were something healing, and he managed to run, he ran as best he could and made it to the graveyard. He ran through the muddy ground and to his father's grave, where they had covered by the time he got there.
He kneeled down, right the wooden plank which they had used as a gravestone, he started crying. Wishing for his father to come back, saying to himself his father wasn't dead, he looked up, as if to ask God to reunite him with his father. Within minutes, he started hearing explosions all around him, his mother vaguely crying out his name, but he couldn't leave his father, it was the one thing he truly treasured. The bullets he could hear passing all around him, people screaming, and his mother's voice getting even closer before she yelled at him to come back. He looked back to his mother and considered going back, but he decided that he would go back to her when he reunited with his father.
Everything was starting to fade out, the boy saw the aura of a bright light, he turned around and saw his father holding out his hand smiling, urging him to come to him. Running as fast as he could, he made it to his father, his legs were now fixed, he was healed, and so was his father, surely god granted this little boy his prayer. His father hugged the boy and lifted the boy up into the air.
“We are going home bud, everything will be better very soon.”
“But what about mom?”
“Mom will come to us soon, but she has to...finish making you a sweater, just in case it gets cold.”
The boy stared at his father's face and smiled, his father smiled back, and put the boy on his back, then started walking towards the end of the bright light.
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The examiners managed to save his body, tried to see if he was still alive, gunshot wounds all over him. They cut open his body, searching for the cause of death, in which they found a bullet in the boy's heart, and one in his brain. They knew he wasn't alive, the hard part was telling his mother, they stitched where they made cuts, took out all the bullet fragments, then closed his eyes, the examiners could see a smile, the last smile the boy ever made. A string was tied onto the boy's ankle, and on it was a paper, that read:
James McDuff
Cause Of Death: Bullet Wound
Date: September 13, 1862
Location: Harper's Ferry
Date of Autopsy: September 27, 1862.
