{"id":5391,"date":"2011-06-30T12:23:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T16:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:01:50","slug":"the-end-of-a-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=5391","title":{"rendered":"The End of a War (by BnzaGal)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary: \u00a0<\/span>Written using the five words (Bachelor, Medieval, Commence, Culmination, and Tassel) from the Chaps & Spurs Challenge, June 2011.<\/p>\n

Rated:<\/span>\u00a0K+ (1,110 words)
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The End of a War<\/strong><\/p>\n

Story Notes:<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

I hope to someday turn this into a story… but that will be in the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chaps & Spurs, June 2011\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Day was fading into the shadows of night.<\/strong> Light was retreating from the darkness that stole across the battlefields. It was over. Finished. Battlefields would become farmer\u2019s fields once again. It had ended. Done. The blood that stained the ground would fade away. With time, no one know that the lands they stood on had been fought for and bought with blood, that young and old, bachelors and married men, fathers and sons on both sides had given their last full measure of devotion in what would become just another field.<\/p>\n

Hadn\u2019t they longed for this day to come? Hadn\u2019t this been the culmination of their dreams ever since the bloody war had commenced? Shouldn\u2019t there be a measure of joy?<\/p>\n

Smiles and shouts of joy were scarcer than an un-patched uniform around the campfires of the Confederate camp. Defeat hovered over the men like some medieval spectre as they stared blankly into the fires and while here and there men wept silently.<\/p>\n

It was over. And they had lost. They had fought and died. So many dead. And now they had lost.<\/p>\n

The conversations that normally floated around as the fires swayed in the evening breeze were gone along with the jokes and teasings spoken to try and raise each others spirits.<\/p>\n

Tonight was the end of waiting for the order to fight or march. Tonight was the beginning of the final retreat. Retreat back to wherever on God\u2019s earth you had come from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can still take them,\u201d One man staggered to his feet and raised his fist. \u201cWe can still fight!\u201d Men jumped to their feet and joined him.<\/p>\n

\u201cLead us and we will go!\u201d Cried one.<\/p>\n

\u201cLead us to our graves and we will follow!\u201d Yelled another rising on crutches.<\/p>\n

\u201cVirginia!\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon tears were in all eyes as men wearily stood, proudly wearing the grey. \u201cVirginia!\u201d The cry sounded from every man\u2019s heart. \u201cVirginia! We cannot fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they had. And it was over. It was time to return home and pick up the pieces of the lives they had left behind.<\/p>\n

Darkness fell, engulfing the camp as captains and sergents calmed the men. They must go home now. It\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0over. They had tried, but it hadn\u2019t been enough.<\/p>\n

Men began to drift asleep and the sounds of weeping were heard more and more. Some lay their all night weeping for their friends who had given their lives to the Cause that had ultimately lost. Some even wept in their sleep. Others stared into the flickering flames all through the night and into the grey of morning and the dawning of their final retreat.<\/p>\n

Joe Cartwright was one of those. He wasn\u2019t known as Cartwright though. Here he was called Joe Devlin, having adopted the last name of one of his best friends. His hair was falling about his shoulders. His face was thin and haggard. His eyes dull. He wondered if his family would recognize him. He wondered if they would even accept him back.<\/p>\n

He had run away from home without a word to anyone, save for a hastily scrawled note that he had tucked under his Pa\u2019s pillow. He had changed his name so no one could ever find him. He had no doubt that they had tried.<\/p>\n

The flames bent and waved gently reminding Joe of the branches of the pines outside his bedroom window. Home. A year ago the very word had brought a lump to his throat. But now that home was finally a reality, Joe wasn\u2019t sure he wanted to return. So much had changed. Maybe too much.<\/p>\n

He was only two years older, but it felt like twenty. Hadn\u2019t it only been yesterday that Josh had told him he walked like an old man? He looked down at the dirty bandages that swathed his leg below the knee. He wondered if he would be able to walk all the way back to Nevada on his freshly wounded leg. By the time he had made it back to camp after that last battle he thought he was going to collapse.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s eyes returned to the flames and his hand snaked down to rub his leg. It would be the only scar he would bring back from the war if you didn\u2019t count the thin line across the underside of his arm where a Yankee\u2019s bayonet had barely missed his chest and the scar through his right eyebrow where the debris from cannon fire had caught him in the face. But small scars like those hardly counted.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s eyes were averted from the flames when two older soldiers carried a stretcher between them to the campfires. The only bugler their company had left struggled to sit up using his elbows. Joe watched solemnly as the young man struggled to raise a battered and dented bugle to his lips. The tassel that hung limply from the instrument was singed by the same cannon blast that had resulted in the bugler\u2019s legs being removed above the knees.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s younger than me.<\/em>\u00a0Joe thought as he watched the boy take a shuddering breath before sounding the call.\u00a0He\u2019s going to die.\u00a0<\/em>Joe bowed his head as the first notes rang out across the night.<\/p>\n

They had heard it every evening. Joe had even learned to play it himself. The call to bed, to rest, to pray for whatever tomorrow held, to dream. Only this time it was not signalling the end of another day, but the end of a bloody war that had destroyed so many lives.<\/p>\n

The eerie notes echoed in the hearts and ears of every soldier. The notes wavered slightly and Joe saw the bugler\u2019s shoulders shake. He was crying. Joe realized that there were tears in his own eyes. They blurred his vision and burned in his eyes.<\/p>\n

The notes ended and drifted off into the night air. The bugler lowered the instrument and was carried back toward the hospital tent.<\/p>\n

He died sometime during the night. But he wasn\u2019t needed anymore. The war was over. No one needed to play Revelry the next morning anyway.<\/p>\n

-The End-<\/p>\n

End Notes:<\/b><\/p>\n

Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n

Disclaimer:\u00a0All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: \u00a0Written using the five words (Bachelor, Medieval, Commence, Culmination, and Tassel) from the Chaps & Spurs Challenge, June 2011. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Rated:\u00a0K+ (1,110 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":4873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[7,39,23,1007],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-u","category-chaps-spurs","category-drama","category-joe-cartwright","wpcat-7-id","wpcat-39-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-1007-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Calamity-over-the-Comstock-8.jpg?fit=634%2C563&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}