Through the door at the end of the hall, Bushrod could see daylight. Gray and sullen it was, but daylight all the same. Through the years Bushrod had seen the dawn come to many fields, after many hard fights, and it was always a sacred moment to him–proof that the universe was still intact in spite of the blood on the ground, the hosts of Departed beginning their first day in eternity, the dead horses and broken gun carriages and scattered equipment–in spite of all the panoramic ruin of the battlefield so brutal and grotesque that it was a wonder God did not bury it in darkness forever–and with it the guilty living, who crept from their holes or their stiff blankets and looked about with astonishment on what they had done. But God never would bury it. He always seemed to want to start over again, whether out of anger or pity Bushrod could not say. And now here was another dawn, after another great fight, and once more God had permitted Bushrod Carter to live.
Howard Bahr, The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War
