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                  Dear Mother, 
The colonel says we’ll be going into battle tomorrow.  Rumors have been floating around camp saying  the rebels will kill every one of us while others say we’ll beat them  easy.  I am starting to think I may  never return home to you and may die in battlefield or sick bed.  When I think about it, I know I’d much  rather die in the battlefield, for dying in the army hospital is much more  gruesome.  I pity the men whose last  sight was their bleeding companion lying next to them. 
 
I’m also afraid I may run.   I know it would be a shameful thing but I can not make the thought leave  my mind.                     
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