boy was a deaf mute, and until the end of the story, the reader does not know that – a common characteristic of Bierce's writing. The story could not have been written if the boy was able to hear because he would have known that there was a battle going on near him, and he would not have been able to sleep through it. Not knowing that a battle was going on made it such that he didn't know why these people were crawling through the woods. Of course, they were gravely injured and trying to get to safety. The young boy did not truly appreciate what had happened until he went home to find his home burned and his mother dead.
             An additional soldier tale that I read was "A Horseman in The Sky," telling of a young man shooting his father. It was written rather mystically, and again, the reader did not know that the ho
             ...