What was the civil war like?

If you were an onlooker of any of the Civil War battles, here is what you would have seen. Mini' balls (bullets) tearing soldiers' limbs to shreds. Blood covered the ground, and a day later, the area reaked with stench. Canons blasted arms and legs completely off of bodies. One man recalled in a letter home, that while his brigade had been marching through the woods, he came across a corpse that had not been buried from the battle before. The man described the corpse's body in grisly detail.

Soldiers looked forward to firing at their enemies, but many also struggled with the fear of being killed on the battlefield.