Chaos surrounded me.  A cannon ball whizzed forty feet above my head and impacted somewhere behind me.  Screams of agony followed.  I didn’t turn around to look at the carnage I knew it left in its wake.  The smell of burnt gunpowder from a thousand muskets filled my nostrils.  The air around me was thick with smoke.  Somewhere to my left, a sergeant was screaming for us to hold the line.  I realized that my countrymen were running past me, away from the enemy. 
The British let loose another volley.  A man in front of me was hit in the back as he ran.  His mouth gaped and his eyes widened.  His face was locked in a look of anguish.  His rifle slid from his grasp and fell to the ground.  He followed it shortly.  There were two holes in his back from which dark red blood now steadily trickled.  I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.  I realized that he had unknowingly saved my life, for whatever good it did.  Perhaps he had only prolonged my death. 
I aimed my rifle at the nearest cluster of redcoats and fired.  My rifle barked and a thick cloud of smoke spewed out of the barrel behind the musket ball.  I couldn’t see if I had hit anything through the smoke.  I dropped my rifle and pick up the one that rested at my feet; a gift from the man lying in front of me.  I prayed it was ready to fire. 
The sergeant was still shouting in an attempt to regain control of his men.  Another officer gave the order to regroup.  My countrymen slowly began to form ranks alongside me.  Another order was given to fire at will.  On the edge of my vision, I saw the muzzle of a musket no more than six inches from my head.  Thankfully it was pointing at the British line. I turned to tell the man aiming the musket not to fire until I had moved; I knew the noise would deafen me.  Before I could speak, the musket went off.  But all I saw was a flash of light.  I slammed my eyes shut.  The war raging around me went deathly silent. 
I tried to open my eyes, but they burned as if they were no longer eyes, but hot coals.  My ears began to ring.  I blinked hard several times, regaining a little more vision each time.  I found myself on the ground lying on my back.  My rifle was still in my hands.  I clung to it like a shipwreck survivor clings to a piece of driftwood in the ocean.  I turned my head towards the redcoats just in time to see them bring their rifles to bear.  Something glistened on the end of each musket.  They had fixed bayonets after their last volley.  They would charge after this one.  They were going to finish us. 
I turned back to my countrymen, standing above me, defenseless, with no time to reload.  An enormous thunderclap resounded across the battlefield.  Dozens of my brothers fell as the British officers sounded the charge.  Our end was near.  I rolled back to face the wave of redcoats flooding towards me.  I fired my rifle into the mass of red.  Through the cloud of smoke rushed a British soldier.  I could see him clearly now; he was less than ten feet from me.  The crown of his head and his left eye were wrapped in white cloth which was now stained with patches of red.  A thin line of blood ran down his cheek.  Dust had mixed with the perspiration on his face.  He was yelling as he ran towards me still lying helplessly on the ground.  His bayonet was poised to strike me in the center of my chest.  I caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye and instinctively turned towards it.  I saw the butt of a musket being swung at my head like a crude club.  I tried to scream, but it was too late.