George F. Williams (1837–1920)

Bullet and Shield is a novel but reads more like a memoir. The reason for this is Williams based the book on his experiences fighting in New York volunteer regiments during the Civil War. He describes in great detail, life in camp, life on the march and the chaos of the battlefield. One of the most vivid pictures he creates is of The Wilderness battlefield a week and a half after the fighting. He has his protagonist cross the area in moonlight describing the partially decomposed corpses covered by flies, bones projecting through the decaying flesh, legs & arms splayed at different angles the result of the last moments of agonized, tortured life. Williams was wounded at The Wilderness and was mustered out to become a war correspondence who may have been at the truce talks at Appomattox. As the war corespondent, Osborne, in the novel did, Williams went to Mexico to report on the French attempts to colonize that country. He also served in the military of a couple of South American countries, one being Peru. Imagine the autobiography he could have written.… (meer)