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Watched through the trembling sight of a bazooka on his shoulder, the man killed by the weapon camouflaged in the bushes, the Confederate sniper saw the figure of the flag rising up. He, an African American soldier on the side of the Confederates, had been crouching for more than three hours in his hideout - a hideout only a meter behind the lines where Union soldiers were crawling, without daring to cross imaginary frontier that separated the two armies.

It was in the fields of the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia, on October 19th, 1966. The 2nd infantry division of Virginia could not have been better situated to choose its position: the division covered the whole valley, including two army corps who huddled on one side as if to spell a big letter "A" on it, up to Winchester. Apart from the closely linked headquarters of the two corps, the division also had the 5th, the 10th and 7th infantry regiments, whose missions were to secure, clear the area, while the single regiments took care of the defense of the small infra-structure that each army corps had on its side of the defenses.

For the third time in two weeks, the Confederate sniper needed to kill a man although that this time, he was not alone. He waited in the bushes, watching the front lines with the night glasses of his sniper rifle, which had two extra lenses that the Confederate army was using to see in the darkness, making it easier to spot the patrols and snipers of the Union army. Waiting, he was nervous. Yet, he had been living like that for over a month, mostly alone, and hid every night. His adrenaline didn't just feed his forces of adrenaline, rather it made him ready to kill. He pretended to be undetected, as if by the lack of movement, he didn't exist. He was doing this to frighten or intimidate the other snipers to stay away from his location. It was hard, but he had to do it. He was not a friend of the Union army, but rather a soldier like any other. He was on the battlefield, taking care of a strict war mission, in order to gain them even one more day, before the Union army laid siege to the stronghold in which his family lived.

Although he doubted that the man he was watching was one of the Union army, he couldn't help to question his humanity as he was doing it for many hours.

The night fell, and the Confederate sniper, who had been crouching behind the body of a fallen soldier, carefully moved his body, making it disappear one by one in the dark. He then sat down on a makeshift platform that he made three days earlier, and got up. Between the dim of the thicket and twilight of the day, he left his hideout accompanied by a man who looked like a Union soldier, a black soldier in a Union uniform, who was his confidant, and perhaps his best friend.

"Do you want to go to sleep now?" Asked the man, who rebuked his faith in the cause of the Union. "We won't miss the morning."

He shook his head.

For over a month, he had not slept well, if at all. Tonight, he hoped that it would be different.

"I want to sleep in the attic," he replied. "I'll be back as soon as I'll be able to kill someone. "

"OK. Be careful."

With a nod, he went under the cover of the trees, and stepped on the barrel. He climbed slowly, but got to the height where he had met the Union soldier who had just watched the rising flag from his position. He got as close as he could and heard his enemy speak.

"He caught me off guard," he said. "In broad daylight, on a road, near a bridge that we used for a month. Pretend you are dead. And I'll do the same. We'll let them remove the bodies."

The Confederate sniper waited for the next sounds until the enemy started to move and changed his direction. Without waiting for his orders, his comrade continued to crouch.

"Yes. Good. Then let us talk. Listen to me, I'm going to play a little game with you. I'm going to withdraw to make it seem that they have captured me. OK. Tell them that you saw me alone, when they go for the body, come as fast as you can to find me. I'll pretend that I'm dead and I'll wait until I hear you taking care of the body. Come on. Don't lose the chance. When I tell you to go, go. Don't even look behind you, OK? We'll be able to make it. Remember this: we still have a mission to fulfill. Don't let them destroy our dream."

"I am waiting for you, my brother." The words of his friend now sounded as if they were a song to him, and as if he didn't want to lose any chance to talk to him, and as if he didn't want to say a word until they met again. The Confederate sniper watched him move ahead and disappear into the bushes in the direction of their headquarters.

He then got up, he breathed and he drew his rifle with no ammunition.

As he was ready to do that, at that moment, he tells himself that this gesture he was going to make was not madness. It was a piece of history. It would be history. A discharge of adrenaline was made to the head of the man who killed him, on this sunny October day, beginning of the war for the Confederates.

As soon as the front lines were empty again, he ran to the fallen body, threw it into the bushes, and set it on fire with the spray of his rifle. He then turned to the road and headed to headquarters.