Question

Read the passage and write a one-paragraph response of at least three to five sentences.

Answer 1

Read the passage and write a one-paragraph response of at least three to five sentences.
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners-two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest-a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground-a gentle acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators-a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. 

Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference. 

What has probably happened before this passage begins? Be sure to support your response with at least two examples from the text.

Answer 2

The man whose hands were tied and whose fate was on the plank as he stared at the stream below him, reminiscing his life, would have been part of the confederate army whose post was ambushed by Union soldiers while they were asleep. It might've been on the point where he held out for some time but instead cracked under pressure and told the Union soldiers all that he knew. The captain or sergeant or colonel ordered his execution, thus the situation which the passage mentioned. This may or may not be the Union soldiers led by Colonel Abel D. Streight.

Basis:

1) The mentioning of Alabama, one of the places of battle during the Civil War where it was mentioned that Col. Streight was in charge of Union Troops back in ca. 1862.

2) The describing (or discreet mentioning) of the Federal Army. The Federal Army is the northern army of the Civil War, hence the Civil War setting.

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