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The Most Critical Qualities a Boss Needs to Succeed
Richard Kirkland knew he had to do something. The cries of men dying were too much even though these men were his enemy.
Kirkland asked his boss, a Confederate Army brigade commander, if he could go help the men. The commander reluctantly allowed it.
Sergeant Kirkland gathered up a dozen full canteens and went out into the open battlefield to tend to the dying men.
At first, the Union soldiers on the other side of the field assumed Kirkland was out plundering the dead. They started shooting at him.
The firing subsided when they realized Kirkland was tending to their comrades.
Then the firing stopped.
The surrounding area called Marye’s Heights was briefly void of the sounds of war. Both sides in the battle, the North and the South, looked on in silence as Richard helped the wounded men.
One man, Richard Kirkland, brought the battle and thus the war to a halt if only for a short time with a compassion that was stronger than fear — a love for his fellow man — a courage stronger than self-preservation.
