Civil War Fact #8
The term "brother against brother" is often used to describe the split of the nation during the Civil War. But there were plenty of documented events where soldiers of the North and the South showed compassion and respect for one another during lulls in battle. Unless attacked or attacking, soldiers considered it murder to shoot at the enemy. Officers on both sides frowned upon friendly encounters with the enemy because it could be detrimental to morale, causing troops to possibly not want to follow orders or shoot the enemy. One such example happened at the battle of Fredricksburg. The South was defending a stone wall at the base of Marye's Heights, and it must have been a pretty damn important stone wall, because they shot 8,000 Union soldiers in just one morning to stop them from getting to it. Sergeant Richard Kirkland decided enough was enough. So Kirkland walked up to his general and calmly stated that he couldn't bear to hear the cries of the wounded soldiers. Kirkland left the trenches and started pouring water into the mouths of wounded Union soldiers. When the enemy saw what was happening, they stopped trying to annihilate him as he moved from body to body. When he was done, he returned to safety behind the lines.
https://www.cracked.com/article_1948...utal-wars.html
https://www.cappersfarmer.com/humor-...ldiers-harpole
https://books.google.com/books?id=BR...%20war&f=false
This is a good read.