Another shell hits the house. Cyrus is probably already outside. I don’t want to go back out to the battle, but I can’t stay here. I know this place is going to get hit, and hard. Besides, there is nothing left to do for Mrs. Henry. She is going to die, but at least we got her back to her room.
I head down the stairs and out the door, and find that the battle has caught up with us.
CHAPTER SIX
CYRUS IS already in the new Confederate line of battle that extends out from either side of Mrs. Henry’s house. Our artillery has stopped the Union troops cold. (I’m going to say “our” while they’re keeping me from getting killed!) At the bottom of the hill, the Yankees are hiding behind the trees along Young’s Branch to form a new battle line in the turnpike.
But they’re not going to be pinned down long. Yankee reinforcements pour down Matthews Hill, while above them more Union artillery begins firing at us.
Maybe now’s a good chance for me to bid Bull Run good-bye. It’s been great, folks! The bullets, the slaughter, little old ladies scared to death!
Reenactments have never looked so good.
There’s a wood of cedar trees about a quarter of a mile to the rear. Nothing but an open field separates me from its shelter—and promise of escape.
I step down from the porch to the yard and start walking away from the house, away from the Confederate line. Cyrus and everyone are all looking the other way, down the hill at the Yankees. I try to act casual in case anyone’s looking. Don’t mind me . . . just taking a nice summer stroll through a battlefield . . . nothing to see here. Just a few more steps and I can run for it.
“Stonewall!” someone calls. I can’t keep myself from looking back.
It’s Cyrus.
He’s leaning on his musket and talking with two men—one tall and gangly, the other short and squat like a tree stump. Both are older than Cyrus, have curly black hair, thick beards, and pale faces that don’t seem to smile often. They’re both wiping blood off their faces.
Somehow this doesn’t seem like a real classy moment to slink away and hide under a log. Reluctantly, I join them.
They’re loading their muskets as I come up to them.
“There you are,” I say when I reach Cyrus’s side.
“Get ready, my friend,” Cyrus says. “The Yanks are upon us, but here we’ll make our stand! Once more into the breach!”
The two men beside him roll their eyes and shake their heads.
“This here’s Big Jim and Elmer,” Cyrus tells me. “They’re brothers, live close to my daddy’s farm back home. Boys, this is Stonewall Hinkleman.”
Big Jim takes aim down the hill. “Didn’t know you had kin, Cyrus,” he says, his finger on the trigger. He fires and a cloud of smoke hides his face. Elmer does the same.
Cyrus scratches his head. “I haven’t figured that one out yet, Big Jim.” Cyrus grins. “He’s kind of hefty for a Hinkleman, but he moves pretty quick when he needs to.”
Big Jim and Elmer don’t answer. They’re busy reloading, and even though I know the basics, for the first time in my life I really pay attention. Forget all the junk about flanking maneuvers and sidearm shift and which side is right or wrong. I need to know how to really load this thing!
First, they tear a packet of powder with their teeth and pour the powder down the gun’s barrel. They take the ramrod from the musket and pack down the powder, then drop in a round metal ball. They cock the hammer and set a firing cap under it.
Now they’re ready to shoot—all in just fifteen seconds!
So when they pull the trigger, the hammer will strike the cap . . . which will shoot out a spark . . . which will touch off the gunpowder . . . which will fire the ball out of the gun . . . which, considering the technology of the early Civil War musket, will have a decent chance of hitting someone if they are less than a hundred yards away.
How on earth am I going to remember all that?
Big Jim and Elmer look down to the road at the foot of the hill, where the number of Yankees has grown so large they make the road look like a raging river. They sigh a deep breath, aim, and fire.
I look to Cyrus, who eagerly plunges his ramrod down the barrel. “What’s wrong with them?” I whisper, though my ears are so shot I must have yelled, since Big Jim and Elmer both look at me.
Cyrus doesn’t answer right away. He takes out a flask from his hip pocket, pops the cork, and takes a swig. Moonshine, I’d guess, by the smell of it. The fumes almost choke me from three feet away.
He offers me the bottle. I shake my head. He shrugs and shoves the flask back into his pocket. He glances at Big Jim and Elmer, who have gone back to reloading.
“Their big brother could be down there,” he whispers back.
“Brother? With the Union? But why isn’t he up here with them?” I pause, then add, “With us?”
Cyrus shakes his head. “John Mark went up north to college a few years back. Now he says he don’t believe in the secession. Don’t think the South has the right to do it. He always was too durn stubborn for his own good.”
Before he can go on, a Union drummer begins to beat and the Yankee soldiers step into Young’s Branch.
Cyrus aims and fires.
“Just missed,” he hisses.
Big Jim and Elmer raise their guns too, and fire. But their faces don’t shine like Cyrus’s when they pull the trigger.
Now two hundred yards in front of us, the line of Yankees rises up Henry Hill like an ocean tide, firing as they go. Bullets whistle above my head and plunk into the ground in front of me.
To my right, a big guy with shaggy sideburns raises his gun. If he was a reenactor, his gun wouldn’t have a musket ball. It would just be full of powder so that it would sound like a real gun but not kill like one. And still he would aim well above the enemy’s heads because, as Dad always preaches, “Even gunpowder firing from the barrel can hurt somebody.”
Apparently, authenticity has its limits.
But this guy aims low, so he’s sure at least to hit a Yankee in the leg or stomach. I wait for the blast, the shroud of smoke. Nothing happens. Suddenly the man falls forward face-first to the ground. The green grass under his head turns dark red.
I look back to Cyrus, but he doesn’t even seem to notice what happened. Or he can’t take time to notice because he’s busy reloading. He raises his gun and fires. I look in the direction of his aim. One of the Yankee flags suddenly falls to the earth.
“Out durned spot!” Cyrus shouts.
The flag quickly rises again as another soldier grabs it up.
Angrily reloading, Cyrus glances at me. “Ain’t you in this war? Ain’t you going to shoot that gun?”
I realize I’ve been standing here like a total dork looking at all the action. I’m either going to have to start shooting or start running.
Running sounds a lot better.
If I start running the other way, maybe I can get far enough away before Cyrus sees me and can do anything about it. Not that he would. Guys like Cyrus will always be on the line of battle, never running for the rear.
I take a deep breath and start to tiptoe away, even though there’s no way Cyrus can actually hear me from all the artillery blasts and gunfire. I take five steps. Ten. I’ve got my musket on my shoulder and it clangs against my bugle. I look over my shoulder. Cyrus still hasn’t turned my way.
A few hundred yards ahead of me is the forest of cedars. If I can just make it to those, I’ll be safe. Then all I’ll need to do is figure out how this bugle will get me back home. I start to run. Faster. My musket clangs again and again off the bugle, but I don’t care.
“Stonewall!” I hear Cyrus shout behind me. “Stonewall!”
Sorry, not this time, pal. With my head start, I know even I can beat him to the woods. And he’s not going to leave his post anyway.
Running away from him makes me feel like a coward. Half my brain says I’m doing this so that I don’t mess up history, but the other half is sneering at me an
d saying I am a big wuss and would probably be running away anyway.
A few more strides and the trees grow larger. My chest burns. The hundred-yard dash at school is one thing. What I’ve had to do today and what I’m doing now, loaded down with a bugle and musket, is freaking nuts.
But now I’m halfway there, only a couple hundred yards away. I can see the gaps in the trees, like they’re opening up to welcome me inside. Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe, I gasp to myself to keep me going. I’m going to make it.
And suddenly they appear.
From out of the shadows of the trees step two solid ranks of at least a thousand Confederate soldiers, maybe two. Without a word, they all stop at once. I brake to a halt too. Most of the soldiers don’t even seem to see me. They’re looking at the fighting at my back. But some point at me and laugh. I look down at my light blue uniform and pathetic yellow neckerchief and feel like a complete dork trapped alone in this no-man’s-land, like I’m in one of those screwy dodgeball games in PE where everybody has a ball but me.
To get out from under the gaze of thousands of eyes, I turn and see I’m much closer to the Confederate line than I thought I’d be. God, I am pathetic, I am so slow! But now I see that the Yankees have crested the hill and are almost to Mrs. Henry’s house. It’s not that I’m that slow. It’s just that the Confederate line has been falling back with me.
A bullet whizzes by my head. Forget looking like a coward. I’m out of here. I spin around to make a dash for the trees . . . only to run face-first into the sweaty chest of this huge horse and hit the ground hard.
The sun is over the horse and rider, and the rider’s face is in shadow. Another horse steps up to his right. I feel their breath and the stinky heat from their bodies.
“Running the wrong way, aren’t you, son?” the rider says. His voice is low and harsh, and I jump to my feet quick.
The other horseback officer looks down on me. Unlike the soldiers, neither of them is laughing. Or even smiling.
“Sorry, sir,” I gasp. “I just . . . I . . .”
And that’s when I see his face.
He looks different. He’s much younger and his beard is black and trimmed, not gray and shaggy. His blue eyes—lively and warm in his tent—are hard like rocks. And instead of a tie-dyed T-shirt, he has a stiff uniform. And both arms. But it’s him! It has to be!
I should have guessed it earlier!
Relief floods through my body.
“Tom!” I say. “Man am I glad to see—”
His eyes cut to me now.
“What did you say, boy?” snaps the officer to his right.
“Sorry, sir,” I say to the officer. “But, um, I know him. I mean, I know you.” I turn back to Tom, holding up the bugle as proof. “It’s me.”
Tom narrows his eyes at me even more.
“Me?” I whimper with a smile. “Stonewall?”
Tom sniffs and looks away from me to the advancing armies, while the other officer sneers, “Stonewall? Stonewall?”
He says the name in the same way I’ve always said it, like it was a huge black roach that I was about to stomp. With the possible exception of my father, Stonewall Jackson was the object of my greatest scorn and nastiest sarcasm. That he was actually shot and killed by his own men at the Battle of Chancellorsville has always been a bright spot in my Civil War studies. Only the belief that my ancestor Cyrus had turned chicken in the war’s first fight seemed funnier.
Now I have to rethink this man too. Seeing him up on his horse, back straight and stiff, his long black beard waving in the wind as he looks calmly out over the battlefield, I can’t think of him as Stonewall. I can’t even think of him as Tom.
Only as General Jackson.
He glances at me one more time. “Mr. Stonewall, you’d better return to your regiment,” he says, his voice as cold as his eyes. “Being shot is not the worst thing that could happen to you today.”
My heart is pumping hard. I look into his face one more time, hoping for a wink or raised eyebrow or something to let me know he knows me.
But he turns away and I can see I’m not worth another ounce of his attention.
The Confederate line is now only fifty yards away. I can see Cyrus’s red head through the dust and smoke. I’m not keen to the idea of getting back into the line, but General Jackson has made it clear I can’t stay where I am. I start making my way back to Cyrus’s side. I’m almost to him when I hear hoofbeats to my left. It’s General Bee. He reins his horse to a stop between me and the Confederate line.
“Sound the fallback!” he yells over his shoulder.
I look up at him and realize he’s talking to me.
“Sir?” I ask.
“Blow your bugle, boy, and sound the fallback!” he orders.
I unsling the bugle and put it to my lips. The Rebels are now less than twenty steps away. They bob up and down one at a time as they aim, fire, reload, aim, and fire again.
I breathe in deeply to sound the fallback. And stop. My gut flips and I gasp again.
I don’t know the tune to fallback.
All I’ve ever had to play for the reenactments is Charge! I’ve learned a few other simple tunes, but never whatever Fallback is. Maybe it’s the same as Charge! but the soldiers know which way they’re supposed to go. Maybe this is also my ticket home. I close my eyes, take another breath, and blow.
I get six notes out before a hand smacks the bugle from my lips. I open my eyes to find General Bee, his face red, glaring at me from his horse. I guess Charge! wasn’t right.
“Forget it, you fool,” snarls General Bee. “I’ll do it myself.”
He turns back to the firing line and booms out the order.
“Fall back, men!” he cries. “Help has arrived!”
Looking at his men, General Bee draws his sword and points it toward me. Cyrus, Big Jim, and Elmer turn. Their faces are black from gun smoke. I see their white eyes flicker from Bee’s sword to me.
“We are not alone!” Bee yells.
Now more eyes are on me. General Bee follows their confused looks.
“Not this idiot!” he shouts. I point over my shoulder and step behind Bee’s horse, which uses that very moment to drop a load on my foot.
“Look, men!” Bee shouts. “Reinforcements! The Virginians!”
Now the soldiers see General Jackson, and the Yankees must see him too, because he’s attracting a lot of enemy fire. You always shoot for the guy on a horse because horses carry only high-ranking officers. Bullets are whistling past his head. But he doesn’t seem to care. He casually surveys the scene of battle as if he’s watching the sunset. He turns to a young man beside him and issues an order. The young man scurries to the artillery pieces that have suddenly rolled out from the trees. At once, the cannons open fire above us and blast big holes in the Union line.
“Look, men!” General Bee shouts again, and I know the moment has come.
Up to today, General Jackson has been a military professor from Virginia who has gone by his given name, Thomas. But with General Bee’s next sentence, General Jackson will get his immortal nickname—and I’ll get mine.
“Look!” Bee shouts, and despite the chaos around me and the childhood turmoil of being burdened with such a name, I feel this surge of excitement at getting to actually witness this event.
General Bee is about to say “There stands Jackson like a stone wall,” and both Jackson and me will be stuck with that name forever.
“Soldiers of the South!” cries General Bee. “There stands Jackson like a . . . uh . . .”
Bee’s grasping for the right words! This could be my chance! Maybe I can supply a better nickname for Jackson and a much better name for myself. Maybe Rock. Or Hammer. Or Lone Wolf. Or . . .
“Stone wall! Stone wall! Like a stone wall!” someone shouts.
Aw, man, who said that? The voice sounded familiar but I can’t see who said it. But I can tell I just lost my chance, because Bee seems to love it. He points again with his sword. “There
stands Jackson like a . . . stone wall!” he yells. “Rally behind the Virginians!” He spurs his horse and the entire line surges toward General Jackson.
I’ve missed my big chance. Now I am doomed to be Stonewall. The moment was in my hands and I let it slip away.
I trudge with the rest of the Confederates into General Jackson’s line of men.
“I thought Stonewall had a nice ring to it, don’t you think so, son?”
I look up. It’s the familiar black hat. And the sunburn and goatee. And the way he licks the spittle away from his lips. This guy looks just like Senator Dupree, like maybe his great-grandfather or something.
He’s patting other Confederates on the back, and gets smiles in return. But looking down I see what the other soldiers don’t. His uniform is too nice, too clean, too starched. Like he hasn’t been fighting at all. Like it’s not even real.
And it hits me. This guy’s wearing a reenactor’s reproduction.
Just like mine.
This isn’t Dupree’s great-grandfather. This is Dupree. The real Dupree. Somehow, just like me, he’s come back in time. Unlike me, he seems to be having a real good time.
“Yes, boys,” I hear him say, “this war will be ours before the day is done.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALL RIGHT, let’s review.
It’s 1861 and I’m in the middle of a freaking war zone with my great-great-great-great-uncle, who is not the wuss I grew up thinking but really some poetic kamikaze daredevil who’s going to get me killed if I stay with him much longer. And now I’ve found myself face-to-face with a guy who makes the Ku Klux Klan look like the Boy Scouts.
Time to get out of here.
But here is the middle of a messy retreat, not nearly as orderly as when the reenactors do it. Maybe it’s because real bullets aren’t being fired at the reenactors. Men are pushing every which way and some don’t seem to want to retreat. Some are still taking potshots at the Yankees. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cyrus is one of them.
Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run Page 5