Jacob and the other boy lift the heavy stretcher.
“Thank you, Jacob,” I whisper. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He looks at me and smiles. But it’s that fake smile again, the same he gave in Mrs. Henry’s house. It’s the kind I gave my parents when I got my own set of camping utensils for Christmas instead of Grand Theft Auto. I watch him and the other boy lift up Elmer and walk off into the cedar trees behind us, and wonder if Jacob even knows how to really smile.
I feel a pat on my shoulder. “I’ve got to go, Stonewall,” Ash whispers in my ear. “Watch out for my father. And I’ll do the same.”
In a louder voice, she says, “You boys take care of each other.”
Cyrus tips his hat. “You take care too, ma’am.”
Ash smiles at him and runs off after Jacob.
“Whew,” says Cyrus, grinning wildly, “I’ve read about girls that beautiful, but I never seen one before. Shall I compare her to a summer’s day?”
“No thanks,” says Big Jim. “I think you need to turn around here and look at what’s coming at you, not what’s leaving.”
We turn around and I realize that we are in a world of hurt. A wave of Yankees is charging and I know that many more are coming. I also know that many Confederates will die trying to hold them off. Me and Cyrus and Big Jim might very well be among them. Before either side gives up, there is going to be a lot of bloodshed—maybe ours.
I wish I could stop all this. To tell General McDowell and all the other Yankees not to bother. That their assault will cost a lot of lives on both sides, but not succeed. I hate being a part of this.
Why would anyone want to reenact something this stupid?
A fresh attack has started. Another wave of McDowell’s men. We counter it and push them back. They counter us and the whole thing starts over again. As the afternoon wears on and the sun gets lower in the sky, the only thing that really changes is the number of wounded and dead.
It’s a miracle Cyrus isn’t killed. He never misses a chance to expose himself to enemy fire. But he is a crack shot if his gun is in range. He’s hit at least a dozen Yankees so far today. I on the other hand just keep going through the motions. Loading my gun, shooting just a little too high. Trying to dodge the bullets and balls.
Finally a cry goes up.
“Look back there!” hollers Big Jim. He’s echoed by probably a hundred other soldiers.
We look south. At least a thousand Confederates are marching up the dirt road to join our line. They have traveled by train a hundred miles from the Shenandoah Valley and are ready to fight. I have been waiting for this moment . . . and dreading it.
I know these new Confederates will create a tidal wave of soldiers that will wash the Yankees halfway back to Washington. I know Cyrus will want to be near the front of our attack. I think about trying to explain to him about the future again, but I figure that’s a waste of time. I wish I could stop him from getting killed. But maybe it has to happen. I just don’t know and there’s never any time to think.
The pounding of horses’ hoofs shakes the ground beneath our feet. I turn around just in time to see General Jackson rein in his horse a few feet from my face.
“Give me a battle line!” he orders. At once, both wounded and well soldiers jolt to their feet and into formation. Even Big Jim, who seems to forget he’s been shot in the hip, jumps when he sees General Jackson.
General Jackson draws his sword and points it at Mrs. Henry’s house. Still surrounding it are Union soldiers who resembled a wild sea earlier in the day but after several hours of battle now look like a bunch of puddles.
General Jackson stands up in his stirrups. A bullet shoots his hat from his head but he doesn’t even flinch. “This is the moment!” he thunders. “Our moment! And when you charge, yell like Furies!”
Suddenly the world stops—the guns, the cannon fire, the cries of wounded men. Everything grows quiet as all eyes focus on him. I catch my breath, waiting for the order, even wishing for it so I can start to breathe again.
And it comes.
“Charge!”
The reenactors always talk of the Rebel yell, that whooping holler of noise that Confederate soldiers supposedly made as they rushed into a fight. The noise, according to the books, made the Yankees tremble with fear. I could never understand why, judging from the silly “yeehaws” that croaked from my father and his friends at their reenactments.
But this—
The only word to describe the shrieking that drives our charge is unholy. The demonic screams seem to pick us up and carry us the first hundred yards toward the Henry House. When I feel my feet again I am within range of the Yankees’ muskets. It should be easy for them to blast holes in our line.
But nothing comes. Their faces that once seemed so determined are now terrified. They drop their guns, abandon their artillery, and flee from the house and down Henry Hill. Moments later we reach their big guns, and this time we have a leader who knows what to do.
Before the war, General Jackson was an artillery instructor. Several units of his men step forward, turn the guns around, and aim them down the hill at the panicked, fleeing soldiers.
“Fire at will,” General Jackson calls. And the cries that led our charge are now answered by the booming of our new guns. The result of each is the same. Fright. Fear. A wild retreat. And victory for the South.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE UNION retreat is this totally screwed-up scramble across any ford or bridge to get over Bull Run and back on the road to Washington. There is no rearguard to protect the retreating Yankees from the Confederate attack. They are in chaos.
The only thing that’s saving them is the fact that the Rebels’ pursuit is just as nuts. Confederates stop at every dead Yankee to pick his pockets. They swipe watches, coins, bullets, and powder boxes. We pass one guy unlacing some soldier’s shoes. Even luckier Rebels are dumping their old-fashioned muskets in exchange for the Enfield rifles, but only after prying loose the clutching fingers of the dead Yankees who brought them into battle.
“Scavengers,” Cyrus mutters, though I do catch him looking forlornly at his old musket.
He and I are among the few who have stayed in a ragged line of battle. Big Jim is with us too, but he seems to limp more with every step as we march steadily along behind the fleeing Yanks. They are tramping along the Warrenton Turnpike, and though they’re only a few hundred yards ahead of us, we are pretty safe. They aren’t shooting at us and we aren’t really shooting at them. It’s like they’re glad just to be rid of the battlefield and we’re glad just to do the ridding.
“Feel like I’m back home herding cattle,” says Cyrus. “Over yonder across Bull Run is the corral and that bridge there is the gate. Get them across there and they’ll head for home.”
The Henry House smolders in the distance behind us. Its white, two-story wood frame is pocked with cannon and bullet holes like the surface of the moon. Beside it, a silhouette in the setting sun, I can see a man with a shovel digging a hole in the yard. A grave for Mrs. Henry, I suppose. I hope her death was peaceful.
“Pipe tobacco and coffee! Get ’em while they’re hot!”
The voice comes from our right. I look and see a short, plump man with a full red beard. He wears a black suit with a bow tie and is pushing a cart with a jangling cow bell down a lane and right into our path. Soldiers limp to the man and plunk coins into his hand.
“My name is Wilmer McLean and I’m here to ease your pain.”
Big Jim stays back, resting on his musket and watching the horizon. Cyrus picks up a packet of tobacco and sniffs it. For the first time today I notice that he has a corncob pipe bulging out of his back pocket, the one not holding the flask.
“McLean,” I murmur. “Seems like I should know that name.”
McLean’s eyes pop wide in fake surprise and he takes a hop backward. “My reputation doth precede me. Perhaps you have patronized my store in town. Or have reposed in my inn?”
&nb
sp; I shake my head.
“Well,” he continues, “you are standing near McLean soil.” He points behind him. “Just over that hill is my barn, which your army—er, my country—has chosen for its temporary medical residence. Rent-free, I should add. I am, after all, a patriot.”
Now it clicks. Wilmer McLean, owner of part of the Manassas battlefield where the war’s first fight took place . . . is taking place.
“Yes sir,” McLean continues. “For years and years my domain exists in bucolic tranquility and then one day I wake up and find forty thousand men tromping by my house. Total chaos.”
Yeah, right. You really seem to be suffering from all this chaos. How much money have you made today? You’re even worse than those sutlers who rip off tourists at the reenactments.
“So may I interest you gentlemen in my wares?” he asks while plucking the packet of tobacco from Cyrus’s hand.
Cyrus takes a long look at the tobacco. “Ain’t got any money on me,” he says.
I dig around in my pockets. No coins. Of course, even if I did have money, it wouldn’t be the kind that McLean would recognize.
McLean shakes his head and clucks his tongue. “Then I’m afraid, sir, that you don’t have any tobacco on you either . . . unless . . .” McLean eyes the knives on Cyrus’s belt, “. . . you’d be willing to part with your blades.”
Cyrus puts a protective hand over each hilt. “No sale.”
McLean shrugs. “So be it,” he says, and with that, McLean pushes his cart away.
Cyrus is pretty grumpy as we keep marching.
“Been risking my life all day for that bastard and his barn,” I hear him grumbling, “and he can’t spare a pipeful of tobacco. Some patriot.”
I almost tell him that McLean’s the kind of guy who one day will be a Civil War reenactor, but he wouldn’t understand. We walk a few minutes and an idea pops into my head. I stop and tell Cyrus, “You go on. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
I’m about to turn back, but Cyrus stops too. His eyes narrow.
“I promise,” I tell him. “I told you I’m not running now.”
Cyrus studies me another second, cracks a smile, and starts marching again.
I jog back to McLean’s cart.
“Pipe tobacco and coffee!” he cries out. “Wounded and maimed get ten percent off!”
I step to the front of the line. “Five packets of your finest tobacco,” I say.
Now McLean’s eyes pop wide for real. “Five packets!” he declares. “Why, even the goodly, nay, saintly General Bee only purchased three this morning before he met his untimely demise.”
He licks his lips. “And how might you pay for this?”
“A trade?” I say.
McLean squints. “And what could you possibly have that I might want?
I reach into my satchel. “An e-lectric music box,” I say, and I hold out my Game Boy. I flip it on and it flashes and beeps out the theme of Orc Slayer 2059.
McLean’s eyes bug out like golf balls. He reaches out and carefully takes it from my hands. He brings it closer to his eyes, to his ears. He even sniffs it.
“Yes, boy,” he whispers. “Five packets seem just about right.”
As I walk away, I wonder for a moment if I’ve made a mistake. A twenty-first-century Game Boy in the wrong nineteenth-century hands? But the batteries are almost dead. I doubt McLean will be changing any history with it.
I march back down the lane to find Cyrus and Big Jim. It doesn’t take long. I spot them standing beside another house, much smaller than Mrs. Henry’s, really just one big room with a small front porch. I’ve seen the house before, but I know it wasn’t there the last time my parents dragged me to Manassas. On that part of the battlefield, only the Henry House still stands.
I reach Cyrus’s side, but he and Big Jim don’t seem to realize I’m here. I follow their gaze to a dead Yankee slumped against the front porch. He’s young, about Cyrus’s age, with long blond curls and a smooth white face.
Lying faceup at his feet is a comrade of his, shot in the stomach and dead too. He has black curly hair and a mustache. Something about his pale face looks familiar. But there’s something in all the dead soldiers I’ve seen today that looks familiar. Maybe it’s how surprised they all look—their eyes opened wide or eyebrows wrinkled—like they didn’t really expect today to be this bad.
“Cyrus,” I say, and reach into my satchel for the tobacco. “I got you some—”
Before I can finish, Big Jim falls to his knees. He grabs the black-haired Yankee’s shirt and buries his face into his chest. He starts crying loud, painful sobs that shake him and the Yankee’s body.
And it hits me why the Yankee looks familiar. He looks like Big Jim and Elmer. This must be John Mark, their older brother, who didn’t believe in the secession and went to fight with the North.
I’ve seen a lot of fear and death today. But seeing Big Jim clutching his brother brings tears to my eyes. I take a step toward him to pat his shoulder when all of a sudden he jumps up and runs to the other dead Yankee leaning against the house and starts screaming and punching the corpse in the ribs.
In an instant, Cyrus is behind him. He seizes Big Jim’s collar and yanks him away.
“Leave me be!” Big Jim cries.
But Cyrus doesn’t leave him be. He spins Big Jim around, throws his arms around his shoulders, and hugs him tightly. Big Jim fights against Cyrus, hits him a few times hard in the back. But Cyrus doesn’t let go. He just squeezes harder until Big Jim finally sinks onto Cyrus’s shoulder and begins weeping again.
I step over to the dead Yankee’s battered corpse. I guess Big Jim blames this kid and all the other Union soldiers here for going to war over the secession and causing John Mark to make a choice. Fight for his brothers or fight for his country. I’m glad I’ll never have to make a choice like that.
Just as I’m about to turn away, I notice a scrap of paper clutched in the Yankee’s hand. I kneel down and start peeling his rigid fingers from the paper. It’s an envelope.
When I work it free, I see scrawled on the envelope the name Sarah. It’s not sealed, so I open it carefully and take out the page. It’s dated July 14, 1861. One week ago today.
My dear Sarah, We shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Now, this reads like science fiction. I mean, the guy writes like he knows he’s going to die. Like he’s already dead. As I keep reading, though, the letter turns from strange to simply sad. First, the guy tells his wife he’s ready to die for his government, for his country. That he feels a debt to all those men who have died before him to make the country great.
But then he says he knows his death will mean sorrow for his wife. That he’s glad to have spent so much time with her, but that he will miss being with her and watching his sons grow up.
By the time I read his last sentence, I am crying.
My dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Sullivan
From the look of his wounds, he never got the chance to whisper her name. You never see this part in the reenactments, with all their dramatic cries of anguish and overacted death scenes. This is a real man who gave up everything for his ideals, for his country. But why did this man’s wife, Sarah, have to suffer for this to come true? Surely there was a better way to make America great than for thousands of men to kill each other in Mrs. Henry’s front yard.
I have to keep my back turned to Cyrus and Big Jim so they can’t see the tears trickling down my cheeks. Can’t let them catch me crying over a Yankee I don’t know. I fold the letter, put it back in the envelope, and slip it into the soldier’s pocket. Maybe a friend will come back and find him and know how to find Sarah. She will want to read it.
As I kneel beside Sullivan, a shadow falls over us. I look up to find Ed
ward, the black man who took care of Mrs. Henry, standing over me. Sweat drenches his bald, shining head and he is wiping mud and dirt off his hands with a handkerchief.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“My house,” he replies.
And I know where I’ve seen this house before. This is the Robinson House. I’ve seen it in pictures in history books, but only its foundation survives to the time my family visited the field. And the man staring into his muddy black hands must be Mr. Robinson, a freed slave.
“You’re Mr. Robinson,” I say.
This gets him looking up. “How you know that?”
Before I know what I’m saying, I hear the words come from my mouth. “Because I’m not one of them.”
I’m not sure what I mean, and I don’t know if Mr. Robinson does either. But he nods as if he understands and keeps wiping his hands.
I ask, “How is Mrs. Henry?”
He shrugs. “Soon to be in the ground. I just dug the hole.”
I don’t know if I should or not, but I reply, “I’m sorry.”
He nods again.
“Does she have any family?” I ask.
“Just her son,” he answers, “ever since our father died.”
This sounds strange. “Our?” I ask.
“Me and Missus Henry’s,” he says.
Now I am totally confused. “But that means she’s your sister,” I say. “How, if you’re, well . . . and she’s, like . . .”
He spits into his hands and keeps wiping. “My momma was Mr. Henry’s housekeeper and when I was born I was his slave as well as his son. But his daughter, Judith, she never treated me like a slave. She treated me like a brother. Now she’s gone too.”
“And that’s why you were freed when your father died,” I say.
He just shrugs again. “Suppose so, but the problem is Jacob. Mrs. Henry owned him and treated him all right. I don’t know what’ll happen to him now.”
He picks up his shovel and walks back toward the remains of Mrs. Henry’s house.
I want to call out to him not to worry. That Jacob—and all the other slaves—will be free in just a few years when the war is over. But he would just think I was crazy.
Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run Page 10