I wonder what is going through Hiram’s mind, drawing the Rebs’ attention and maybe their fire, but then he yells real loud, ‘Suck my ass, skunk eaters!’ and sets us all to laughing.
The laughter don’t last, though. We watch those Confederates move down from the mountain until they are as close as a privy to the house—close enough to see, but not to smell. In the splashes of the last light through the trees, their rifles look the same as ours. They look nothing like what I expected of plantation owners’ sons and slaveholders and such, not a one of them wearing a matching uniform. They look like any farmer from home and except for the gray they’re wearing it is almost like we are coming out of the trees to kill ourselves, coming for our hill, flanking our own rifles.
Jeremiah shakes his arm. ‘Rosetta, let go! We’ve got orders!’
He fires, the roar loud and fast, and he don’t look at me once after that, too busy watching the Rebels running for cover behind trees or moving back away from our skirmish line, loading his rifle without needing to look at what he’s doing. He aims his rifle again and when the crack of his firing sounds, I don’t even aim, I just close my eyes and pull my trigger and try not to think where those bullets go.
IT IS FULL dark when the gunfire dies down. Sergeant musters our Company back together.
‘Boys,’ he says, ‘we’re falling back to Haymarket—’
There are a few cheers, and I can’t help looking back at Will. He keeps his head down.
‘—and then we’ll be joining the rest of the Army at Manassas. There’s more fighting to be had tomorrow.’
‘We’ve been sent on a fool’s errand,’ Edward says low. ‘Should’ve saved our energies.’
‘All we do is fucking retreat when the damn Rebels come! I didn’t sign on for goddamned running,’ Hiram says.
‘Those Rebels were running for cover,’ Sully says, ‘running from shots I was making!’ and it gets me thinking about Will running away from me back in the woods and what all he was taking cover from.
‘Our duty is doing what we’re told,’ Thomas says, shaking his head and making all the boys go quiet. ‘Even if we’re too late to do a thing worthwhile.’
CHAPTER
21
BULL RUN: AUGUST 29, 1862
All night, marching back the way we’ve come, the picture of Preacher posting the casualty list that brought this war right to us keeps playing in my head. He stood there next to the church door, silent and somber, waiting as Mrs. Waite hefted herself up the steps, her round belly bulging beneath her dress, Alice Wakefield holding her arm. And then, after what seemed forever, Mrs. Waite just dropped to the ground, too heavy for Alice to catch her, too fast for Preacher to grab her arm. Papa and Jeremiah’s Pa carried her inside, the churchladies hovering and fanning, but I went to that list, read where it said Killed at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, Clarence Waite, killed at the same field we are marching for.
IN THE BLUSH of morning, the road before us teems with Union troops massing, a tangle of lines marching and horses galloping and flags waving and thousands of men. In the light, Jeremiah’s hands are black from shooting, and Jimmy’s face too. The only boy who ain’t got smears of sooty gunpowder all over him is Will, though he looks almost as tired as Thomas Stakely, who is more than twice his age. It must be fear of battle that made him forget himself under that dogwood.
There is a seriousness to all our boys, and the men we pass on the road look even worse. One man sits on the grass, his head on his knees, his shoulders shaking. The man beside him stares off at nothing.
Another soldier, his face black, his jacket sleeve stained with what looks like blood, stands at the edge of the turnpike. As we come to him, he says, ‘Charles Combs? Have you seen Charles Combs?’ His voice is dull like he’s been asking so long he don’t even know he’s still at it. Off behind him, a Company rallies around their flag. We march past officers yelling out orders from all over that field: ‘Forward, March!’ and ‘Left Flank!’ and bugles calling and I don’t know how anybody can keep straight which ones to listen to or where they are meant to go.
We stop at the top of a hill with a little creek cutting across the base of it. Beyond is noise and men and horses and smoke covering most of those meadows. The earth shakes with the bang of our artillery and the Rebs’ answer. In the space between are sounds like screaming and moaning and yelling and that is when I really see the field below us. What I first took to be shadows in the grass are Union boys. Scattered all across the spread of the land. Most of them lie still, but if I watch some long enough, parts of them move: arms, legs, bodies, more than I can even count.
‘I can’t stay sitting here,’ I say to Jeremiah.
‘You can’t go home now,’ he says, and his arm comes around my shoulder. ‘We can’t.’