Bull Run Read Online Free Page A

deserved the name. He was a man who bore watching. President Davis knew this, and knowing as well that our troops were both unready and greatly outnumbered, forbade us to take the offensive. We were to pick a strong defensive position and block any Union advance on Richmond. We decided to make our stand along the southern bank of the stream called Bull Run. I studied its meandering course for miles. The banks were steep, the fords easily defended. The hills overlooking the terrain from the south would offer us a commanding position. But defense held little allure for Beauregard. In utter violation of his orders, he planned to cross the creek, outflank the Yankees, cut them off from Washington, then take the city himself. He was short, like Napoleon, and believed himself to be as brilliant a general. In private, I feared that the similarity between them ended with their height.

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A. B. TILBURY
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    By gravy, it was a glorious feeling! At last we were marching off to battle! All Washington crowded the streets something handsome. The regimental bands all blared. Standards fluttered. The summer sun glinted on bayonets by the thousands. We could no more keep from singing than from breathing. We filled the air with “Yankee Doodle” and “Rally ’Round the Flag, Boys” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Between them the shout “On to Richmond!” boomed up and down the ranks like thunder. Richmond was only a hundred miles off. We expected to be there in a matter of days. The thought stirred me. I’d come from Maine, joined up as cannoneer, and hadn’t before been south of the Kennebec. I’d never known a Southerner either. But I’d read enough to know that they were cruel-hearted, warloving villains and that peaceable citizens like myself would have to take up the gun against them.
    We crossed the Potomac and followed the troops who were on the south bank toward Centreville, twenty-five miles away. The day was as hot as the hinges of Hades. Our fine, straight lines wavered, then broke. Men wandered off to refill their canteens or chase chickens or rest in the shade of a tree. Blackberries were ripe along the road, and whole companies left ranks to pick them, singing and joshing all the while. I admit that I was one of them. Officers bellowed to no effect. Half of them ended up picking berries. It was less a march than a picnic ramble, with plenty of halts on account of the heat. As the men weren’t accustomed to marching any distance, they soon felt the need to lighten their packs. The road became strewn with cast-off blankets and such. All day and on into the night we lurched ahead and lay down by turns. Finally we stopped and made camp. We’d completed our first day’s march and were filled with pride in ourselves. Then a sneering captain informed us, with great disgust, that we’d progressed just six miles.

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CARLOTTA KING
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    I come up from Mississippi with the master. He was a lieutenant, or some such thing. I heard him braggin’ to another man that he had five thousand acres and loads of slaves, which was a bare-headed lie. And that his slaves would sooner die than run off and leave him, which was a bigger lie yet. Lots of the soldiers brought their slaves with ’em. We washed and cooked and mended, same as back home. Except we weren’t back home. There were different flowers on the ground—northern flowers. The Union men weren’t any more than a few hills away. I’d look at them hills. They did call to me powerful. I was a young woman and fast as a fox. I knew I’d surely never get another chance. I made up my mind and picked the night I’d go. My heart beat hard all that day. I didn’t tell nobody. Then at supper another slave told how those that crossed over were handed back to their owners by the Yankees ! My bowl slipped right out of my hands. I’d thought the Yankees had come to save us. I must have