Bull Run Read Online Free Page B

looked sick. They wondered over me, but I didn’t tell ’em. I sat down by the crick.
    I told myself I’d keep where I was—till the big battle, anyway. And I told myself to stop lookin’ at the hills.

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NATHANIEL EPP
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    With camera and wagon, I followed the army. It was three days before we reached Centreville. The village was small but the men’s spirits high. They ripped down every Rebel flag, broke into houses, took what they liked. I saw a pair of them traipse back out to the road dressed up in plumed hats and satin gowns. Another, got up in a minister’s garb, spoke Jefferson Davis’ funeral service. Colonel Sherman rebuked them as Goths and Vandals and ordered them punished.
    A few regiments went on to Bull Run, tested the Rebels, and were driven back. The men’s mood changed when they got word of it. An ambulance wagon passed nearby, its passengers groaning for all to hear. The line for portraits grew suddenly long. The men looked glum. They knew they might die, and seemed desperate to see that they would live on, framed and set upon a table. That evening I announced that I would show my photograph of the human soul. The crowds were greater than ever before. An Irish chaplain paid his ten cents, viewed it, and praised my good works. I was pleased to see how the picture cheered the men. It had a similar effect upon me, for it brought in forty-nine dollars that night.

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VIRGIL PEAVEY
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    We drilled in Alabama, then took the railroad to Harpers Ferry, Virginia. I was getting so used to trains that I fancied myself an engineer after the war. We joined General Bee’s brigade, but all the talk was of General Jackson. “Old Lemon-Squeezer” the men called him. He was forever sucking on half a lemon. His peculiar ways went a long chalk past that. At night he was known to sleep under a cold, wet sheet to help his digestion. He was famous for his praying as well. Twice I saw him speaking a prayer while riding his horse, his eyes blank as a statue’s. He was upright and religious to a dreadful degree. The first thing he did in Harpers Ferry was search out every barrel of liquor and pour it all to waste in the street. It was said that some men shed tears at the sight.
    When we heard that Patterson’s Union troops were coming, we streaked it to Winchester. They could make us move, but they couldn’t catch us. It was a comfort to know they wouldn’t find any liquor. Then our colonel announced that off to the east the Union army was moving in force and that Beauregard would be larruped without us. We marched twenty miles in eighteen hours, forded the Shenandoah River, then boarded a train on the Manassas Gap line. Old Patterson’s probably looking for us still.
    As soon as we stepped off at Manassas Junction the cars returned to bring more soldiers. We were told that we’d likely see battle the next day. Some men whooped. Some looked as solemn as General Jackson praying. My friend Tuck and I made a pact then and there to stay side by side when the shooting commenced.

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GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL
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    I spent a full day studying the terrain, revised my plan, and was ready to attack. Then I found that the army was out of food. The commissary wagons hadn’t arrived. I squandered another day waiting for them, praying that Patterson had the Rebels in the west penned up beyond the Shenandoah. I made out the sound of train whistles far off, but thought little of it at the time.
    All was finally in order. We would strike Beauregard on Sunday morning. On Saturday afternoon I was told that the Eighth New York Militia’s term of service would end at midnight and that they planned to march north and not south. I addressed them, as did the Secretary of War. On the morrow, we told them, they’d at last have the chance to fire their rifles at secession and give the bayonet to treason. Without them, the Union might well be lost. The spirit of George