7

a fter the battle of manassas in late july, i received a letter from my first cousin,

maggie martin. two years younger than i, she was a companion of mary’s. her family lived

just a mile south of bethel and down the road toward lexington. maggie was convinced she was

mighty attractive and thus was quite a coquette, with a porcelain complexion and her hair

twisted in brown ringlets. her letter demonstrated how those at home had no idea of what we’d

lived through during that terrible july day in manassas. she wrote some silliness, asking if we

were putting on plays in camp or having dance socials with local girls, and if there were very

many tall boys like me. she said she loved to see tall boys having to stoop lower to put their

arms around girls, and she complained there now was nothing but “little bits” of boys left at

home. what could i possibly say in response?

i could have told her about arriving at bull run on july 21 in the midst of cannons bellowing,

artillery rounds blasting, and smoke on the field that blinded my vision. and that we were the

victors of a one-day battle that we believed had won the southern states the right to secede. i

could have told her that.

but there wasn’t much else i could say that she could bear to hear. i couldn’t tell her that the

night before dawn on july 21 was the worst i had ever spent. for eighteen hours we marched

north from winchester to the quiet village of piedmont station, located at a railroad junction.

we waited there until the next morning when freight trains arrived to carry our horde to

manassas. our officers hoped to turn back northern troops on their way to attack the new

confederate capital in richmond. sam, tayloe, and i lay jittery on the ground, side by side,

newly minted army weapons pressed against our thighs. the late afternoon hours had been time

enough to boast and prophesy, but as the shadows lengthened, there was also plenty of time to

doubt and then quake right down to the soles of my boots. the sound of murmured prayer

periodically lifted on the summer night air.

as the sun was sinking behind cobbler mountain, a fellow who said his name was william

valentine spotted room next to us for an extra blanket and asked, “do you boys mind if i join

y’all here?”

“not a bit. feel free,” sam said and then threw his arm over his eyes to signal his wish to be

left alone.

valentine laid his blanket on the rocky ground next to mine and squatted on it. next to him,

he placed his rifle and a small oval object he withdrew from his knapsack. in the dim light, i

couldn’t make out what it was. but then he spoke to it in a low voice.

“what the hell do you have there?” i asked him.

“it’s my good luck box turtle. name’s roscoe. he’s been with me ever since i left home. he

stays inside his shell during drills, and then i let him forage in the grass for bugs and worms

when i’m resting.” i stared at valentine incredulously for a minute. barely eighteen, and maybe

not that, he was a little fellow, scrawny and pale with white- blond hair and sad eyes. he

appeared not to have had any good luck—and certainly not to have had anybody who fed him

well.

“well, i guess you could catch up with a turtle easy enough if he tried to get away. why

aren’t you bedding down with your own company?” i asked.

“they’re just over the rise. but when i spotted you fellows as i walked by, i decided this was

a decent place to stop. i can see my own company well enough from here to join them in the

morning. besides, i don’t know none of ’em any better than you.”

“where are you from?”

“just outside of pulaski, down in western virginia,” he said.

tayloe had propped himself up on his haversack and was listening. “really? aside from

turtles, aren’t there indians and buffaloes still lurking around those hills?” he joked.

“buffaloes have been gone so long, i don’t know when the last one was chased off,”

valentine replied. “i ’spect there’s some indians still around though. you might think living

ain’t so good there, but my pa had his own still, and people came from all around to buy his

licker. folks said it was the best they’d tasted anywhere. we had a milk cow, a roof over our

heads, and a patch of land to grow vegetables. there wasn’t much we wanted for.”

“sounds like a good enough life,” i said.

he studied his ragged fingernails. “yes, but things turned bad. the revenuers caught on to my

pa,” he said. “one night eight years ago, pa dismantled the still, packed up the copper pipes, and

run off. we never heared from him again. ma tried the best she could, but we had less and less.

she finally died two months ago; i suspect she was plain tuckered out.”

“i’m sorry about that.” i paused before asking, “how have you been getting by?”

“a cloth peddler gave my twelve-year old sister and me a ride on his cart up to roanoke and

helped us find odd jobs. she works as a scullery maid’s helper in the roanoke hotel, and they

let her sleep in the kitchen. i volunteered for the confederate army. that’s shelter, food, and a

trifling wage for me. at least for three months.” his story made me consider how lucky i’d been

so far, even if i might die the next day. we both fell quiet, and then he stretched out on his

blanket, staring blankly at the sky.

i remained upright, taking in a sight the likes of which i’d never seen. thousands and

thousands of boys stretched across the field on their backs, narrow lumps silhouetted by a full

moon. they were spread as far as the horizon, waiting for dawn and the train to bull run. a

chill swept down my spine, making me wonder about premonitions. finally, i lay down, but

sleep escaped me.

after a while, i heard muffled sobs and saw that valentine was crying into his bent elbow to

hide the sound. i reached across and touched his arm.

“aw, man, buck up,” i whispered, hoping he wouldn’t detect the uncertainty in my voice.

“this’ll be over before you know it. we’ll all be bragging about it by tomorrow evening.”

he snuffled. finally, he made no more sounds. i dozed off for a bit until i felt his hand

shaking my shoulder.

“are you awake, tom? i need to ask a favor.”

i rose up on my elbows to face him. “sure. what is it?”

“if i get kilt tomorrow, i want you to promise that i get buried. you hardly know me, but i

don’t have anyone else to ask,” he whispered in the darkness.

“i promise. but we might get through this unhurt or only wounded.”

“i don’t want to be wounded. no sir. i’d be useless then, and i don’t want that. if i’m shot, i

want to be shot straight through the heart,” valentine said.

“it won’t happen. just get some sleep,” i told him and closed my eyes.

but there was still no sleep for me. lying there, i was ambushed by odd thoughts. would any

of the girls in bethel mourn my death? would lizzie fackler be tormented by guilt for having

spurned me? she might even regret she’d missed her chance, if she ever considered changing

her mind. then i worried about how my parents would find my dead body. and how they would

haul it home for burial at new jerusalem church, or even better, on the hill above the house.

what would my tombstone say? i hoped they would leave off my middle name, martin; i’d

never liked it much. these morbid thoughts fanned my fear to the point that sleep was

impossible.

the morning dawned with a clear sky and with orders from our captain to join the noisy

throng of soldiers teeming around the little station. this was the first time that troops had ridden

trains to battle. an ear-splitting cheer arose as each train whistled and chugged forward, packed

with boys departing for manassas station. sam, tayloe, and i rested wordlessly against the car’s

wooden wall with our backs bumping to the rhythm of the wheels, their rumble drowning out

any conversation. when the train halted at manassas, a steady roar of guns and cannons

peppered the air in the distance. a racing heart propelled me during the short march from the

station, across the wooden bridge over bull run, over trampled wheat grass and up henry hill

to a fringe of dark oaks. above the crowns of the trees, dense smudges of artillery smoke

splotched the sky. unleashed by heat and terror, salty sweat dripped from my brow into my

eyes. another pause while our commanders awaited a signal, and then the order went down our

line: “forward march! double quick!” with sam on one side of me, tayloe on the other, and

william valentine trailing behind, we trotted through the trees toward the inferno. branches

whipped our faces and thorny blackberry bushes snatched at my pants. my breath came in

desperate gasps, and a sour taste coated my mouth.

cries of “let’s get some bluecoats!” and “damn the yankee bastards!” merged into one

unbridled animal bellow that soared above the crash of trampled underbrush and thundering

boots. it drove our feet forward like pistons, while the metallic stench of gunpowder stung my

nostrils and smoke leached tears from my eyes. frank richards, a bethel boy, broke ranks and

scurried away. he cowered behind leafy foliage with his quivering arms over his head, shutting

out the day. no one paid him, or several others with waning courage, any mind. when sam,

tayloe, and i cleared the tree trunks at the crest of henry hill, we saw the most terrible vista. i

looked around to check on william, but i’d lost sight of him in the great surge forward. the

valley below was heaped, in some places four-deep, with dead bodies and the wounded. the

battle had been raging for hours, begun half a day before our group arrived as reinforcements.

on command, we let loose a terrific volley of musketry and continued to do so for another

two hours. and then an astonishing thing happened. the whole lot of yankees turned and ran

like a wave drawn by a powerful tide toward the horizon. they let loose their belts, cast away

their arms, knapsacks, haversacks, clothes, provisions, medicines, and anything else that might

slow them down. i later wondered if some of those boys showed up in washington naked that

night. artillery wagons crashed into supply wagons and rose into twisted knots of iron and

splintered wood, while horses were flattened beneath. we watched with jaws agape, and then a

terrific cheer tore down the lines. not only had our company of a hundred men survived without

a single casualty, but we believed our victory concluded a brief war, and the disagreement was

over.

it rained all night after the battle ended, a night punctuated by piteous cries of “water, please

someone . . . bring me water,” merging with moans and screams that nearly drove me mad with

helplessness. when dawn came, i slogged through the hellish landscape to bury our dead and

those of the enemy. the yankees had fled so rapidly that they’d left theirs behind. thousands of

bodies still lay out in the weather, slick with water and mud.

as tayloe and i crossed the field, i thought i recognized a body slumped face down on the

ground. with a terrible foreboding, i grabbed the boy’s shoulder and rolled him over. it was

william valentine. his sopping, white-blond hair was plastered to his bony forehead. his face

was frozen in a look of terrific surprise. it seemed as though he had died instantly in the act of

loading his gun. one hand was tight around his weapon, the other clasped a cartridge. he had

been shot dead straight through the heart. i sat down on the ground next to him and cried right

there, not caring who saw. cried loud, wrenching sobs. i couldn’t help it. he’d been alive just

like me only the day before, talking about his home and his sister. it wasn’t fair for him to have

had such a short, hard life with no chance to make it better.

i then wondered: how many union boys had my bullets struck? and how were those boys

any different in their fears and hopes from william? we were all made of the same stuff, the

bowels, brains, stomachs, and masses of red pulp now spread across the field. dreadful sights

that should remain hidden from any human eye.

tayloe kindly turned away, leaving me alone to spend my tears. remembering after a

moment that it didn’t look well for a soldier to cry, i stood and wiped my face with the back of

my hand. i decided never again to allow myself this weakness.

william’s knapsack had fallen to his side, and as i spotted it, the image of his brown and gold

turtle sprang to mind. bending over, i stuck my fingers inside the bag and felt the rippled shell

tightly sealed. i placed the armored creature under a laurel bush and bade him farewell. he set

off on his stubby legs for tall grass. tayloe and i grabbed valentine under the armpits and

dragged him to the edge of the soggy field, where a burial crew hastily shoveled red clay. i

penciled “william valentine” on a scrap of paper from my haversack and tucked it between the

thin hands we placed across his messy chest, even as i knew that no one would read it.

we waited to make certain that he was blanketed by the earth and then returned to our

regiment, arrayed by company to march through a massacred landscape and the ashes of what

had been manassas junction. an unnatural season had caused not only the green leaves to

shrivel and fall but had shredded and blackened every tree limb and gnarled trunk in the process.

the trains we’d proudly arrived on were nothing more than charred and twisted wreckage.

aching legs and blistered feet would now have to bear us away, deeper into the valley.