The Battle of Bull Run developed into a contest for possession of the plateau surrounding the Henry house.
When Lieutenant Nelson Majors climbed to the top of the slight ridge, he had a clear view of the whole line. “Look, there,” he said to Sergeant Mapes, “you can see the enemy like bees in a hive.”
They watched as the officers rode about and their columns moved about everywhere. Some batteries on the left and right were masked by trees, but the lieutenant could see puffs of smoke and knew that the shells were falling on the North’s own lines.
“Not much order over there, is there, Sergeant? Look, those regiments are scattered, and the lines aren’t even.”
“No, sir, but I guess we’ve got about as many stragglers as they have.” Mapes looked around. “I ain’t never seen anything quite this bad. Lots of men have fallen, and that makes some others run away.”
“And a lot of men are hurt too.” Nelson Majors watched the continuous stream of injured being carried past. Sometimes soldiers would cross their muskets, place their wounded companions across them, and carry them. A wounded soldier walked past with his arm around another soldier’s neck, the two of them making their way slowly to the rear.
“This is hard going, Mapes,” Lieutenant Majors said. “We’re going to have to do better than this if we’re going to whip those Yankees.”
“I guess you’re right, sir look, the General’s motioning for you.”
Nelson Majors saw Jackson signaling him to come forward. He moved his horse up beside the General’s, and Jackson said, “Lieutenant, I want you to ride from battery to battery and see that the guns are properly aimed and the fuses are the right length.”
“Yes, sir.” He immediately galloped away to do as the General had ordered.
“We ain’t got much ammunition left,” one artillery officer told him. “Tell the general if we’re going to do anything, we had better do it quick.”
Nelson Majors made his way back to General Jackson and gave his report, adding, “The guns are running low on ammunition, General.”
Jackson’s eyes fairly blazed. He had a way, the lieutenant had noticed, of throwing up his left hand with the open palm toward the person he was addressing. He threw it up now and said, “All right, Lieutenant, we’ll—”
Then he jerked his hand down, and the lieutenant saw blood streaming from it.
“General, you’re wounded!”
Jackson drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to bind up his hand. “Only a scratch a mere scratch,” he said and galloped away.
The battle raged for another hour, and then General Jackson returned, his staff officers behind him. “We’ll be leading a charge, Lieutenant Majors. I want Company A in the front. Are your men ready?”
“Then have your drummer boy signal the charge.”
Nelson Majors whirled away and found his top sergeant. “We’re going to charge, Mapes.” He looked about and saw Jeff. “Jeff, sound the charge.”
Jeff’s face was pale, but he at once began beating the long drum roll that announced the charge.
At once the men looked up, though weary already with fighting.
Lieutenant Majors drew his saber. “Follow me, men! We’ve got them this time!”
The entire company moved forward. To their right and to their left, other companies began to form.
Jeff marched along, but the lines became so uneven that it seemed there was little order. He saw his father getting far ahead and wanted to call out to him to slow down.
Curly Henson stayed beside him. “That pa of yours he don’t know what fear is, does he?”
“I wish he did, Curly,” Jeff muttered. “He’s getting too far ahead.”
Even as he spoke, he heard the thunder of Federal artillery. Shells began to drop all around them. One came so close that it almost deafened him, and when the dirt had stopped falling he saw that several men were down.
Then, lifting his eyes, Jeff saw a group of Federal soldiers emerge from a stand of trees. He yelled, “Look out, Pa!”
But he was too late. One of the blue-clad men leveled his musket. A puff of smoke came from the end of it. At almost the same time, Jeff saw his father throw up his hands and go to the ground.
“Pa!” He stripped off his drum and leaped ahead, but Curly Henson threw his arms around him. “It’s too late, Jeff,” he said. “See the Yankees have cut us off.”
Jeff saw that what the curly-haired man said was true. The Federals who had come out of the trees were joined by others, so that now they formed a solid line. But Jeff still struggled to free himself. “I’ve got to get to him.”
But now the sergeant was yelling, “Retreat! Retreat!”
“Come on, Jeff, your pa will be all right; probably just wounded. He’ll be a prisoner, but he’ll be OK.”
* * *
General Beauregard’s face ordinarily was an olive color, but now his officers saw that he had grown pale. When one said, “I don’t see how we can go on, sir,” the general did not answer.
Suddenly he raised his arm. In the distance a column of men was approaching. “Whose flag is that?” Beauregard demanded.
“I don’t know,” a major answered. “I can’t tell at this distance whether it’s Federal or Confederate.”
General Beauregard stared at the flag. He well knew that, despite all their efforts, if the men under that flag were Union troops the battle was lost. He took his glass to examine the flag and the approaching banner, but he still could not identify it.
Finally, Colonel Evans said, “I fear that may be Patterson’s division from the Valley. If so, it’s all up with us, I’m afraid, General Beauregard.”
Just then a gust of wind shook out the folds of the flag, and the general shouted, “It’s the stars and bars!”
Cheer after cheer was raised along the Confederate lines as the men came on. These were Kirby Smith’s troops from the Shenandoah Valley. Their train had broken down, but they had arrived on the field at the supreme moment.
The reinforcements had an extraordinary effect on the battle. They threw themselves into the woods and laid down a withering fire on the Union troops. The Federal soldiers soon disintegrated into disorder. Their officers made every attempt to rally them but in vain, and soon the slopes were swarming with retreating and disorganized forces. Riderless horses and artillery teams ran furiously through the fleeing men.
All further Union efforts were futile. Something had happened to the Army of the Potomac. All sense of manhood seemed forgotten. Even the sentiment of shame had gone. Everything was thrown aside that would hinder flight. Rifles, bayonets, pistols, haversacks, cartridges, canteens, blankets, belts, and overcoats lined the road as they fled.
Daniel Carter and Leah sensed that the battle had turned.
“I think we’re losing,” he said. As if to confirm his words, a crowd of Union soldiers suddenly appeared over the hillcrest. They carried no guns, and they ran frantically like men in a wild race.
As they passed by, Leah saw that their eyes were blank with fear. No one could have stopped them.
“We’d better get out of here, I guess, Leah,” her father said. “If the troops are running, the Confederates will be here soon.” He turned the wagon around and followed the Warren Turnpike, which soon became the main line of retreat for soldiers, sutlers, and spectators.
When they reached a bridge, Leah saw that gunfire had taken down a team of horses ahead of them. The wagon had overturned directly in the center of the bridge, and their passage was completely obstructed. Shot and shell from Rebel fire continued to fall, and the infantry were furiously pelted with a shower of grape and other shot. The dead lay all about.
Seeing the bridge blocked, drivers began turning off, and their wagons bumped over the rough stones as they forded the small creek. Army wagons, sutlers’ teams, and private carriages choked the passage, tumbling against each other amid clouds of dust. The congressmen whipped their horses furiously. Horses, many of them wounded, galloped at random. Men who could catch them rode them bareback, as much to save themselves from being run over as to make quicker time.
“We’d better pull off, or we’ll get trampled,” Leah’s father said. He drew the wagon to one side, and for some time they watched the troops running pell-mell.
“Look, Pa, there’s Ira!” Leah jumped out of the wagon before her father could stop her and ran over to where Ira Pickens was limping along.
He was using his musket for a crutch, and looking down she saw that his right leg was bloodied below the knee. His face was drained white, and his eyes were blank, but when he saw her he seemed to recover himself somewhat.
“Well, didn’t expect to see you here,” he gasped.
“Ira, you’ve been shot,” Leah cried. She saw that his hands were trembling. “Lean on me,” she said. “Our wagon’s right over here.”
“Reckon I’ll take you up on that,” he whispered.
She helped him over to the wagon, and her father said, “Lie down here, son, and let me look at that leg.”
Ira obediently slipped to the ground as if unable to stand, and Leah forced herself to watch as her father pulled up the trouser leg.
“It’s not bad,” Dan Carter said quickly. “The bullet went through without breaking a bone, it looks like. But the bleeding’s pretty bad. Leah, get one of my shirts, and we’ll make a bandage.”
Leah jumped into the wagon and frantically grabbed a shirt. Then she tore it into strips and helped as her father made a compress and tied it tightly with long strips of the cloth.
“Sure am thirsty,” Ira said. “Never knew a fellow could be so thirsty.”
At once Leah got a dipper and drew water out of the barrel fastened to the side of the wagon. “Drink this, Ira,” she said, holding it to his lips.
The soldier drank, gulping furiously, and then they helped him to the wagon.
“I guess we can get across now,” her father said. He looked back over the field. “It looks like we got whipped, Ira.”
Ira too looked back toward the battlefield, where guns were still firing and dust was still rising. Shaking his head, he said, “I thought we had ’em for a while but then they got lots of help from somewhere. They just plain run over us there at the last.” He gritted his teeth and said, “They whupped us this time, but there’ll be another day!”
Leah made a pallet for him in the wagon. “Lie down here, Ira,” she said. Then she poured a spoonful of liquid from a brown bottle. “Take some of this. It’ll help with the pain.”
She held his head up, and when he had taken the medicine he lay back again, smiled, and said, “I guess I might as well tell you the truth, Miss Leah.”
Leah stared at him. “What’s that, Ira?”
“You know that girl Rosie you’ve been writing all them letters to?”
“Yes, what about her?”
Ira made a face and said, “Well, there ain’t no Rosie. I just made her up.”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
Ira came up with a smile. The medicine had started to work. He muttered, “Well, I ain’t never been able to have a gal of my own, so I thought if I could get you to write letters for me … well … that’d be almost like having one.” He started to say something else, but sleep came upon him, and he fell into deep unconsciousness.
Leah sat beside him and smiled. “I’m glad you made it through all right, Ira,” she said. “You’ll have a girl of your own someday.”
* * *
Nelson Majors came out of warm darkness into a world of shouting and pain. He was aware that his side was one mass of agony, and then suddenly he was being picked up. He opened his eyes to see the two blue-clad soldiers who were placing him on a stretcher.
“Stop your yelling, Reb,” one of them said cheerfully “You’re not going to die at least not today, anyway.”
Nelson Majors gritted his teeth against the pain and looked around. All over the battlefield men were being gathered up and put into horse-drawn ambulances.
Looking down on him, the other soldier said, “Let me take a look at that side.”
The lieutenant could not protest, and the other drew the shirt back. He whistled slightly. “Well, you’ll have to see the surgeon for that. It’s a good thing it didn’t hit a little bit more in the front, or we’d be burying you instead of taking you to the hospital.”
He tried to nod but the slightest action sent pain racing along his side. He gasped, “What—what’s happening?”
The Union soldier frowned. “Well, it looks like you Rebs won this one. We got off the field, and they were still a-comin’ at us. I guess we ought to leave you for them but the lieutenant says take all the prisoners we can. There’ll be one less of you to fight the next battle.”
Lieutenant Majors felt unconsciousness coming back over him.
The soldiers carried him over to an ambulance wagon, where they placed him on the floor.
His last thought was, I pray Tom and Jeff are all right …
* * *
Tom and Jeff were all right but were nearly frantic at losing their father.
“We’ve got to go after him, Tom!” Jeff cried. “We can’t let the Yankees have him!”
Tom shook his head. His face was black with powder, and he and Jeff were both trembling with fatigue. “We wouldn’t get a mile, Jeff,” he muttered. “The Yankees are retreating but they’ll get reinforcements right down the road.”
Jeff looked around. “If they’re retreating, why don’t we chase them?”
Tom frowned. “That’s just what Stonewall Jackson wanted to do but the other officers wouldn’t hear of it. They said we’re too wore out and there’s too many reinforcements in Washington.” He sighed deeply. “I reckon they’re right too. We’re in no shape to be doing much chasing.”
“Tom, I saw him go down, but I didn’t get to see what happened after. He might be shot dead.”
“Maybe not,” Tom said grimly. “If not, he’ll be exchanged.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll trade one of the captured Union officers we got to get him back.”
“Do they do that?”
“Well, that’s what I heard. Of course, there hasn’t been no prisoners up till now,” Tom said, “but now I know we got plenty of theirs.” He waved at the lines of captured Union soldiers that were being herded away from the battle. He put his arm suddenly around Jeff’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. It’s going to be a long march back to Richmond.”
Tom looked over at the retreating Union line. “I wish we were going in to take Washington. I’d like to finish this thing once and for all. But it’ll have to be another day.”
He turned wearily away, and the two went back to join the lines that were forming for the trip back to Richmond. General Jackson came by on his horse, looking over the men and calling out encouraging words. Stopping beside Jeff and Tom, he said, “Your father was captured, I understand.”
“Yes, sir. But we’re believing he’s all right—only wounded.”
Jackson’s eyes, which had been blazing with battle madness, were now calm. He stroked his beard and held up his bandaged hand. “I pray that you’re right. God will be with him and with all of you.” He rode away, going from man to man.
Jeff watched him go, thinking, I sure hope he’ll help get my pa back!