Leon Uris (2 page)

Wally Kunkle’s platoon, designated as the First Philadelphia Marines, was ordered from the navy yard and boarded a troop train that swept down from Boston and New York, taking on militia and reserve units at every stop.

The train was met by dignitaries on stands covered with bunting and bands hustling up profound patriotic music and cheering citizens.

The dignitaries spoke fierce language about the traitors in the South and women wept and the newspapers blared headlines reeking of war fever.

By the time the train reached Washington, there was no anger to compare. The pending war changed the way people saw the sun rise and set. All focused on this new specter. In Washington, all other forms of life had been numbed by war cries.

Wally Kunkle was a drummer boy under the speaker’s platform as Mr. Lincoln held his hand on the Bible, then spoke in words that reiterated the righteousness of the Union cause and sent forth a surge of confidence in the Northern States. Within the month, seven Southern States seceded.

The Confederacy demanded that the federal fort guarding Charleston Harbor be evacuated. When Lincoln refused, Fort Sumter was shelled and captured, and thus began the great American tragedy.

The zealots in the North demanded quick and decisive punitive action. The brazen Confederate act, they said, was no more than a dare. Quick victory was the demand. And the Union battered itself into a frenzy. It will be over by the Fourth of July! Great time to hold a victory parade.

The press wrote front-page editorials and the generals and Congress promised instant victory.

But Lincoln was not so sure. As he hesitated, the Confederacy and Union moved two forces toward each other, mostly of untrained or poorly trained militias. Now that the armies were on the move to face off, the instant-victory camp promised to smash the Rebels and march on their newly declared capital of Richmond.
End of war.

The Confederate States, knowing the fight would come, had a more skilled officer corps and put the better force on the field.

Despite that, Washington was in a state of premature celebration. Everyone knew exactly where the battle would take place. The newspapers printed maps of the coming battlefield. Congressmen, civil servants, and thousands of the civilian population of the capital packed picnic lunches, loaded their wives into carriages and omnibuses, and took to the turnpike, already clogged with troops marching to the front.

Each side would field thirty thousand ill-trained, ill-equipped troops commanded mostly by men who had never seen combat.

Thirty miles from Washington and a hundred miles north of Richmond, sitting in a gap of a northern Virginia mountain range, sat the town of Manassas, unexceptional except for the rail junction that went off in all four directions.

For the Union forces to capture the Manassas Gap meant splitting the Confederate forces in half and opening the gates to Richmond.

On green rolling hills overlooking Manassas, spectators from Washington spread their picnic lunches and cheered their lads moving down into the fray.

The First Philadelphia Marines was led by Lieutenant Merriman, who kissed his wife and daughters as they marched past. The First Philadelphia was attached to a quickly assembled Marine battalion whose members had fewer than three weeks’ training.

The army’s guns moved on horse-drawn caissons and drummer-boy Kunkle had to beat quick time to keep up with them. At a creek named Bull Run on Jerome House Hill, they set up near a stone bridge. The plan was to cross Bull Run, secure the bridge, and bring the artillery over.

The guns and picket line around Jerome House Hill seemed in right fair position overlooking the creek.

Behind them, the First Philadelphia could hear hurrahs echoing from the onlookers.

Hurrah! Hurrah!
echoed up the valley and the gap.

Hurrah! Hurrah!

Master Gunnery Sergeant Kunkle’s reverie faded to a wisp. Mr. Prichard stirred the embers of the fire, added a pair of logs, and prepared the bar and tables for evening drink and fare. As the grandfather clock chimed, the innkeeper adjusted the cuckoo clock behind the bar then drew a couple tankards of ale and came to the fireplace in hopes of some conversation.

“It’s early yet. Your mates will be along.”

The Gunny nodded in thanks for the ale.

“A reunion? Celebration?” Mr. Prichard pressed.

“Bull Run,” Kunkle grunted.

“Bull Run, indeed! I was just ten years old. This was my old man’s place then. I see you’ve known glory.”

“If Bull Run be glory, then fuck glory.”

* * *

As Wally Kunkle drummed the First Philadelphia onto Jerome House Hill, they could hear the popping of musket fire. A distant cheer from the spectators’ vantage point behind them drifted past.

Lieutenant Merriman set up a defensive picket line peering down at the creek and stone bridge as the army artillery unhitched and set up a battery of cannons. If the Rebs showed up and made an attempt to cross, the First Philadelphia would repulse them, rise and lead the Marine battalion over the bridge, secure it, get the artillery across, and help open the road to Richmond.

That was the plan.

Bursts of Rebel cannon stepped up to the creek, then up the hillock to Jerome House.

The federal artillery responded, and the bright day turned an instant gray and the air shrieked with shells going out and shells coming in. The sound became unbearable despite the wads of cotton stuffed in the soldiers’ ears.

The Confederates were on target first with a violent shaking of the earth. Wally Kunkle was struck by a flying object that smashed him to the ground and sent him crawling on all fours in search of his drum. He screamed as he saw the missile that had struck him was Lieutenant Merriman’s leg.

It shocked him from his fear as he crawled to the officer, took off Merriman’s belt, and made a tourniquet on his stump.

Paddy O’Hara knelt beside them and stared at the sheet-white fast-dying officer.

“Can you hear me, sir?”

“Aye,” Merriman croaked.

“They got two of the cannons and the artillery officer. We’ve lost both sergeants!”

Another burst and Wally and Paddy threw themselves atop the lieutenant.

“Shit, man!” Paddy yelled. “Some of our people are breaking rank!”

Merriman gasped out, “We’re on the far flank, O’Hara! We
have to hold this hill or they can break through to the turnpike!” Then he said no more.

“I need an officer! I need a sergeant!”

Wally saw his smashed-up drum and gagged next to the bloody lieutenant’s body.

“I’m it, Boilerplate. Can you get useful?” Paddy yelled.

“Aye . . . aye . . .”

“All right now. Crawl about, keep low. Pick up every musket and powder horn you can find and carry them to the big boulder behind the tree! Go!”

Paddy took command, shoring up his picket line. There were plenty of guns to be found because, to his horror, O’Hara had seen the Union troops scatter and throw down their muskets.

The balance of the Marines were caught in a draw alongside Jerome House Hill. Instead of digging in, they wavered and some broke off.

A cannonade blast fell within scratching distance and choking smoke blotted out the hill. When it passed over, most of the Marines were in flight. Paddy took Lieutenant Merriman’s saber, got behind the First Philadelphia, and threatened them to stand fast. He slashed the head of a fleeing coward.

Paddy allowed himself a brief smile as he saw Wally Kunkle dive behind the big rock with four or five muskets in his arms and load them with powder.

Rebel cannon hit close again. Wally Kunkle choked on the dust and saw his arm go bloody from a shock of concussion. He was frozen with fear, dead men all around. At the instant of decision his fear ebbed. He felt thirst, eyes stinging, unable to see more than blobs, and it was the toil of battle and it was Paddy O’Hara keeping the Marines of the First Philadelphia on the line . . . and now it all went ethereal . . . ethereal, like he was an angel looking down watching himself move through time and space.

The Marine line held a good position, looking down the knoll from Jerome House to Bull Run Creek and a hill beyond it.

The crest of that hill soon filled with enemy. Artillery gone.
Marine battalion broken. One choice only. Muskets were of short range, so Paddy would have to let the Rebels cross and come up the knoll to within sixty or seventy yards. It would take a steady hand.

The cannon fire stopped and Johnny Rebel let out terrifying screams as they poured down and over Bull Run Creek, certain that their artillery had cleared out Jerome House. Capture! Consolidate! Then organize a breakthrough to the turnpike itself! The Rebel yell became a single earth- and sky-shattering scream.

“Fire!”

Remnants of the First Philadelphia held off the first charge and took up new-loaded muskets. From the slope, some of the Confederate wounded crawled forward and picked off two Marines, three . . .

Another wave of Rebels charged and were again beaten back, and now another, but they were coming with less determination. Paddy’s line became thinned out pitifully when a breakthrough came.

The drummer boy caught a flick of a look into the wild eyes of a Southern soldier. Wally fired a pistol as the Rebel boy plunged his bayonet home.

In one of the few places of Union valor that day, the knoll before Jerome House Hill was littered with Southern dead. The attackers took covered positions, not eager to charge again.

The strength of the First Philadelphia’s numbers had dwindled to a half-dozen men. If the rebel captain had known, all he had to do was sneeze hard and break through.

Wally Kunkle’s side bled, his hands and face blistered, but he kept his position until the pain in his shoulder became so terrible he could not fire.

Paddy got to him, tore open his shirt, said something foul, and went to work. Wally hung in . . . hung in . . . He screamed. Paddy put the ether to his nose and Wally began giggling . . . “Good boy, good boy, there you go, lad . . . I think we got the bleeding stopped . . .

“Come on, darkness, come on,” Paddy said. “God, Mary, I’m
praying to every Catholic saint . . . come on, darkness! Please, blessed darkness, please fall!”

A peek of the moon over the hill. The Rebels were pulling their wounded back to the creek. The firing stopped. Thirsty men drank and dried up their blood, and soon Paddy could see their campfires over the way.

He had four men left, including a somewhat helpless Wally Kunkle and himself. Kunkle was a burden, badly messed up and flying high but still salvageable.

What to do? Crawl down to the rebel line and try to shoot them back across Bull Run? Never work with three shooters. Paddy reckoned the rebels had taken a large number of casualties at Jerome House and would not make a night assault. Night assaults were a barbaric way to fight a war. Their energy must be as low as ours. And water . . . they’d die of thirst halfway up.

However.

The Rebels would probe with patrols. They might harass all night. Come the dawn, this position was done in. Two choices, maybe three.

Send the other two lads back to get reinforcements. He’d stay with Kunkle.

All three go back and leave Kunkle.

Go back as a unit and carry Kunkle, but that would eat up time. Jesus and Mary, what’s a fucking corporal to do?

Wally Kunkle became conscious as a bit of daylight flitted through the trees. Oh Jesus, it hurt! Paddy O’Hara’s face came into view above him, hard to recognize.

“Hey, Paddy, where are we?”

“On the turnpike.”

“How’d we get here?”

“Patiently.”

He propped Wally against a wagon wheel. Wally clutched the corporal. The turnpike was clouded and dirty with specks of dust showering down like rain. The wounded were stretched at roadside
and being removed to wagons. The rest of it was a mass of caissons and men marching, dragging, and carriages of civilians all struggling for their piece of road back to Washington.

“We held fine,” Paddy said directly into Wally’s ear, and Wally nodded that he understood. “Delaney and Marconi came through. They’ve been evacuated.”

“Wha . . . happen—”

“We got the shit kicked out of us, that’s what. The living shit. We held till dark, then had to weave through Rebel patrols all the way back. We’ve moved a company of Delaware militia onto Jerome’s in case the Rebels wish to continue this brawl.”

Wally jerked away from him and began crying and slurring. “Our fucking battalion broke and ran,” he garbled. “Hey now, Boilerplate, a doctor gave me something to give you in case the pain gets too bad.”

“I don’t want no—”

“You’ll take what I give you. We got a long war to fight.”

The grandfather clock tolled. Mr. Prichard whipped out his pocket watch. Twenty seconds passed before the cuckoo clock responded. The innkeeper made an adjustment.

Kunkle had one eye open. “What’s it?” he asked.

“Ah, you was having a peaceful doze. When my clientele comes in to have a few jars in the evening, the cuckoo clock has to sound within fifteen seconds of the big guy. Over fifteen seconds and I have to sport a round. Under fifteen, I collect two pennies from every man at the bar.”

“I’ll bet with you,” Kunkle said, and closed his eyes again.

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