Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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Copyright © 2009 by Michael Hemphill and Tom Angleberger

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The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume
any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

 

.S.A.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Hemphill, Michael.
Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run / by Michael Hemphill
and Sam Riddleburger.
p. cm.
Summary: While participating in a reenactment of the Battle of Bull
Run, twelve-year-old Stonewall Hinkleman is transported back to the
actual Civil War battle by means of a magic bugle.

eISBN : 978-1-101-01488-2

1. Bull Run, 1st Battle of, Va., 1861—Juvenile fiction.
[1. Bull Run, 1st Battle of, Va., 1861—Fiction. 2. United States—History—Civil War,
1861-1865—Fiction. 3. Time travel—Fiction.] I. Riddleburger, Sam. II.
Title.
PZ7.H37747St 2009
[Fic]—dc22

This book is dedicated to Civil War buffs, historians,
scholars and re-enactors. Forgive us . . .
we couldn't control
Stonewall Hinkleman's big mouth.

 

Special thanks to Caryn, Liz, Nancy, Tuesday, Jasmin, Jeanine, Julia,
Cece, Naomi, Emily, Meg, Mary Ann, Wayne,
Charlie, Oscar, Babs, Madge, Cindy, Lolly, Chip, Linda,
Fun Teachers, Cool Librarians, Kind Booksellers, Kidlit Bloggers,
and Civil War Journey tour guide Robert Freis
for his expert advice on the Battle of Bull Run.

ALL RIGHT, let's get the whole name thing out of the way quickly.

My name is Stonewall Hinkleman.

No, it's not a nickname. It's my real name. Like I tell my parents—even Stonewall Jackson's real name wasn't Stonewall. But they don't listen and it's too late now anyway. I'm stuck with it.

So, you'd think I could at least go by my middle name, right? It's Traveler, after Robert E. Lee's horse. Yeah, that's right, a horse!

I'm Stonewall Traveler Hinkleman and if you think that's as bad as it gets, you haven't heard the worst part.

You see, both of my parents are Civil War reenactors. This means my dad—who's really a geeky computer tech—dresses up in a uniform and runs around in fields with a bunch of other boring guys who are all pretending they are in the Civil War. My mother pretends she's a nurse, even though in real life she barfs at the sight of blood.

Going to reenactments is my life almost every weekend. I have fought, I have cried, I have argued, I have resisted, but they make me go too. I am twelve years old and I am the bugle boy, probably the dorkiest thing you can be. Even if I wanted to—and I don't—I'm not old enough to march with the troops and shoot a gun. And I'm too old to still think watching all of this is cool. So no gun, no bayonet, just stand around blowing a horn.

Dad says I should be proud that I'm the one who calls the soldiers to action.

“Someday, Stonewall,” he says in his real high, nasally voice, “you'll begin to appreciate your heritage and the history of the American event that pitted brother against brother in a battle of wills over the very fate of our nation.”

He runs on like that all the time. I have to listen to hours of it every weekend while we drive to one stupid reenactment after another.

“You are named after a great general, a great scholar and a great man,” my father likes to say.

Whatever, Dad. Did I mention that Stonewall Jackson was shot by HIS OWN MEN?!?!

 

This particular weekend we're heading to the reenactment that's not only boring like all the others but personally embarrassing.

We'll be reenacting a battle called Manassas. First Manassas, that is, not Second Manassas. It's also called Bull Run, as in First Bull Run and Second Bull Run. That's how stupid all this really is. Not only are there different names for the same battle, but some battles were fought in the same place twice. Get it right the first time already!

First Bull Run was the first real battle of the war. But the reason it's embarrassing is that's where my great-great-great-great-uncle Cyrus Hinkleman was wounded.

Did a cannonball blast off Uncle Cyrus's leg as he bravely charged over the field? Was he stabbed by a bayonet while trying to capture a flag, which for some reason was real important back then? Was he shot as he leaped over a fence and into the enemy lines?

Oh no. He was shot in the butt.

That's right, he got the bum rush, the stuck butt, the flank attack, the sheared rear. Which can only mean one thing. He was running away when he was shot. No brave charge for Uncle Cyrus. He turned chicken and fled.

At the hospital, his butt wound got infected. For a lot of soldiers in the war, an infection meant amputation. A bullet in the knee could lead to the doctor cutting off your leg so that the infection wouldn't spread to the rest of your body.

But how do you amputate a butt?

So Uncle Cyrus lay on his stomach in a hospital bed for a couple of weeks until the infection killed him. This was my family's great contribution to the Civil War. One bullet. One butt.

Yet, somehow it's enough to get my father misty-eyed.

As we walk across the field to where we'll pitch our tent, Dad babbles on and on about sacrifice and resolve and our family's proud heritage.

“Proud heritage? Dad, he got shot in the butt!”

I shouldn't have said that out loud.

The dreamy look on my father's face fades. He slings his musket to his other shoulder and tells me to shut up. My mother, wearing a white shawl over a long blue dress, gives me her I'm-very-disappointed look.

But it's true and they know it, and that's the only reason they're mad. Our proud heritage is nothing more than one scared uncle running for his life.

We never seem to reenact that.

 

You want to know what a reenactment is really like? It doesn't matter which battle it is, because they're all the same.

A big bunch of guys wearing blue Yankee costumes come huffing up the hill. Waiting for them are my dad's friends—a big bunch of guys in gray Confederate costumes. We jump out and we charge. I have to blow my bugle and everybody else fires their guns, which don't have ammo but are still ridiculously loud. About half of them fall down and pretend to be dead. They roll around with these hilarious grimaces on their faces. Then they're still for a while, probably taking a nap or eating a candy bar, until the “battle” moves somewhere else and they get back up and rejoin the “fight.”

Whoopee! And I'll give you three good reasons why it's worse than just boring.

First, it's hot. Second, we're wearing wool outfits, because you've got to be “authentic” at reenactments and that's supposedly what the real soldiers wore. Third, I'm missing Emagination Camp to be here. It's basically two weeks of building Lego robots, which I personally consider the best possible use of summer.

But once again, it conflicts with this stupid reenactment. And God forbid I should miss even one weekend of magic with my father and his special friends.

The really sad thing about all this is that I've also come to the realization that camp is my one and only chance of getting a girlfriend. The girls at my school have pretty much made it clear that they'd rather die than be seen talking to me. I can hardly blame them. I'm not real tall, my red hair never sits still, and my teeth stick out “six ways to Sunday,” as my dentist says. (I'm getting braces before the summer's done . . . another big score for Stonewall!) And the girls have seen me at my worst—whining, being a nerd, getting pushed around, and, most recently, getting a wedgie from Cal Small-wood on the last day of school.

There
is
one really cool girl who has just starting coming to the reenactments. She's amazingly cute even in a nurse's uniform that's 150 years out of style. She's got a lot of bushy brown hair and big brown eyes, and Mom is always trying to get me to talk to her, but there's no way that's going to happen with me dressed like a dorky bugle boy.

So, camp would be a chance to start with a clean slate—no prior embarrassments and no uniform.