Chapter 19: Into Action

The President joined his wife and the other sightseers in a place of relative safety behind the fort's thick wall, and General Wright went back to his troops. Seth left the fort and crossed the crowded turnpike. The eager spectators pressed forward, excited by the increased activity. Seth elbowed his way through the mob, most of whom seemed to be in a holiday mood. He moved into the scrubby woods and past the piles of cleared brush where he had seen the New York soldiers disappear. He wanted to be as far from the fort as he could when those cannons fired again.

By six o'clock everything was ready. Seth and the spectators on the Seventh Street Road along with the crowd around Lincoln watched portly Colonel Bidwell move his men forward at "trail arms." They kept their weapons low, by their legs, so the sun would not reflect from the rifle barrels as they moved up behind the skirmish line. I wonder if he thinks old Jubal's blind, thought the boy, looking at the long shadows cast by the moving men.

A large battle flag dipped, and before Seth could turn his head, the artillery crashed out. The sound overwhelmed everything, and soon dirty-white clouds of eye-stinging smoke blocked the view to the north. The crowd cheered and applauded. When a breeze thinned the smoke, Seth could see the shells hitting near the houses and sending up geysers of dirt among the horsemen on the distant ridge. The crashing roar continued, shaking concussion followed by explosive blow.

A few Union soldiers moved forward. Seth had expected a charge with horsemen galloping, swords raised, buglers straining and flags fluttering, men running. He was disappointed. It was just crooked lines of soldiers walking forward. Some had their rifle-muskets on their shoulders but most carried them across their bodies and in both hands.

From his right came the sound of Fort Slocum's siege guns. Just the night before the trenches there had been filled with office workers under the command of Quartermaster General Meigs. Seth had seen the tired clerks straggle down the plank road in the early morning. If the Confederates had only known, thought the boy as he wiped his eyes and strained to see if the battleline had moved again. But the regiments still waited, the 43rd New York, the 49th New York and the soon-to-be-mustered-out 7th Maine. The spectators along the highway, even the hucksters, were quiet. Some of the young women peeked out above their fans. Seth could not see Jefferson in the crowd. He could hear nearby people breathing hard.

At a signal from Fort Stevens, the long, wavering lines of soldiers began to move again. The crowd sighed like a huge bellows. Seth watched the infantrymen step quickly past the scattered skirmishers and begin to climb the hill toward the burning houses. Some were having trouble with a rail fence. He lost sight of others as they made their way through a shattered orchard and though a dip in the rolling ground.

The boy's fingernails dug into his palms. Soldiers were moving up a carriage path and had almost reached the largest remaining house when the Rebel front erupted in a flaming roar that sounded like the ripping of a heavy cloth. Seth looked down at his bleeding hands. He found it very hard to breathe. Is this how Robert felt at Manassas?

He watched soldiers from both sides running to join the lines as others stumbled and fell. Men spun to the ground or were jerked back as if pulled by strings. Some lay still, but others squirmed and waved their arms. More shells were fired from the fort, and their distant explosions mixed with the continuous crashing and crackling of rifle fire. Seth grasped the sapling before him with aching hands. He felt sick. Above it all, he could hear cheers from those who had waited all day for this show to begin.

Messengers came running back to the fort, and soon more soldiers were moving forward. Through breaks in the smoke, Seth could see many gaps in the distant Union lines, but the reinforcements slowly pushed the outnumbered Rebels back. When Fort Steven's cannons paused, over the clatter of rifle fire, Seth heard the distinctive crack of Fort DeRussy's huge gun and wondered what was going on over by Rock Creek.

Smoke covered the field and the first wounded men began limping past using their weapons as canes or crutches. The gawkers and the curious began to wander back toward town. The show was just about over. The sun was setting and the powder smoke blowing away.

In flame-tinted dusk the Union forces had lost almost all of their officers to the deadly aim of the fast-firing Rebels, but they had taken the houses and hilltops the generals had decided were so important. For a while there was still a lot of shooting as the Confederates withdrew, and Seth noticed a dust cloud glowing orange and purple in the sunset behind Early's lines.

Slowly things quieted down, and Seth left his hiding place and walked back to the fort. Out in the open field where fires still smoldered, he could hear the crunch of shovels as shallow graves were scooped out in the hard, dry earth. All the spectators had vanished. Empty bottles, crumpled newspapers, horse droppings and scraps of sandwiches marked where they had been.