Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg Read Free Page B

Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
    Down with the traitors, up with the stars;
    While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
    Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
    The boys joined in for the last verse:
    So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West,
    Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
    And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land that we love best,
    Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
    I blocked my ears to keep from hearing any more. The breeze had died and the Stars and Stripes in the Diamond hung limp and sad.
    If Father were here he’d want me to join up. So would Jacob. There was no way I’d be snatched up by any Rebels and get taken to prison. I’d fight to the death. I would make Gettysburg and Pennsylvania proud—if only someone would let me.
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    Two days later the new soldiers marched off to Harrisburg for training, singing still. Most of them had had their pictures made at Tyson’s gallery to leave with their mothers or their sweethearts. They were named Company A of the Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania Emergency Volunteer Infantry. A greener bunch of troops I never saw.
    Major Haller from the War Department rode into town to tell us to arm ourselves. A local farmer, Robert Bell, made himself a captain and raised a company of independent cavalry. I wondered about going back to the Baileys’ to fetch Molasses, but Grace struck that idea down before I even finished thinking it.
    â€œYou’ll not be joining them, Will,” she told me. “That horse is staying wherever the Baileys have hidden her.”
    Mother and Grace wouldn’t even let me go with the town men who marched out to the Chambersburg Pike with axes on their shoulders. They aimed to chop down some trees and block the mountain passes to slow the Rebel advance. They came back pretty quick though. The Rebels surprised us all. They had already marched through the Cashtown Gap and were on our side of the mountain.
    Rebels! The news shot through my body like lightning. Maybe I’d get to do some fighting after all. That night, I saw their campfires on the slopes of South Mountain. I wondered how many of them were out there, and whether or not the Union army was coming to wage a battle.
    Not much happened in the next few days. We were in a state of high alert, but the Rebels stayed put. Bell’s scouts rode back and forth, keeping an eye on the Rebs but never getting within shooting range. A telegram came from Harrisburg to tell us that the Twenty-sixth Emergency Volunteers were coming back by train to defend the town. I still didn’t believe the Rebels would favor us with a visit. There were a lot of other places they could go. The state capital at Harrisburg seemed more likely.
    In between chores I ran back and forth from the telegraph office to the newspaper offices to get scraps of news. No one knew what to expect.
    Charlie McCurdy had made a little cannon out of a piece of gas pipe. It was about a foot long and mounted on a block of wood. We fired pebbles until Mrs. McCurdy said, “For heavens sake, don’t we have enough to worry about,” and took it away. That was the most fun I had all week long.
    If the Rebels were truly coming, I wished they would get here already.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Rebel Cavalry!
    Friday, June 26, 1863
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    T he Twenty-sixth didn’t get back to Gettysburg until Friday morning on account of their train hitting a cow and getting derailed. I couldn’t see how four days of army training would ready them for Robert E. Lee, but they marched in pleased as punch with themselves, mooning for the girls. I wouldn’t act so ridiculous if I were one of them. Even with all their preening, folks bent over backward to sing them songs and feed them breakfast.
    Before noon they marched out again behind Captain Bell’s cavalry. I itched to follow them, but Grace and Mother were both watching me pretty close.
    I stood around with everyone else,