The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve by Joseph A. Altsheler (ebook reader with internet browser .TXT) 📖

seeking only to save themselves. Whole regiments dashed into the fords of Bull Run and emerged dripping on the other side. A bridge was covered with spectators come out from Washington to see the victory, many of them bringing with them baskets of lunch. Some were Members of Congress, but all joined in the panic and flight, carrying to the capital many untrue stories of disaster.

A huge mass of fleeing men emerged upon the Warrenton turnpike, throwing away their weapons and ammunition that they might run the faster. It was panic pure and simple, but panic for the day only. For hours they had fought as bravely as the veterans of twenty battles, but now, with weakened nerves, they thought that an overwhelming force was upon them. Every shell that the Southern guns sent among them urged them to greater speed. The cavalry and little force of regulars covered the rear, and with firm and unbroken ranks retreated slowly, ready to face the enemy if he tried pursuit.

But the men in gray made no real pursuit. They were so worn that they could not follow, and they yet scarcely believed in the magnitude of their own victory, snatched from the very jaws of defeat. Twenty-eight Northern cannon and ten flags were in their hands, but thousands of dead and wounded lay upon the field, and night was at hand again, close and hot.

Harry turned back to the little plateau where those that were left of the Invincibles were already kindling their cooking fires. He looked for his two comrades and recognized them both under their masks of dust and powder.

"Are you hurt, Tom?" he said to Langdon.

"No, and I'm going to sleep in the White House at Washington after all."

"And you, Arthur?"

"There's a red line across my wrist, where a bullet passed, but it's nothing. Listen, what do you think of that, boys?"

A Southern band had gathered in the edge of the wood and was playing a wild thrilling air, the words of which meant nothing, but the tune everything:

"In Dixie's land
I'll take my stand,
To live and die for Dixie.
Look away! Look away!
Look away down South in Dixie."

"So we have taken their tune from them and made it ours!" St. Clair exclaimed jubilantly. "After all, it really belonged to us! We'll play it through the streets of Washington."

But Colonel Leonidas Talbot, who stood close by, raised his hand warningly.

"Boys," he said, "this is only the beginning."

Appendix: Transcription notes: This etext was transcribed from a volume printed in April, 1964 (Twenty-eighth Printing) The following modifications were applied while transcribing the printed book to e-text: chapter 1: - Fixed typo ("hestitated"), page 22, para 2 - Fixed typo (changed "this father" to "his father"), page 23, first line of para 5 chapter 2: - Changed "t" to upper-case in sentence "to bed!" on page 40, para 3 chapter 3: - Removed an extraneous quotation mark on page 62, at the end of para 4 - Fixed typo ("extaordinary"), page 63, para 2 - Fixed typo ("fews"), page 65, para 5 chapter 4: - Fixed typo ("feeliing"), page 81, para 6 chapter 6: - Added a missing comma on page 111, third sentence - Fixed typo ("tomorow"), page 119, para 7 chapter 9: - Fixed typo ("tomorow"), page 187, para 3 chapter 10: - Page 197, second para: replaced a comma with a period preceding "Yet" (However, It is unclear whether the author intended a period, or whether instead the "yet" should be lower case - either would serve equally well.) - Fixed typo (changed "achievment" to "achievement"), page 208, para 8 chapter 11: - Fixed typo ("thy're") on page 234, para 4 chapter 12: - Page 241, para 1: changed "four o'clock this morning" to "four o'clock this afternoon" - the content of this page and the following pages clearly indicates that the march started in mid-day, not before dawn chapter 13: - Fixed typo ("persausive") on page 282, para 4 - Fixed typo ("aand") on page 284, para 4 chapter 14: - Fixed typo (changed "hid" to "hide"), page 289, para 1 - Fixed typo ("batallions"), page 292, para 1 - Fixed typo ("aand"), page 293, para 5 - Added missing close-quotation-marks to para 7 on page 295 - Added missing close-quotation-marks to para 8 on page 296 - Fixed typo ("paseed"), page 299, para 1 chapter 16: - Removed a duplicate "to" on page 330, para 3 Limitations imposed by converting to plain ASCII: - The printed book presented the names of newspapers and ships in italics, but italics are not available in plain ASCII Chapter 1, page 9: Pendleton News, News, Louisville Journal, News page 10: News Chapter 3, page 71: Mercury, Star of the West Chapter 4, everywhere: Star of the West Chapter 5, page 96: Mercury, Star of the West Chapter 6 and 7: Baltic Chapter 12: Star of the West - The word "marquee" in chapter 15 was presented in the printed book with an accented "e" I did not modify: - The following sentence in chapter 1 does not seem quite right, but I am not sure how to change it, if I would change it: George Kenton, having inherited much land in Kentucky, and two or three plantations further south had added to his property by good management. - There are a number of instances where the use of the comma in the printed book seems to me inappropriate, mainly in terms of commas inserted where I would not insert them, and also sometimes commas lacking where I would provide them. However, I have adhered to the punctuation as printed (except for obvious printing errors, which are noted above). For example: His abounding youth made him consider as weak and unworthy, an emotion which a man would merely have reckoned as natural. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on, but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great mass. The sea itself, is against them. Two heavier crashes showed that the cannon were also coming into play, and one shell striking within the fort, exploded, wounding a half dozen men. The belt of forest into which he had ridden, ran along the crest of a hill, where the soil evidently had been considered too thin for profitable cultivation. - Each section of verse is formatted to appear similar to its presentation in the printed book. Consequently: some verse is indented more than others, some is left-aligned, some is staggered on the left margin, some is center-aligned. - The author sometimes uses a technique whereby a paragraph introducing a quotation ends with a colon, with the quotation following as the next paragraph.



End of Project Gutenberg's The Guns of Bull Run, by Joseph A. Altsheler