The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve

"I take the name with pleasure," said Langdon. "It's a compliment to be called Happy Tom. Happy I was born and happy I am. I'm so happy I must sing:

"Ol Dan Tucker was a mighty fine man,He washed his face in the frying pan,He combed his hair with a wagon wheelAnd died with a toothache in his heel."

"That's a great poem," said a long North Carolina youth named Ransome, "but I've got something that beats it all holler. 'Ole Dan Tucker' is nothing to 'Aunt Dinah's Tribberlations.'"

"How does it go?" asked St. Clair.

"It's powerful pathetic, telling a tale of disaster and pain. The first verse will do, and here it is:

"Ole Aunt Dinah, she got drunk,Felled in a fire and kicked up a chunk,Red-hot coal popped in her shoe,Lord a-mighty! how de water flew!"

"We've had French and Italian opera in Charleston," said St. Clair, "and I've heard both in New Orleans, too, but nothing quite so moving as the troubles of Ole Dan Tucker and Ole Aunt Dinah."

They sang other songs and the Guards, who filled two coaches of a train, joined in a great swinging chorus which thundered above the rattle of the engine and the cars, so noisy in those days. Often they sang negro melodies with a plaintive lilt. The slave had given his music to his master. Harry joined with all the zest of an enthusiastic nature. The effect of Shepard's words and of the still, solemn face of Jefferson Davis, framed in the open window, was wholly gone.

Spring was now advancing. All the land was green. The trees were in fresh leaf, and when they stopped at the little stations in the woods, they could hear the birds singing in the deep forest. And as they sped across the open they heard the negroes singing, too, in their deep mellow voices in the fields. Then came the delicate flavor of flowers and Harry knew that they were approaching Charleston. In another hour they were in the city which was, as yet, the heart and soul of the Confederacy.

Charleston, with its steepled churches, its quaint houses, and its masses of foliage, much of it in full flower, seemed more attractive than ever to Harry. The city preserved its gay and light tone. It was crowded with people. All the rich planters were there. Society had never been more brilliant than during those tense weeks on the eve of men knew not what. But the Charlestonians were sure of one fact, the most important of all, that everything was going well. Texas had joined the great group of the South, and while the border states still hung back, they would surely join.

Harry found that the batteries and earthworks had increased in size and number, forming a formidable circle about the black mass of Sumter, above which the defiant flag still swung in the wind. The guards were distributed among the batteries, but St. Clair, Langdon, and Harry remained together. Toutant Beauregard, after having resigned the command at West Point, as the Southern leaders had expected, came to Charleston and took supreme command there. Harry saw him as he inspected the batteries, a small, dark man, French in look, as he was French in descent, full of nervous energy and vitality. He spoke approving words of all that had been done, and Harry, St. Clair and Tom, glowed with enthusiasm.

"Didn't I tell you that everything would come just right!" exclaimed Happy Tom. "We're the boys to do things. I heard today that they were preparing a big fleet in the North to relieve Sumter, but no matter how big it is, it won't be able to get into Charleston harbor. Will it, old fellow?"

He addressed his remarks to one of the great guns, and he patted the long, polished barrel. Harry agreed with him that Charleston harbor could be held inviolate. He did not believe that ships would have much chance against heavy cannon in earthworks.

He was back in Charleston several days before he had a chance to go to Madame Delaunay's. She was unfeignedly glad to see him, but Harry saw that she had lost some of her bright spirits.

"Colonel Talbot tells me," she said, "that mighty forces are gathering, and I am afraid, I am afraid for all the thousands of gallant boys like you, Harry."

But Harry had little fear for himself. Why should he, when the Southern cause was moving forward so smoothly? They heard a day or two later that the rail-splitter, Lincoln, had been duly inaugurated President of what remained of the old Union, although he had gone to Washington at an unexpected hour, and partly in disguise. On the same day the Confederacy adopted the famous flag of the Stars and Bars, and Harry and his friends were soon singing in unison and with fiery enthusiasm:

"Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights, hurrah!Hurrah for the bonnie blue flag that bears a single star!"

The spring deepened and with it the tension and excitement. The warm winds from the South blew over Charleston, eternally keen with the odor of rose and orange blossom. The bay moved gently, a molten mass now blue, now green. The blue figures could be seen now and then on the black walls of Sumter, but the fortress was silent, although the muzzles of its guns always threatened.

Harry received several letters from his father. The latest stated that he might want him to return, but he was not needed yet. The state had proved more stubborn than he and his friends had expected. A powerful Union element had been disclosed, and there would be an obstinate fight at Frankfort over the question of going out. He would let him know when to come.

Harry was perhaps less surprised than his father over the conflict of opinion in Kentucky, but his thoughts soon slipped from it, returning to his absorption in the great and thrilling drama in Charleston, which was passing before his eyes, and of which he was a part.

April came, and the glory of the spring deepened. The winds blowing from the soft shores of the Gulf grew heavier with the odors of blossom and flower. But Charleston thrilled continually with excitement. Fort after fort was seized by the Southerners, almost without opposition and wholly without the shedding of blood. It seemed that the stars in their courses fought for the South, or at least it seemed so to the youthful Harry and his comrades.

"Didn't I tell you everything would come as we wished it?" said the sanguine Langdon. "Abe Lincoln may be the best rail-splitter that ever was, but I fancy he isn't such a terrible fighter."

"Let's wait and see," said Harry, with the impression of Shepard's warning words still strong upon him.

His caution was not in vain. That day the rulers of Charleston received a message from Abraham Lincoln that Sumter would be revictualled, whether Charleston consented or not. The news was spread instantly through the city and fire sprang up in the South Carolina heart. The population, increased far beyond its normal numbers by the influx from the country, talked of nothing else. Beauregard was everywhere giving quick, nervous orders, and always strengthening the already powerful batteries that threatened Sumter.

CHAPTER VI

SUMTER

Harry saw an increase of energy after the arrival of Beauregard. There were fresh rumors about the great fleet the North was going to send down for the relief of Sumter. Major Anderson, the commander in the fort, steadily refused all demands for surrender. It was said freely that the Northern States did not intend to let their Southern sisters go in peace. The Mercury, with all the power and fire of the Rhett family behind it, thundered continually for action. Sumter with its guns menacing the city should not be allowed to remain under the hostile flag.

It seemed to Harry afterward that he was in a sort of fever, not a fever that parched and burned, but a fever that made his pulse leap faster, and his heart long for the thrill of conflict. Often he sat with St. Clair and Langdon on their earthworks, and looked at Sumter.

"I wonder when the word will come for us to turn these big guns loose?" Langdon said one day, as he looked at the cannon. "Seems to me we ought to take Sumter before that fleet comes."

"But wouldn't it be better for them to make the first hostile movement, Happy?" asked Harry. "Then we'd put them in the wrong."

"What difference does it make if we should happen to fight them, anyhow? The question who began it we'd settle afterwards on victorious fields. Oh, we're bound to win, Harry! We can't help it. If there's any war, I expect inside of a year to sleep with my boots on in the President's bed in the White House, and then I'd go on to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and show myself as a fair specimen of the unconquerable Southern soldier."

"Happy," said Harry, in a rebuking tone, "you're the most terrific chatterer I ever heard. Before you've done anything whatever, you talk about having done it all."

"And they call us Charlestonians fiery boasters," said St. Clair. "Why, there's nobody in all Charleston who's half a match for this sea islander, Happy Tom Langdon."

Charleston received Lincoln's threat and gave it back. Many were glad that he had made the issue. The enthusiasm swelled yet further, when they heard that the Confederate envoys at Washington, treating for a peaceful separation, had left the capital at once when Lincoln had sent his message that Sumter would be relieved.

"It looks more like war now," said Langdon, with satisfaction, "and I may make my victorious march into the North after all."

Harry said nothing. As events marched forward on swift foot, he felt more intensely their gravity. For every month that had passed since he put the Tacitus in his desk at Pendleton Academy, the boy had grown a year in mind and thought. So, that rumor about the relieving fleet had come true and they might look for it in Charleston in two or three days.

Harry had his place in one of the batteries nearest Sumter, and he often went with Colonel Talbot on tours of inspection and once or twice he was in General Beauregard's own party. The fact that his father had been a graduate of West Point and for years an officer, was of the greatest service to him. In the little army of the United States before the Civil War, the officers constituted a family. Everybody knew who everybody else was, and those of the same age had been at West Point together. General Beauregard and Colonel Kenton had met often, and the Southern commander became very partial to the Colonel's son.

Harry was present when Beauregard, some of his more important officers and the civil authorities of Charleston, conferred after Lincoln's warning message came.

"If Lincoln's fleet tries to force the harbor," said Rhett, "we must fire upon it. Sumter should be ours, and if Lincoln succeeds in revictualling the fort it will be a great blow to our prestige. It will hurt the whole South. What do you think, General?"

"I think as you do, Mr. Rhett," replied Toutant Beauregard. "But have no fear, gentlemen. No fleet that Lincoln may send can reach Sumter. Our batteries are able to blow out of the water every vessel that flies the Northern flag."

"We must reduce Sumter itself before the fleet comes," said Jamison, of Barnwell.

Beauregard smiled slightly.

"We can do that, too," he said, "and I am glad to see that you gentlemen are for action. The fleet, I am accurately informed, consists of the warship Baltic, three sloops of war and two tenders. The Baltic, with Fox, the assistant secretary of the Northern Navy, on board, left New York two days ago. The other vessels started earlier, and we may expect the whole fleet in a day."

"Then," said Rhett, "we must send to Sumter another and a final demand for its surrender."

They were all agreed, and Beauregard chose his messengers, putting Harry among the number. Hoisting a white flag, they entered a large boat and were rowed by powerful oarsmen toward Sumter. Harry, looking back, saw the whole front of the harbor lined with people. Even at the distance it looked like a holiday crowd. He saw hundreds of women and girls in white and pink dresses, and there were roses of the same colors in hats and bonnets. Great parasols of every shade threw back the brilliant sunlight. It was still a holiday spectacle, a pageant, and many of the light hearts along the sea wall could not realize that it might yet be something far more.

Anderson, the commander of Sumter, appeared upon the esplanade to meet the boat coming with the white flag. Harry watched him closely. He saw a face worn, but set hard and firm, and a figure upright and steady. The Southerners tied their boat to the wall and climbed upon the esplanade.

"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked Anderson.

"We have come with our final demand for your surrender," replied the chief Southern officer. "If you do not yield we fire upon you."

Anderson shrugged his shoulders.

"I hear that a fleet from New York is coming to my relief."

"It will never be able to force a passage into the harbor."

"That may or may not be, but in any event, gentlemen, I tell you that the flag will not come down. If you fire, we fire back."

He spoke with no quiver in his voice, although his supply of ammunition was low, and the fort had a food supply for only four days.

"Then it is scarcely worth while for us to talk longer."

"No, it would be a waste of time by both of us." The Southerners turned back to their boat. Harry was the last and Anderson said to him in a low tone:

"I am sorry to see your father's son here."

"I am where he would wish me to be," replied the boy stiffly.

"Even so, I hope you will come to no harm," said Anderson in a generous tone.

After such a noble rejoinder Harry's heart softened instantly, and he returned the wish. Then he followed the others into the boat, and they pulled back to the mainland.

The crowd surmised from the quick return of the boat the nature of the answer that it brought. It seemed to feel one gigantic throb of passion, and perhaps of relief also, that the issue was made after so many weeks of waiting. Yet the holiday aspect disappeared, as if a cloud had passed suddenly before the sun.

Harry noted the shadow even before he landed. The people had become silent, and faces that had laughed turned grave. As they set foot upon the mainland, they told their news freely, and then the crowd dispersed almost in silence. It was the first time that Harry had seen Charleston, gay and light of heart, in the shadow, but he was sure that it could not last long. His errand over, he returned to his own battery and told Langdon and St. Clair of everything that had happened.

"It's all for the best," said Langdon cheerfully. "Sumter will be ours in another day."

"Wait and see, Happy," said Harry.

"All right, old Wait-and-See, I will," returned Langdon.

Harry tried to suppress, or at least conceal his intense excitement. The whole city was in the same state. The batteries were filled with men of wealth and position, serving as mere volunteer privates. The wives and daughters of many of them were at the Charleston Hotel or the Mills House, or at such inns as that kept by Madame Delaunay. Governor Pickens and his wife were at the Charleston Hotel, and with them were chief officers of the city and state. Nearly everybody knew that something was going to happen, but few knew when it would happen.

Harry noticed a tightening of discipline at their battery. The orders were sharp and they had to be obeyed. Nothing was wasted in politeness. Visitors were no longer allowed to gratify curiosity. Women and girls in their white or pink dresses were not permitted to come near and smile at their husbands or brothers or sweethearts in the trenches. The ammunition was stacked neatly behind the guns, and every man was compelled to be ready at an instant's notice.

"Looks like business," Langdon whispered joyfully to his comrades. "I'm hoping that fleet will come just as soon as it can."

"Happy, you sanguinary wretch," Harry whispered back, "I'm thinking the fleet will come soon enough for you and all the rest of us."

The afternoon faded. The sun sank in the hills behind them, and dusk came over city and harbor. But Harry, from the battery, could still see the black bulk of Sumter, and above it the gleaming red and blue of a flag.

Coffee and food were served to his comrades and himself in the battery, and then they remained by their guns waiting. The night deepened. Harry could yet see the flash of waters and the dim bulk of Sumter, but the flag itself was no longer visible. No sound came from the city. The silence there seemed singular and heavy.

The boy felt the night and the waiting. Even Happy Tom ceased to be light and frivolous. The three had nothing to do and they sat together, always looking toward the sea where the smoke of the relieving fleet might appear. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilaire passed together on a tour of inspection. They gave approving looks to the three trim youths, with the frank open faces, but said nothing and went on. Harry heard their footsteps for a moment or two, and then the oppressive silence came again.

The same stillness endured for a long time, so long that the three began to believe nothing would happen. Despite himself, Harry began to nod and he was forced to bring himself back to earth with a jerk. Then he stretched a little and peered over the earthwork. It was brighter now. A fine moon rode high, and the sea was dusted with starshine. The bulk of Sumter, black no longer, was coated with silver.

"Looks peaceful enough," whispered Langdon. "The ships have heard that you and St. Clair and I are here waiting for them and have turned back."

Harry made no answer. This waiting in the silence and the night made his blood quiver just a little. He was about to turn back when he saw a sudden flash of fire from another point further up. It was followed by a heavy crash that echoed and re-echoed over the still sea and city. Harry's heart leaped, but his body stiffened to attention. Tom and St. Clair by his side pressed against the earthwork.

"What is it?" they whispered.

"The moonlight is good," replied Harry, "but I don't see any ship. It must be a signal of some kind."

"Hush!" said Langdon, "there it goes again!"

Another cannon thundered, and the echoes, as before, came back from sea and shore, followed, as the echoes died, by that strange, heavy silence. But, straining their eyes to the utmost, the three boys could see nothing on the sea. It swayed gently like a vast mass of molten silver in the starshine, and lapped softly against the shore. The report of a third heavy gun came, and then the reports of several more. After that the silence was complete. It had seemed to Harry, his brain surcharged with excitement, like the tolling of great bells. Langdon and St. Clair whispered together, but he said nothing.

It was permitted to the three to lie down in their blankets in the earthwork and sleep, but they did not think of trying it. They wished to know the meaning of those cannon shots and they waited, tense with excitement. It was nearly midnight when Colonel Leonidas Talbot came.

"We have learned that the Northern vessels will appear before Charleston tomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all our people to be ready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the morning. Now you three boys must go to sleep. We shall need tomorrow soldiers who are fresh and strong, not those who are worn and weak from loss of sleep."

They tried it and found it easier now because they knew the mystery of the shots. Harry became conscious that the night was crisp and cold, and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back against an inner wall of the earthwork. The blood, the result of his tension and excitement, pounded in his ears for some time, but, at last, his pulses became quiet, and his heavy eyes closed.

He was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by Colonel Leonidas Talbot.

"Up, boys!" he said, "snatch a bite of food and a drink of coffee, and make yourselves as neat as possible. General Beauregard is coming to this very battery."

His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the lightning speed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted along the sea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest. Heavy waves rolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult passes that led into the bay.

"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas Talbot murmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the passes in the face of our guns."

The pale light widened. Sumter was black and threatening again, and the flag waved there before it.

General Beauregard, his staff and a body of civilians arrived, and almost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians an old man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white. Despite his years, his face was as keen and eager as that of any boy.

"Who is he?" Harry whispered to St. Clair, who knew everybody.

"His name's Ruffin, but he's not a South Carolinian. He's a Virginian, but he has come to join us, and he's heart and soul with us. He's ready to fight at the drop of a hat."

Harry—their battery stood on Coming's Point—glanced toward the city and uttered a low cry of surprise.

"Look!" he said to his friends, "all Charleston is here."

"Yes, and a lot more of South Carolina, too," said St. Clair.

The people, learning the meaning of those signal guns in the night, were packed in every open space, and the very roofs were black with them. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on, but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great mass. Harry knew that every heart in the fifty thousand beat, like his own, with strained expectancy.

A great gun in the battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The General consented at once, and the old man pulled the lanyard.

There was a terrific crash that almost deafened Harry, a gush of flame, followed by smoke, and a shell, screaming in a curve, dropped upon Sumter. For a few moments no one spoke, and Harry could hear the blood pounding in his ears. In a sudden flash of insight he saw a long and terrible road that they must tread. But neither he nor any other present realized to the full what had happened. The first real shot in the mightiest war of history had been fired, and the years of promises, kept or broken, of mutual jealousies and mutual abuse had ended at the cannon's mouth.

The silence was broken by a shout like the roar of a storm, that came from the people in the town. A puff of smoke rose from Sumter and the fort sent its answering shot, but it struck no enemy and again the shout came from the town, now a cry of derision.

Then all the batteries in the wide curve about Sumter leaped into fiery life. Cannon after cannon poured shot and shell against the black walls. The fort was ringed with fire. It seemed to Harry that the earth rocked. He tried to speak to his comrades, but he could not hear his own voice. He thought he was about to be deafened for his whole life, but Langdon handed him pieces of cotton which he quickly stuffed in his ears. Langdon and St. Clair had already taken the precaution. Happy Tom had proved himself the most forethoughtful of them all. And yet Langdon, careless and easy, was aflame with the fire of battle. It seemed to Harry that he thought little of consequences.

"Listen to it!" he shouted in excited tones to Harry and St. Clair. "Hark to the thudding of the great guns! It's war, the greatest of all games!"

Harry felt an intense excitement also. These were his people. He was of their bone and sinew, and he was with them, heart and soul. He did his part at the guns, and, although his excitement grew, he said nothing. He saw that the return fire from the fort was far inferior to that of the South Carolinians, and that it was doing no damage.

"Using their light guns only," he heard Colonel Talbot say during a momentary lull. "They must be short of ammunition."

The morning wore slowly on. From every battery along the mainland and on the islands, the storm of projectiles yet beat upon Sumter, and, at intervals, the fort replied, still using the light guns. Once Harry heard the whistle of a shell over his head, and he ducked automatically, while the others laughed. Another time, a solid shot sent the dirt flying in all their faces, stinging like driven sand, but that was the nearest any missile ever came to them.