Free Bull Run by Paul Fleischman

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LILY MALLOY
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    Minnesota is flat as a cracker. Rise up on your toes and you can see across the state. Scarce even a tree in sight but for a few willows beside the creeks. Father said God put willows here that man might have switches to enforce His commandments. Father was a grim-faced Scot and a great believer in switching. Each morning he put on his spectacles, without which he was all but blind. And each evening all six of us were whipped for whatever failings he’d noticed that day. If no fault could be found, we were whipped just the same for any wrongs committed out of his sight. Wee Sarah was not spared, nor Patrick, seventeen and tall. Father was taller still.
    One chill April Sunday in 1861, we rode in to church and found a crowd before the door. Mr. Nilson was reading from a newspaper. Fort Sumter had been attacked. The gallant defenders had surrendered the next day. The President had called the Union to arms. That such a far-distant doing should, like a lever, shake Crow County amazed me. Mother wept. The men swore, despite the Sabbath. There was talk that a regiment of one thousand soldiers was being raised in Minnesota. Patrick’s eyes glittered like diamonds.
    Reverend Bott railed against the Rebels that day. His sermon’s subject was “A man’s worst foes are those of his own household.” Father repeated the line at supper, his eyes fixed upon Patrick. That night, Father gave him a terrible thrashing. Afterward, Patrick asked the reason. “You’re thinking to scamper off!” shouted Father. “Don’t think I don’t know it! And don’t think you’ll succeed!” He stood his full height. “I can see fifty miles! I’ll hunt you like a wolf, and skin you like one!”
    I didn’t think I’d sleep that night. At dawn I woke to find my hand holding an old willow whistle Patrick had fashioned. I knew then he was gone and began to cry. We were five years apart but dear to each other. How I did fear that he’d be caught. Then I heard Father roar, “And the stone-hearted rogue took my spectacles with him!”

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SHEM SUGGS
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    Horses have always served me for kin. The first time one looked back into my eyes, I knew that I was no longer alone on this earth, orphan or no. Never had one of my own to care for. The folks I lived with kept mules. But we’d put up wayfarers crossing Arkansas. Their horses trusted me straightaway, as if they’d known me from before. I’d feed ’em and wash ’em and brush ’em and we’d talk. An hour after arriving, they’d come to me sooner than to their owners. I felt among family with ’em, and forlorn as a ghost when they’d gone.
    I was boarding at Mr. Bee’s when a traveler told us about Fort Sumter. He left us a newspaper from Virginia. I was nineteen and couldn’t read a lick, but I spotted a picture of a horse. I asked Mr. Bee to read the words below. They called men to join the cavalry. Mr. Bee hated Yankees the way a broom hates dirt, and he started in again on Lincoln and the sovereign states and the constitutional right to secede. I just nodded my head like a wooden puppet, thinking about the newspaper instead. It said they’d give me a horse.

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GIDEON ADAMS
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    Though my skin is quite light, I’m a Negro, I’m proud of it, and I wept with joy along with my brethren at President Lincoln’s call for men. How we yearned to strike a blow in the battle! Though the state of Ohio refused us the vote and discouraged us from settling, we rose to her aid just the same. No less than Cincinnati’s whites, we organized meetings, heard ringing speeches, sang “Hail Columbia” and “John Brown’s Body.” All recognized that Cincinnati was vulnerable to capture. We therefore proposed to ready a company of Home Guards, its numbers, training, and equipment to be provided by the black citizens of the city and its