Free Bull Run by Paul Fleischman Page B

march. Vulgarities and vegetables were hurled. Rocks followed. Then deadly paving blocks. A Cambridge lad to my left was struck and sank upon one knee. A spectator tried to steal his musket. Then a shot rang out and a soldier just beside me fell to the ground. I’m a Boston man myself, and I snatched up the martyr’s gun, hot for revenge. The company was ordered to fire on the mob. I joined them. There were screams, and further shots. We quick-stepped through a hailstorm of stones, finally reached the Camden Street station, then had to wait for a locomotive. Three valiant volunteers were dead. Many others were injured. I burned to put upon paper the faces of the taunting traitors and the fallen heroes, took up a pencil, tried to draw—but couldn’t. My hands were shaking, with fury.

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TOBY BOYCE
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    I was eleven years old and desperate to kill a Yankee before the supply ran out. It seemed that all Georgia had joined except me. I knew I’d never pass for eighteen. You can’t very well lie about your height. Then I heard that musicians were needed to play for the soldiers, any age at all. I hotfooted it fifteen miles to the courthouse and took my place in line. The recruiter scowled when I reached the front. “You’re a knee baby yet,” he said. “Go on home.” I told him I meant to join the band. “And what would your instrument be?” he asked. My thinking hadn’t traveled that far. “The fife,” I spoke out. Which was a monstrous lie. He smiled at me and I felt limp with relief. Then he stood up and ambled out the door. Across from the courthouse a band had begun playing. We all heard the music stop of a sudden. A few minutes later the recruiter returned. He held out a fife. “Give us ‘Dixie,’” he said. I felt hot all over. Everyone waited. The fife seemed to burn and writhe in my hand like the Devil’s own tail. I heard Grandpap saying, as he had heaps of times, “A lie is a weed in the Lord’s flower garden.” Then that left my mind and I recollected him saying “Faith sows miracles.” I found what seemed to be the mouth hole. “‘Dixie,’” I announced. I closed my eyes. Then I commenced to blow and wag my fingers, singing out the song strong in my head. I believed it was coming from the fife as well, until I saw the faces around me. One man had his jacket over his head. The room echoed a considerable time after I’d finished playing. The recruiter’s eyes opened slow as a frog’s. I was surprised at his expression. “You’ve got spirit,” he said at last. “And boldness. And pluck enough, I judge, to practice almighty hard, starting today .” It was the first miracle I’d ever seen.

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GIDEON ADAMS
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    The next day four of us marched to a recruiting tent to join the infantry. I happened to be the first in line. The enlisting officer had just asked me to sign when he noticed the hair curling out from my cap, saw for the first time that I was a Negro, and informed me in the most impolite terms that I could not be admitted as a soldier.
    We left, despairing of ever fighting the South. Some of the men I knew put their pride in their pockets and joined as ditchdiggers. Some signed on as cooks or teamsters. Some stayed home, to hear once more that Negroes were cowardly, lazy, disloyal. I, however, refused to resign myself to serving with shovel or spoon. I would stand at the front of the fray, not the rear, and would hold a rifle in my hand. That recruiter had shown me the way.
    I clipped my hair short that very night. The next day, I bought a bigger cap, one with a chin strap to hold it in place. Then I walked to a different recruiting station. The enlisting officer asked me my name. I foolishly feared he might recognize it. I looked up at a banner that read “One Thousand Able-Bodied Patriots Wanted,” and gave him “Able” in place of