Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg Read Online Free PDF

Yankees.”
    â€œSlavery’s evil,” I countered.
    â€œYou think our slaves have it worse off than the people working in your big city factories?” he asked.
    I had no answer for that. I didn’t know anything about factories. Or big cities. I had never even been to Philadelphia. “What about the Union?” I asked, getting kind of steamed. “All the states said they would stick together after we whipped the British in the Revolution. Seems to me that a bunch of states can’t just take it into their heads to bust up the Union. It’s not right. What kind of country would we have if every time some state got mad at the others they split off from the Union?”
    â€œAin’t much of a Union if it takes away states’ rights.” He was just as stubborn over the matter as I was.
    â€œAin’t much of a state if it takes away a person’s rights,” I yelled.
    Abel frowned. “I’m not here to fight with you,” he said. “I go where the army sends me. I’ve got no quarrel with you.”
    â€œWhat if I have a quarrel with you?” I asked.
    We stared at each other, contemplating a fist-fight. I was bigger than him, but he was more muscled. Plus, we were surrounded by Rebel soldiers. I was outnumbered.
    I took a step toward home, ending our contest. Even so, I didn’t want him to think I was scared, or beholden to him. “You didn’t save my life, you know. He wasn’t going to shoot me,” I said. I don’t know if that was true, but it felt good to say it.
    â€œMaybe not.” Abel Hoke shuffled his toes in the dirt and looked away. Something came over his face. Sadness maybe, or maybe he was just tired.
    I had hurt his feelings. “I’m Will Edmonds,” I said. “How long have you been a drummer?”
    â€œSince we got news that Tennessee joined the Confederacy,” he said. “I mustered in the next day. I’ve been a drummer ever since.”
    â€œHow old were you?” He didn’t look to be any older than I am, and the war started more than two years ago.
    â€œTen,” he answered. “Almost eleven.”
    â€œAnd your folks let you?”
    â€œJoined up with my daddy,” he said with a nod.
    â€œMy mother and father won’t let me join up,” I admitted. “But I’m ready. I’ve been practicing my drumming.”
    â€œYour daddy a soldier?” he asked.
    I had to confess that he wasn’t, sure that Abel’s father was a general or some such thing. “My brother, Jacob, is—was—a soldier. He’s in a Southern prison. My father’s down in Washington, working at an army hospital. He says the North needs doctors more than they need soldiers.”
    Abel nodded solemnly.
    â€œWhere’s your father now?” I asked.
    â€œDead. Shiloh,” he said matter-of-factly.
    Now I looked away. Some Gettysburg boys had joined up and died in the war, but no fathers that I knew of. It crossed my mind that one day I might have to say such a thing about Jacob— “Dead. Rebel prison.”—or even Father. I couldn’t imagine being able to say the words so simply. I didn’t know how to answer such a statement as that.
    Luckily we had reached the end of the alley. “Courthouse is this way,” I said, turning onto Baltimore. “So’s my house.”
    He stayed at my side.
    Confederate soldiers were all over the street. They had stacked their muskets and built cook fires. Some girls were singing for them. It made me sick for a minute to think that they were entertaining the enemy, and then I realized they were singing a pro-Union song. The Rebs didn’t seem to mind. They countered with a song of their own.
    â€œThere’s the Courthouse,” I said, pointing as we crossed West Middle Street.
    Confederate soldiers were going in and out. Abel had said the Rebs were using it for a