CHAPTER 1
The huge iron train wheels rumbled by, sounding to Johnny like a herd of wild mustangs, like thunder. Louder, even. Wind and dust stirred up under them. He felt small—bug-tiny—next to those things. Things that big and powerful and loud made it hard to be a hero. Johnny spat at them.
Johnny hated train wheels. And he hated feeling small and powerless.
He used to stand there, next to the dusty roar, and scream cuss words at those wheels. Then for a while he’d just scream. But it didn’t make him feel any better, no, sir.
“Staring at them isn’t going to bring her back, John Joseph,” Pop said.
Johnny hadn’t realized Pop had walked up. He shrugged. Did Pop think he didn’t know that? He was nine, after all. He knew Mama wasn’t coming back.
“Heard word that the troops are mustering in town this afternoon,” Pop said.
“Really? Today’s the day?” It was the one thing that could turn Johnny’s sour mood sweet: Union troops! “Let’s go!”
Pop smiled, patted Johnny’s head (which made him feel like a kid), and walked back down the dusty road toward home. Johnny spat at the train wheels one more time, for good measure.
“I hate you.”
* * *
The town square in Newark, Ohio, was four dirt roads that cut across rocky ridges and miles of cornfields, and they all just happened to intersect at that spot. A handful of brick buildings stood squat along the square, and a small creek burbled nearby. Usually quiet. Usually boring.
But today! Today, the Union troops were mustering, and their gathering was quite the sight!
Today, the blasts of the mighty bugle could be heard from a half mile away.
Today, the smell of roasted chicken filled the air from the picnic baskets folks had packed for the troops.
Today, those usually boring brick buildings were decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. Ladies leaned out of second-story windows, throwing rose petals down on the crowd. Older women waved handkerchiefs (when they weren’t honking their noses into them). Old men raised their canes and yelled “Hurrah!” and “Save the Union!” and “Beat back those fire-eaters!”
And the troops! There were so many of them—about a thousand men total. Gleaming brass buttons winked on knife-sharp blue uniforms. The soldiers held muskets and flags and musical instruments. Those men stood proud and tall. Those men stood like heroes.
It was, all of it, the most glorious sight Johnny had ever seen. His heart raced and his palms sweated and his chin lifted with Union pride.
A soldier with lots of colorful rope on his shoulders climbed atop a stump. Johnny had stood on that exact stump many times, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting loud speeches about the high prices of sour apple candy sticks at the general store. But this guy! He didn’t cup his hands or nothing.
Then a drum started beating, low and slow. Quiet at first, underneath the noise of crying mamas and guffawing men. The crowd almost didn’t even notice it. Like a heartbeat, taptaptap.
But it grew louder, louder, swelling and rising with each beat until it was bouncing and echoing off the buildings,BOOMBOOMBOOM. People grew silent as the beat of the drum rumbled through their chests.
And when it stopped—when the drumbeat silenced—Johnny felt like someone had ripped his heart clean out. The whole crowd held its breath and waited to be told to exhale, because the drum had taken over. The drum did that.
For the first time ever, that drum made Johnny feel like he was a part of something big.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the fancy fella on the stump said. He said things, he didn’t yell them. That struck Johnny as important. He decided to weave through the crowd to get closer to this importance. Johnny bumped against the waists of adults wearing belt buckles and leather gun holsters and dress ribbons until he was just below the important fella.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the United States are no longer united. We are a nation ripped apart at the seams, and for what reason?”
“Because of those greedy rebels and their slaves!” someone yelled from the back of the crowd.
“Slavery, yes,” the man on the stump stated. This guy oozed calm. “But also tariffs. And a different economy. And states’ rights. Those Confederate states that seceded? They left our Union because they believe their individual needs are more important than the needs of the whole.”
“Selfish morons!” someone else from the crowd yelled, and a bunch of the adults chuckled.
The important man didn’t laugh, no, sir. He shot a look of ice in the direction of the comment. “They believe in their cause as much as we believe in ours. Which is why this is going to be a war like none the world has ever seen.”
The crowd cheered and waved things in the air at that, but Johnny felt like maybe they hadn’t heard him right.
“We know in our hearts that the Union must survive. We are a nation built on differences. But we are only strong together.”
Another cheer from the crowd, and this time Johnny cheered, too.
“And so I present to you”—the man swept his palm over the troops who had assembled in one corner of the square—“the Third Ohio Volunteer Regiment. I am Captain Leonidas McDougal, and it is my highest honor to lead these men into battle. It is my highest honor to do everything in my God-given power to keep this nation whole! The Union must be preserved!”
With that, he leapt off the stump. Bugles blasted through the air like triumphant eagles, brassy and showy, not sneaky like the power of that drum. The crowd cheered, rose petals rained down from above, and people swarmed to press gifts like combs, pocketknives, cigars, and slippers into the hands of the departing soldiers.
The Union must be preserved.
Johnny nodded.
His help was obviously needed.
Johnny stood on tiptoe to spot the important man, Captain McDougal. The captain swung up on a horse several feet away. Johnny pushed back through the maze of belt buckles and ribbons until he stood beside the captain’s mount.
“Captain McDougal!” Johnny yelled up to him.
The captain didn’t hear him. The officer winked at a nearby girl in a frilly pink dress.
“Captain McDougal!” Johnny yelled louder.
The captain turned in Johnny’s direction but looked over his head to the crowd behind him.
“Down here!”
At last, Captain McDougal saw him.
“Captain, sir!” Johnny saluted. “My name is John Joseph Clem, and I volunteer my services to the Third Ohio Regiment, sir!”
As Johnny stood there, chest puffed out and arm stiffened in salute, he felt Captain Leonidas McDougal scan all four feet, forty pounds of him. The captain’s mouth ticked up.
And then the captain laughed. Full-on, head-tilted-back, belly-clutching laughed.
“I’m not enlisting infants, son.”
The captain dug his heels into the side of his horse and trotted away, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Johnny coughed.
Infant?
Infantry, maybe.
“I’ll show him,” Johnny muttered.
Text copyright © 2016 by Macmillan
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Steven Noble
