Sophia Darvin, Age 14

Word Count: 1724

Fallen StandardEmail:

Battle of Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

The cannons fired again; more men fell. Owen turned his face away as the shouting Confederates assailed the bloodied Union bayonets. The horses reared, and the ambulance wagon nearly tipped. Owen stroked their glossy necks, whispering softly. The standard was still waving defiantly, despite the Federals’ endeavors to storm the flag-bearer. General Pickett’s banner swayed shakily, and disappeared among the soldiers. A moment later, Amos Hopkins raised it again with a shout of triumph, and swept onward with it. His comrades surrounded him, fighting off their Yankee foes––desperate to tear down the rebel colors, and scatter the graycoat grit.

The sun glowed tormentingly, blinding Owen as he glanced up at the torrid July sky; he longed for a drink from the cold brook at home in Dublin. Would the torture never end? Hour after hour, he had stood on the hill, restraining the nervous young horses from tearing down the rocky slope; hour after hour, he had withstood the blistering hotness, and had watched Confederate and Yankee alike plunge toward his countrymen with a loaded rifle, cocked for the kill. Ever since he’d witnessed an outlaw’s hanging at the age of nine, Owen had always hated killing. It devastated him––the marching ranks of soldiers, rushing to their death––all the fire and smoke and blood; all the artillery spewing forth their flaming grapeshot and burning shell; even the very men who had prayed with Owen the night before, seemed to have hardened as they streamed across the field, and clashed with the Union soldiers in a blur of blue and gray. A cloud of dark smoke hid the standard from view.

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When it was over, Owen could hardly recall the battle. Everything muddled in his mind, a haze of memories and war-torn reality, with a sickening remembrance of the slain men who lay upon the once-green sward of Gettysburg. Amos had straggled back from the field, still carrying the flag. But there was no triumph in the way he labored up the hill and stood at Owen’s side. There was no rejoicing in the eyes that stared across the bloody battlefield.

“Owen,” he said, “they have gained upon us today. All those men who lived at sunrise now lie dead at twilight; and we have attained nothing by it.”

The camp was silent that night as the remaining men received their scanty rations, and stared into the dark. Owen felt that night, more than any other, that tomorrow would be a dark day for Pickett’s Division, First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. He knew that each man was making himself right with his Maker, and that sleep would come for few of them. After the campfires sank to a dim flicker, and the war-weary soldiers lay, each huddled in his blanket, Owen stared up at the black sky.

“Amos?” he finally dared.

Amos rolled over. “What is it, Owen?”

“Are ye prepared to die?”

There was a long silence; then Amos answered unsteadily, “No, Owen. Today I was afraid––whenever a gun fired––whenever the man beside me was killed, I knew I was afraid because it could have been me. I ain’t ready to die yet, Owen. All my life I heard sermons preached and Bibles read, but I never took heart. I told myself that when I was older––when I had wrung from life what it could offer, then I would lay down all and follow Christ. But I didn’t want to change. I convinced myself that it was a man’s courage that made me mock––but deep inside, I knew I was a coward; I knew I’d lied, and I was guilty. It’s too late now.”

“Nay, Amos! Come here, by the fire.” Owen opened the pages of the Bible he had brought from Ireland. “I’ll always remember this verse, Amos, and I want ye to; that’s why I’m reading it, for it brought me to repentance. It says, ‘For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.’ Ye know what that means, don’t ye, Amos?”

“I s’pose I do.”

“It means that we have all committed iniquity against God, and are condemned to eternal judgment and death, unless we repent truly, and trust in Him.” Owen turned the worn leaves, and quietly read the story of his Savior.

“But Owen, you don’t know what I’ve done––can I be forgiven?” Amos asked.

“Amos, I don’t need to know. Tell it all to God.”

Amos knelt and whispered, “O God, I’m so ashamed of myself. It’s been so many years since last I’ve prayed––I hardly know what to say. I’ve lied, cheated, and coveted and stolen, and I’ve hated my neighbor––an’ that’s the same as murder––and I haven’t kept Your Sabbath. But if You’ll forgive me, Lord, I want to be one of Your sons, like Owen is. Whatever happens, whether I live or die tomorrow, let it be Your will done, and not mine. Please give me the courage to do what is right.”

When Owen slept, it was a dreamless slumber that held him captive until dawn slipped over the horizon, and he awoke––and knew that tomorrow had come.

All that day, July 3, Owen held his place in the line, and met the Federal fire firmly. He tore open the gunpowder cartridges almost mechanically, and his arm ached from ramming bullets down the barrel of his rifle. As the Union soldiers advanced, brandishing their bayonets, Owen braced himself, and felt the line giving way. But the call for retreat was given, and the Confederates fell back.

General Pickett rode up and down the lines of his bedraggled men. “General Lee has ordered a charge upon Cemetery Ridge. But I will not be leading you, my brave men. General Armistead will command the attack.”

Owen found himself next to Amos in the middle of the ranks.

“How many men are marching with us to take Cemetery Ridge?”

“Over twelve-thousand––so many, Owen, who will never make it back.”

“Do ye think we’ll make it to the top?”

“I don’t know; we’ll be facing Union cannon all the way.”

General Armistead drew his saber and cried, “Charge!”

Owen felt Amos tense for a moment, then streak forward. The Confederate soldiers crushed the first wave of Federals, and tore for the next, screaming like rebel wildcats. Owen yelled until his throat was sore, and he ran until he could have collapsed. But he forced himself onward, loading and reloading, firing shot after shot, watching Yankee after Yankee disappear in the smoke. But even as he followed General Armistead further, Owen knew that the charge may yet have been in vain. The slope up to Cemetery Ridge was a mile long, and the Federal cannons roared at the top, until they were red-hot from the fire. Pickett’s men struggled up valiantly, but they were met by Yankee soldiers all the way. They were halfway up to Cemetery Ridge when Amos was hit. Owen’s heart screamed against it, but he was powerless. The First Corps’s colors went down. He seized them, and yelled as he hoisted them above his head, stumbling to his feet. General Armistead lay mortally wounded next to a Union cannon, but still the men pressed on; ranks of Pickett’s Division were cut down and surrounded, but still the men pressed on; the standard sank twice, when Owen was wounded, but still the men pressed on––into the gunfire, and the smoke––into the face of the deafening bluecoat batteries, and up towards the stone wall of Cemetery Ridge.

Owen O’Kearley was the first man over the wall when the Confederates finally gained the brow of the ridge. Gasping, he reached the assigned group of trees, and felt blood running down his side. Of the twelve thousand troops that began the attack, a meager few hundred remained. The Federals swarmed toward Owen when they saw Southern colors flying on the ground they commanded––but his comrades encircled him, and fought off the enemy savagely.

“We’ll need reinforcements, if we want to hold the ridge!” panted one of the men as he stood next to Owen. “Are you hurt, son?”

“Aye,” Owen gasped.

The man dropped at Owen’s feet, and his heart filled with bitterness and sorrow. How many more must die? But even as he thought of the man’s words, he knew that reinforcements would not come. The Union men had turned their cannons against the last of the brave division, and shot them down as each man struggled to live. Owen seized his dead comrade’s rifle, and returned fire. The men around him lessened.

“General Pickett, sir! Our colors are flying upon Cemetery Ridge!” reported General Pickett’s adjutant.

Owen reloaded, and aimed again. Crack! the shot met its mark, and the Yankee staggered. A stab of pain shuddered through Owen’s heart. One of the boys saw the bullet, and the gun that fired it. He rushed to Owen’s side, and helped him stand. A cannon crashed. The boy went down, and Owen stood alone. The pain tore deeper––but while he yet had breath and blood, though the crimson stain spread fast and darkness wavered before his eyes, Owen gripped his division’s standard, and steadied it as the men died all around him. He braced the flagpole tightly, and clung to it until the sweat came, and he couldn’t let go. The Federals pressed about him, and he stood, the last Confederate on the ridge. Another rifle echoed. The agony struck again; Owen released the standard as the darkness overcame him, the flag’s colors streaming the ground at his side.

“General Pickett,” ordered Lee, “ready your division for defense!”

Tears spilled uncontrolled across Pickett’s cheeks. “General Lee,” he sobbed, “I have no division!”

As the victorious Union soldiers, weary and spent, buried their enemy’s dead the next day, July 4, 1863, the sun slipped low beneath the trees on Cemetery Ridge. The Federal guns, so long ringing and thunderous, now stood proud and silent upon the hill where Owen was laid to rest with his brothers. The colors of the First Corps were borne away as a prize, but the courage of the Confederacy still lived, as true as the banner Pickett’s soldiers had died to defend.

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