An officer came to talk to the men, telling them to be ready to attack at daylight. “Remember, boys,” he cautioned, “battle and fighting mean death, and probably before sunrise some of us will be dead.” Zettler lay down on his blanket. He spent a homesick night beneath the bright summer stars. Confusion on the Battlefield The battle of Bull Run began early the next morning—July 21, 1861. Berrien Zettler’s regiment (a group of about seven hundred soldiers) marched through the woods to the edge of a cornfield. They were told to stop, load their guns, and wait for the order to attack the Union forces. While waiting, the men noticed a big apple tree full of ripe red fruit. Some of them ran to the tree, climbed up, and started tossing down apples. Then a Union bomb came screaming over their heads and exploded nearby. “The boys dropped from the apple tree like shot bears,” Zettler remembered. They wriggled on their hands and knees back to their places. Zettler experienced a rush of terror as he realized the battle was starting.
What do You think about Two Miserable Presidents (2011)?
