Bloody Picnic

Inspired by true events.

It was July 21, 1861, and I was a girl. Just sixteen. Too young to understand how fragile life could be—how quickly the world could crack open beneath your feet and swallow everything you knew. But by the end of that day, I wasn’t a girl anymore.

The papers had promised glory: one grand battle to crush the rebellion. “Come and see history,” they said. My father believed them. My mother believed him. And I believed them both as I tied the ribbon in my hair that morning and stepped into my best blue dress. It matched the colors of the Union flag, which my father had insisted I bring. He said it would show our support, but to me, it was just something else to carry.

I carried the picnic basket, too, my fingers tight on the wicker handle as the sun burned hot on my neck. It was the sort of day where the air shimmered with heat and the sky hung so heavy it felt like it might press you into the ground. The scent of honeysuckle tangled with the acrid smell of dust kicked up by the carriages ahead of us.

The roads outside Washington were clogged with people—wealthy families in wagons, shopkeepers on foot, even street vendors pushing carts of sweet corn and lemonade. The air buzzed with excitement, chatter, and bursts of laughter. A man behind us puffed on a cigar, the sharp bite of the smoke catching in my throat, while his wife fanned herself and muttered about the heat.

When we arrived at the hillside overlooking Bull Run, it was like stepping into a summer fair. Blankets dotted the grass, women in wide-brimmed hats tilted their parasols to keep the sun at bay, and children darted between wagons, their shouts high and shrill. A boy not much younger than me held a flag aloft, shouting, “Hurrah for the Union!” with the same enthusiasm one might cheer his favorite racehorse.

We found a spot beneath an old oak tree. The bark was warm and rough against my back as I sat down, smoothing my skirts. My father uncorked the bottle of cider with a soft pop, and the smell of apples drifted out, sweet and sharp.

Below us, the Union soldiers moved in tight formations, their bayonets catching the sunlight like shards of glass. My father leaned forward, his eyes shining. “Look at that, Margaret. Look at those boys. Brave as lions, every one of them.”

But something about the scene made me uneasy. It was too clean, too perfect—like a painting, not a war.

The first cannon fire rolled through the air like thunder. It rattled my ribs, the vibrations settling in my chest. Smoke billowed up from the Confederate line, a thick, choking gray that blurred the trees. People cheered, clapping as though the curtain had just gone up on a play.

For a moment, it was mesmerizing. The Union soldiers advanced in steady lines, their boots striking the earth in perfect unison. I could hear the snap of the banners in the wind, the rhythmic clink of metal as they marched. But then came the musket fire, sharp and erratic, tearing through the air like jagged lightning.

The first man fell.

From our hilltop, I couldn’t see his face, but I saw the way his body crumpled, his rifle slipping from his hands. Then another fell. And another. The sound of the crowd shifted, the cheers faltering into murmurs, then silence.

The lines broke.

At first, it was subtle—a ripple of hesitation, a stumble here and there. But hesitation turned to panic, and panic turned to chaos. The soldiers began to run, their blue coats streaked with mud, their faces wild with terror. They were no longer men—they were boys, terrified and bleeding, their humanity laid bare.

A cannonball tore into the hillside, close enough that I felt the earth tremble beneath me. Dirt sprayed into the air, sharp pebbles stinging my cheek like bees. Women screamed. My mother’s parasol fell from her hands, forgotten.

“Margaret, get up!” my father shouted, grabbing my arm.

I stood, but my legs felt wooden, like they belonged to someone else. Around me, the world was dissolving. Horses reared, their eyes rolling white with panic. Wagons overturned, spilling their contents—bottles of champagne shattering, baskets of food crushed beneath fleeing feet.

And then I saw her.

A woman in a cream-colored dress, her skirts soaked in blood, cradling a small boy who couldn’t have been older than four. She was screaming—high, raw, and broken. “Help me!” she cried, but no one stopped. She stumbled, falling to her knees, and the boy’s head lolled against her shoulder.

My father yanked me forward, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. That scream—raw and desperate—lodged itself deep inside me, a sound I would hear for years after.

The battlefield spilled over the hilltop like a tide, soldiers and civilians tangling together in chaos. I saw men trampled beneath the wheels of wagons, their cries swallowed by the roar of cannon fire. A boy in a tattered blue coat staggered past me, clutching his side, his fingers slick with blood. He collapsed, and I reached for him, but my father pulled me away.

“Run, Margaret!” he shouted, his voice hoarse.

We ran. Horses and soldiers overtook us. Blue coats. Grey coats. Men with no shirts. I saw an elderly woman fall, trampled immediately under the hooves of a falling horse.

I turned to help her, but my father took a firm grip of my elbow and yanked me on. “We can’t help her,” he shouted above the din. “Keep moving!”

And move we did. Bullets continued to whiz through the air. One nicked my ear and created a spray of blood that then ran down my neck and onto the collar of my already ruined dress. My lungs burned in agony, gasping for breath. Every muscle ached. I saw a bloom of blood spread across my father’s shoulder, but he didn’t stop. He just kept moving, dragging me ever forward.

“Daddy!” I screamed.

“I’m alright. Move!” He commanded.

I did. He pulled me to the front of him and pushed me forward, before he stopped and vomited.

I turned around to help him. He waved me away. “Get home, Margaret!” he said. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

That was the only promise my father ever broke to me and bless his soul, I don’t know if I will ever forgive him for it. I never saw him again—either dead or alive. I turned obediently to go. My shoes slipped in the mud—only it wasn’t all mud. The ground beneath my feet was sticky, the iron tang of blood heavy in the air. Around me, the screams of the dying mingled with the frantic cries of those trying to escape.

By the time I reached Washington, the sun had set and the streets were choked with people. Soldiers staggered past us, their faces hollow, their uniforms torn. I saw one man clutching his stomach, his hands pressed against a wound that bled through his coat. His eyes met mine for a brief moment, and in them, I saw the same thing I’d seen on the hill: the knowledge of death.

That night, I sat by the kitchen table, staring at the picnic basket. Waiting for my father. He’d promised. The chicken was untouched, the biscuits crushed, and the cider bottle empty. My mother sat in silence, her head bowed in prayer to a god who I s’pose was too busy to show up on a battlefield that day.

Later, once my mother and I had come to accept that Daddy wasn’t coming back, I tried not to think of him. Instead, I thought about the boy on the hill. The woman in the bloodstained dress. The man clutching his stomach. And I thought about the war—not the spectacle of war— the grand battle the papers had promised, but the real war—where real people bled and died. Where real lives were shattered.

I didn’t sleep that night. By the end of the week, I knew what I had to do. Mother had come to the same conclusion.

Two weeks later, we left Washington DC to join the war effort. Not to fight, but to heal. To tend to the broken boys who had once been whole.

What else were we gonna’ do?

Mother and I worked two more years, shoulder to shoulder before mother herself became a patient. The Cholera took her on an otherwise quiet day in March. I held her hand as she left me—alone in the world for the first time. I buried her in the cold March soil, out near the border of North Carolina and Virginia, knowing she’d done all she could to prepare me for what was ahead.

Not knowing what else to do, I pressed on—obviously. I’m still here, ain’t I? Or at least what’s left of me. After the war ended, with no family left and no real home to return to, I moved to Texas. I thought a fresh start might help me leave the past behind. It didn’t.

I married, of course. I had children of my own. Grandchildren. That’s the way for women, I suppose —the way it always will be. But it all felt like survival—just swimming through a fog. Don’t get me wrong. John was a good enough man. He never hit me. He wouldn’t have dared. But—well I guess that’s enough about that. Wouldn’t be fittin’ to speak ill of the dead, now, would it?

When people ask me what it was like, I tell them this: we went to see a war, but it followed us home—and all these years later, I s’pose it’s never leavin.’