My dear Mabel May,
I hope you are doing well in Nashville. How I've missed you over the last few weeks. Yesterday, General Beauregard commanded our troops to head north after being informed that the Union army was planning to cut the rail line at Manassas and then move toward Richmond, Virginia, our capital. We stood along Bull run creek in wait. I couldn't even see the end of the line of soldiers; it must have gone on for miles. The Union soldiers stood across from us with their rifles at hand. Suddenly, they charged at our line up, and the battle commenced. While my men and I fought passionately for this cause that we so deeply believed in, through the fumes of gunpowder I could see soldiers from the Union cockily bend over to collect scraps of wreckage laying in the grass, as if they were souvenirs. They thought we were a joke. I felt my blood seething as I ripped open another pouch of gun powder and pulled the trigger. Smoke erupted from my rifle and the air become a fuzzy haze of grey. More confederate reinforcements came by horseback and train to finish them off. The sharp sounds of gunfire clogged my ears, and with satisfaction, we saw more and more federals collapse as they clasped their bloody wounds. The look of disbelief on their grimacing faces was an outcome I know they didn't expect. We won the battle of Manassas much to the North's shock. Maybe now they will take us seriously. I know we will keep fighting to preserve the life we know and love. You can count on me.
All of my love,
Stephen B. Madden
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