Abner and Me: Chapters 7–9

by Dan Gutman
Young Stosh has time-traveled before…but this time he and his mom find themselves in the midst of the Battle of Gettysburg, searching for Abner Doubleday—a Civil War general. Stosh wants to find out for certain if Doubleday invented the game of baseball.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–6, Chapters 7–9, Chapter 10, Chapters 11–14, Chapters 15–19
15 words 13 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. haphazardly
    in a random manner
    For maybe half a second, I looked around. Mom was still next to me. We were outside, in a cemetery. Or at least there were some tombstones scattered around haphazardly.
  2. hunker
    squat, hunch, or crouch down
    “Hit the dirt!” I shouted to Mom. She didn’t need to be told. We each hunkered down behind a tombstone.
  3. minimize
    make small or insignificant
    I wanted to minimize the chances of one of those flying pieces of who-knows-what finding a part of me.
  4. hallucination
    illusory perception
    Maybe it was a bad dream or something. A hallucination. Maybe I would wake up in a few minutes and I’d be back home.
  5. impact
    the striking of one body against another
    I closed my eyes and tensed every muscle in my body for the impact.
  6. bombardment
    an attack by dropping explosive devices
    The bombardment went on and on. I didn’t know how long.
  7. excruciating
    extremely painful
    But I didn’t feel any excruciating pain anywhere, I’ll say that much.
  8. assure
    inform positively and with certainty and confidence
    “You’re going to be okay,” she assured Willie.
  9. caliber
    diameter of a tube or gun barrel
    It was an old .22 caliber Remington. He used to take me out to a field near our house for target practice.
  10. drone
    an aircraft without a pilot and operated by remote control
    I had to remind myself that this was 1863. No high-tech stuff. No helicopters. No night-vision goggles. No laser-guided smart bombs or drones.
  11. defiantly
    in a rebellious manner
    They didn’t run away. They walked away defiantly. It seemed important to them not to be seen running away.
  12. adrenaline
    hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress
    I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or some other chemical that rushes through your body in times of stress, but whatever it was made me feel really alive.
  13. blissful
    completely happy and contented
    I will never forget the blissful moments we spent together.
  14. bayonet
    a knife fixed to the end of a rifle and used as a weapon
    We had a fine picnic. Joshua stuck something he called “salt beef” on to the end of his bayonet and held it over the fire to roast it.
  15. skedaddle
    run away, as if in a panic
    "Sit yourself down," Joshua said. "The Rebs skedaddled, and they’re lickin’ their wounds. They’d be crazy to attack us on this hill now."
Created on Mon Feb 09 20:15:06 EST 2026 (updated Fri Jun 12 15:58:51 EDT 2026)

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