Battle of the Bridge of Skulls

After Lord Commander Mormont died in a mutiny, Bowen Marsh was left in command of Castle Black while a successor was chosen. Mance Rayder used that gap to fake attacks all along the Wall at once: Harma Dogshead near Icemark, Rattleshirt at Long Barrow, the Weeper by Deep Lake. Other bands climbed near Queensgate, tested the gates at Greyguard and showed themselves at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea before pulling back the moment they spotted a black brother.

None of it was the real attack. Mance wanted the Watch scattered thin, leaving Castle Black with a skeleton garrison, so his main force could force the gate while Marsh's men were far off chasing shadows. Marsh took the bait and rode out after the wildlings with most of the garrison.

Marsh chased the wildlings past the Shadow Tower and into the Gorge. There the Weeper and some three hundred men were waiting, and the fight on the bridge that gave the battle its name turned bloody.

The Night's Watch won, but out of roughly four hundred men it lost more than a hundred, among them Ser Endrew Tarth and Ser Aladale Wynch. Watt of Long Lake died there as well.

Marsh came out of the fight badly hurt and had to be carried back to the Shadow Tower on a litter; Maester Mullin tended him, though it took a while before he was fit to return to Castle Black. The head wound left him thinner and worn down, missing a piece of one ear.

That delay had consequences: with the main garrison still away, Castle Black stood defended by the old, the crippled and the green boys Marsh hadn't taken with him, right as the wildlings' main force laid siege to it. When Ser Denys Mallister finally brought the survivors of the Bridge of Skulls back to Castle Black, he found Samwell Tarly there, already able to tell him how the Battle of Castle Black had ended.