I peered over his shoulder at the battle that was spread across fields and hills as far as my eyes could see. Now that I knew what I was looking at, it didn’t take long to notice that the gray uniforms seemed to far outnumber the blue. “Then why does it look like we’re losing?”

“Because we are,” Elliot said, jerking his finger behind him. “I’d bet anything that the town down there is Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This is the battle that decides who wins the Civil War. If the Confederates take the high ground”—he pointed to the hill and its makeshift stone wall—“then they win the war.”

“You’re really smart,” I said, and it wasn’t a question or an insult. It was just a fact.

“Yes,” Elliot said simply. “But how in the world are we supposed to spot a Butterfly in this mess?”

I bit my lip as I looked at the makeshift rock wall the Union soldiers had erected at the top of the hill. They huddled behind it, every now and then standing to battle back a rush of Confederates as they charged up the hill at them.

“So a Butterfly,” I said, thinking out loud, “might be here to make sure they win?”

“That’s my guess,” Elliot said. “Someone is going to try to help the Confederates take the hill.”

“Well, we aren’t going to stop them hiding here,” I said. “Come on.”

“What do you mean, come on?” Elliot asked, hurrying after me as I wove through the trees, all the time angling so we’d be behind that stone wall when we made it to the top of the hill.

“Keep up,” I said, breaking into a run.

“But we don’t have a plan,” Elliot yelled.

“We do have a plan,” I called back. “It’s called winging it.” I heard Elliot mutter something rude about people who didn’t make plans, and I smiled despite the chaos going on around us. We made it to the top of the hill, stopped only momentarily by two Union guards stationed in the trees to prevent anyone sneaking up from behind. Thankfully our mud-covered uniforms were identification enough, and we were waved through just as the cry went out that a third charge was coming up the hill.

“Get down,” Elliot said, and we dived behind the nearest wall, bullets zinging overhead. The soldiers around us all stood up to confront the Confederates as they charged up the hill. I glanced to my right and left at the exhausted soldiers, most of whom were wounded and bleeding as they rose to fend off their enemies. These men didn’t look like they could hold off a charge of bunnies, let alone a group of rampaging soldiers. I wished that we could help them, that I could stand up and fight shoulder to shoulder with the men who stood for freedom, but, of course, I couldn’t.