“Can you find General Beauregard?” The speaker, an officer wearing captain’s bars, clambered down the makeshift ladder. A hand-lettered sign at the foot of the ladder read “Signalers ONLY” while another, in even larger letters, read “KEEP OFF.” The officer ran across to Ridley and held up a folded sheet of paper secured by a wafer seal. “Beauregard needs that quick.”

“But…” Ridley had been about to say he had no idea how to find General Beauregard, but then decided such a disclaimer would sound odd from a self-proclaimed staff officer. Besides, Ridley reckoned that Colonel Faulconer would be wherever the general was, so by finding the Colonel he would also discover Beauregard.

“I have wig-wagged the message to Beauregard, if that’s what you’re about to suggest,” the captain said peevishly, “but I’d like to send a written confirmation. You can never be certain a message gets wig-wagged through, not with the fools they give me to work with. I need good men, educated men. I wish you’d make that point to Beauregard for me. With my respects, of course. Half the lunkheads they provide me never learned to spell, and the other half didn’t have brains to begin with. Now go on with you, there’s a good fellow, quick as you can!”

Ridley kicked back his heels. He was in the army’s baggage area where wagons, limbers, portable forges, ambulances and carriages were parked so tightly that their upturned shafts looked like a winter thicket. A woman shouted as Ridley galloped past, wanting to know what was happening, but he just shook his head and spurred on past cooking fires, past groups of men playing cards and past a child playing with a kitten. What were all these people doing here? he wondered.