“We stay real quiet and polite,” Starbuck advised. There were northerners fleeing past the house and some were looking angrily at the southern prisoners. “Stay sitting, don’t move, just wait.” He watched a northern field gun retreating off the plateau. The gun captain had somehow managed to assemble a team of four horses which, whipped bloody by their frightened drivers, were galloping recklessly down the shell-scarred slope so that the gunners perched on the narrow limber seat were clinging grimly to the metal handles. The horses were white-eyed and scared. The gun itself, attached behind the limber, bounced dangerously as the rig splashed through a streamlet at the hill’s foot, then the driver pulled on his reins and the panicked horses turned too fast onto the turnpike and Starbuck watched in horror as first the cannon, then the limber, tipped, rolled and slid hard across the road to crash sickeningly into the trees at the edge of the yard. There was a moment’s silence, then the first screams tore the humid air.

“Oh, Christ.” A wounded man turned in horror from the carnage. A horse, both rear legs broken, tried to scramble free of the bloody wreckage. One of the gunners had been trapped under the limber and the man clawed feebly at the splintered timbers that impaled him. A passing infantry sergeant ignored the wounded man as he cut the traces of the one uninjured horse, unhooked its chains, then scrambled onto its back. A roundshot from the spilt limber trundled across the road and the wounded horses went on screaming like the dying gunner.

“Oh God, no.” One of the prisoners in the tree-shaded yard was a tidewater Virginian who now recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. The awful screaming went on until a northern officer walked over to the wounded animals and fired into their skulls. It took five shots, but the animals died, leaving only the shrieking, gasping, writhing gunner who was impaled by the mangled spokes of the limber’s wheel. The officer took a breath. “Soldier!”

The man must have recognized the tone of authority for he went still for just a second, and that second was all the officer needed. He aimed the revolver, pulled the trigger and the gunner fell back silent. The northern officer shuddered, tossed away the empty revolver then walked away weeping. The world seemed very quiet suddenly. It stank of blood, but it was quiet until the tidewater boy said the Lord’s Prayer one more time, as though the repetition of the words could save his soul.

“Are you boys safe?” A gray-coated officer galloped his horse down to the crossroads.

“We’re safe,” Starbuck said.

“We whipped ’em, boys! Whipped ’em good!” the officer boasted.