But Thorne had no patience for Washington’s diplomatic niceties, not while the fate of the Republic was being decided in Maryland and so, with the president’s permission, he packed his saddlebags and rode west to join McClellan’s headquarters where, seeking Adam, he found that his protégé had disappeared. Allen Pinkerton’s Chief of Staff, James Starbuck, whom Thorne had encountered earlier in the war, declared that Adam had ridden toward Frederick City two days before. “If he did,” McClellan, who was visiting Pinkerton’s quarters, had overheard the comment, “then he deserved what he got.”

“Which is what, pray?” Thorne asked.

“Capture, I suppose. The man had no business there. I thought he was here to advise our signal people?”

“He was,” Thorne lied, and knowing that McClellan knew he lied.

“Then he should have been working with the telegraphers, not exercising his horse. Unless, of course, he was here for another purpose?”

Thorne stared into the general’s young, fresh face, which was set in the perpetual scowl of a man always trying to look older and more severe than his inmost fears made him feel. “What purpose might that have been, General?” Thorne asked spitefully.

“You’d know, Thorne, you’d know,” McClellan snapped. He knew full well that Thorne had the president’s confidence, and he feared, justifiably enough, that the white-haired colonel was feeding Lincoln with a constant stream of unofficial news. No wonder the fool in the White House had no idea how to win the war! If the ape would just let McClellan be slow and systematic then the Union would be saved, but no, he was forever prodding and urging McClellan to go faster. And what did Lincoln know of war? My God, the man was a railroad lawyer, not a soldier. McClellan let these resentments brood in his mind as he listened to the distant grumbling of the heavy guns at Harper’s Ferry.

A stirring of the thick, warm air caused that grumbling sound to swell into a sudden staccato. Thorne wondered why McClellan did not launch an army corps toward the beleaguered garrison to rescue the thousands of Northern soldiers and their tons of precious supplies from the rebels, but such an ambitious lunge was beyond the Young Napoleon’s thinking. “You wouldn’t mind, I suppose,” Thorne asked, “if I rode toward Frederick City?”

“Your choice, Colonel, your choice, but I can’t spare men to protect you. Besides, I confidently expect to camp there tonight, but if you care to ride ahead, it’s your risk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a war to prosecute.”

Thorne did ride ahead of the advancing army, but in the event he arrived much later than McClellan’s vanguard. The colonel’s horse threw a shoe and by the time he had discovered a blacksmith and had the shoe nailed back onto the hoof, the Federal army was already moving into the scarred fields that had held the rebel army just a few days before. Axes sounded in the woods as men cut firewood, and everywhere drab tents unfolded in long lines. Latrines were dug, horses led to water, and pickets set to watch the empty fields.