It was a tiny army. Seventeen thousand men spread into the pastures and woodlots north of the village and the farmers could only watch as their precious rail fences were dismantled to make firewood or shelters. The army’s guns, with their blackened muzzles and dirt-stained wheels, were lined on the high ground above the creek. The guns faced east.

The Yankees came next; sixty thousand blue-coated troops who crossed the Red Hill on the creek’s eastern bank and then stopped. Just stopped.

The rebel guns had opened fire, bouncing their solid shot off the farmland and up over the first Northern troops to show on the river’s far bank. General McClellan, told that the enemy had formed a fighting line on the creek’s far bank, ordered the halt. He knew that thought must be taken, plans made, and fears understood, and so the Northern troops scattered into encampments and the rebel guns, seeing that their enemy was making no attempt to cross the creek, ceased their firing.

The gunsmoke drifted over the creek’s valley and was touched pink by the setting sun. General Robert Lee watched the stalled enemy across the river, then turned to walk back toward the Hagerstown Pike where an ambulance waited to carry him to the army’s headquarters just west of Sharpsburg. The general’s hands were still bandaged and that made riding difficult, and so he walked while one of his aides led Traveller by the reins. Lee seemed curiously diminished out of the saddle. On horse back he looked like a tall men, but on foot he was revealed as only of average height. The ambulance was waiting beside the whitewashed Dunker church, which looked bright against the dark woods behind. The church’s pews were being chopped for firewood by a battalion of Georgians who were billeted about the small house of worship.

The General had hardly spoken as he walked back from the gunline, but now he saw Major Delaney sitting slumped beside the pike that ran in front of the church. Lee smiled. “So you’re alive, Major?”

“Happily, sir.” Delaney struggled to his feet.

“And you have seen what you came to see, yes?”

“Fighting,” Delaney said grimly.

“Rather more than I hoped you’d see,” Lee said ruefully. “It seems McClellan has greater energy then I credited him with.” Lee gestured to the ambulance. “Hardly a conquering general’s carriage, Major, but you’re welcome to share it back to headquarters. I assume you’ll pitch camp with us again?”

“If I may, General.”

“Unless you’d rather go home?” Lee suggested charitably. He might need every man he could muster to fight McClellan, but he could hardly imagine this pale, tired lawyer being of any great help.

“Are we to fight?” Delaney asked, climbing into the ambulance and leaving George to lead his two horses behind the slow-moving vehicle.

“Oh, I think so,” Lee answered mildly. “I rather think we must.” He leaned back against the ambulance’s side and looked momentarily weary, then he frowned at his bandaged hands as though frustrated by the limitations they forced on him. “At least,” he said ruefully, “it stops me biting my nails.” The ambulance swayed and rocked on the dry road. It was a Yankee vehicle, captured at Manassas, and highly sprung to relieve the pain of its wounded occupants, but even the best springs could not smooth out the ruts of the Hagerstown Pike as it dropped into Sharpsburg. “You know what Frederick the Great once said?” Lee asked suddenly, his thoughts reverting to the trial that lay ahead. “That the unforgivable crime in war is not making the wrong decision, but making no decision. And I think we have to fight here.”