Billy Blythe had survived.

Belvedere Delaney was making himself useful. Lee had gone to the higher ground, but he had not invited Delaney to accompany him and so Delaney had searched for his servant, George, thinking it was time for the two of them to begin preparing for a tactful withdrawal. Delaney had discovered George carrying pails of water to the wounded men waiting for the surgeons in the garden of a house just north of the village.

These men were the fortunate wounded, the handful that had been brought down from the fighting to the comparative peace in the rebel rear. Most of these men were victims of Yankee shells, for the men with bullet wounds were too far forward to be fetched back by the handful of ambulance wagons and those men would suffer where they lay, but these men were receiving the best care the Confederate army possessed. The worst afflicted could not be cared for at all because the surgeons’ efforts were being saved for the men who stood a chance of survival. Some ether was available and the lucky few were thus anesthetized before the saws and knives slashed at their broken legs, but most men were given a slug of brandy, a leather gag to bite on, then told to play the man, be quiet, and lie still. Orderlies held them firm on the table while a surgeon in a blood-soaked apron sliced into the mangled flesh.

Delaney’s first instinct was to shy away from the horror, but an overwhelming pang of pity made him stay. He carried cups of water to wounded men, then held their heads up as they sipped. One man went into spasm and bit the cup’s rim so hard that the china shattered. Delaney held another man’s hand as he died. He wiped sweat from the forehead of an officer with bandaged eyes who would never see again. Six or seven women from the village were helping with the wounded and one of them was defiantly wearing a small Stars and Stripes pinned to her apron as she moved among the blood and vomit and stench of the garden. George crouched beside a South Carolina sergeant and tried to staunch the blood that kept hemorrhaging from a crudely bandaged slash at his waist. The man was dying and wanted reassurance that the battle was being won, and with it the war, and George kept saying over and over in a soothing voice that the rebels were charging forward, that the Yankees were falling back, and that victory was imminent. “Praise the Lord,” the sergeant said, then died.

One man pleaded with Delaney to find his wife’s daguerreotype at the bottom of his cartridge pouch. Delaney pulled out the rounds and there, under them all, was the precious scrap of copper sheet wrapped in a piece of chintz. The woman looked heavy-jawed and dull-eyed, but just glimpsing her face gave the dying man peace. “You’ll write her, sir?” he asked Delaney.