“Best to be sure, General,” Chilton said soothingly, retrieving the envelopes from the general and the single copy from Delaney. He folded the order and slipped it inside the envelope.

“You know best,” Lee said. “So, Delaney, what news from Richmond?”

Delaney retailed some government gossip while Chilton placed the last copy of Order 191 in General Hill’s envelope, which he laid with the others at the edge of a table just inside his tent. Lee, in an affable mood, was telling Delaney his hopes for the next few days. “I’d have liked to march north into Pennsylvania, but for some reason the Federals have left their garrison in Harper’s Ferry. That’s a nuisance. It means we have to snap them up before we march north, but the delay can’t be long and I doubt McClellan will summon the nerve to interfere. And once we’ve cleared Harper’s Ferry we’ll be free to make a nuisance of ourselves. We’ll cut some Pennsylvania rail roads, Delaney, while McClellan makes up his mind what to do about us. In the end he’ll have to fight and when he does I pray we can so mangle him that Lincoln will sue for peace. There’s no other point in coming north, except to make peace.” The general made this last pronouncement gravely for, like many other Southerners, he worried about the propriety of invading the United States. The legitimacy of the Confederacy’s war depended on being the aggrieved party. They proclaimed that they merely defended their land against an external aggressor, and many men questioned their right to carry that defense outside their border.

Lee stayed a moment or two longer with Delaney, then turned away. “Colonel Chilton? A word?”

Chilton had been summoning the dispatch riders, but now followed Lee across to the general’s tent. Delaney was again left alone and the bowel-loosening terror almost swamped him as he looked at the pile of orders awaiting dispatch. General Hill’s envelope was uppermost on the pile. Dear God, Delaney thought, but dare he do it? And if he did, how would he ever send the stolen order across the lines? His hand was shaking, then an idea struck him and he ducked into Chilton’s tent and sorted through the piles of paper on the trestle desk. He found a copy of Lee’s proclamation to the people of Maryland and that, he reckoned, would have to serve his purpose. He folded the proclamation twice, hesitated, looked into the innocent sunlight, then snatched up the envelope with Hill’s name. It was still unsealed. He took out the order, inserted the proclamation, then pushed the stolen paper deep into a pocket of his jacket. His heart was thumping terribly as he placed the still unsealed envelope back on the pile and then stepped out into the sunlight.

“You look feverish, Delaney,” Chilton said, returning to his tent.

“It will pass, I’m sure.” Delaney sounded weak. He was amazed he could even stand upright. He thought of the gallows’ raw pine beams oozing turpentine and dangling with a noose of rough-haired hemp. “The heat of the journey,” he explained, “brought on a stomach fever, nothing else.”