Starbuck prepared himself for Potter’s tongue-lashing. In truth, he thought, it had not been a bad day. Not a good day, but not bad either. The battalion had lost no one to straggling, he had faced down his enemies, but he had not made those enemies into friends. Perhaps that would never happen, but if it did, he thought, it would be in the fierce crucible of battle. And the sooner, the better, Starbuck thought, then he remembered the cornfield at Chantilly and recalled his gut-loosening fear. Oh God, he thought, let me not be a coward.

Late that night Starbuck toured the picket line that was not set against the incursion of enemies, but against the possibility of his own men deserting, then, wrapped in his dirty blanket, he slept.

Lucifer sat nearby. The boy was tired, but he was determined not to sleep. Instead he sat just outside the glow of the dying fire and he watched the makeshift tent where Starbuck slept and he watched the fire-dotted field where the battalion rested, and every now and then he would caress the long barrel of the Colt revolver that lay across his knees. Lucifer liked Starbuck, and if Starbuck would take no precautions, then Lucifer would guard him against the demons. For that, Lucifer knew, was what they were; white demons, bad as they came, just waiting to take revenge.

IT WAS PROBABLY THE WORST DAY OF DELANEY’S LIFE. AT any moment he expected to hear that one of the precious copies of Special Order 191 had gone missing and then he would have to face the rigors of a full-scale inquiry, but to his astonishment no one seemed to notice that a copy had been purloined. The army rested in blissful, blind ignorance. Much of it left Frederick City on the morning after Delaney stole the order. They marched in the early dawn to encircle the trapped federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry, while the rest of Lee’s men prepared for their own departure the next day. Cavalry patrols went eastward and reported that the Northern army was only a day’s march from Frederick City, but was showing no eagerness to advance. George McClellan was behaving true to his old form, creeping timidly forward and fearing every imaginary threat while posing none himself. “Though he’s not a man I’d care to attack, not if he knew I was coming,” Lee said generously at lunch. The general’s broken hands had been rebandaged with lighter splints and he was constantly flexing his fingers with a look of astonished gratitude that their use was partly restored. “McClellan would make a very good defensive general,” he said, clumsily spooning beans to his mouth.

“There’s a distinction?” Delaney asked.

“Oh, indeed.” Lee cuffed spilled beans off his beard. “An attacker has to take more risks. Imagine playing chess, Delaney, where you don’t have to make a single move until your opponent has developed his attack. You should win every time.”

“Should?”

“A good attacker disguises his blows.”