He found the post office on Main Street. The idea of employing the U.S. mail to deliver the stolen order amused Delaney. There was something obvious, yet also quixotic, in the idea that appealed to his sense of mischief. He doubted whether Thorne would approve, for the vital news in the order was already a day old and it would probably be two or three days staler by the time it reached the U.S. army, but Delaney had no other idea how to send his message.

The postmaster had a cubbyhole office at the back of the building that had the usual wooden counter, a wall of pigeonholes for letters awaiting collection, and two long tables where the mail was sorted. “Not again,” the postmaster groaned when he saw Delaney.

“Again?” Delaney asked, puzzled.

“We had a Captain Gage in here this morning,” the postmaster protested, “and another fellow yesterday. What was his name, Lucy?” he shouted to one of the women seated at a sorting table.

“Pearce!” She called back.

“A Major Pearce,” the postmaster said accusingly to Delaney. The postmaster was a big-bellied, truculent man with a red beard. He was also a Northern Sympathizer, or at least he had defiantly kept a stars and stripes hanging on his cubbyhole wall. “But they’re all there,” he added, gesturing at a pile of mail in a basket on his desk, “so help yourself. But nothing’s come in since Captain Gage checked.”

Delaney took the mail from the basket and suddenly understood what the postmaster was saying. All of the letters were addressed to places in the North, and all were from Confederate soldiers. Someone, he assumed the provosts, was making certain that no one was trying to send information to the Yankees and so they had opened and read the letters before initialing the envelopes to show that the contents had been checked. “I wasn’t here to read the mail,” Delaney said, but opened one of the letters anyway. It was from a Sergeant Malone and addressed to his sister in New Jersey. Betty had given birth to another son, but the child had died at a month old. Mother was as well as could be expected. Cousin John had been wounded at Manassas, but not seriously. “‘These are sad times,’” Delaney read aloud, “‘but we remember you in our prayers.’” He shrugged, slipped the letter back in its envelope, then dropped the pile back into the basket. “Would you,” he asked the postmaster, “have an envelope you could donate to the army?”

The postmaster hesitated, then decided there was little point in being obstructive. He opened a drawer and handed Delaney an envelope. Delaney, making no attempt to hide what he did, took the copy of Special Order 191 from his pocket and slipped it inside the envelope, then folded the flap inside. “May I?” he asked and reached over the desk for the postmaster’s pen. He dipped it in the inkwell, drained the excess ink from the nib, then wrote Captain Adam Faulconer, U.S. Army, Gen. McClellan’s Hdqtrs., in block letters. “It’s nothing that needs bother Captain Gage or Major Pearce,” he said to the postmaster, then borrowed a pencil and, very carefully, copied Gage’s initials. “There,” he said, the job done. “I suppose you’ll charge me for a stamp now?”