“Your chair, Massa Poe,” said Sextus.
A cacophony of sound was coming from the woods now, regular platoon volleys, one after another. The sound battered Poe’s ears.
“I fight for the South because we are right, Major Moses!” Poe shouted. “I believe it- I have proved it rationally- we are superior, sir! The South fights for the right of one man to be superior to another, because he is superior, because he knows he is superior.”
“Here’s your chair, Massa Poe,” said Sextus.
“Superior in mind, superior in cognitive faculty, superior in erudition! Superior in knowledge, in training, in sagacity! In appreciation of beauty, of form, of moral sense!” Poe pointed his stick at the woods. “Those Yankees- they are democracy, sir! Dragging even poetry into the muck! Walter Whitman addresses his verses to women of the street- that is democracy for you! Those Yankee soldiers, they are Whitmans with bayonets! I fight them because I must, because someone must fight for what is noble and eternal, even if only to die, like Byron, in some pointless- pointless-”
Pain seized his heart and he doubled over, coughing. He swung toward where Sextus stood with his camp chair, the cane still outstretched, and though he didn’t mean to strike the African he did anyway, a whiplike crack on the upper arm. Sextus dropped the chair and stepped back, surprise on his face. Anger crackled in Poe, fury at the African’s stupidity and inability to get out of the way.
“Take that, damn you, worthless nigger!” Poe spat. He spun and fell heavily into his chair.
The battle in the woods had progressed. Now Poe heard only what Great Frederick called bataillenfeuer, battle fire, no longer volleys but simply a continuous din of musketry as the platoon sergeants lost tactical control of their men and the battle dissolved into hundreds of little skirmishes fought simultaneously. Poe heard no guns- no way to deploy artillery in those woods.
Moses was looking at Poe with wide, staring eyes. He reached into a pocket and mopped Poe’s spittle from his face. Poe gave him an evil look.
“Where is Lee’s offensive, sir?” he demanded. “Where is the sound of his fight?”
Moses seemed confused. “I should get back to General Anderson, sir,” he said. “I-”
“Stay by me, Major,” Poe said. His voice was calm. An absolute lucidity had descended upon him; perhaps he was the only man within fifty miles who knew precisely what was happening here. “I have not yet shown you what I wish to show you.”
He listened to the fight roll on. Sometimes it nearly died away, but then there would be another outburst, a furious racket. Lines of gunsmoke rose above the trees. It would be pointless for Poe to venture into the woods himself- he could not control an entire division if he could not see twenty feet beyond his own position.
A horseman galloped up. “General Gregg’s compliments, sir. He and General Law are ready to advance.”
Poe felt perfectly sunny. “My compliments to General Gregg. Tell him that Poe’s division is a little ahead of him. I would be obliged if he’d catch up.”
The man rode away. People were leaking back out of the woods now: wounded men, some crawling; skulkers, stragglers; bandsmen carrying people on stretchers. Here and there were officers running, bearing messages, guards marching back with blue prisoners.
“Lots of Yankees, sir!” The first messenger, a staff lieutenant of perhaps nineteen, was winded and staggering with the effort it had taken him to run here. “We’ve hit them in flank. They were in column of march, sir. Colonel Terry wishes you to know he’s driving them, but he expects they’ll stiffen.”
“Good job, boy.” Terry was the man who commanded the Ravens in Poe’s absence. “Give Colonel Terry my thanks.”
“Sir!” Another messenger. “General Clingman’s compliments. We’ve driven them in and captured a battery of guns.”
Guns, Poe thought. Useless in the woods. We can’t get them away, and the Yankees’ll have them back ere long.
The sound of musketry staggered higher, doubled and tripled in fury. The messengers looked at each other, breathing hard, appalled at the noise. The Yanks, Poe concluded, had rallied and were starting to fight back.
“Tell Colonel Terry and General Clingman to press them as hard as possible. Try to hold them in the woods. When the Yanks press too hard, retire to the trenches.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Prisoners, sir.” Another voice. “General Barton sends them as requested.”
Stunned-looking Yanks in dew-drenched caped overcoats, all captured in the first rush. None of them looked over twenty. Poe rose from his chair and hobbled toward them. He snatched the cap from the first prisoner and swung toward Major Moses.
“Major Moses,” he said in triumph, “do you know the motto of the Yankee Second Corps?”
Moses blinked at him. “No, sir.”
“‘Clubs are Trumps!’” Poe told him. “Do you know why, sir?”
Moses shook his head.
“Because Hancock’s Corps wears a trefoil badge on their forage caps, like a club on a playing card.” He threw the prisoner’s cap down before Moses’s feet. “What do you see on that forage cap, sir?” he asked.
“A cross,” said Moses.
“A saltire, sir!” Poe laughed.
He had to be thorough. The upper echelons were never easily convinced. Two years before, during the Seven Days, he had demonstrated, with complete and irrefutable logic, that it was suicidal for Harvey Hill’s division to plunge forward into Boatswain Swamp in hopes of contacting Yankees on the other side. When the ignorant madman Hill repeated his order, Poe had stood on his logic and refused- and been removed from command and placed under arrest. He had not been comforted when he had been proven right. His cherished new brigade, along with the rest of D. H. Hill’s division, had been shattered by three lines of Union infantry dug into a hill just behind the swamp, with artillery lined hub-to-hub on the crest. And when, red-faced with anger, he had challenged Hill to a duel, the lunatic had only laughed at him to his face.
“Specifically,” Poe said pedantically, pointing at the Yankee forage cap, “a white saltire on a blue background! That means these men come from the Second Division of the Sixth Corps- Wright’s Corps, Major, not Hancock’s! The same Sixth Corps that Lee was supposed to attack this morning, on the other end of the line! I am facing at least two Yankee corps with one division, and Lee is marching into empty air! Grant has moved his army left again while we slept!”
Moses’s eyes widened. “My God,” he said.
“Take that cap to General Anderson with my compliments! Tell him I will need his support!”
Moses picked up the cap. “Yes, sir.”
Poe lunged among the prisoners, snatching off caps, throwing them to his aides. “Take that to General Lee! And that to Ewell! And that to A.P. Hill! Say I must have their support! Say that Wright is here!”
As Moses and Poe’s aides galloped away, the firing died down to almost nothing. One side or another had given way.
Poe returned to his seat and waited to see which side it had been.
*
It was Poe’s division that had given way in the woods, but not by much. Messengers panting back from his brigades reported that they’d pushed the Yanks as far as possible, then fallen back when they could push no more. The various units were trying to reestablish contact with one another in the woods and form a line. They knew the Yankee assault was coming.
Pull them back? Poe wondered. He’d made his case to his superiors? maybe he’d better get his men back into their trenches before the Yanks got organized and smashed them.