He finished his words with a flourish, arms held wide, and the men went wild, hats in the air, the cheering breaking into a steady chant…

"Sickles… Sickles… Sickles!"

He stepped down off the train. Staff officers were waiting for him, including Meade's old chief of staff", Dan Butterfield, who looked at him coldly. Sykes was there as well, as was Howard of the Eleventh Corps, whose gaze was icy. Sedgwick was nowhere to be found. He had already been relieved.

Butterfield pointed the way toward the station. Sickles was glad to see his surviving division commanders waiting for him at the doorway to the station. He paused, looking out over the expanse of the Susquehanna. Ferries for bearing entire trains were docked on the north side, as were tugs, lighters, and barges. Half a dozen small gunboats and ironclads were drawn up in mid-river, pennants fluttering in the stiff evening breeze, the broad expanse of the river covered in whitecaps.

He walked into the station, the other officers crowding in, one of his staff closing the door. Without preamble he turned to Butterfield.

"Your report, sir."

"Which report, sir?" Butterfield replied coolly. "The current status of the Army of the Potomac." Butterfield looked around the room, like a man on the docket.

"Sir. I have the returns and after-action reports from all surviving units," and he pointed to a leather-bound case on the table in the middle of the room.

"In your own words, and briefly."

"The only viable fighting units left are your corps and the Fifth Corps with a strength of less than forty per cent, the Sixth Corps with about the same numbers, and the Eleventh Corps at fifty per cent. It is my advice that the First, Second, and Twelfth Corps be disbanded, the men consolidated into other units.

"We have less than eighty guns that are serviceable; nearly the entire Artillery Reserve was captured. Of cavalry, we still are not sure, but I would say less than forty per cent are effective. Your total strength therefore is at approximately forty thousand men, that is for all three branches under arms.

"As for support services, we have none. Our entire baggage train is gone, medical supplies all but gone, along with every ambulance. Specialized units, such as pontoon trains, engineering, they are gone, too."

Sickles nodded, his gaze cold, unwavering, as he struck a match and puffed a cigar to life.

"Thank you, General Butterfield. I will read your reports tonight. You are relieved from duty, sir."

"General?"

"Just that, You'll have new orders in the morning. Hold yourself available for a briefing with my new chief of staff later this evening. Good day, General Butterfield."

Butterfield looked at him without comment, eyes narrow, features flushed.

"Yes, sir," he finally snapped. Saluting, he turned on his heels and walked out, slamming the door.

Dan looked around the room, his gaze fixing on Howard.

"You, General Howard, are relieved. Thank you for your service. You as well will receive new orders in the morning."

"On whose authority?" Howard replied softly, speaking each word slowly.

"On my orders."

"I understood that General Grant is now the commander of all forces in the field. The decisions regarding who shall command corps must therefore be in his realm."

"I am commander of the Army of the Potomac now. You are under my authority, and by that authority I am relieving you. You have a choice now. You can take that removal with my blessing, thanks, and recommendation for further posting. Or you can choose to fight me. But by God, sir, if you try to defy me, I will destroy you. You failed your men at Chancellorsville and failed them again at Gettysburg. I wouldn't give you a regiment after that, but perhaps the War Department will see it differently."

"How dare you?" Howard's features were flushed, eyes wide, his one hand resting on the table, drawn up in a fist.

"How dare I? Easy. I am now in charge here. That's how I dare. Now we can do this as gentlemen or we can do it another way."

"You, sir, are no gentleman."

"You're damn right I'm not," Sickles roared. "I'm sick to death of all this damned talk about gentlemen while those good soldiers outside die in the mud. To hell with gentlemen, sir, and to hell with you if you don't obey my orders now!"

Howard drew his balled fist up and slammed it on the table.

"You are a reckless amateur. You think you know how to fight Lee. Maybe so, but I truly doubt it. I daresay it was luck more than anything else that got you as far as you have. Luck and politics of the lowest sort. God save this army with you in command."

"You are relieved, General Howard," Dan said coldly, stepping toward Howard so that his old division commanders moved to his side, ready to restrain him.

Howard looked around the room.

"God save us all if this type of base man is the one that we feel can lead us to victory."

Howard stepped past Dan and went to the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and looked back.

"God forgive me for saying this. But with a man such as you, a man who would gun down your wife's lover on the street while he was unarmed? And now you are in command? I think it is time I do retire."

"God damn you!" Sickles roared, turning, fists raised.

Staff gathered around him, holding him back as Howard gazed at him coldly, waiting several seconds as if ready to accept the challenge to a fistfight or a duel. Finally he opened the door and left.

All were in stunned silence as Sickles, breathing hard, was pushed to the far corner of the room by his staff. He struggled for composure. No one in this army had ever dared to fling that at him. In any other position he would have challenged Howard to a duel on the spot, but now he knew he could not. One of his men drew out a flask, and, angrily, he shook his head, returning back to the table. Sykes stood silent, watching him.

"And am I to be sacked, too?" Sykes asked.

"Hell, no," Dan growled. "You, sir, put up one hell of a fight. The type of fight I want to see. By God, if I had been allowed to march to your aid at Taneytown, we'd have finished Lee then and there."

"I'm not sure of that, General Sickles."

"I am. You are a fighting general, like me. I respect you, General Sykes, and forgive me for what had to be done here."

Sykes said nothing and Dan smiled.

"I want this army ready to march within the month," Dan said, "and your corps will play a leading role."

"In a month? I would think it will not be until fall before we can even hope to have things reorganized. Beyond our loss of men, over half our brigade, division, and corps commanders fell in the last fight or were captured. The army is a shambles, sir."

"Not for long," Dan said. "And besides, some of those generals are no real loss as far as I'm concerned. I will fill the vacant slots and then we shall see how they fight."

He drew out a sheaf of papers from the haversack at his side and tossed them on the table.

"On the train ride down here I've been drawing up the reorganization. The First and Second Corps, God bless them, will unfortunately have to be disbanded. The men will be consolidated into my old corps and yours. The men of the Eleventh and Twelfth will be organized around the Sixth Corps. After its streak of hard luck, the Eleventh must be disbanded. We had too many corps in this army anyhow, some barely more than the size of one of Lee's divisions. We were cumbersome, slow to move and act. We'll take that leaf from Bobbie Lee's book and use it. It will be a more effective command structure, fast-acting and -moving. We were cumbersome in weight as well. The loss of the Artillery Reserve was a terrible blow, but we can live with it"

He paused and looked over at Henry Hunt, who stood in the corner of the room.