"Same maps as before, sir, but I thought you might want to get a look at them."

Longstreet leaned over the table, pointing toward York and then Carlisle.

"Sir," Hotchkiss began, "we know that they have a screen of cavalry, at least two divisions' worth, spread in an arc from York westward, over to here at Heidlersburg, about twenty miles north of Gettysburg. It was from Heidlersburg that our last report came in, and that outpost is now withdrawing to Hanover."

"I'll want General Stuart to start moving out a screen tomorrow, probing, across this entire front."

As he spoke he drew a line with his finger from Gettysburg eastward to the Susquehanna River.

"Tomorrow, sir?" Pete asked.

"Yes, I know," Lee replied slowly, and as he spoke he sat down, reached into his breast pocket to take out a pair of spectacles and put them on.

"Walter, my compliments to General Stuart, and please convey that order to him. Tell him I only want him to send out those regiments that he feels are relatively fresh. I fear our new rival has the jump on us on that issue. I suspect many of Grant's troopers have mounts well shod and rested, and the boys astride them as good in the saddle as our boys are. If there is to be a tangle in the next few days, I want our boys on good mounts, otherwise they'll be run down."

He was silent for a moment, staring again at the map.

By rights he should give Stuart at least a week to refit. The reshodding of one mount would only take a matter of minutes, but ten thousand? Every blacksmith and farrier in Baltimore would be busy for days with that task. Then there were the horses for the artillery, quartermaster corps, and medical corps to be tended to as well before this army could march on a campaign of maneuver that also might span a hundred miles or more in a matter of days.

I need a week, he thought, but if I wait, that will give Grant a week to do as he pleases. "For want of a nail a horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe…"

"Give the cavalry precedence in reshoeing the horses and drawing provisions. They have to move first or we will be blind.

"We need two things, General Longstreet," Lee said, adjusting his spectacles as he gazed at the maps, "time to rest and time to analyze what General Grant is about to do."

He forced a smile, accepting a cup of tea from Walter, who had fetched it from the kitchen in the hotel. He blew on the china rim before taking a sip.

"Don't worry, though, gentleman. We've faced others like this before. Remember Pope coming from the West with all his boasts?"

The staff chuckled.

"Headquarters in his saddle," Taylor laughed softly, and those gathered round Lee grinned with how that inane comment had been quickly turned into a meaning other than what Pope intended.

Lee looked over at Jed Hotchkiss and from him to Walter Taylor and the staff that was beginning to come in through the door.

"Gentlemen, two favors. First, Walter, would you be so kind as to ask the owner of this establishment if I might make my headquarters here? It is convenient and directly across the street from the telegraphy station. Also, Walter, I need you to see to the placement of the men as they file in. I want them to come in and find fresh rations. There's still plenty of beef and store goods in this town. Coffee, lots of coffee, tobacco, and fresh beef mean more now than three months of back pay. The men are to have tomorrow in camp, no drills, plenty of time to rest and for church services." "I'll see to it at once, sir."

"The second thing, gentlemen. If General Longstreet and I might have some time alone."

Nothing more needed to be said. Within seconds the room was emptied except for Pete and himself. A minute later Walter came back in, offering him a key to a room on the second floor with the compliments of the owner, who said he was honored by Lee's presence. After whispering that a guard was being posted around the hotel, he withdrew.

Pete was sitting across from him, exhaustion graying his features. It had been a hard march for him, too, he could see that.

Longstreet stirred, took out a cigar, and looked over at Lee, who nodded his approval before Pete lit up.

"I think we need to have a talk, General Longstreet." "I do, too, sir." "Why so?"

"Things have changed, a lot of things." Pete fell silent.

"Go on, General, I need you to speak freely. As I told you at Gettysburg, you are my right arm. I need to hear your opinions. Your insights gave us victory in the past; I am counting on you to help give us victory again."

Pete sighed, blew out a cloud of blue smoke, and leaned forward, looking Lee in the eyes.

"Sir, they just don't stop. I thought, after Union Mills, that would force Lincoln to give in. Certainly his abolitionist friends would stand by him, but the blow we gave them that day, I thought it was the beginning of the end."

"So did I, General," Lee said wistfully.

"We did it again at Gunpowder River. In some ways that victory was even more complete than Union Mills. It finished the Army of the Potomac, once and for all."

Longstreet sat back, shaking his head.

"I don't know anymore. I just don't know. I just thought that finally they would stop coming, but here they come again."

"You knew Grant. I mean before the war." "Yes, sir." 'Tell me something about him."

"Well, sir, when I knew him, to be honest it was all rather tragic. He was a year behind me at the Point, graduating in forty-three. I knew him there as an honest sort. Didn't like to gamble, drink. A bit reserved. Curious, actually, since he didn't like the army all that much and would voice that in private. Even admitted he went to the Point simply because it was a free education. He planned to do his service afterward, then get out. The one thing he did enjoy was horsemanship. Underneath that gruff exterior there is actually a rather sensitive soul, though most would find that impossible to believe."

"This tragic side you mentioned."

"The word was he took to drink out of loneliness and despair when separated from his wife. He was, sir, a gentleman and many of the men stationed out in California after the war… well, sir, you know what I mean when it came to women out there and such. Grant wasn't one of them, and the loneliness drove him half crazy."

"That's why he left the army?"

"I think so. Also, killing just sickened him."

"As it should all of us, General Longstreet. Yet everyone says he is relentless, cold-blooded," Lee finally ventured, uncomfortable with his own thoughts.

"He is indeed that At least I'm told that. I've never seen him in combat before. But from the word in the ranks he was absolutely fearless in Mexico. He doesn't lose his nerve under pressure the way many do, that is for certain."

"And yet, after leaving the army, he did not make much of himself."

Longstreet chuckled softly.

"No, sir, he did not. Failed at most everything he did. But let me put the shoe on the other foot. How many officers do we know who were all great guns in peacetime and then failed miserably when the bullets really did begin to whine about them?" Lee smiled sadly.

"More than any of us would like to admit, especially of old comrades."

"I think Grant is suited to this new kind of war that so many talk about."

"How so?"

"He doesn't stop. He just doesn't stop. Take Shiloh, for example, or his winter campaign around Vicksburg. Takes a reversal, what most anyone else would call a defeat, he wakes up the next morning as if yesterday didn't exist, and then pushes again."

"Like you, General Longstreet."

"Yes, sir, including me, but the difference is, he can draw on reserves we can only dream of. He understands that. Back in George Washington's time, an army fought a battle, it took weeks to resupply it, months to replace the men. Grant understands how different it all is now with trains, steamboats, factories. Fight a battle, he snaps a finger, brings up five million more rounds of ammunition, ten thousand more men, and pitches in again."