The really hard labor was moving the giant hundred-pounder guns. Each tube weighed over twenty tons, the iron carriage another five tons. No wagons were capable of handling the weight, and the crews had resorted to something that looked like it was out of stories from the Bible. A hundred to two hundred men would be roped to each gun, a few mules added in, if available, greased logs were laid underneath the rough-cut lumber frame the gun rested on, the entire crew then straining to pull the dead weight up the slope and into the half-built bastions. Other crews labored at lugging up the heavy hundred-pound shells, one giant of a man making a display of his attempt to carry two at a time. At most places black laborers and white troops were mingled together, digging side by side.

That, too, thrilled Jim. There had been some hesitation at first by the soldiers to do menial labor next to black men, but Winfield had laid that to rest, hobbling up and down the line, shouting, "Boys, it's either dig or eat bullets, so I'm telling you, start digging! I tried eating one of those bullets, and by God they don't digest very well."

A day of labor, the way their black comrades worked on without complaint while many a white soldier was near to collapse, was making them one. Black laborers too tired to walk down to the kitchen areas suddenly found themselves handed a piece of hardtack and salt pork out of the haversack of a soldier who sat down beside him during a break and then offered a canteen to wash it down.

Jim had also organized watering crews, mostly young boys carrying a couple of buckets, moving up and down the line; when the buckets were empty, they'd run down to the river and refill them.

The dangerous job of moving up the bagged gunpowder Jim was more than happy to leave to the white gun crews. Too many of his men were fond of cigars and pipes.

The first of the thirty-pounder Parrotts had come up just after midday, but these arrived with full limbers and one horse-team for every three guns, so they could easily be moved into place.

They rode as far as Nolands Ferry, where the line finally curved back down to the river. A dozen barges were moving up the canal, heading toward the farthermost work site at the upper Point of Rocks.

"Once it gets dark," Siemens said, "have your men stand down, get some food and rest. They've put in one hell of a day."

"Thank you, sir."

"No, it is I thanking you," Jeremiah said with a smile, leaning over to offer his hand.

Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia 7:00 P.M.

Lee slowly walked under the awning and sat down, taking off his hat and wiping his brow. Longstreet, Beauregard, Stuart, and Hood were all present, as were Jed Hotchkiss and Walter. Judah Benjamin, who had just arrived from Baltimore, sat slumped over in his chair, nursing a glass of wine.

"A hard day, gentlemen," Lee said, looking about at the gathering illuminated by the glow of coal oil lamps. No one spoke for a moment.

He knew he had to brace them up. They had anticipated a full-out frontal assault, as at Fredericksburg, and instead there had only been the one limited, but very bloody, attack on the left, while all across the day the rest of the line had been engaged in a long-distance firefight of an intensity they had never seen before.

"If only they had come on," Beauregard said, "we would've mowed them down and be in Frederick tonight."

"But they didn't," Lee retorted. "Grant, it seems, is no Burnside."

"They most certainly did on my front," Hood replied sharply. "Jubal Early's Division is a wreck and out of this fight."

"We lost well over eight thousand today," Lee said, "six thousand with Jubal, two thousand at least from the firing along the line, and, frankly, I do not see any permanent results from that loss."

"We tore Ord apart," Beauregard interjected. "That's two of his four corps wrecked so far. Grant has most likely lost upward of eighteen, perhaps twenty thousand men since this started." 'Twelve thousand, though, of ours across three days," Longstreet said. "We can't afford that rate of exchange much longer."

"I concur," Lee announced. 'The question before us now is our response."

He nodded toward Judah.

"You gentlemen all know we lost Baltimore this afternoon."

"Damn Pickett," Hood snapped. "If I was there, I'd have fought them street by street."

Lee looked over sharply at Hood and his breach of the rule against profanity at headquarters but said nothing.

Hood was right. Even though Pickett had only the equivalent of two brigades with him, surely he could have put up some kind of a fight, slowed them down for a day or two. His command, at last report, was at Relay Station, where George now claimed he'd put up a fight.

That was too little far too late. The precious reserve supplies, enough to have sustained him in a slugging match with Grant for weeks if need be, were now gone, sitting in Baltimore warehouses.

"Fire him," Longstreet said sadly, for he was speaking of an old friend.

"I already have," Lee replied. "I sent a telegram back informing General Pickett to report to me here, and for Lo Armistead to take command of the division."

He looked around at the gathering.

"And nothing more is to be said about him," he announced. "If Armistead can at least delay their advance, that should give us three days, perhaps as many as five before we face any real threat to our immediate rear."

He looked around at the gathering of commanders, who nodded in agreement.

"Then that means if Grant will not come to us, we must go to him," Lee replied.

No one spoke.

"Gentlemen, our situation is by no means lost. Do not give way to pessimism, for I most certainly have not. General Beauregard is right. We have bloodied him. Two of his four corps are fought out. Granted, though Early's Division is out, Scales's, though heavily fought, is still relatively intact, as are Robertson's men, who sat out the day's fight in reserve, as did two of Beauregard's divisions and McLaw's."

No one replied, waiting for what he would say next.

That gave Lee a reserve of four divisions, calculating in their losses across the last two weeks, about twenty-five thousand men, just about the same number Jackson had used at Chancellorsville.

"If we wait again tomorrow, gentlemen," Lee said, "I assume we shall see a repeat of today. A massive fusillade along the entire front, but one that will not decide anything. – Perhaps he will send Banks on his north wing to try our right flank, but I doubt that. I think he proposes to wait, to hold us in position until this secondary force comes up from the rear to reinforce him."

There was no disagreement to what he had just said.

"Then we must attack before Grant can be reinforced."

"Where, sir?" Longstreet asked, shifting uncomfortably.

"General Stuart, I asked you to do some scouting. What can you report?"

Stuart stood up and leaned over Hotchkiss's maps spread out on the table.

"I still have Chambliss's Brigade to our north and west," Jeb said. The mere mention of that troubled Lee. It was the old brigade of his son, Rooney.

"They are reporting increasing pressure from Grierson. His men have pushed down across a line from the Catoctins eastward to fifteen miles below Westminster. Nothing very aggressive, other than George Custer's dash. A few raiding forces did reach the railroad tracks but quickly fell back. But by tomorrow they might be astride the Baltimore and Ohio line."

"That is no longer a concern," Lee said sharply.

"Yes, sir, but I thought you should know."

"I have Jenkins moving down now to develop out the situation at the fords on the Potomac," Stuart continued.

"Sir; that does trouble me," Pete said. "The report that came back this afternoon, about their digging in at four points along the river. If, and I must emphasize if, we need one of those crossings, it will be a tough fight now."