Hood mounted and rode back out to the road. Looking up, Lee could see that the column was just about formed, backed up along the road to Chambersburg. No bugles sounded, no drum rolls or fifers. In the still morning air the sound just might carry far enough to the Union lines.

"McLaws and Pickett?" Lee asked.

"McLaws sets off in another half hour," Longstreet answered. "He'll move down to Fairfield on the next road to the west Pickett will be sweeping along'the flank of the South Mountain on the other side, heading down to Greencastle. There's a good road there, from the head of the pass straight east to Emmitsburg.

"That is one of my concerns. We'll be moving three divisions, plus artillery, through that one town, all of it funneling into one road down to Emmitsburg."

"It was your suggestion, General, that triggered this move."

Longstreet nodded.

"And the road is better than the one Jackson used at Chancellorsville, far better."

Pete stiffened slightly. Good. Let that rivalry play a bit in his mind this day. He knew that Longstreet held a touch of resentment for Thomas, like an older brother who, though he loved his brother, still was bothered by the attention that seemed at times to be favoritism to a younger sibling.

"You have always been the anvil general," Lee said. "Now you must be the hammer."

"Any more word on their movements?"

"We know for certain that four corps are in Gettysburg. Their left wing, which was in Emmitsburg yesterday, the First, Third, and Eleventh Corps, are all in Gettysburg. That move has unmasked their left for what you have proposed. Their Twelfth has moved in on the right flank, the wooded hill above the cemetery."

"So that leaves three corps unaccounted for."

"Your thoughts?" Lee asked.

"They're most likely coming up hard, marching through the night I don't think Meade will keep, anything back."

"I agree. Though not within the realm of what is proper, still, the truce before that hill resulted in my men mingling with theirs and learning some information. Those people up there were all talking about staying. A doctor helping to move the wounded from before the cemetery gate said that the gunners and infantry were digging entrenchments and gun positions. He also said a couple of Union stretcher bearers claimed that Meade was now on the field.

"I think, General, you will have an open road before you this day. Again, the same as at Manassas."

"Battalion… forward march!"

The command was a distant echo, coming from out of the mist, cloaking the road to the west Lee looked over at Longstreet and nodded-as his companion called for an orderly to bring up their mounts. Lee settled into the saddle and with Pete by his side trotted down the sloping ridge to the junction in the road that led toward Fairfield. The head of the column was just at the turnoff, Robertson's brigade of Texans and men from Arkansas in the lead. Brigade colors were uncased, held up, marking the advance.

At the crossroads the command was given for the column to turn to the right and Lee could sense the ripple of excitement racing down the line. Several men started to cheer, and for a second Lee feared that the cheer would be picked up by thousands of voices. Officers barked commands for silence, and the men settled down.

As the flags passed, Hood and Robertson riding together at the very front of the line, Lee and Longstreet saluted.

"We'll give you that victory, sir!" Hood shouted, and again a suppressed cheer started to erupt

The First Texas strode past long-legged men dressed in tattered gray frock coats, many of them barefoot lean, tough boys born on the frontier, Hood's first command-heroes of the desperate fight in the cornfield of Antietam and the triumphal charge at Chancellorsville. They looked up at him eagerly, some saluting, others doffing their ragged hats.

They were veterans enough to know what was now being done. It would not be an assault forward; this was a flanking march, a march through rich Yankee farmland where the com was already waist high, the winter wheat was ready for harvest and orchards filled with peaches were ripening. It was a flanking march and they were in the lead, ready to set a blistering pace.

Columns were formed up in the fields adjoining the road, preparing to fall into place, couriers riding back and forth, a battery of guns edging up to the road, ready to swing in behind Robertson.

The excitement in the air was electric, for the moment casting aside the dark thoughts of earlier. If only war could be like this, Lee thought Nothing more than mornings of setting off on the march into new lands, confidence and dreams intact and no dark, boiling clouds of smoke and fire at the end of the day. For surely that is where these boys were now marching, into those clouds, and yet they were doing so with light hearts this day.

"Your men look ready," Lee offered, and Pete nodded sagely.

"They didn't see yesterday, last night except for some of the wreckage back here from Heth's attack. They're eager to get into the fight"

Lee looked over at Pete, wondering if there was a note of reproof in what was just said. No, it was just Pete, sanguine in all things, no subtlety or intent other than a calm observation.

'Too bad one of them daguerreotypists isn't around," Walter observed, "this would make quite an image."

Would it? He remembered some of the paintings of Washington, that rather ridiculous one of him crossing the river, or at Yorktown taking the surrender. Would someone, one day, paint this moment? Lee and Longstreet and the flanking march?

Don't think of such vanities. Too many men in both armies do, and it is sinful to contemplate our actions in such a light at this time.

Behind them Longstreet's headquarters staff was breaking camp, dropping the tents, packing up the map cases and gear, loading only the essentials into an ambulance. Tents and other nonessentials were to be left behind, to follow up after the infantry and artillery had passed. The entire column was stripped down for rapid movement He could see that his veterans were traveling light a thin blanket roll over the left shoulder, haversacks stuffed with rations, some men with a chicken or slice of fresh meat tied to their belt and, of course, cartridge boxes packed with forty rounds and an additional forty rounds stuffed into pockets. With each brigade would go a couple of wagons bearing extra ammunition and a few ambulances. The bulky, slow-moving wagon trains with all those vast impedimenta of war would follow later.

"I think it's time for me to get moving" Longstreet announced.

Lee looked over at his old "war horse." There was a fire in Pete's eyes, an eagerness to get moving. "Pete."

Longstreet looked at him, a bit surprised, for Lee rarely used the affectionate nickname by which he was called by nearly everyone else.

"I need to say it one last time. Move with speed. If you must set a mark, then let it be Jackson. Move as he did; slow for nothing. I say that not as a reproach, but simply as an order."

"Yes, sir."

"This, is your plan. You were the one last night who caused me to stop, to think, to remember how we did it before. Otherwise I might have gone straight in this morning. If victory comes of it, I shall let it be known to all that you were the one who conceived it"

"No, sir. I was not thinking so much on this scale. But thank you, sir."

"You keep talking of this new kind of war, General. And in some ways you are right It is all changing, rifled weapons, factories, massed armies of hundreds of thousands. None of that was thought of when I was a cadet at the Point"

"It wasn't for my class either, sir."

"But audacity, aggression still must count You have a hard march the next two to three days. Fairfield to Emmitsburg and from mere to Taneytown. Once there rest but not too long; do not slow down. Once you have secured Taneytown, Hill's corps will be on the road behind you. With Taneytown and Emmitsburg secured, I can shift our line of communications, abandon the road to Chambersburg, and march south to Emmitsburg, bringing Ewell up as well.