"Where's your battery commander?" Herman shouted.

"Dead, sir. Shot in the head," one of the men shouted back, even as he continued to run.

A sergeant lit a torch with a match and looked over at Herman. "Sir, this fire might spread to those wagons in the street. We got ammunition here. It's gonna be a hell of a mess; might burn down half the town."

"I know," Herman said coldly.

"All right then, sir, but suggest we start the train the hell out of here before I light this."

Herman climbed up onto the cab of the locomotive and nodded to the engineer. The other three trains behind him had already pulled out a half hour ago. Ten flatcars were behind the train. Exhausted infantry, artillerymen, and a few cavalry piled on board.

"Let's go!" Herman shouted.

The engineer opened the throttle, letting the steam rush into the locomotive's pistons. Pressure started to build.

The sergeant threw his flaming torch, the last of the railroad men running out from the sheds, tossing aside the empty cans of coal oil. The fire caught flames dancing across the boxes of rations, piles of shoes, ponchos, tents, barrels of whiskey, barrels of salted beef, barrels of axle grease, boxes of ammunition for Springfields, Sharps, and Spencer rifles, and limber chests filled with canister, case shot solid shot and serge bags filled with powder.

The wheels of the locomotive spun, grabbed, and the train lurched, starting to back out of the station, pushing the flatcars. A few more troopers came running from the main street, cavalrymen, one pausing to take a final shot, and as he did so, he spun around and collapsed. One last man appeared, arm in a sling, Major Beveridge, commander of the Eighth Illinois.

Herman leaned out of the cab, offering a hand. The major took it with his good hand, and Herman pulled him up into the cab, the major gasping, leaned over, gagging, shaking like a leaf.

He looked back up at Herman and nodded his thanks. The engineer of the locomotive leaned over, offering a half-empty bottle of whiskey. Herman said nothing about this breech of discipline, and the major gratefully took the bottle and finally handed it back after draining off one hell of a long gulp.

"You'll see 'em any second," the major announced, still shaking.

They were a hundred yards back from the depot, slowly picking up speed.

The open-sided warehouses were engulfed now in flames. Herman saw butternut, a lone rebel soldier, step out onto the track and, within seconds, dozens more. They stood watching the fire, several advanced toward the flames, as if getting set to try and put them out, and then they scattered, the engineer chuckling at the sight.

A second later the engineer doubled over with a grunt Startled, Herman looked to his left. Rebs were out in the field flanking the track, not fifty yards away. Looking back, he saw places where they were already over the track, swarming around the wagons jamming the open fields.

He eased the wounded engineer aside, grabbed the throttle, and opened it up full, carefully feeding a bit more water into the boiler to keep the steam up. Now they started to pick up speed.

"Hey, you damn Yankee, stop that train!" Amazingly, a Reb officer, on horseback, was galloping alongside the locomotive, pistol raised.

For a few seconds they were only a couple of feet apart

And then the Reb reined in hard as the train passed over a culvert. The Reb raised his pistol and then simply lowered it and waved a salute.

But this didn't stop the infantry out in the fields from taking potshots. Rifle balls sparked off the side of the engine, another round passing through the cab. Some of the troopers on the flatcars were firing back, but most of the men were simply sprawled out flat, cursing.

And then it let go.

Just as they rounded the curve, a flash ignited in a pile of burning supplies, then another, bags of powder flaring up. There was no real explosion, for there was nothing to contain the rapid expansion of gasses, just a dull whoosh, but the eruptions were sufficient to upend other boxes, tearing them open, exposing more powder, and like a string of firecrackers going off, the detonations spread and then truly started to build in power. Later, when he looked over the shipping manifests, he might be able to give an exact number, but it was safe to guess that at least six to eight tons of powder were going off. The roof of one of the sheds lifted up, peeling back. The sound washed over him, building. And then it just simply flashed, a continual rolling explosion that soared up and out, windows across Westminster shattering, wagons in the street catching fire, and the poor beasts harnessed to the wagons dying.

A dark pillar of smoke rose to the heavens.

Herman said nothing, the major next to him watching it all in silence as well. Even the Rebs shooting at them lowered their weapons, turning to look at the apocalyptic devastation.

The supply depot for the Army of the Potomac went up in flames, but the wagons not caught in the devastation, thousands of them outside of the town, trapped in the panic and then abandoned by their drivers, were now in the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Rounding the curve, Herman left the throttle wide open. He had to get back to Baltimore and from there to Washington.

Somewhere, somehow, a new line of supply, a new depot had to be set up and opened. Millions of dollars in supplies had just been lost, but this was a modern war, a war of railroads, and the factories up north would make it good, replace it, and, he hoped, continue to press the fight… even if it meant creating an entire new army as well.

"Is there anyone here who can give me a clear indication of what is going on?" Abraham Lincoln asked, as he dropped the latest telegram from Baltimore and turned to face Halleck and Stanton.

He had been awakened at five in the morning by one of his staff bearing a copy of the dispatch from General Haupt to Halleck that the Confederate army was in the rear of the Army of the Potomac and advancing on Westminster. Dressing quickly, he had come over to the Treasury Office across the street from the White House. It acted as a nerve center, the vast web of telegraph lines linking Washington to the rest of the world, terminating in an office of clattering keys and bustling messengers.

As he spoke, the telegraphers behind him continued at their work, though more than one was looking over at him with nervous, sidelong glances.

Stanton, always jumpy about secrecy, motioned that they should retire to a small side office, and Lincoln followed, first scooping up the pile of messages and nodding a thanks to the operators.

Stanton closed the door and sighed. He was suffering from another asthma attack, his breath coming in short, wheezing gasps. He looked over at Halleck. "Well?"

Halleck was silent for a moment "I think Meade might have been embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?" Lincoln asked, a sharp edge to his voice.

"You sound like he was caught with his britches down, and the parson's wife has just walked by with the church choir. Embarrassed?"

"For the moment only, sir."

"Only for the moment?" and in frustration Lincoln held up the sheaf of telegrams and started to scan through them.

"Report from Haupt of an enemy division, perhaps a corps or more advancing on Westminster. Report from Baltimore, dated one hour ago, of panic, that Confederate cavalry is on the edge of the city, and that Westminster has fallen. Report from Philadelphia that rebel cavalry is across the Susquehanna and moving east And from General Meade, a report now close to half a day old that there are indications of Lee moving to his left and yet also demonstrating on his right before Gettysburg."