Her head went up and down in a quick, decisive nod. "About time Gabriel Semmes got off his backside and wrote to me."

"Who it from, Miss Anne?" Julia asked.

"The president," Anne answered, and the Negro woman's eyes got big and round.

Anne tore the envelope open. The letter was in Semmes' own hand, which partly mollified her for not having heard from him sooner. My dear Miss Colleton, the president of the CSA wrote, Let me extend to you my deepest personal sympathies on the loss of your brother and the damage to your property during the unfortunate events of the recent past.

"Unfortunate events," Anne snorted, as if the two words added up to some horrible curse-and so, maybe, they did. Before he'd been elected, Gabriel Semmes had made a name for himself as a man who went out and did things, not a typical politician. Anne had thrown money into his campaign on that basis. But if he called an insurrection an unfortunate event, maybe she would have been better served spending it elsewhere.

She read on: As you no doubt know, these unfortunate events have adversely affected our ability to resist the aggression of the United States of America, which seek to reduce us once more to the state of abject dependency existing before the War of Secession. To meet their challenge, we shall have to utilize every resource available to us.

"I should hope so," Anne said, as if the president were standing there before her. She was sure she knew what would be coming next: some sort of higher taxes, which she would be asked to support in the name of continued Confederate strength and independence.

She looked around Marshlands. She didn't know how she could pay higher taxes. She didn't know how she could pay the taxes already due. One way or another, she would have to manage. She understood that. If the choice was between paying more and having the damnyankees win, she would-somehow-pay more. With the Yankees' having gassed Jacob, and with Tom still at the Roanoke front, how could she do anything less?

Her eyes returned to the letter: For that reason, I have introduced into the Congress of the Confederate States of America… She nodded and stopped reading for a moment. Yes, Gabriel Semmes was perfectly predictable… a bill authorizing the recruitment, training, and employment against the United States of America of bodies of Negro troops, these to serve under white officers and noncommissioned officers, the reward for their satisfactory completion of service, or for their inability to do so because of wounds, to be the franchise and all other rights and privileges pertaining to full citizenship in the Confederate States of America, intermarriage being the sole exception thereto.

"Good God," Anne said. Taxes, she'd expected. This, no. She felt as if she'd been kicked in the belly. The Negroes rose up in bloody revolt, and Semmes proposed to reward them for it? He did indeed go forth and do things, and she wished to high heaven he'd been content to hold still.

He continued, I am soliciting your support for this measure because I know that you judge the continued independence of the country we both love to be of primary importance, with all else subordinated to it. Now we are come to a crisis the likes of which we have never known, one that calls for a supreme effort from every man, woman, and child in the Confederate States, white and black alike. Anything less would be a dereliction of duty from all of us. I hope and trust you will use your not inconsiderable influence both within your circle of acquaintances and with your Congressional delegation to let us turn back the ravening hordes of American Huns. Your ob't servant-and a florid signature.

"Good God," Anne said again. "I should have backed Doroteo Arango."

"Miss Anne?" Julia knew nothing of politics, unless perhaps Red politics, and cared less.

"Never mind." Anne carried the rest of the mail into the cottage. Julia followed her. She sorted through it, separating out bills; requests for money and time for charitable organizations that, these days, would have to go unanswered; advertising circulars that would make good kindling for the fireplace but were otherwise worthless; and, at the bottom of the stack, a letter from Tom.

She opened that one eagerly. She wondered what Tom would think of having nigger troops put on Confederate butternut. No, she didn't wonder. She was perfectly sure. She'd never credited her brother with a whole lot of sense, but how much sense did you need to see folly?

Dear Sis, Tom wrote, Just a note to let you know I'm alive and well. Not a scratch on me-they do say that if you're born to hang, nothing else can hurt you. Anne snorted again. Her brother was about the least likely man to go to the gallows she could imagine. She read on: It has been lively, I will say. The damnyankees have come as far as-a censor had cut out the name of the place-which we never expected them to do.

The trouble is, they're using these armor-plated traveling forts prisoners call-another censor's slice denied her the knowledge of what they were called, though she could not for the life of her see why-and they've gained a lot of ground because of it. Artillery will take them out. So will brave soldiers, but it's hard being brave with one of those things bearing down on you. This time, the censor, damn him, had cut out a whole sentence. When she was allowed to resume reading what her brother wrote, he said, If they keep throwing more and more machines at us, I don't know where we'll come up with the men to hold them back.

I hope to get leave before too long, and will come home to have a look at Marshlands. I am sure you are whipping the old place back into shape. Tom was always sure of that. Till now, his confidence had always been justified. Now-Anne didn't want to think about now. Her eyes went to the last couple of sentences: Who would have dreamt the damned niggers could raise so much Cain? If I'd thought they could do half so much, I'd have sooner had them shooting at the damnyankees so we could get some use out of them. But even though everything else is turned upside down from before the war, I still love you, and I'll see you soon-Tom.

"Miss Anne?" Julia said when Anne stood there motionless, reading the letter over several times.

"Hush," Anne Colleton replied absently. After a bit, she put the letter down and picked up the one from the president of the Confederacy. She read through that letter twice, too. Her breath whistled out in a long sigh.

"You all right, Miss Anne?" Julia asked, sounding for once very much like the concerned body servant she'd been till not long before.

"No," Anne said. "Not even close." She'd misjudged her brother-and if she couldn't tell what Tom was thinking these days, how could she trust her judgment on anything else? The short answer was, she couldn't. She sighed again, even louder this time. "Maybe Gabriel Semmes isn't a complete utter damn fool after all. Maybe." She tried to make herself sound as if she believed it. It wasn't easy.

George Armstrong Custer stood at the edge of the road, by a sign that had an arrow saying KENTUCKY pointing north and another saying TENNESSEE pointing south. A photographer snapped several pictures. "These'll make bully halftones, General," he said.

"Splendid, my good man, splendid," Custer replied grandly. Major Abner Dowling felt ready to retch. That road sign was as resurrected as Lazarus-everything hereabouts, like everything everywhere the rake of war passed, had been stomped flat. When it came to getting his name-and, better yet, his photograph-in the papers, Custer was not a man to let mere rude facts stand in his way. Dowling would have thought he'd had the sign made up special for the occasion, but that order would have gone through him, so Custer must have come up with a real one instead.