Battle Flag by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: War stories, Va., Historical fiction, 2nd Battle of, History, United States - History - Civil War, General, United States, 1862, Starbuck, Historical, War & Military, 1861-1865, Men's Adventure, Nathaniel (Fictitious character), Fiction, Bull Run, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9780060937188
Publisher: [New York] : Perennial, 2001.
Published: 2001-09-06T07:03:09+00:00

Chapter 8

GENERAL STUART'S AIDE reached Lee's headquarters before dawn and found the army's commander standing outside his tent in contemplation of a crude map scratched in the dirt. The map showed the rivers Rapidan and Rappahannock, while the fords across the further river were marked by scraps of twig. It was those fords that the cavalry needed to capture if Pope was to be trapped at the rivers' confluence, but it seemed there was to be no chance of success this day, for the aide brought only a repetition of the previous day's bad news. "The cavalry just aren't ready, sir. General Stuart's real sorry, sir." The aide was very sheepish, half expecting a tirade from an angry Lee. "It's the horses, sir," he went on lamely, "they ain't recovered. The roads are wicked hard, sir, and General Stuart was expecting to find more forage up here, and . . ." The aide let his hopeless explanations trail away.

Lee's grave face scarce registered his disappointment; indeed, he seemed much more disappointed in the taste of the coffee than in the failure of his cavalry. "Is this really the best coffee we have, Hudson?" he asked one of his younger staff officers.

"Until we can capture more from the Yankees, sir, yes."

"Which we can't do without our cavalry. Upon my soul, we can't." He sipped the coffee again, grimaced, then laid the tin mug on a washstand that was set with his aides' shaving tackle. On the General's own washstand, inside his tent, there lay a dispatch that reported that 108 Federal ships had steamed up the Potomac River in the previous twenty-four hours, and what that figure meant, Lee knew, was that McClellan's forces were well on their way to reinforcing Pope's army. The ships' sidewheels and screws were churning the Potomac white in their efforts to combine the enemy armies, and meanwhile the Confederate cavalry was not ready. Which meant Pope's army would be safe for one more day. The frustration rose in Lee, only to be instantly suppressed. There was no profit in displaying temperament, none at all, and so the General looked placidly back at the crude map scratched in the dirt. There was still time, he told himself, still time. It was one thing for the Northern generals to move an army by boat, but quite another to land the troops and reunite them with their wagons and guns and tents and ammunition. And McClellan was a cautious man, much too cautious, which would give the rebels even more time to teach John Pope a lesson in civilized warfare. Lee ruefully obliterated the map with the toe of a riding boot and gave orders that the army would not, after all, be marching that morning. He retrieved his coffee. "What exactly do they do to this coffee?" he asked. "Mix it with ground goober peas, sir," Captain Hudson answered.

"Mashed peanuts!" Lee sipped again. "Good Lord." "It makes the coffee go farther, sir." "It surely does, it surely does.

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