Bernard Cornwell - Battle Flag

"Yes?" Medlicott's tone was cautious.

"I want the Legion's ammunition pooled, then redistributed. And search the dead for cartridges." He looked up at the sky. It would be dark soon. "Your men have first picket duty. And keep a careful watch."

"They always do," Medlicott said defiantly. He had been half expecting a reprimand for disobeying the order to charge the railbed, and his tone suggested the scorn in which he now held Starbuck for not daring to impose discipline.

Starbuck ignored him. He had other things to do. He had the dead to count, the wounded to rescue, and ammunition to find. So he could be ready to fight again. Tomorrow.

"A good day's work, gentlemen, an excellent day's work." John Pope was ebullient about his army's achievement as he strode into the farm that was his field headquarters. A dozen men awaited his arrival, and so infectious was the General's pleasure that they actually burst into applause as he came through the door. Most of those who had been waiting for Pope were general officers, but there was also a congressman from Washington and the Reverend Elial Starbuck from Boston carrying, inevitably, the bundled rebel flag that was his precious trophy and souvenir. The Reverend Starbuck had spent the day on the field and was as dusty, dirty, and tired as any of the soldiers, though Pope himself looked very fresh as he lifted the lid of one of the supper tureens on the long dining table. He sniffed its contents appreciatively. "Venison steak? Good! Good! I hope there's some cranberry jelly to go with it?"

"Alas, sir," one of the aides murmured.

"Never mind." Pope was in a forgiving mood. The railroad bridge at Bristoe had been repaired, so that trains could now run the length of the Orange and Alexandria, which meant that the last regiments being carried north from Warrenton could be transported all the way into the smoking ruins of Manassas Junction, from where it was a short step to tomorrow's battlefield. Or rather to tomorrow's victory, for John Pope was now convinced that he was on the brink of a historic triumph.

General McDowell, who had lost the first battle fought at Manassas but who now led Pope's Third Corps, was similarly confident of victory, especially as more troops were arriving hourly. Those reinforcements were coming not just from Pope's own Army of Virginia but also from McClellan's Army of the Potomac. "Though I doubt we'll see the young Napoleon here tomorrow," McDowell said heavily.

"I doubt it, too," Pope said, sitting at the table and helping himself to a piece of venison. "George won't want to witness another man winning a victory. That would take far too much shine off his buttons, eh?" He laughed, inviting the table to laugh with him. "Whereas I don't mind who gets the credit so long as the U.S.A. gets the victory, ain't that a fact?" Pope threw this outrageous statement at one of his aides, who blandly confirmed its truth. "You know what George wants me to do?" Pope went on as he helped himself to buttered beans. "George wants me to pull the army back to Centreville and wait there! Here we are with Stonewall Jackson skewered to the wall, and I'm supposed to walk away to Centreville! And why? So the young Napoleon can take command!"

"He doesn't want you to win the victory he couldn't win," McDowell suggested loyally.

"And I've no doubt that if I did pull back to Centreville," Pope went on without actually disagreeing with McDowell's statement, "then the very first thing our young Napoleon would do is hold a parade. I hear George is uncommon fond of parades."

"Very fond," the visiting congressman said, "and why not? Parades are very good for the public's confidence."

"A victory might be better for their confidence," McDowell suggested. The Third Corps's commander had piled his plate with venison steaks and sweet potatoes.

"Well, damn George's parades," Pope said, wondering like everyone else about the table whether McDowell could possibly add another spoonful of supper to his heaped plate. "I shall not retreat to Centreville. I shall win a victory instead. That'll astonish Washington, isn't that so, Congressman? You're not used to generals who fight and win!" Pope laughed, and his laughter was echoed about the supper table, though the General noticed that the famous Boston preacher alone seemed unamused. "You look tired, Doctor Starbuck," the General observed genially.

"A day in the saddle, General," the preacher said. "I'm most unaccustomed to such exertions."

"No doubt I'd be weary if I spent a day in your pulpit," Pope responded gallantly, but the preacher did not even smile at the response. Instead he put a notebook on the table, pulled a candle close to its open pages, and expressed a polite puzzlement at some of the events he had witnessed that day. "Such as what?" John Pope asked.

"Men attacking, other men doing nothing to help them," the preacher said succinctly. It seemed to the Reverend Starbuck that the Federal attacks had come so close to success, yet the survivors complained that the reinforcements who might have guaranteed Northern victory had never stirred from their bivouacs.

John Pope felt an impulse of anger. He had no need to explain himself to meddlesome priests, yet Pope knew that he possessed few allies in the army's highest reaches, and fewer still in Washington. John Pope was an abolitionist, while most of his rivals, like McClellan, were fighting not for the slaves but for the Union, and John Pope knew that he needed public opinion to be on his side if he was to prevail against his many political enemies. The Reverend Starbuck was a powerful persuader of the Northern public, and so the General subdued his irritation and patiently explained his day's achievements. He spoke between mouthfuls, gesturing with a fork. What the Army of Virginia had done, he said, was to pen Stonewall Jackson up against the western hills and woods. Pope glanced at the congressman to make sure that he was listening, then went on to explain how Jackson had wanted to escape down the Warrenton Turnpike but had instead been corralled.

The preacher nodded impatiently. He understood all this. "But why do we need wait till tomorrow to kill the snake? We had him trapped today, surely?"

Pope, mindful of what the pencil in the preacher's hand could achieve, smiled. "We've pinned Jackson into some rough country, Doctor, but we haven't quite cut off all his escape routes. What you were witnessing today was a gallant fight to keep Jackson staring in this direction while our other fellows curled around his flanks." The General demonstrated the strategy by surrounding a gravy boat with cruets. "And tomorrow, Doctor, we can attack again with the absolute assurance that this time the wretches have no escape." He dropped a salt cellar into the gravy, splashing the tablecloth. "No escape at all!"

"Amen!" McDowell said through a mouthful of venison and butter beans.

"You only saw a small part of a greater design," Pope explained to the preacher. "Does not the good book have something to say about there being more things in heaven and earth than we can dream of?"

"Shakespeare said it," the preacher remarked stiffly, still penciling his notes. " 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Hamlet, Act One, Scene Five." He closed the book and slipped it into his pocket. "So tomorrow, General, we might expect a victory to rank with Cannae? Or with Yorktown?"

Pope hesitated to claim ground quite that high, especially in front of a congressman, yet he had raised the expectation himself. "So long as McClellan's men fight as they should," he answered, neatly shifting the responsibility onto his rival. No one responded. Indeed, no one liked to stir that can of worms. McClellan's men were famously loyal to their general, and many of them resented being under the orders of John Pope, and there was a fear that resentment might be translated into a reluctance to fight.