I still propose that we maintain that honor. I will not tolerate what we just saw back there.'
Taylor, absolutely crestfallen, lowered his head.
Lee took a deep breath. The fear of earlier, the confusion as to what to do in this strange, new battlefield, then the outrage had overtaken him for a moment He turned away, mastering his passion; and looked back.
'I apologize, Walter. You were doing your job.'
'No apology needed, sir.'
Lee leaned over and in a gesture of remorse lightly patted him on the arm.
'Gentlemen. Remember, we are gentlemen,' he said softly. 'I want this city brought under control. As I said, I will establish headquarters at Mount Vernon Square. General McLaws, pass the message to the commander down at Fort McHenry. General Stuart start moving your men out as ordered. Taylor, locate General Longstreet and ask him to come to my headquarters. Finally, locate Pickett and order him to start spreading his division out and make sure they understand my orders as well.'
The gathering looked at him for a moment trying to process all that he said. Again there was a flash of exasperation.
'Move!'
The group scattered.
With his escort pulled in tight around him, Lee pressed into the city.
Hey, niggers!' John Miller slowed. At the street comer ahead, a cordon had been set up. A rough barricade of tom-up cobblestones, an overturned delivery wagon, and bits of lumber blocked the way. Behind him hundreds of blacks from his community were surging forward. Behind them the city looked like something out of the Bible, of Sodom and Gomorrah, flames soaring heavenward, explosions rocking the harbor, and now this line of men armed with clubs and guns.
To his dismay he did not see any indication that they were the Loyal League, who had freely let them pass several blocks back, though more than one taunt was hurled about a black Moses leading his children.
He slowed.
'Where you going, boy?' one of the toughs asked, stepping out from behind the barricade.
'Out of this city. We're going north.'
'Oh, no you ain't. You're runaways. Now git back home where you belong.'
'We're freemen, and we can go where we please.'
'Don't back-talk me.' The man came forward, raising an axe handle threateningly.
All was silent for a long moment.
'We're leaving the city,' John said quietly, looking the man straight in the eye.
'God damn you!'
The handle came down. The man was clumsy, obviously not used to the type of dark-alley brawls that John had grown up with. He easily dodged the blow and with a single strike from a curled-up fist knocked the man flat
'The son of a bitch hit George!' someone screamed from behind the barricade.
John looked up and saw a rifle being leveled, aimed straight at him. Before he could even begin to react, the gun went off. He heard a scream, looked, and saw his young son stagger backward from the blow.
A wild madness now seized him. He raced the dozen feet to the barricade, reaching into the haversack by his side, drawing out an antique pistol, an old flintlock that his grand-daddy claimed to have carried against the British in 1814. He cocked it even as he ran. Stopping on the far side of the barricade, he leveled the piece straight at the man who had shot his son, and squeezed the trigger. The gun went off with a thunderous report, kicking his hand heavenward. The rifleman seemed to leap backward.
The next couple of seconds were mad confusion. Hundreds charged around him, swarming up over the barricade. Shots rang out; the flash of knives glinted in the sun; rifle butts were raised, slammed down; the wild, hysterical crowd pushed forward, clearing the barricade.
Stunned, he just stood alone and then looked back to where his wife, Martha, knelt in the middle of the road, keening softly, cradling the body of young John, his two daughters standing wide-eyed, looking down at their mother and dead brother.
He walked back to her as if in a dream, taking her by the shoulders and pulling her back up.
'We have to go,' he whispered.
'No!' She started to flail wildly at him.
'For our two who are still alive we've got to go! We stay here now we'll all be killed.'
She stiffened, nodded, but her face was still buried in her hands.
He knelt down, picked up his boy, and carried him to the side of the road, to the entry of a livery stable. A couple of hands in the stable looked at him nervously, bitterness in their eyes.
He gazed at them, saying nothing as he reached into his haversack, drew out a pad and a pencil, wrote the name of his son and their address on it, then tucked the paper into the boy's breast pocket
In a way he could not believe what he was doing, so casually marking the body of his son before walking away. He folded the boy's hands and kissed him lightly on the forehead, drew out five dollars from his pocket nearly all he had, and put it into the boy's pocket then stood back up.
'His name is John Miller Junior. I put five dollars in his pocket for his burying.'
'So what?' the younger of the stable hands growled.
John looked around meaningfully then back to the two.
'If you have any Christian sense to you, you'll see that my son is buried proper.'
'And if not?' the young one laughed.
'I'm going to join the army now. And after this is over, I'll be back. If he isn't buried as I want, I'll track both of you down and kill you.'
The older of the two, gaze lowered, nodded his head.
'I'll see to it. I'm sorry for your loss.'
'Thank you.'
John turned without looking back down at his boy. He knew if he did so he'd break, and there was no time, no luxury for that now.
He gathered Martha under his arm, his two sobbing daughters clinging to her skirts.
Hundreds were still passing over the barricade, which was carpeted with a score of dead and wounded, black and white. Lying on the ground was a rifle, a new Springfield. He looked down at it, and the man still clutching the weapon, the man who had killed his son. He picked the gun up, testing its heft, then bent back over to pull off the cartridge box the man was wearing, the brass plate on its side an oval with us stamped in the middle. He put it on, picked up the cap box, and slipped it on to his belt.
He had seen it done often enough. He drew a cartridge, tore it open, poured in the powder, rammed a ball down, half cocked the gun, and capped the nipple with a percussion cap.
Some had stopped to look at him, wide-eyed. None had ever seen a colored man do this or seen a colored man with a cartridge box stamped us on his hip.
He scrambled over the barricade, then turned to help his wife and daughters. Shouldering his rifle, he headed north.
You, sir, have let this go out of control,' General Lee snapped, looking up at the quaking civilian standing before him.
The Honorable George Brown stood crestfallen, shirt open, tie gone, fine broadcloth jacket streaked and burned. 'Sir, if only I could explain.'
'You've tried to explain,' Lee said, 'and I find your explanation unacceptable.
'Young Lieutenant Kirby here tells me that you were told to help us enter the city but to keep things under control. Do you call that control down there?'
