protected him. Billy felt himself flawed — mean and weak — because he could not don the same armor. But he couldn't. Not after his sojourn in the Wilderness, where the treetops burned through the night, pyres for the dead and dying. Where Billy had watched Lije die. Where Fighting Joe had turned advantage to stalemate, stalemate to defeat.
The retreat to the river began in midmorning, soldiers, cannon, ambulances all pulling out in a mad melee as the reb infantry advanced while the reb artillery kept pounding. Billy, Spinnington, and two others stole forward into the shell-blasted area to retrieve Lije's body. But the guns at Hazel Grove had poured in so much heavy fire and so many trees had ignited and the flames had spread so fast that Lije's body resembled nothing human. None of them, not even Billy, could stand to touch it or look at it for more than a few seconds. They left the charred thing and withdrew.
A realization struck Billy in the midst of the retreat.
77
Throughout Monday night, the military telegraph remained quiet for long periods. Tired men came and went at the War Department, some keeping vigil for an hour, others intending to stay until some news arrived. Stanley was among the latter, part of a small group whose status permitted waiting in Stanton's office. The President was there for a while, stretched on his favorite couch but turning restlessly every few minutes.
'Where is Hooker now? Where is General Stoneman? Why in thunder don't they send word?'
Stanley held his temples and worked two fingers down to rub his itching eyes. He was sick of the Chief Executive's impatient rhetorical questions. So was Stanton, evidently; his voice rasped as he replied, 'They will break silence at the opportune moment, Mr. President. I imagine the generals are busy consolidating our victory.'
It was Tuesday, nearly sunrise. For the past twelve hours, as they received only the sketchiest reports and casualty figures on the wire, an unsupported consensus had spread like a bad cold. Hooker had won a victory, though at a high price.
Not everyone had caught the cold. Welles, the bearded curmudgeon who held the Navy portfolio and had once been a newspaperman in Connecticut, had not. 'Perhaps they're silent because there is nothing but bad news. If we'd had success, the reports would be coming in volumes, not paragraphs.'
The secretary gave him a long look. Lincoln, too, though his, sorrowing, contrasted sharply with the spleen of Stanton's. 'I am beginning to believe you're right, Gideon.' Lincoln rose, wrinkled and unkempt, and put his plaid shawl around his shoulders. 'Send a messenger the instant we have definitive news.' The military guards in the antechamber snapped to attention as he shuffled through the door.
Falling asleep even though he had deliberately chosen a hard chair, Stanley hung on till half past eight, by which time the department's daily routine was well started. With permission from the secretary, Stanley entered Stanton's private dressing closet, splashed his face with tepid water from a basin, then some of Stanton's cologne. He stumbled out into the spring morning in search of breakfast.
He hoped to God that Hooker had won a victory. The party needed not one but several. The presidential election was little more than a year away, and if Lincoln went down, he would carry many others with him. Stanley cringed at the possibility. He had acquired a taste for his job and the power it carried. If Isabel had to retire to Lehigh Station for the rest of her life, she would blame him and make his life even more miserable than usual. A pity he didn't have an antidote for Isabel — some younger and less shrewish female who would understand and sympathize with his problems.
Even at this early hour, hawkers were out. One cried the virtues of bars of soap piled on his curbside stand. Another shoved a cheap telescope in George Hazard's face. Military wagons, private carriages, hacks, and horseback riders crowded the avenue, along with pedestrians and the mule-drawn cars of the street railway. Bell clanging, one car blocked George's passage across Pennsylvania. Short-tempered — last night he and William had argued over the boy's poor marks, and George had slept badly — he scowled at the passengers. Most were men, but a few —
A face, glimpsed and then gone, stunned him. A teamster swore at him. Wheel hubs brushed the skirts of his uniform coat. Then two horsemen blocked his view, and when they passed, it was too late for him to do anything unless he wanted to stage a one-man foot race to pursue the car. He shook himself and weaved on across the street like a drunken man.
When Stanley entered Willard's dining room, he saw his brother breakfasting alone at a table half in sunshine, half in shadow. Stanley's first impulse was to leave. He hadn't seen George since Wade's defeat in the Senate, and undoubtedly George would crow about that. Had the situation been reversed, he would have.
But the long vigil had left Stanley in a state not typical for him: he craved the companionship of someone from outside the War Department building. So he ignored the waiter motioning him to another table and proceeded to the one where George sat staring at his fried potatoes with a look Stanley thought odd indeed. George didn't raise his head till his brother cleared his throat.
'Hello, Stanley. Where did you come from?'
'The telegraph room. I've been there all night awaiting news from Virginia.'
'Is there any?'
''Very little. May I join you?'
George waved at a chair. Stanley put his tall hat on another, then sat, tugging his waistcoat down over the steadily growing bulge of his paunch. 'Is something wrong, George? Trouble with Constance or the children?'
Bastard, George thought. It was Stanley's style to ask such questions with a hopeful tone. 'Yes, there is. Ten minutes ago I saw a ghost.'
'I beg your —'
'Sir?' said the waiter, who had been hovering to take Stanley's order.
'Come back later,' Stanley snapped. ''Tell me what you mean, George.'
'I saw Virgilia. Riding one of the avenue cars.'
Astonished, Stanley didn't speak immediately. 'I presumed Virgilia had gone far away from this part of the country. I've not heard from her or about her for two or three years.'
'I'm certain it was sire — well, virtually certain. You know she never cared for clothes, and this woman was smartly dressed. Her hair was stylish. Even with those differences —'
'Obviously you aren't certain at all,' Stanley broke in. 'But suppose it was Virgilia. Why are you concerned? What difference would it make? None to me or Isabel, I assure you. I have nothing in common with my sister except a last name and a loathing for the South.'
'Don't you ever wonder if she's all right?'
'Never. She's a thief and a slut — and those are the kindest descriptions I can apply. I don't care to discuss Virgilia or any other unpleasant topic. I have been up all night, and I want to eat a peaceful breakfast. I can do so at another table if you wish.'
'Calm down, Stanley. Order something and I'll keep quiet.'
But he didn't. He picked at his potatoes, took a bite of cold beef-steak bathed in greasy gravy, and said, 'I do wonder somelimes. Where Virgilia is. I mean.'
'That's your prerogative,' Stanley said, taking the same tone he would have used with a man thinking of stepping in front of a fifteen-inch columbiad about to be fired. Conversation lagged after that. Stanley ordered and ate a huge breakfast, topped off with the last of seven muffins lathered in plum preserves. George, meantime, saw distorted, sharply angled images of the woman's face sliding away in the street-railway car. In a strange way, the brothers were glad of each other's company.
As they left the dining room, Stanley paused to say hello to a pale, stooped individual just entering with some other men. George recognized Representative Stout, one of the Wade-Stevens gang. He and Stanley
