by soldiers,' Blythe maintained.
'And the soldiers begged you to stop firing because there were women there!' Adam insisted.
'If a man had done that,' Blythe said, 'I would have ceased fire instantly. Instantly! Upon my word, Faulconer, but what kind of a man do you take me for?'
'A liar,' Adam had said, and before Galloway could intervene, the challenge had been made.
But the duel had not yet been fought, and perhaps, Galloway dared hope, the duel would never be fought, to which end he now enlisted the Reverend Starbuck's aid. The preacher, happy to have a purpose while the infantry battle still raged, spoke first to Captain Blythe and afterward brought a report of the conversation back to Galloway. 'Blythe admits there might have been women in the tavern,' the Reverend Starbuck said, 'and the thought distresses him greatly, but he plainly wasn't aware of them at the time and he promises me that he heard no calls for any cease-fire.' The preacher paused for a moment to watch the smoke trails of artillery shells arching across the distant woods, then frowned at the Major. 'What kind of women would be in a tavern anyway?'
Galloway hoped the question was rhetorical, but the preacher's expression suggested he wanted an answer. The Major cast around for a suitable evasion and found none. 'Whores, sir,' he finally said, coloring with embarrassment for having used such a word to a man of God.
'Precisely,' the preacher said. 'Women of no virtue. So why is Faulconer making this commotion?'
'Adam has a tender conscience, sir.'
'He is also in your regiment, Major, by courtesy of my money,' the preacher said sharply, conveniently overlooking that the money for Galloway's Horse had actually been subscribed by hundreds of humble, well-meaning folk throughout New England, 'and I will not have the Lord's work hampered by a misplaced sympathy for fallen women. Captain Faulconer must learn that he cannot afford a tender conscience, not on my money!'
'You'll talk to him, sir?' Galloway asked.
'Directly,' the preacher said and immediately beckoned Adam to one side. The two men rode far enough for their conversation to be private; then the preacher demanded to know exactly what evidence Adam had for his accusation of murder.
'The evidence of a newspaper, sir,' Adam said, 'and my own apprehension of Captain Blythe's character.'
'It was a Southern newspaper.' The Reverend Starbuck easily demolished the first part of Adam's evidence.
'So it was, sir.'
'And your other evidence is merely founded upon your dislike of Captain Blythe's character? You think we can afford the luxuries of such self-indulgent judgments in wartime?'
'I have grounds for that dislike, sir.'
'Grounds! Grounds!' The Reverend Starbuck spat the two words out. 'We are at war, young man, we cannot indulge in petty squabbles!'
Adam stiffened. 'It was Captain Blythe who issued the duel challenge, sir, not me.'
'You called him a liar!' the Reverend Starbuck said.
'Yes, sir, I did.'
The Reverend Starbuck shook his head sadly. 'I have talked with Blythe. He assures me, on his word as a gentleman, that he had no idea any women were present in the tavern, and he still maintains there were none present, but he accepts he might be mistaken, and all he asks of you is your acceptance that he would never have continued the battle had he known that his actions were risking the lives of women. I believe him.' The Reverend Starbuck paused, offering Adam a chance to utter agreement, but Adam remained obstinately silent. 'For the love of God, man,' the preacher protested, 'do you really believe that a man of honor, an officer of the United States Army, a Christian, would persecute women?'
'No, sir, I don't believe that,' Adam said pointedly.
It took a few seconds for the Reverend Starbuck to appreciate the debating point Adam had made, and the appreciation did not improve the preacher's temper. 'I'll thank you not to be clever with me, young man. I have investigated this matter. I know the wickedness of mankind better than you, Faulconer. I have wrestled with iniquity all my life and my judgments are not based on Southern newspapers, but on hard experience tempered, I trust, with prayerful charity, and I am telling you now that Captain Blythe is no murderer and that his actions that night were chivalrous. It is unspeakable that a man could behave in the way you describe! Unthinkable! Manifestly impossible!'
Adam shook his head. 'I could tell you of another occasion, sir,' he said, and was about to tell the tale of the woman he had discovered in the barn with Blythe, but the preacher gave him no chance to tell the story.
'I will not listen to rumor!' the Reverend Starbuck insisted. 'My God, I will not listen to rumor. We are engaged upon a crusade, Faulconer, a great crusade to forge God's chosen nation. We are purging that nation of sin, burning the iniquity from its heart with a fierce and righteous fire, and there is no room, no merit, no satisfaction, no justification for any man to put his personal whims ahead of that great cause. As our Lord and Savior Himself said, 'He that is not with Me is against Me,' and upon my soul, Faulconer, if you oppose Major Galloway in this matter then you will find that Christ and I are both become your enemies.'
Adam began to feel a sympathy for his onetime friend, Nathaniel Starbuck. 'I would have no one doubt my loyalty to the cause of the United States, sir,' he said in feeble protest to the preacher.
'Then shake Blythe's hand and admit you were wrong,' the Reverend Starbuck said.
'Me? That I was wrong?' Adam could not help asking the astonished question aloud.
'He admits you might be right, and that perhaps there were women there, so can you not do the same and admit that he would have behaved differently had he known?'
Adam's head was awhirl. Somehow, he was not sure how, he had been maneuvered into the wrong. He was also painfully aware that he was in the preacher's debt, and so, though it cut hard against a stubborn grain, he nodded his head. 'If you insist, sir,' he said unhappily.
'It's your conscience that should insist, but I am glad all the same. Come!' And the Reverend Starbuck thumped his horse's flanks to lead Adam across to where the grinning Billy Blythe waited. 'Mr. Faulconer has something to say to you, Captain,' the Reverend Starbuck announced.
Adam made his admission that he might have misjudged Captain Blythe, then apologized for that misjudgment. He hated himself for making the apology, but he nevertheless tried to make it sound heartfelt. He even held out his hand afterward.
Blythe shook the offered hand. 'I guess we Southern gentlemen are just too hotheaded, ain't that right, Faulconer? So we'll say no more about it.'
Adam felt demeaned and belittled. He put a brave face on the defeat, but it was still a defeat and it hurt. Major Galloway, though, was touchingly pleased by the apparent reconciliation. 'We should be friends,' Galloway said. 'We have enemies enough without making them from our own side.'
'Amen to that,' Blythe said, 'amen to that.'
'Amen indeed,' the Reverend Starbuck echoed, 'and hallelujah.'
Adam said nothing but just stared at the woods where the smoke rose from the guns.
While to the south, unseen by any Northern troops, regiment after regiment of rebel infantry was marching on a country road that led to the open flank of John Pope's army. Lee's reinforcements were arriving just as the Yankees' last great charge of the day was hurled against the railbed in the woods.
Above the Blue Ridge Mountains the sun sank slowly into a summer's evening. The Reverend Starbuck saw the imminence of nightfall and clenched his fists as he prayed that God would grant John Pope the same miracle that He had granted unto Joshua when He had made the sun stand still above Gibeon so that the armies of Israel would have the time to strike down the Amorites. The preacher prayed, bugles sounded in the woods, a loud cheer echoed among the trees, and the last great onslaught of the day charged on.
***
THE LAST NORTHERN ATTACK of the day was by far the strongest and most dangerous, for instead of being launched in line it came in an old-fashioned column that struck like a hammer blow at the shallowest section of the railbed. It also struck at the vulnerable junction between Starbuck's men and Elijah Hudson's North Carolinians, and Starbuck, watching from the lip of the spoil pit at the back of the rail-bed, instinctively understood that his men would never stand against this tidal wave that streamed from the woods. The attacking battalions were so close together that their flags made a bright phalanx above the dark ranks. The flags showed the crests and badges of New York and Indiana, of Pennsylvania, Maine, and of Michigan, and beneath the flags the shouts of
