But if not, if I let them swing behind me, cut me off from the river, and they are seasoned troopers, it could be a problem.

And yet Stuart had faced far worse numbers. He had ridden clean around the entire Army of the Potomac, raised havoc, gathered intelligence, and lost only a few score men.

No. Don't hesitate now.

"Let Baker fall back here. I'll keep Cobb's legion here and I'll stay as well. Tell Baker to fall back and lead them on. We'll give them a good drubbing here."

The couriers saluted, turned, and started back west.

Wade watched them leave and turned to look at the sun, now warm and golden in the morning sky. It would most likely be a hot day, but the weather was fair, the roads were good, the farmland was rich. He was farther north than any Confederate cavalryman had ever dreamed possible only six months ago, and he would make the most of it. Beat these men before mid-afternoon, then on to Reading. A fire in that rail yard would most likely be a sight to behold, outshining anything Jeb could ever hope to boast about

In Front of Washington

August 18,1863 7:00 A.M.

"It had come.

General Lee found it hard to contain his excitement. For more than a year he had laid out dozens of such plans. Some had come to fruition, many had disappeared and been forgotten. For once communications were on the Confederate side. The telegraph line from the south bank of the Susquehanna clear down to his headquarters before Fort Stevens had been fully restored. Extra wire had been found in Baltimore along with some telegraphers who had volunteered to help string a line straight to his headquarters. It was a luxury he had never operated with before, to have instant communications with scouts stationed almost seventy miles away. He marveled at the new potentials he saw before him.

The first report had come in at three in the morning, Walter interrupting his sleep with the message that significant activity was going on along the north bank of the river. Steam engines were firing up their boilers. An hour before dawn the gunboats on the river had come up close to shore, and minutes later a tug pushed in a barge loaded with a regiment of troops to secure the bank. As ordered, his light screen of cavalry had traded a few shots at long range, then appeared to flee. Just before dawn the first heavy ferry had crossed, carrying nearly a thousand men.

The forward station had just closed down, the last message… Dozens of ships moving on river, infantry, artillery, cavalry. Third Corps. Flags of Fifth Corps identified on heights of north bank. Must abandon station.

As he had anticipated, the Third Corps was in the lead. That was a vanity he expected of Sickles. The man had played true to form.

There had been no movements or sightings of troops attempting to come down the Chesapeake, to reinforce either Washington or the garrison at Fort McHenry. That had been his one great concern, that Lincoln would play the card of caution and reinforce the garrison of Washington. If the Army of the Potomac had transferred here, en masse, secure behind the fortifications, it might have presented him with a strategic dilemma, a field force of maybe fifty thousand, positioned closer to Richmond than his own army, with Grant threatening from the rear. No, Sickles had played the card he wanted. He imagined Grant would be beside himself with anger. "Walter."

As always his adjutant was waiting and was under the awning within seconds. Lee looked up at him, smiled.

Walter scanned the latest, confirming that the Army of the Potomac was beginning to ship over artillery. This was no raid or feint; it was the real thing at last.

"It's not a reconnaissance," Walter said excitedly. "They're moving. He'll have the entire army over by tomorrow morning and will be on the march."

Lee nodded.

"Send for Generals Longstreet, Hood, and Beauregard. I want this army on the march, as planned."

Walter, grinning, ran from the tent.

General Lee sat back in his chair. He felt utterly confident, a confidence that had been shaken at Fort Stevens and even by the troubling conversation with Benjamin and Rabbi Rothenberg. The game was afoot again, he was back in his element, and all doubts were put aside. The trap had been sprung as he had planned. By midday, his entire army would be on the march, streaming north through the night. By late tomorrow he would hit Sickles with everything he had, unless the man showed caution, dug in on the banks of the Gunpowder River, and held back.

But he knew this opponent, as he had known all the others. Sickles would not hesitate. He would see his chance for glory, to upstage Grant, to take Baltimore back. He would come on fast.

It would now be a footrace. Now it was a matter of weather and luck, both of which had rarely failed the Army of Northern Virginia in any of its campaigns.

Near Hinkleton, Pennsylvania

East Bank of the Conestoga River

August 18,1863 3:00 P.M.

Wade Hampton ducked as the shell detonated only a dozen feet away, showering him with dirt. Standing back up, he saw one of his staff not moving, a glance showing that the boy was dead, a shell fragment having sliced into his temple. He looked away. There was no time for that now.

Raising his held glasses, he scanned the road they had just retreated down only minutes before. These damn Pennsylvania farmers had made the bridge spanning the river of stone, impossible to destroy. On the far side of the stream, a quarter mile away, hundreds of Yankee troopers were swarming out to either flank, riding hard, while in the center a regiment or more were dismounted, coming in on foot Already the snap whine of their carbine Are was whisking past him, the angry, beelike buzz of.52-caliber rounds cutting the air.

Along the banks of the creek his men were spreading out as well, horse holders moving to the rear, dismounted troopers, most armed with muzzle-loading rifles, a few with the precious Sharps carbines their opponents carried. His own battery of horse artillery was up, pounding away, struggling to keep at bay the two batteries of Yankee artillery shelling the line.

The battle had been a running engagement for the last fifteen miles, opening with skirmishing just before noon, and then a full-blown run of ten miles back to this river. He had led half a dozen counter-charges. In the past one such charge would have sent them reeling, half the Yankees falling off their horses in the rout

This was different, damn different. The Yankees fell back in order as each charge advanced, and then his boys would hit a wall of fire from dismounted troopers behind a fence row, an embankment, a tree lot that would empty a dozen saddles, and he would be forced to fall back. All the time, flanking forces, at least a regiment in strength to north or south, would range out, trying to pincer in, forcing him to fall back yet again.

Focusing his field glasses on the road, he saw what appeared to be a general and his staff, directly in the middle of the road, arrogant, unmoving as a shell detonated nearby. No one he recognized. It must be that Grierson, the raider from Mississippi and Louisiana that the papers had made such a fuss over.

Behind him the last of the Jeff Davis Regiment was up, recalled from its ride toward Downington, but the horses were blown even as they arrived to join their comrades from Cobb's legion and the First and Second South Carolina. In fact, all his horses were blown after this running four-hour battle.

They had taken a few prisoners in the last skirmish before pulling back to the river. The Yankee troopers were arrogant, lean, as weather-beaten as his own. Men from an Illinois regiment boasted that Grierson had sworn an oath to entertain Hampton for dinner before shipping him to the prison camp at Elmira.

The prisoners, still under escort, were sitting nearby, now watching the battle with detached amusement, the way prisoners did when they knew they were safe. He could hear them calmly discussing the spreading fight like professionals, pointing out with glee their own regiment, advancing on foot in the center, the flanking forces even now ranging far outward, a couple of miles away, to the north and south, dust the only indicator of their movements.