Confederates Read Online Free Page A

from catching malaria? There are ten thousand of us already sick with pneumonia and dysentery, and the hospitals in Richmond haven’t even got round to treating last week’s wounded yet. There are alternative things to do besides standing in these miasmas getting ill. I wanted to talk to you about it.’
    The General leaned against a tree. He’d always been gangling and a leaner. Popeye Ewell here remembered the day, he himself then a young professor of the Academy, that Tom Jackson had come to West Point, a lean and very handsome boy. Somehow he’d got a place in the Academy even though he hadn’t had good schooling. It was rumoured that he’d got there through political influence, his uncle Cummins Jackson being the drinking crony of a Western Virginia Congressman. Anyhow, Ewell had been attracted to Tom Jackson’s raw talent and helped him with his mathematics. Jackson had been a serious boy who’d had too much death in his family – a mother, a father, his brother. He did everything as if time was limited. Generally he was right on that score.
    â€˜I don’t mean to tell you, Boteler, anything a private soldier couldn’t tell you,’ said Tom Jackson. ‘McClellan’s whipped as a cur. He’ll go home. It’ll take him some time to get there. He’ll sulk for reinforcements. It’ll take him time to get them. Even then … well, he’d have to reorganise. And he’s not quick at that sort of job. Richmond is safe now. What we have to do is move north, into Maryland, if possible into Pennsylvania, to outflank Washington. Put Abe Lincoln in a panic.’ He sneezed moistly. ‘I want you to go to Mr Davis and tell him what I’ve told you.’
    â€˜You say that as if it were a simple thing.…’
    â€˜It’s the only thing,’ said Tom Jackson. ‘A big move north. The final battle. Maybe in Maryland, as I say. Maybe in Pennsylvania. Either will serve.’
    Boteler closed one eye and made a dubious squeaking noise with his lips. ‘What’s the use of me going to Mr Davis? He’d only refer me back to General Lee. Why don’t you talk direct to Lee?’
    â€˜I’ve done so.’
    â€˜Well …?’
    Tom Jackson chewed at his narrow lips.
    â€˜He said nothing. I know he’s got reasons for his silence.’
    Boteler decided to be funny. ‘Well, at least you’re not trying to rebel against your superior general.’
    Jackson didn’t think that was funny. He thought a while. Boteler coughed; the joke had fallen flat.
    The General said: ‘He can’t give me a definite answer because of influences in Richmond. I’m sure the matter’s been mentioned by him there. Now it’s time to add our voice.’
    Boteler spat. ‘It’s clean contrary to current thinking,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s contrary to ideas of caution.’
    Sandie coughed and General Ewell called, ‘Look at that there!’
    Out of the Federal camp a ball of white and red silk had risen. It yawed a little in the hot air and came straight for them on a light wind off the James. They knew who it was – Professor Thaddeus Lowe, McClellan’s balloonist, flying to observe the Rebels. Very soon the balloon seemed to Boteler to be overhead, and he grinned and pretended to be trying to withdraw his head into his shoulders.
    General Jackson ignored the professor’s exotic craft.
    â€˜You have to let him see’, he said, the him being President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America, ‘that Lincoln is more anxious about losing Washington than we are about losing Richmond. And with some reason.’
    â€˜Maryland?’ Mr Boteler asked. He laughed. ‘That’s a grand strategy,’ he said.
    Behind them the Alabamans had begun firing at and catcalling the professor.
    â€˜We ought to go now,’ said General Ewell, since firing by