"Walter Jon Williams - No Spot of Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

After the meal Poe stepped outside for a pipe of tobacco. He could see the soft glow of candlelight from
the Starker parlor, and he thought of the girl in her coffin, laid out in her dress of virgin white. How
much sadder it would have been had she lived, had she been compelled to grow old in this new,
changing world, this sad and deformed Iron Age dedicated to steam and slaughter"┬ж better she was dead,
her spirit purged of particled matter and risen to contemplation of the self-knowing eternal.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a man on horseback. Poe recognized Colonel Moxley
Sorrel, a handsome Georgian, still in his twenties, who was Longstreet's chief of staff. He had been
promoted recently as a result of leading a flank assault in the Wilderness that had crushed an entire
Union corps, though, as always, the triumph had come too late in the day for the attack to be decisive.

"General." Sorrel saluted. "I had a devil of a time finding you. Ewell had his command post at Hackett's
place, over yonder." He pointed at the lights of a plantation house just north of Hanover Junction. "I
reckoned you'd be there."

"I had no notion of where Ewell was. No one's told me a thing. This place seemed as likely as any." Poe
looked off toward the lights of Hanover Junction. "At least there's a good view."

Sorrel frowned. He swung out of the saddle, and Sextus came to take the reins from his hand. "Staff
work has gone up entirely," Sorrel said. "There's been too much chaos at the top for everything to get
quite sorted out."

"Yes." Poe looked at him. "And how is General Longstreet?"


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 No Spot of Ground

The Georgian's eyes were serious. "He will recover, praise God. But it will be many months before he
can return to duty."

Poe looked up at the ravens, half expecting one of them to croak out "Nevermore." But they'd stuck their
heads under their wings and gone to sleep.

He will recover, Poe thought. That's what they'd said of Stonewall; and then the crazy old Presbyterian
had died suddenly.

Just like old Stonewall to do the unexpected.

The army had been hit hard the last few weeks. First Longstreet wounded in the Wilderness, then Jeb
Stuart killed at Yellow Tavern, just a few days ago. They were the two best corps commanders left to
Lee, in Poe's opinion. Longstreet had been replaced by Richard Anderson; but Lee had yet to appoint a
new cavalry commander--both, in Poe's mind, bad decisions. Anderson was too mentally lazy to
command a corps--he was barely fit to command his old division--and the cavalry needed a firm hand
now, with their guiding genius gone.

"Will you come inside, Colonel?" Poe gestured toward the tent flap with his stick.

"Thank you, sir."