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I can’t.”
    Hancock listened in exasperation. The twenty-nine-year-old brigadier general not only looked like a boy, but sounded like one at the moment. Yet, Barlow was the most aggressive division commander in Hancock’s corps, a born killer.
    “This isn’t the time to be shooting our own men,” Hancock said. “Anyway, the president disapproves. It’s an election year. ‘Clemency’ is the watchword of the day.”
    “I shouldn’t think it’s his business,” Barlow pouted. “Rainey’s a repeat deserter, yellow as butter. Condemned by a proper court-martial. This ‘mercy’ is a damned insult to every man who does his duty properly.” He snarled, showing crooked teeth. “How on earth can Lincoln pardon the shirkers? Then send good men to die?”
    Hancock raised his hand. It was a warning: Enough is enough.
    “Forget the president, then,” he told his subordinate. “ I say you’re not going to shoot anybody. Frank, I can’t have you breaking down morale when we’re going to march any day now.”
    Barlow perked up. “Heard something, sir?”
    Hancock shrugged. The movement awakened the pain in his thigh and he winced. His Gettysburg wound had ambushed him again.
    He mastered himself. “Same as you, same as everybody,” he told the brigadier. “Everything and nothing. But Humphreys has the staff working late at night. Weather’s good, roads are dry…”
    Barlow sniffed. “Anything’s better than this endless parading.”
    Hancock smiled. “I thought you seemed rather proud at the corps review.”
    “Proud of my men, ” Barlow said quickly.
    “The men you want to shoot? Frank, listen to me. Your men respect you. They respect the Hell out of you. They’ll follow you and fight for you and, damn it, they’ll die for you. The veterans who know you think you’re the bravest man on earth. But they don’t like you.”
    “I don’t care whether they like me. I want them afraid of me. You know what Frederick the Great said.”
    Exasperated anew, Hancock sharpened his tone. “Yes, Barlow, I know what Frederick said. But you’re not Frederick the Great, and this isn’t the Prussian army. They’re volunteers, Frank. Citizens. ‘United States of America.’ Remember?”
    “If I could just shoot Rainey, as an example…”
    Hancock rolled his eyes. He yearned to dress down the young brigadier, to pour fire and brimstone into one of Barlow’s ears and watch it flame out the other. But, he reminded himself, it was better to have division commanders who had to be reined in than generals who were afraid to apply the spurs.
    “If you want to shoot some poor bastard for cowardice after the next battle, we’ll see about it then. But right now you’re not shooting anybody who isn’t wearing a gray uniform. For Christ’s sake, man, you’ve got the biggest and best-disciplined division in this army. And the lowest desertion rate. Ease up. There’ll be killing enough, soon enough.”
    Praised, Barlow changed his tone: “Do you believe Grant will fight, sir? Really fight, I mean? After Lee gets a piece of him?”
    “Mind if I sit down?”
    “No, sir. Of course not.” Barlow gestured at the tent’s sole camp chair. “Mother would chastise me for my lack of manners.”
    Hancock lowered himself, carefully, into the seat. The damned leg hurt like Hell. Barlow, too, had been wounded at Gettysburg, even more severely. But the younger man didn’t show it. Frank Barlow had been badly shot up at Antietam as well, after his regiment’s charge saved the day at Bloody Lane. Yet, he couldn’t wait to get back in the thick of it.
    Ah, youth , Hancock thought, feeling the burden of his forty years.
    “I’m told your mother was quite the belle in her day,” the corps commander said. It was a relief to escape the subject of executions.
    Barlow displayed his lopsided, snaggletoothed smile. It made his long face seem longer. “She still is. Mother’s quite fine, you know.”
    “I’ll have to meet her one