Read Hell or Richmond for Free Online Page B

minimal. With modern, rifled arms, the oblique attack with infantry in line only begs for slaughter. It’s plain mathematics.” He held up his hands, then slowly brought them together. “It’s all about contracting the deadly space and limiting our exposure.” Clapping his hands shut, Barlow concluded, “ You must see that.”
    Hancock told himself that he’d give the notion some thought when he found the time. But the candle had already flared: This blue-blood Harvard shit-ass was dead right. And it grated on a West Point man who’d served a hard apprenticeship. Eventually, Barlow managed to grate on everybody.
    Yet, Hancock could not help himself. He had to show that he, too, had an intellect.
    “Plodding through Carlyle, Frank?” Hancock had never read a page of Carlyle in his life, but had heard that the fellow was publishing volume after tedious volume about Frederick the Great.
    “Oh, no,” Barlow said. “I mean, I had my London bookseller send the available volumes. But Carlyle’s insufferable.”
    Hancock raised his hand again: Stop. “We’ll have to take that up another time. I do have a corps to command.” He hoisted himself—painfully—from the chair. It nearly tipped over. He really did have to take more care of his weight. The flesh and the spirit were constantly at war.
    Barlow leapt to help him. A glare from Hancock put a stop to that.
    “By the way,” the older man said, “General Meade sends his regards. He was quite impressed by your men at the review. Miles’ brigade in particular.”
    Barlow’s expression darkened and Hancock grasped his mistake. By singling out one of Barlow’s brigades for praise, even at a remove, he had just made the next several days pure Hell for Barlow’s other subordinates. Barlow’s interpretation would be that if Miles alone had been complimented, the rest must have been deficient.
    Good Christ, Hancock told himself, going into battle will be a relief for the poor bastards. He took up his hat and riding gloves, anxious to escape. Barlow was best taken in small doses.
    “Oh,” he said, “I almost forgot. George Meade sent his regards to each of your other brigade commanders, as well. He said that Miles set the standard and, by God, the others matched it to a man.”
    Barlow brightened a shade, but suspicion lurked in those hooded eyes of his.
    “Good,” the younger man said. “That’s good. My thanks to the general.”
    Hancock settled his hat on his head and slapped his gloves in his left hand. “I’ll pass that on. Meanwhile, Frank, try not to shoot anybody.”
    *   *   *
    Barlow watched his corps commander walk toward his mount. Hancock tried to hide his limp, but gave himself away at every fourth step. That worried Frank Barlow. He didn’t want his corps commander invalided out. Hancock was the man under whom he meant to serve until the final shot. Or until the stupidity of his peers drove him to resign. Suffering and death were to be expected, but incompetence merited hanging, in Barlow’s view. The general mediocrity appalled him.
    The Freedmen’s Bureau position remained a temptation. “Helping darkies out of the darkness,” as poor Bob Shaw once put it. Arabella didn’t believe he’d quit—she laughed and said he’d miss the war too much—but there were days when he had a mind to surprise her.
    Whatever happened, he was damned well never going to serve under a horse’s ass like Howard again. And God save him from more German troops than his division had at present. Deplorable as soldiers, execrable as men, they were bound to dilute the good native stock of the country.
    The Irish were beastly, too, but the bastards fought.
    Yet, even as he swore to himself, he felt the old twinge return: not pain from his wounds, but the deep, unspoken, unspeakable knowledge that it hadn’t been Howard or the Germans who had blundered that day at Gettysburg, but him.
    Never show doubt, he reminded himself. And never let another man