Read In at the Death for Free Online

about where it went, well, that was his problem, not Dover’s.
    Even with that shipment, the Confederates east of Atlanta kept getting driven back. Too many U.S. soldiers, too many green-gray barrels, too many airplanes with the eagle and crossed swords. If something didn’t change in a hurry…
If something doesn’t change in a hurry, we’ve got another losing war on our hands
, Dover thought.
    He’d never been one who screamed, “Freedom!” at the top of his lungs and got a bulge in his pants whenever Jake Featherston started ranting. He’d voted Whig at every election where he could without putting himself in danger. But he had some idea what losing a second war to the USA would do to his country. He didn’t want to see that happen—who in his right mind did? Following Featherston was bad. Not following him right now, Jerry Dover figured, would be worse.
    He stepped away from the field telephone, shaking his head, not liking the tenor of his thoughts. How could anybody in the Confederacy have thoughts he liked right now? You had to be smoking cigarettes the Quartermaster Department didn’t issue to believe things were going well.
    Or you had to read the official C.S. Army newspaper. A quartermaster sergeant named Pete handed Dover a copy of the latest issue. It was fresh from the press; he could still smell the ink, and it smudged his fingers as he flipped through
The Armored Bear
.
    If you looked at what the reporters there said, everything was wonderful. Enemy troops were about to get blasted out of Georgia.
A shattering defeat that will pave the way for the liberation of Tennessee and Kentucky
, the paper called it.
The Armored Bear
didn’t say how or when it would happen, though. Soldiers who weren’t in Georgia might buy that. Jerry Dover would believe it when he saw it.
    The Armored Bear
spent half a column laughing at the idea that the damnyankees could threaten Birmingham.
This industrial center continues to turn out arms for victory
, some uniformed reporter wrote. A year earlier, the idea of U.S. soldiers anywhere near Birmingham really would have been laughable. C.S. troops were battering their way into Pittsburgh. They went in, yes, but they didn’t come out. Now the story sounded more as if the writer were whistling his way past the graveyard. Had the Yankees wanted to turn on Birmingham, it would have fallen. Dover was sure of that. They thought Atlanta was more important, and they had the sense not to try to do two things at the same time when they could make sure of one.
    Photos of night-fighter pilots with gaudy new medals on their chests adorned the front page. The story under the photos bragged of air victories over Richmond, Atlanta, Birmingham, Vicksburg, and Little Rock. That was all very well, but why were U.S. bombers over all those towns?
    And another story bragged of long-range rockets hitting Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh (not a word about the great battle there the year before), and Nashville (not a word that Nashville was a Confederate city, either).
    There is no defense against these weapons of vengeance. Traveling thousands of miles an hour, they strike powerful blows against the Yankee aggressors
, the paper said.
Soon improved models will reach New York, Boston, Indianapolis, and other U.S. centers that imagine themselves to be safe. Confederate science in the cause of freedom is irresistible
.
    Jerry Dover thoughtfully read that story over again. Unlike some of the others, it told no obvious lies. He hoped it was true. If the Confederates could pound the crap out of U.S. targets without wasting precious pilots and bombers, they might make the enemy say uncle. It struck him as the best chance they had, anyway.
    On an inside page was a story about a football game between guards and U.S. POWs down at Andersonville, south of Atlanta. A photo showed guards and prisoners in football togs. Dover thought the piece was a failure. So what if the guards won? If they were healthy