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of men had been recruited with lightning speed. As before, most were from the working class, but now many were not Irish. There were Germans and Scots, French Canadians and even, like Louis, an Indian or two. The Union Army was no longer telling Indians who tried to sign up to go back home because this was a white man’s war.
    Though the Irish Brigade was less Irish in its makeup, the songs of Erin’s Isle and the lilt of the Gaelic language were still everywhere—as was Irish nationalism. At times it seemed to Louis that the true enemy was not the South, but Great Britain, the pitiless nation that had turned the green soil of dear old Ireland into a desert and driven its finest sons into exile.
    I may come out of this more Irish than Abenaki .
    Then he shook his head, remembering the remark made to him that very morning by Joker Kirk.
    â€œChief, you haven’t done a rain dance again, have you? We’d like to stay dry for once while we’re marching.”
    The jest hadn’t hurt his feelings, but it had reminded him yet again of who he was. His brown skin and Indian features would always make him stand apart from white men—even in this company of men who were becoming as close to him as brothers.
    He didn’t like being different. It made him feel less like a fighting man and more like a lonely boy.
    Come on, Songbird , Louis thought.
    It was better when Devlin was singing. It left less space in his head for him to think. But the hill was still steep and his red-haired friend clearly still cogitating.
    He needed something to take his mind in another direction. Then he remembered something his father had told him.
    â€œDo not just look at the world, my son, study its working. To know your way, see how things come together.”
    How things come together, that was it. Whether it was the building of a wigwam from bent saplings and bark or the makeup of an army, this Grand Army of the Potomac.
    Ten men make a squad. Two squads make a section. Two sections make a platoon. Two platoons form a company, plus one captain, two lieutenants, five sergeants, eight corporals, and two musicians.
    Company was about as far as most privates took it. Know your company and these three rules:
    Stick with your company.
    Follow your sergeant’s orders.
    If he goes down, listen to the corporal.
    Louis, though, had learned more of the makeup of the army.
    Ten companies made up a regiment. Five regiments make a brigade like our own led by Colonel Smyth. As brave a man as ever wore an officer’s bars, Sergeant Flynn says. “Our colonel’s words at the start of any fight will never be ‘Up and at ’em,’ but always ‘Follow me, men.’”
    Louis had seen Colonel Smyth just once, a big, broad-shouldered man with a thoughtful look to him. Mounted on a fine horse, he’d waved back at them all as he rode ahead of the line of march.
    â€œYe’ll always see him like that riding in front of our own picket lines,” Sergeant Flynn said. “It’s a charmed life that fine brave man will have led if he comes out of this war alive.”
    They topped the hill now, went down the other side. As they trudged along, they passed a farmyard empty of all signs of life. Any livestock, from cattle on down to chickens, had “failed to give the password and suffered the penalty,” as Joker put it. Every soldier welcomed a change from the salt pork and hardtack that made up most of their meals.
    They were entering a cornfield now, further trampling down the already flattened grain. No rail fences standing to slow their progress. They’d been pulled down and chopped up as fuel for camp fires by the regiments that preceded them.
    Regiments. Five regiments make a brigade. Two brigades make a division. Two divisions to a corps. Every corps has twenty-five cannons, fifty ambulances, two hundred supply wagons. Two corps make an army. And that adds up to . . .
    Louis calculated