The coffee did not keep him from falling asleep. It woke him a couple of hours later, though. He stood up to use the chamber pot. The ground chilled his toes through his socks.

Before he went back to bed, he glanced out through the tent flap. Andries Rhoodie had kept his fire large and bright. He was sitting in front of it in a folding chair of gaudy canvas webbing and wood. He did not notice Lee, being intent on the book in his lap.

“What are you reading, sir, at this late hour?” Lee called softly.

Rhoodie looked up and peered into the night. With his eyes full of firelight, he needed a few seconds to catch sight of Lee. When he did, he stuck a thumb in the book to keep his place, then shut it and held it up. A golden cross gleamed on the black cover.

“Ah,” Lee said, all at once feeling easier about Rhoodie than he had since the moment he’d met him. “You could find no better companion, by day or night. May I ask which verses you have chosen?”

“The story of Gideon,” the big ‘stranger answered. “I read it often. It seems to fit.”

“It does indeed,” Lee said. “It does indeed. Good night, sir. I hope you sleep well when you do seek your bedroll.”

“Thank you, General. A good night to you, too.”

Lee went back to bed. As he’d told Rhoodie, he often had trouble sleeping. Not tonight, though—he dropped off as smoothly and easily as a child. Just before he stopped thinking altogether, he wondered why. Maybe it was hope, something that had been in short supply since Gettysburg. He slept.

The next couple of days went by in something close to a state of anticlimax. General Samuel Jones of the Department of Western Virginia sent a letter promising cattle and beef for the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee wrote effusive thanks, but the promised animals were slower arriving than Jones‘s letter had been. As he’d feared, he had to reduce the army’s rations.

Just after he’d finished drafting the general order for the melancholy necessity, Charles Venable poked his head into the tent. “Telegram for you, sir.” He paused for dramatic effect. “It’s from Rivington.”