Legends

He shook his head roughly. “I purloined an orderly’s smock from the laundry shed behind the asylum and put it on and walked through Fredericksburg in the direction of Marye’s Hill. The city was deserted except for sentinels who, seeing the white smock, took me for someone employed at the asylum. I made a mental note of everything I saw. Fredericksburg itself was obviously not going to be defended, despite the occasional Mississippi sharpshooter firing across the river from buildings along the waterfront. I made my way out of the city, past buildings with greased paper serving as windows, past an emporium with boards nailed over the doors and windows (as if this would stop looters), and headed across the plain. I could see that no effort had been made to dig trenches or pits, and I began to wonder if there was to be a battle after all. Then I came to the sunken road under Marye’s Hill, with a stone wall running the length of it, and I knew there would be a battle and that it would go against the Federals, for the sunken road was acrawl with Confederates—there were sharpshooters polishing the brass scopes of their Whitworths and setting out the paper cartridges on top of the stone wall; there were short-muzzled cannon with grape charges piled next to their wheels; there were officers afoot with swords and long-muzzled pistols directing newly arrived troops into the line; there were Confederate flags and unit flags furled and leaning against trees so the Federals, when they finally appeared, would not know what they were up against until it was too late to turn back. The single unfurled flag visible to the naked eye belonged to the 24th Georgians, known to be hard customers and surpassing marksmen when sober. No way around the sunken road and its stone wall presented itself—to the right it was too swampy for a flanking movement, to the left the road and wall went on forever. I was challenged by pickets several times but, making laughing reference to the lunatics, talked my way past and continued up the hill. And back from the crest, out of sight of Pinkerton men peering through spyglasses from balloons, was the largest army I ever set eyes on. There were more cannon than a body could count. Soldiers were watering down the road to suppress the dust as teams of horses positioned the cannon behind freshly dug earthenworks. A Confederate band belted out waltzes for the southern gentlemen and ladies who had come down from Richmond to see the battle. My footpath took me past a large gray tent set next to a copse of stunted apple trees and I saw three generals poring over maps stretched open on a trestle table. One, in a white uniform, I took for Bobby Lee himself; the second, in homespun gray with plumes fluttering from his hat, I took for George Pickett (which meant that Pickett’s division had come up earlier than anticipated and was taking its place in the line); the third, with a woman’s woolen shawl draped over his shoulders, I took to be Old Pete Longstreet. I was sorely tempted to try for a closer look at the generals and acted upon this desire, which proved to be my undoing. A young officer wearing a brand new uniform with a sash to hold his sword accosted me. My story about being the last orderly to abandon the lunatics to their asylum did not appear to persuade him and he set me to walking toward the divisional tent on the far side of Marye’s Hill, him following close on my heels. As much as I ached to, I could not run for it—all he had to do was raise the alarum and a thousand rebels would have been upon me. Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“No problem.” Dr. Treffler walked over to a sideboard and filled a glass from a plastic bottle and carried it back, aware that Lincoln’s eyes never left her. Was he thinking of the young lunatic, leaning out the window with the matted hair covering her breasts? Was he regretting he didn’t have a shrink who slept with her patients?