Pale Blue Light. Skip Tucker

mentioned to a passing friend moments earlier that if he just had a good cigar he would consider himself content with army life. Incredibly, he realized he was gazing at a rolled paper no more than five yards from his nose from which extended the butt ends of three cigars.

      Almost fearful of having so specific a wish come immediately true, Mitchell crabbed on hands and knees to the paper. Sitting back down, he unrolled the paper and sure enough, three very fine looking cigars sat awaiting his pleasure.

      Mitchell had placed one in his mouth, the others in his pocket, when he noticed writing on the paper. He read the document twice before it dawned on him exactly what he held in his now trembling hand. Taking the cigars from mouth and pocket, he rewrapped the package as near as he could to the way it was when found. Then he went running and shouting in search of his sergeant.

      The sergeant looked at the document and went running for his lieutenant, who looked and went running for his colonel, who looked and went straight to the tent of General George McClellan.

      For the Federal army now camped on the same soil from which the Confederate army had departed two days earlier. It was normal for an army to take over a prepared campsite left by another army. It was not normal for the departing army to be so kind as to leave a copy of its marching orders behind.

      McClellan stared for a long moment at the fateful paper, then said to the men around him, “If I can’t take the information on this paper and whip Bobby Lee, then I’ll be ready to go back to Washington for good.”

      No one ever learned exactly what happened to the cigars. Neither Mitchell nor his sergeant nor his lieutenant nor his colonel got one. But it didn’t matter. Four days later, they were dead, killed in the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, which saw the bloodiest single day of the war.

      “I’m beginning to hate rivers,” Canon muttered, surprising himself and the lieutenant who rode beside him as they neared the Antietam. The lieutenant looked at him but Canon could only shake his head in embarrassment. He had no idea what had originated the thought.

      It was Thursday, September 15, 1862, and the Black Horse Cavalry was on the road early. Jackson and the Stonewall Brigade had departed the previous morning for Harper’s Ferry and had by now, Canon was certain, reached their destination.

      Lee kept Canon and the Black Horse behind for a day. A most disturbing report had come from an itinerant actor who plied his trade at various army camps, North and South, offering soliloquies from Shakespeare in return for contributions.

      The man had professed strong Southern sympathies. He said he had been in McClellan’s camp on Tuesday and had picked up rumors concerning a “lost order” which Union troops believed compromised the integrity of Lee’s war plans. Some of Lee’s advisors felt the story had the ring of truth, but Lee did not trust spies, feeling they were often bringers of incorrect information, whether by accident or design.