How Few Remain

… Amazing puffs of smoke blossomed in the center of the U.S. front line. "The Gatlings!" Karl Jobst yelled, somewhere between astonishment and ecstasy.

Roosevelt had no words, only awe. In what seemed the twinkling of an eye and was perhaps two or three minutes of actual time, those steadfast British lines abruptly ceased to exist, in much the same way as a slab of ice will rot when hot water pours over it. For the first half of that time, the infantry kept trying to go forward in the face of fire unlike anything they'd ever met or imagined. They dropped and dropped and dropped. Not one of them got within a hundred yards of the trench. After that, the foot soldiers, those of them still on their feet, realized the thing could not be done. They also realized they were dead men if they didn't get out of range of the terrible stream of bullets pouring from the Gatling guns.

It was not a retreat. Custer had led a retreat. It was a rout, a panic-stricken flight, a stampede. The British, surely, were as steady in the face of familiar danger as any men ever born. In the face of the snarling unknown, they broke. Some of them- Roosevelt took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes to be sure he was seeing straightthrew away their rifles to run the faster.

He spent only a little while luxuriating in amazement. Then he started thinking like a soldier again. "After them!" he shouted. "After them, by jingo! They thought they'd run over us like a train, did they? Well, they've just been train-wrecked, boys. Now we haul away the rubbish."

Now his men, cheering as if their throats would burst, pressed hard upon the fleeing foe. The British horse, which had been screening an advance, suddenly had to try to screen a broken army falling back. The enemy's field guns fired a few rounds of canister before the men of the Unauthorized Regiment, coming at them from three directions at once, overran them and killed their crews.

"Captured guns," Lieutenant Jobst said cheerfully. "That's the true measure of victory. Has been as long as ca

"After them!" Roosevelt shouted. "We don't want to let even a single one get away. No, maybe one, to tell his pals up in Canada what it means to invade the United States." He fired at an English cavalryman and knocked him out of the saddle. "Easy as shooting prong-horns!" he exulted.

North over the prairie went the pursuit, as it had gone south the day before. The troopers of the Unauthorized Regiment took rifles away from slightly wounded or exhausted Englishmen they passed and rode on after the main body. Roosevelt didn't think he had enough men to beat them, but they were so shaken he intended to try if he got the chance. They might all throw down their guns and give up at a show of force.

And then, from behind, he heard not one but several buglers blowing Halt. His men looked at one another in surprise, but most, obedient to the training he'd drilled into them, reined in. "No!" he raged. "God damn it, no! I didn't order that! I'll kill the idiot who ordered that. We've got 'em licked to a faretheewell."

"Halt!" a great voice shouted: George Custer, who must have almost killed his horse catching up to Roosevelt 's men. To Roosevelt 's amazement, tears streaked Custer's cheeks, not just tears of grief but tears of fury. To his further amazement, Custer reeked of whiskey from twenty feet away. "Halt, damn it to fucking hell!" he shouted again.

"What's wrong, sir?" Roosevelt demanded.

"Wrong? I'll show you what's wrong!" Custer waved a sheet of paper. "What's wrong is, a cease-fire with the English sons of bitches went into effect yesterday, only we didn't know it. We just licked the boots off the shitty limeys, we just got my brother killed, in a battle we never should have fought, and now we have to let what's left of the bastards go home. I haven't had a drink of liquor, save for medicinal purposes, in almost twenty years-not since before I married Libbie. Do you wonder, Roosevelt, do you wonder that I got myself lit up riding after you?"

"No, sir," Roosevelt said, and then, "Hell, no, sir." After a moment, he added, "Is anything left in your bottle, sir?"

"Not a drop," Custer answered. "Not a single fucking drop." "Too bad," Roosevelt said. "In that case, I'll just have to find my own."

Frederick Douglass got off the train in Rochester. His wife and son were the only black faces on the platform. A

"Thank you, my boy," Douglass said. "Believe you me, it is very, very good to be home again." He gave A

"Don't sound so proud of yourself," she said sharply. "I reckon that was the Lord's doin', a whole lot more'n it was yours."

He looked down at the planks of the platform floor. "Since I ca

A

"If it hasn't yet taught me that futility, why should it have done so with you?" Douglass returned. "What was it like? It was frightening." He held up a hand before his son or wife could speak. "Not in the way you think, either. It was frightening because I found myself in the presence of a man both formidable and, I judge, good, but one who believes deep in his heart in things utterly antithetical to those in which I believe, and who reasons with unfailing logic from his false premises." He shivered. "It was, in every sense of the word, alarming."

They all walked out toward the carriage, A

"Yes." Douglass helped his wife up, then climbed aboard himself and sat beside her. "It is possible," he went on as Lewis took the reins. "It is possible, but it is not easy. Jackson… surprised me."

"1 reckon you surprised him, too." A

"I hope I did. I rather think I did," Douglass said. "And I have what may be great news: in Chicago, I heard that the Confederates are-no, may be-pla

"Wonderful news, if true," Lewis said. "We've heard the like now and again down through the years, though, and nothing ever came of it. Who told you this time, Father? Lincoln?"

"No, John Hay," Douglass answered. "Since he was minister to the Confederate States, he should know whereof he speaks. Lincoln had other concerns." He let out a bitter sigh. " Lincoln has had other concerns than the Negro before, which I say though he is and has always been my friend. In the summer of 1862, he drafted a proclamation emancipating all slaves within the territory of the Confederate States, then waited for a U.S. victory to issue it, lest it be seen as a measure of desperation rather than one of policy. The victory never came, and, when our straits indeed grew desperate, he let that paper languish, having been convinced it was by then too late to do any good. I shall go to my grave convinced he was mistaken."