She stood and looked down at him emptily. "No," she said, "don't get up. I'm leaving, Major Mauser." He began to rise, to protest, but she said, her voice curt, "I have seen only one fracas on Telly in my entire life, and was so repelled that I vowed never to watch again. However, I am going to make an exception. I am going to follow this one, and if, as a result of your actions, even a single person meets death, I wish never to see you again. Do I make myself completely clear, Major Mauser?"
Marshal Stonewall Cogswell looked impudently around at this staff officers gathered about the chart table. "Gentlemen," he said, "I assume you are all familiar with the battle of Chancellorsville?"
No one bothered to answer and he chuckled. "I know what you are thinking, that had any of you refrained from a thorough study of the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, he would not be a member of my staff."
The craggy marshal traced with his finger on the great military chart before them. "Then you will have noticed the similarity of today's dispensation of forces to that of Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, on May 2, 1863." He pointed with his baton. "Our stream, here, would be the Rappahannock, this woods, the Wilderness. Here would be Fredericksburg and here Chancellorsville."
One of his colonels nodded. "My regiment occupies a position similar to that of Jubal Early."
"Absolutely correct," the marshal said crisply. "Gentlemen, I repeat, our troop dispensations, those of Lieutenant General McCord and myself, are practically identical. Now then, if McCord continues to move his forces here, across our modern day Rappahannock, he makes the initial mistake that finally led to the opening which allowed Jackson's brilliant fifteen-mile flanking march. Any questions, thus far?"
There were some murmurs, no questions. The accumulated years of military service of this group of veterans would have totaled into the hundreds.
"Very interesting, eh?" the marshal pursued. "Jed, your artillery is massed here. It's a shame that General Jack Altshuler has taken a commission with Carbonaceous Fuel. We could use his cavalry. He would be our J.E.B. Stuart, eh?"
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warren cleared his throat unhappily. "Sir, Jack Altshuler is the best cavalryman in North America."