He began to understand how men
could feed their ambitions on the bodies of fallen hosts and still
smile.
He had felt the brutalizing touch of war. With a cynical laugh he threw
off his impulse to write and turned into his blanket dreaming of the red
carnival toward which they would march at dawn.
As the sun rose over the new sparkling fields of the South on the
morning of the 27th of April, 1863, the great movement began.
The Federal commander ordered Sedgwick's division to cross the
Rappahannock below Fredericksburg and deploy in line of battle to
deceive Lee as to his real purpose while he secretly marched his main
army through the woods seven miles above to throw them on his rear.
As the men stood, thousands banked on thousands, awaiting the order to
march, John Vaughan saw, for the first time, the grim procession pass
along the lines carrying a condemned deserter, to be shot to death
before his former comrades. His hands were tied across his breast with
rough knotted rope and he was seated on his coffin.
The War Department had gotten around the tender heart in the White
House at last. The desertions had become so terrible in their frequency
it was absolutely necessary to make examples of some of these men. The
poor devil who sat forlornly on his grim throne riding through the sweet
spring morning had no mother or sister or sweetheart to plead his cause.
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