I felt the hot blood leap into my face, but I met his stern gaze without flinching.
“If I live, General Lee, I shall meet his advance at Bear Fork by daybreak.”
“God guide you; I believe you will.”
His words seemed uttered unconsciously. He turned slightly, and glanced toward the door. “Major Holmes, will you kindly hand me the draft of that despatch?”
He took the paper from the outstretched hand of the aide, read it over slowly and with great care, wrote a word of explanation upon the margin, and then extended it to me.
“Commit that, word by word, to your memory; we must run no possible risk of its ever falling into the enemy's hands.”
I can see it now, that coarse yellow paper,—the clear, upright penmanship, the words here and there misused and corrected, the sentence scratched out, the heavy underlining of a command, and his own strangely delicate signature at the bottom.
“Headquarters, Army Northern Virginia,
“In the field, near Custer House,
“Sept. 22, 2 P.M.