“The fourth of May! Last fourth of May it was Stonewall Jackson—lying over there by Dowdall’s Tavern—with just a week to live. Stuart—” “It’s come to a question of figures. If they can keep on doubling us in number, if they can add and add reinforcements and we cannot, if they have made up their minds to stand all the killing necessary, then, with a determined general, it is not impossible that after years of trying they may get between us and Richmond.” “They may eventually. I don’t think they will do it this campaign.” “No. I reckon not—” The group fell silent, looking out upon the waves of wooded land and the light on the horizon. “I was through here,” said one at last, “ten years ago. I was riding with a farmer—a young man—and I remember that I said it was like a region that had gone to sleep in its cradle and never waked up, and he said that that was what was the matter with it—that nothing ever happened here! I wonder—” “Don’t wonder. What’s the use?” “It’s a strange world!” “Strange! That’s the thing about the universe I think of most at night—how _queer_ it is!” “Unity! That’s what they teach—all the philosophers! And yet a unity that tears its own flesh—” “Sometimes unity does that very thing. I’ve seen a man do it.” “Yes, when he was distraught!” “That’s what I say. You can nearly go mad at night, thinking how mad we all are!” “Don’t think. At least not now. You can’t afford it.” “I agree with Cary. There’s a time to think and a time not to think. The less the soldier thinks the better.” “Think!” said Fauquier Cary. “No one ever thinks in war. The soldier looks at his enemy, and then he looks at his murdering piece, and then instinctively he discovers the best position—or what seems to him the best position—from which to fire it. And then he reloads, and he looks again at the enemy, and instinct does the job for him once more—and so on, _ad infinitum_. But he never _thinks_.” He rose and stood, warming his one hand. “If he did that, you know, there’d be no war!” “And would that be a good thing?” “It depends,” said Cary, “on what you call a good thing.—Listen! Jeb Stuart and his cavalry, moving on the old Turnpike—”