Gods and Generals

by Jeff Shaara

would convince himself he was still in tight control, while Lee did his job in his own way. In Washington, the administration had heard enough of McClellan’s strange logic, and the general’s paranoia about those who conspired against him became reality. He was relieved of command, and the Army of the Potomac was given to General John Pope. 21. CHAMBERLAIN July 1862 THE UNIFORMS were fresh and blue and sharply creased, and most seemed to fit their wearers well, but occasionally the taller boys or the shorter would self-consciously glance at their too-short pants legs or the sleeves that rode down over their hands. They marched down the main street, and people came out from the shops to watch and admire. There had been no great patriotic fever in Brunswick, no loud breathers of fire, abolitionist orators, radical Unionists screaming out from soapboxes, but these boys, this new company of clean-faced boys, the sons of the shopkeepers and bankers and longshoremen, the boys who had responded to the calls for volunteers, stirred something in them, brought them together in a new way, and so they watched quietly as the slightly uneven lines paraded by. Chamberlain had come into town to see the tailor. He now carried his package, a bundle of new shirts, all crisp and white and neatly folded, encased in a tight wrapping of brown paper. He tossed the parcel up onto the seat of the small carriage, began to pull himself up, and heard a drumbeat, a rhythmic pounding that surprised him. ...