Chapter four
Chancellorsville, Virginia — May 1863The sun climbed over the wilderness clearing where Major Luke Keating shaved closely around his thick moustache and chin whiskers. Finished, he put his mirror away and threw his dirty cavalry coat on. Then he began to make his rounds, his spurs clinking as he went.
The major heard the familiar early morning noises amid the piercing reveille. Tents were sparser this year. Most of the men had slept on the ground, wrapped in bug-ridden blankets. The sounds of yawns, stretches and curses began, as they did every morning. The coughs were heard over everything else. Deep, raspy coughs, the result of braving the outdoors for nearly two years. It never failed to fascinate Keating how the camp could rise, snort, and cough almost in unison. Some so
