Fighting Joe Hooker feels good when he looks at his men. A blue-eyed, uncomplex man with a gift for phrase. “The finest army on the planet,” he says. The phrase is to turn against him with other phrases When he is beaten⁠—but now he is confident. Tall, sandy, active, sentimental and tart, His horseman’s shoulder is not yet bowed by the weight Of knowing the dice are his and the cast of them, The weight of command, the weight of Lee’s ghostly name. He rides, preparing his fate. In the other camps, Lee writes letters, is glad to get buttermilk, Wrings food and shoes and clothes from his commissariat, Trusts in God and whets a knife on a stone. Jackson plays with his new-born daughter, waiting for Spring, His rare laugh clangs as he talks to his wife and child. He is looking well. War always agrees with him, And this, perhaps, is the happiest time of his life. He has three months of it left.