During study hall I went to the library to research more about the Battle of Fredericksburg. Though we’d learned about it in school, and though Uncle Dex and Julie had confirmed it, that whole business about the Union army having to wait weeks for pontoons to arrive so they could cross the Rappahannock just didn’t make sense. How could such a huge plan with that many soldiers and generals and logistics get so messed up, and by something so simple? But the more I read, the more I could see how it happened. Everybody seemed to blame the guy in Washington, DC, who was in charge of the supplies — he was called the quartermaster — for not moving quickly enough, but I guess he did try. He had to get most of the pontoons all the way from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, although it wasn’t West Virginia yet. It was still part of Virginia, and didn’t break off from the rest of Virginia until June 1863, as it turned out, because the people in those Virginia counties voted themselves out of the Confederacy and into the Union — so, no longer part of Virginia.

Boy, the things you learned on the way to learning about other things!

Anyway, roads were terrible so it was impossible to transport the pontoons that way. They tried floating some down the Potomac River, but it wasn’t enough. They needed hundreds of pontoons, and they weighed, like, a ton each, just like Julie had said, and they got started late, and they didn’t have enough pontoons so had to order more built. And on and on went the problems.

And meanwhile, just like the ghost said, the 130,000 Union soldiers just sat around and waited. And waited. And waited. They marched drills. Scrounged around for any local food to eat. Some of them were sent out on scouting parties, though they were never able to find anywhere else to cross the river except right there in Fredericksburg. Everywhere else was too difficult to get to, or too rocky to cross, or they thought it was already defended by the Confederates.

Meanwhile, Confederate snipers hiding out on the Fredericksburg side of the river shot at the Union guards on the Stafford side of the river until one of the Union generals sent a message over to the mayor of Fredericksburg that if the citizens didn’t stop providing hiding places for the Rebels, then the Union cannons would bomb the city.

The snipers quit sniping.

I also found out something else during study hall. The Union army had lost one battle after another after another through much of the first two years of the Civil War, suffering a lot more casualties than the Confederates. People in the North were getting angry and frustrated, and a lot of them were calling for an end to the war. President Lincoln knew he couldn’t quit, though. The cause was too important. He had issued an Emancipation Proclamation declaring that on January 1, 1863, all the slaves in the Confederate states would be free, and he was convinced that for people to believe it would make any difference, the Union needed a victory — and a big one at that — just before he did it.

I was the first one to band practice that afternoon — or at least I thought I was. Uncle Dex told me on my way in that Julie and Greg weren’t there yet. He had his new music system set up and was playing old rock albums. The one he had on when I walked through was a band called The Band, which was pretty weird. The song was weird, too. Uncle Dex said it was called “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” I stood and listened for a couple of minutes. I liked the song, but more than that I was knocked out that a seventies rock band would write about the Civil War.

As I headed downstairs to our practice room, I heard voices. And not just any voices, either. I recognized them right away: Little Belman and our ghost. And they were arguing. They didn’t even notice me when I walked in, so I stood there just inside the door and listened.

“I know you’re a girl,” Little Belman insisted.

The ghost — on the other side of the room from Little Belman — snapped. “I already told you, ain’t none of your business who I am. I can out-shoot, out-march, and out-fight just about anybody in President Lincoln’s army. Out-ride, too, if I only had a horse, which I don’t. Not that that’s none of your business, neither. Now why don’t you run on along and go play with baby dolls or something. Your mama’s probably out looking for you to change your diaper.”

“I don’t wear diapers,” Little Belman snapped right back. “I’m in fifth grade and I’m not leaving until you tell the truth. You’re a girl!”

“And if I wasn’t all the way over here, I’d come over there and give you a good whooping,” the ghost said. At first I thought he meant if he wasn’t all the way across the room from Little Belman, but then I realized it was a different kind of distance he was talking about, the kind between the living and the dead, or the mostly dead, or whatever these ghosts were.

“You don’t scare me,” Little Belman said.

The ghost took what was probably meant to be a menacing step forward toward Little Belman, but I decided it was time for me to intervene.

“How did you get in here?” I demanded.

Little Belman whirled around. “Where did you come from?”

I had to laugh. “You’re standing here talking to a ghost and you want to know where I came from? I came from upstairs.”

Little Belman glared at me. “Well, I snuck in when that man up there had his back turned.”

I put my hands on my hips and stood up as tall as I could and tried to sound like a grown-up. “Well, you better leave right now, because you don’t have permission to be here, and I’d hate to have to call your mom and tell her about you trespassing on private property.”

Little Belman put her hands on her hips, too. “I’ll tell her about the ghost,” she said.

“She won’t believe you,” I said back. “Nobody will.”

“My brother will,” she said, though I could see the doubt in her eyes.

“Anyway, what ghost are you talking about?” I asked, looking around, pretending there was nobody — or nothing — there, which was easy, because the ghost had disappeared shortly after I interrupted their argument.

Little Belman looked around, too. She even raced around the room looking high and low, though there really wasn’t anywhere for the ghost or anybody else to hide, if that’s what they wanted to do. She stopped at the mysterious trunk. It was closed up tight, though, and she didn’t try to open it. I wondered what had drawn her there, though. And I wondered how it was that she could see, and talk to, the ghost. And why she was so convinced that the ghost was a girl — not that Julie didn’t have me and Greg wondering the same thing.

“All right,” Little Belman announced. “I’m leaving. But don’t think for a minute that this is over.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Just be careful on the stairs.”

She stuck out her tongue at me and turned around to leave. I heard her stomping the whole way — just like a little kid.