“All of you refuse to surrender?” Anders looked at the rest of the Union soldiers tiredly. The situation was quickly turning foolish.

Many of the men nodded assent, a few agreeing aloud, yet there were a few who seemed bound by fear.

Anders looked again at the sergeant. “This has gone on long enough. I can’t kill you any more than you can shoot me in the back. It’s this place.” He looked around at the trees and falling snow. “Our real enemy has always been Coal Island.”

The sergeant tried to understand the Confederate as he turned and walked back to the Rebel line, confusion plain on his face as the sergeant glanced in bewilderment at his men.

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“Stand to men,” Anders ordered calmly. “Shoulder arms.” Obediently, the Rebel soldiers lifted their rifles upright and leaned them against their shoulders, a position of movement, not attack.

“We have friends to bury,” Anders said grimly to his men, explaining his change of heart. Major Kane’s insistence on the destruction of the Union war machine had been right, but in his soul Anders knew the war had to end and the fighting stop.

A commotion from the ranks of the Union formation drew the rebels’ attention.

From within the tight group of Union guards, a man was weaving his way out, breaking free with a hand to the shoulders of men as if he were Moses parting the sea.

Beltram stepped forth to regard the former prisoners with a baleful gaze.