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 ^{(it's beta!)}

General Robert E. Lee, last and best hope of the Confederate States of America, leaned back in his chair. The pun didn't occur to him. Nothing did, except for Abe. This wasn't how he had meant to fall in love. In fact, he had never loved anything besides Virginia before. His wife, Mary, was a breath of fresh air and a constant from his childhood. Marrying her had seemed only natural, and he had felt sure that the affection he felt for her was all that he was capable of. All his passion, all his great stirrings of blood, seemed reserved for the military, and for his home state.

But now, this man. Tall, dark, with a flash in his eyes as he spoke- speeches that Lee had imagined since he first heard of the young Congressman from Illinois, speaking out against the Mexican-American war that had brought Lee so many commendations. Lee had spent hours imagining the proud cleft in the raised chin. First, he had thought to study Lincoln as a public figure. Confined to that realm, he was no threat to Lee. Still, whenever he tried to think of the debates, of the very real and very immediate, or so he told himself, concern of state's rights, he was distracted by the more real and immediate broad lips and high voice that sent an involuntary shiver down his spine. Eventually, he gave up on thinking about politics, and just imagined Abe.

Lee tore himself back to the present with an effort. He was on a rare trip home, and determined to enjoy it. Since war broke out, he saw his wife so rarely. She was wheelchair bound, now, but still Mary, smelling of roses and watching the garden. Mary missed Arlington, and it showed. Lee was determined not to make it worse for her, by rousing her suspicions that her husband's heart was elsewhere, too, and not back home with the oaks and magnolias of their shaded plantation.

Across the line that divided North from South; the cold, modern, and industrial Union from the still genteel, though now less placid, plantation lands that Robert called home, Abraham Lincoln had a headache. It is the perpetual fate, he mused, of the President of the United States, to marry a woman named Mary, with whom he is not in love. Mary Washington, at least, could not have been so shrill.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Abe sighed. He couldn't fault Mary's loyalty, and she had lost brothers to the war. Still, he longed for someone to share his life who was more stable, more respectable. Against his will, came the image of the crafty and resolute war hero who would not let him be, on the field or in his dreams. The combination of certainty outside of battle, and ingenuity during the heat and clash, was intriguing. Here was a man who should be fighting for the Union.

Or just for Lincoln, if Abe was honest with himself. He tried to be. The general had been offered a position in the Union army, and refused it, choosing instead to stand with Virginia. This was loyalty Abe could understand. Not an imperfect, feminine dedication to the one who was by law your own, but to something greater and more perfect. For Abe, this was the United States, the preservation of which was his sole aim. Nothing could ever divide his country against itself, not while he had breath left in his body to speak out against it, or to give orders to likeminded and able bodied soldiers. Abe was married to his work, married to the Union, and married to his wife. Still, the thought of the General's white hair above the navy and brass of a Union collar gave him pause.

Pause was one thing Abe could not afford, especially not now. His newly appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac was too hesitant, a trait mirroring that of his predecessor, General McClellan. Now Burnside finally had constructed a plan, and presented it for approval. Burnside wanted to attack Richmond, via a town called Fredericksburg. The plan relied on speed, on quickness, and on Lee holding still. Abe couldn't imagine the general holding still. Mostly, he imagined Lee in motion, sometimes pressed against Traveler, both man and horse sweating the honest sweat of patriotism. Still, in a tactical sense, he was unlikely to make himself a ready target, either.

Reaching for a pen, Abe neatly looped his signature across an approval of Burnside's plan. He added an additional caution for swiftness, and a few glowing sentences about the formidable opponent they were likely to face. They didn't seem out of place. Despite the terrible, mounting costs in life and in land to both sides, one thing was abundantly clear. Between Lee and Lincoln, there was a gentleman's war.