War & Peace Quote by John Buford

There is a quiet audacity in Buford’s plain logistics. He’s describing a move that reads like routine staff work, but the subtext is a wager: hold the far left, keep eyes on the enemy, and personally climb to Cemetery Hill to take the measure of the whole field. In a single sentence, command becomes something physical and improvisational, less baton-waving heroism than a man placing pieces on a board while the board is on fire.

The intent is practical - reposition, prepare for the next удар, get high ground for sightlines - yet the choice of Cemetery Hill is doing the real rhetorical lifting. At Gettysburg, that rise would become the spine of the Union defense. Buford is telegraphing an officer’s instinct for terrain and timing: don’t just react to an assault; anticipate the shape of the next one. “Watch and fight” is blunt, almost impatient, suggesting he expects the enemy to return and is arranging his left flank like a door he knows will be kicked again.

Context matters: Buford was a cavalryman operating in a battle that would be decided largely by infantry and artillery, which makes his emphasis on observation especially pointed. Cavalry, at its best, buys time and information. This line shows him performing that role with cold clarity - delaying, scouting, choosing ground - while refusing the comfort of certainty. “Should he make another attack” is understated, but it carries the entire tension of Gettysburg’s opening hours: nobody knows the script yet, and the people who can read terrain fastest get to write it.