Bernard Cornwell - Rebel

‘Please.’

‘Keep agreeing with him,’ Ridley said very seriously. ‘Family can disagree with Washington, which is why he don’t spend too much time with family, but private secretaries like you and me ain’t allowed any disagreements. Our job is to admire him. You understand me?’

‘He’s admirable anyway,’ Starbuck said loyally.

‘I guess we’re all admirable,’ Ridley said with amusement, ‘so long as we can find a pedestal high enough to stand on. Washington’s pedestal is his money, Reverend.’

‘And yours too?’ Starbuck asked belligerently.

‘Not mine, Reverend. My father lost all the family money. My pedestal, Reverend, is horses. I’m the best damned horseman you’ll find this side of the Atlantic. Or any side for that matter.’ Ridley grinned at his own lack of modesty, then tossed back his glass of whiskey. ‘Let’s go and see if those bastards at Boyle and Gamble have found the field glasses they promised me last week.’

In the evenings Ridley would disappear to his half-brother’s rooms in Grace Street, leaving Starbuck to walk back to Washington Faulconer’s house through streets that were swarming with strange-looking creatures come from the deeper, farther reaches of the South. There were thin-shanked, gaunt-faced men from Alabama, long-haired leather-skinned horse riders from Texas and bearded homespun volunteers from Mississippi, all of them armed like buccaneers and ready to drink themselves into fits of instant fury. Whores and liquor salesmen made small fortunes, city rents doubled and doubled again, and still the railroads brought fresh volunteers to Richmond. They had come, one and all, to protect the new Confederacy from the Yankees, though at first it looked as if the new Confederacy would be better advised to protect itself from its own defenders, but then, obedient to the insistent commands of the state’s newly appointed military commander, all the ragtag volunteers were swept away to the city’s Central Fair Grounds where cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were brought to teach them basic drill.

That new commander of the Virginian militia, Major-General Robert Lee, also insisted on paying a courtesy call on Washington Faulconer. Faulconer suspected that the proposed visit was a ploy by Virginia’s new governor to take control of the Legion, yet, despite his misgivings, Faulconer could scarcely refuse to receive a man who came from a Virginia family as old and prominent as his own. Ethan Ridley had left Richmond the day before Lee’s visit, and so Starbuck was ordered to be present at the meeting. ‘I want you to make notes of what’s said,’ Faulconer warned him darkly. ‘Letcher’s not the kind of man to let a patriot raise a regiment. You mark my words, Nate, he’ll have sent Lee to take the Legion away from me.’

Starbuck sat at one side of the study, a notebook open on his knees, though in the event nothing of any great importance was discussed. The middle-aged Lee, who was dressed in civilian clothes and attended by one young captain in the uniform of the state militia, first exchanged civilities with Faulconer, then formally, almost apologetically, explained that Governor Letcher had appointed him to command the state’s military forces and his first duty was to recruit, equip and train those forces, in which connection he understood that Mister Faulconer was raising a regiment in Faulconer County?

‘A legion,’ Faulconer corrected him.

‘Ah yes, indeed, a legion.’ Lee seemed quite flummoxed by the word.

‘And not one stand of its arms, not one cannon, not one cavalry saddle, not one buttonhook or one canteen, indeed not one item of its equipment, Lee, will be a charge upon the state,’ Faulconer said proudly. ‘I am paying for it, down to the last bootlace.’

‘An expensive undertaking, Faulconer, I’m sure.’ Lee frowned, as though puzzled by Faulconer’s generosity. The general had a great reputation, and folk in Richmond had taken immense comfort from the fact that he had returned to his native state rather than accept the command of Abraham Lincoln’s Northern armies, but Starbuck, watching the quiet, neat, gray-bearded man, could see little evidence of the general’s supposed genius. Lee seemed reticent to the point of timidity and was entirely dwarfed by Washington Faulconer’s energy and enthusiasm. ‘You mention cannon and cavalry,’ Lee said, speaking very diffidently, ‘does that mean your regiment, your Legion I should say, will consist of all arms?’

‘All arms?’ Washington Faulconer was unfamiliar with the phrase.

‘The Legion will not consist of infantry alone?’ Lee explained courteously.

‘Indeed. Indeed. I wish to bring the Confederacy a fully trained, fully equipped, wholly useful unit.’ Faulconer paused to consider the wisdom of his next words, but then decided a little bombast would not be misplaced. ‘I fancy the Legion will be akin to Bonaparte’s elite troops. An imperial guard for the Confederacy.’

‘Ah, indeed.’ It was hard to tell whether Lee was impressed or aghast at the vision. He paused for a few seconds, then calmly remarked that he looked forward to the day when such a Legion would be fully assimilated into the state’s forces. That was precisely what Faulconer feared most—a naked grab by Governor John Letcher to take command of his Legion and thus reduce it to yet another mediocre component in the state militia. Faulconer’s vision was much grander than the governor’s lukewarm ambitions, and, in defense of that vision, he made no response to Lee’s words. The general frowned. ‘You do understand, Mister Faulconer, that we must have order and arrangement?’

‘Discipline, you mean?’

‘The very word. We must use discipline.’

Washington Faulconer ceded the point graciously, then inquired of Lee whether the state would like to assume the cost of outfitting and equipping the Faulconer Legion? He let that dangerous question dangle for a few seconds, then smiled. ‘As I made clear to you, Lee, my ambition is to provide the Confederacy with a finished article, a trained Legion, but if the state is to intervene’—he meant interfere , but was too tactful to use the word—‘then I think it only right that the state should take over the necessary funding and, indeed, reimburse me for the monies already expressed. My secretary, Mister Starbuck, can give you a full accounting.’

Lee received the threat without changing his placid, somewhat anxious expression. He glanced at Starbuck, seemed curious about the young man’s fading black eye, but made no comment. Instead he looked back to Washington Faulconer. ‘But you do intend to place the Legion under the proper authority?’

‘When it is trained, indeed.’ Faulconer chuckled. ‘I am hardly proposing to wage a private war on the United States.’

Lee did not smile at the small jest, instead he seemed rather downcast, but it seemed triumphantly clear to Starbuck that Washington Faulconer had won his victory over Governor Letcher’s representative and that the Faulconer Legion would not be assimilated into the new regiments being hurriedly raised across the state. ‘Your recruitment goes well?’ Lee asked.

‘I have one of my best officers supervising the process. We’re only levying recruits in the county, not outside.’ That was not wholly true, but Faulconer felt the state would respect his proprietorial rights inside Faulconer County, whereas if he too openly recruited outside the county the state might complain that he was poaching.

Lee seemed happy enough with the reassurance. ‘And the training?’ he asked. ‘It will be in competent hands?’

‘Extremely competent,’ Faulconer said enthusiastically, but without adding any of the detail Lee clearly wanted to hear. In Faulconer’s absence the Legion’s training would be supervised by the Legion’s second in command, Major Alexander Pelham, who was a neighbor of Faulconer’s and a veteran of the War of 1812. Pelham was now in his seventies, but Faulconer claimed he was as able and vigorous as a man half his age. Pelham was also the only officer connected to the Legion who had ever experienced warfare, though as Ethan Ridley had cattily remarked to Starbuck, that experience had been confined to a single day’s action, and that single action had been the defeat at Bladensburg.