the stiff chair would allow. Then he put his head back and opened his mouth as wide as it would go though without uttering any sound at all. Starbuck wondered if the General was suffering a seizure, but then he saw the two staff officers grinning, and he realized that this odd display was Jackson's peculiar method of displaying amusement.
The General stayed in the weird pose for a few seconds, then rocked forward again, let his knee go, and shook his head. He was silent for a few more seconds, then turned to Swynyard. 'How old are you, Colonel?'
'Fifty-four, sir,' Swynyard said, sounding rather ashamed. Fifty-four was old for a soldier unless, like Lee, he was the commander in chief. Jackson himself was thirty-eight, while most of the fighting was done by boys yet to see their twenty-first birthday.
But Jackson's point was not about the optimum age for a soldier, but was instead a theological comment. 'I was myself of mature years before I found Christ, Colonel. I do not say one should be of ripe age before conversion, but nor should we blame the young for failing to do what we ourselves did not do. As for your womanizing'—he looked at Starbuck– 'marriage will cure that if self-discipline fails. I find that daily immersion in cold water and regular exercise helps. Chop wood, young man, or swing from a branch. You can leap fences. But exercise! Exercise!' He suddenly stood and snatched up Washington Faulconer's letter, which he held into a candle flame. He held the paper in the flame until it was well alight, then moved it gently and safely into the empty fireplace, where he watched it burn into ash. 'War brings change,' he said as he turned back to his visitors. 'It changed me, it will change you. I confirm your appointments. You, Colonel Swynyard, will take over Faulconer's Brigade and you, Major Starbuck, will take command of his Legion. In return you will fight for me, and fight harder than you have ever fought in your lives. We are not here to defeat the enemy, but with God's help to destroy him, and I look for your help in that ambition. If I receive that help I will accept it as your duty, but if you fail then I shall send you both after Faulconer. Good night to you.'
Starbuck could not move. He had entered the room expecting punishment and had instead received promotion, and not just promotion, but command of his own regiment. My God! He had command of the Legion, and suddenly he felt terrified of the responsibility. He was only twenty-two, surely much too young to command a regiment; then he remembered Micah Jenkins, the Georgian who had led his whole brigade hard and deep into the Yankee army at Seven Pines, and Jenkins was not much older than Starbuck himself. There were other officers in their twenties who were leading regiments and brigades, so why should Starbuck not be ready? 'Good night, gentlemen!' Jackson said pointedly. Starbuck and Swynyard were both startled from their astonishment. They allowed themselves to be led outside by an aide, who offered his own congratulations on the lantern-lit porch. 'Major Hotchkiss,' the aide said, 'recommended you both. He felt that the Brigade had suffered enough without having outsiders thrust on it.'
'Give him our thanks,' Swynyard said. 'And if I might give some advice, gentlemen,' the aide said, 'you should have your men cook as many rations as they possess and have them ready for a very early march in the morning.' He smiled and walked back into the house.
'My God,' Swynyard said faintly, 'a brigade.' The Colonel seemed moved nearer to tears than to exultation. He was silent for a few seconds, and Starbuck guessed he was praying; then Swynyard led the way to where their horses were picketed. 'I wasn't altogether honest with you earlier,' the Colonel said as he untied his horse. 'I knew Hotchkiss was sounding me out about the Legion's new commanding officer, but I dared not raise your hopes. Or mine, I confess.' Starbuck clumsily mounted the borrowed horse. 'Medlicott won't be happy.'
'The object of this war,' Colonel Swynyard said tartly, 'is to correct Abraham Lincoln's political misconceptions, not to make Captain Medlicott happy.' He waited until Starbuck had settled himself in the saddle. 'I thought you were going to upset Jackson.'
Starbuck grinned. 'Old Jack can hardly be expected to approve of womanizing, can he?'
Swynyard looked up at the sky. The last clouds had gone, and there was a splendor of stars arching over their heads. 'I suppose I shouldn't pass on rumor,' the Colonel said, 'but there are stories that Old Jack had a love child once. Long ago. The stories are probably untrue, but who knows? Maybe you have to know sin before you can hate it. Maybe the best of Christians are made from the worst of sinners?'
'So there's hope for me yet?' Starbuck asked teasingly.
'Only if you win battles, Starbuck, only if you win battles.' The Colonel looked at the younger man. 'The Legion won't be an easy job, Starbuck.'
'No, sir, but I'm the best man for it.' Starbuck smiled at the Colonel. 'I'm an arrogant son of a bitch, but by God I can fight.' And now he had a whole regiment to fight for him, and he could not wait to start.
General Thomas Jackson put the interview with Swynyard and Starbuck out of his mind the very second that they left the room, concentrating instead on the maps that Major Hotchkiss had painstakingly drawn for him. Those handmade maps, spread edge to edge on the trestle table where their corners were weighted down by candlesticks, showed the country north of the Rappahannock, the country where Robert Lee's impudent and daring idea would be put to the test. It was an idea that Jackson liked because it was challenging, and because it held immense possibilities.
Which meant it also held enormous risks.
The enemy was digging in beyond the steep northern bank of the Rappahannock, inviting the rebels to throw away their lives in vain attacks across the deep river. The enemy doubtless planned to stay behind the river while more and more of McClellan's regiments joined their ranks until, at last, their numbers were overpowering and they felt confident of sweeping Lee's ragged army clean out of history.
So Lee, in response, was proposing to break one of the fundamental rules of war. Lee was planning to split his already outnumbered army into two smaller armies, each one horribly vulnerable to attack. That vulnerability was the risk, but it was a risk predicated on the likelihood that John Pope would not attack but would instead sit tight behind his steep riverbank and wait for McClellan's regiments to swell his ranks.
So Lee planned to divert Pope's attention by making threatening movements on the Rappahannock's southern bank, and while Pope watched that diversion, Thomas Jackson would march westward with the smaller rebel army. Jackson would march with just twenty-four thousand men, who would go west, then north, and then, with God's help, eastward until they had hooked far and deep into the enemy's rear, and once behind Pope's lines that small rebel army would cut and slash and burn and destroy until John Pope would be forced to turn back to destroy it. Then the small army, the vulnerable army, would have to fight like the devil itself to give Lee time to come to its aid, but at least the rebels would be fighting on ground of their own choosing and not attacking across a blood-dyed river. Jackson's small army was the anvil, and Lee's bigger army the hammer, and by God's good grace John Pope's army would be caught between the two.
But if the hammer and anvil failed to come together, then the history books would say that Lee and Jackson had thrown away a country by breaking the basic rules of war. By mere tomfoolery.
But tomfoolery was the only weapon the rebels had left. And it might just work.
So tomorrow, in the dawn, Tom Fool Jackson would march.
***
THEY MARCHED. They marched like they had never marched in their lives before and like they hoped they would never have to march again.
They marched like no troops had ever marched, and they did it through a day as hot as hell and as dry as hell's bones, and through a thick dust kicked up by the men and horses who marched in front; a dust that coated their tongues and thickened their throats and stung their eyes.
They marched on broken boots or with no boots at all. They marched because Old Mad jack had told them he expected them to march, but no one knew why they were marching or where. First they marched west into a plump country unvisited by forage parties from either army, where the folk greeted the leading regiments with crackers, cheese, and milk, but there was not enough food to serve all the men who trudged past: regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade, the long hurting line of Jackson's foot cavalry heading west into America with dust on their faces and blood in their boots and sweat in their beards. 'Where are you going, boys?' an old man shouted at the troops.
'Going to lick the Yankees, Pa!' one man found the energy to call back, but no one except the General really knew their destination.
'Lick 'em good, boys! Lick the sumbitches good and hard!'
The Legion had been woken at three in the morning by bugles that had stirred weary men from a shallow sleep. The soldiers grumbled and cursed at Old Jack, then blew their fires alive to boil their foul-tasting coffee.
Starbuck issued all the ammunition the Legion possessed. Each man would carry thirty rounds, half the usual
