Starbuck 01 Rebel by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Chapter 9

Orders came from Richmond that directed the Legion to the rail junction at Manassas where the rails of the Orange and Alexandria met the Manassas Gap line. The orders did not arrive till three days after Washington Faulconer had returned from Richmond, and even then the permission seemed grudging. The order was addressed to the commanding officer of the Faulconer County Regiment, as though the Richmond authorities did not want to dignify Washington Faulconer's achievement in raising the Legion, but at least they were allowing the Legion to join General Beauregard's Army of Northern Virginia as Faulconer had requested. General Lee had enclosed a curt note regretting, that it was not in his power to attach the "Faulconer County Regiment" to any one particular corps in Beauregard's army, indeed he took care to note that, because the regiment's availability had been made known to the authorities at such short notice and because the regiment had undertaken no brigade training of any kind, he doubted whether it could be used for anything other than detached duties. Washington Faulconer rather liked the sound of such duties until Major Pelham dryly noted that detached duties usually meant serving as baggage guards, railroad sentries or prisoner of war escorts.

If Lee's note was calculated to pique Washington Faulconer, it succeeded, though the Colonel declared it was no more than he expected from the mudsills in Richmond. General Beauregard, Faulconcr was certain, would prove more welcoming. Faulconcr's greatest concern was to reach Manassas before the war ended. Northern troops had crossed the Potomac in force and were said to be slowly advancing toward the Con-federate Army, and rumor in Richmond claimed that Beauregard planned to unleash a massive encircling move that would crush the northern invaders. The rumors added that if such a defeat did not persuade the United States to sue for peace, then Beauregard would cross the Potomac and capture Washington. Colonel Faulconer dreamed of riding his black charger, Saratoga, up the steps of the unfinished Capitol Building and in the fulfillment of that dream he was willing to swallow the worst of Richmond's insults, and thus the day after the arrival of the churlish order the Legion was woken two hours before dawn with orders to strike the tent lines and load the baggage wagons. The Colonel anticipated a swift march to the rail depot at Rosskill, yet somehow everything took much longer than anyone expected. No one seemed entirely certain how to disassemble the eleven giant cast-iron camp stoves that Faulconer had bought, nor had anyone thought to order the Legion's ammunition to be fetched out of its dry storage at Seven Springs.

News of the move also provoked the mothers, sweethearts and wives of the soldiers to bring one last gift to the encampment. Men who were already laden down with haversacks, weapons, knapsacks, blankets and cartridge boxes were given woolen scarves, coats,, capes, revolvers, bowie knives, jars of preserves, sacks of coffee, biscuits and buffalo robes, and all the

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