man so I’ll take the risk, but there’s a map of Richmond up in my sleeping room, and why would a man like me need a map of Richmond? Well, I ain’t going to tell you, sir, only because it would be downright unsoldierly of me to tell you, but I guess a clever man like you can work out which end of a snake has the bite.”
Adam looked up astonished at this implication that the regiment was planning to raid the rebel capital, and Galloway seemed about to make a firm demurral, but the Reverend Starbuck was gripped by Blythe’s promised coup. “You’ll go to Richmond?” he asked Blythe.
“The very city, sir. That den of evil and lair of the serpent. I wish I could tell you how I loathe the place, sir, but with God’s help we’ll scour it and burn it and cleanse it anew!”
The horse trader was now speaking a language the Reverend Starbuck longed to hear. The Boston preacher wanted promises of rebel humiliation and of dazzling Union victories, of exploits to rival the insolent achievements of the rebel Jeb Stuart. He did not want to hear of patient reconnaissance duties faithfully performed, but wild promises of Northern victories, and no amount of caution from Major Galloway would convince the preacher that Blythe’s promises were exaggerated. The Reverend Starbuck heard what he longed to hear, and to make it a reality he drew from his frock coat’s inner pocket a check. He borrowed a pen and an inkwell from the Major and then signed the check with a due solemnity.
“Praise the Lord,” William Blythe said when the check was signed.
“Praise Him indeed,” the preacher echoed piously, thrusting the check across the table toward Galloway. “That money comes, Major, from a consortium of New England abolitionist churches. It represents the hard-earned dollars of simple honest working folk, given gladly in a sacred cause. Use it well.”
“We shall do our utmost, sir,” Galloway said, then fell momentarily silent as he saw the check was not for the fifteen thousand dollars he had expected, but for twenty thousand. Blythe’s oratory had worked a small miracle. “And thank you, sir,” Galloway managed to say.
“And I ask only one thing in return,” the preacher said.
“Anything, sir!” Blythe said, spreading his big hands as though to encompass the whole wide world. “Anything at all!”
The preacher glanced at the wall over the wide garden doors, where a polished staff tipped with a lance head and a faded cavalry guidon was the room’s sole remaining decoration. “A flag,” the preacher said, “is important to a soldier, is it not?”
“It is, sir,” Galloway answered. The small guidon over the door had been the banner he had carried in the Mexican war.
“Sacred, you might say,” Blythe added.
“Then I should esteem it an honor if you would provide me with a rebel banner,” the preacher said, “that I can display in Boston as proof that our donations are doing God’s work.”
“You shall have your flag, sir!” Blythe promised swiftly. “I’ll make it my business to see you have one. When are you returning to Boston, sir?”
“At month’s end, Captain.”
“You’ll not go empty-handed, sir, not if my name’s Billy Blythe. I promise you, on my dear mother’s grave, sir, that you’ll have your rebel battle flag.”
Galloway shook his head, but the preacher did not see the gesture. He only saw a hated enemy battle flag hanging in the chancel of his church as an object of derision. The Reverend Starbuck pushed back his chair and consulted his fob watch. “I must be returning to the depot,” he said.
“Adam will drive you, sir,” Major Galloway said. The Major waited until the preacher was gone, then shook his head sadly. “You made a deal of promises, Billy.”
“And there was a deal of money at stake,” Blythe said carelessly, “and hell, I never did mind making promises.”
Galloway crossed to the open garden door, where he stared out at the sun-bleached lawn. “I don’t mind a man making promises, Billy, but I sure mind that he keeps them.”
“I always keep my promises, sure I do. I keep ’em in mind while I’m working out how to break them.” Blythe laughed. “Now are you going to give me aggravation for having fetched you your money? Hell, Joe, I get enough piety from young Faulconer.”
“Adam’s a good man.”
“I never said he weren’t a good man. I just said he’s a pious son of a righteous bitch and God only knows why you appointed him Captain.”
“Because he’s a good man,” Galloway said firmly, “and because his family is famous in Virginia, and because I like him. And I like you too, Billy, but not if you’re going to argue with Adam all the time. Now why don’t you go and get busy? You’ve got a flag to capture.”
Blythe scorned such a duty. “Have I? Hell! There’s plenty enough red, white, and blue cloth about, so we’ll just have your house niggers run up a quick rebel flag.”
Galloway sighed. “They’re my servants, Billy, servants.”
“Still niggers, ain’t they? And the girl can use a needle, can’t she? And the Reverend’ll never know the difference. She can make us a flag and I’ll tear it and dirty it a bit and that old fool will think we snatched it clean out of Jeff Davis’s own hands.” Blythe grinned at the idea, then picked up the check. He whistled appreciatively. “Reckon I talked us into a tidy profit, Joe.”
“I reckon you did too. So now you’ll go and spend it, Billy.” Galloway needed to equip Adam’s troop with horses and most of his men with sabers and firearms, but now, thanks to the generosity of the Reverend Starbuck’s abolitionists, the Galloway Horse would be as well equipped and mounted as any other cavalry regiment in the Northern army. “Spend half on horses and half on weapons and saddlery,” Galloway suggested.
“Horses are expensive, Joe,” Blythe warned. “The war’s made them scarce.”
“You’re a horse dealer, Billy, so go and work some horse-dealing magic. Unless you’d rather I let Adam go? He wants to buy his own horses.”
“Never let a boy do a man’s work, Joe,” Blythe said. He touched the preacher’s cheek to his lips and gave it an exaggerated kiss. “Praise the Lord,” Billy Blythe said, “just praise His holy name, amen.”
The Faulconer Legion made camp just a few miles north of the river where they had first glimpsed the baleful figure of their new commanding general. No one in the Legion knew where they were or where they were going or why they were marching there, but a passing artillery major who was a veteran of Jackson’s campaigns said that was the usual way of Old Jack. “You’ll know you’ve arrived just as soon as the enemy does and no sooner,” the Major said, then begged a bucket of water for his horse.
The Brigade headquarters erected tents, but none of the regiments bothered with such luxuries. The Faulconer Legion had started the war with three wagonloads of tents but now had only two tents left, both reserved for Doctor Danson. The men had become adept at manufacturing shelters from branches and sod, though on this warm evening no one needed protection from the weather. Work parties fetched wood for campfires while others carried water from a stream a mile away. Some of the men sat with their bare feet dangling in the stream, trying to wash away the blisters and blood of the day’s march. The
