MacRae’s eyes were flinty and bright, his face ruddy and smooth from good health and exercise. This morning, he moved in a kind of aura. His tweeds were crisp. His riding boots—which he rarely wore on a business day—were spit-shined to a rich chocolate brown. His thinning blond hair was slicked in a side part, and his ears were as pink as if he’d been standing in the cold for an hour. He fairly glowed.

Beside him, Waddell seemed spectral, a black-and-white figure cut from the fabric of an earlier century: pale gray eyes sunk in deep, dark circles, silver hair and spiked goatee sheeny with oil, moustaches waxed to stiff points, high celluloid collar yellow against the white of his throat, black clawhammer coat both ridiculous and somber at this hour of the morning.

With great ceremony, Waddell consulted his watch. Where was Jenks? No matter—he couldn’t wait any longer. “Gentlemen,” he said in a soft, deep voice, then snapped his watchcase shut as if it were loaded to fire. “Time.”

MacRae donned his brown slouch hat, precisely blocked into a campaign crown, and led the Committee of Twenty-five across the porch and down the middle of Fifth Street to Market, where his saddled horse stood waiting at the armory. To J. Allan Taylor, he said, “Never doubt me, John.”

Striding hard on his sore legs, Colonel Waddell passed the line of men and took his place at the head, beside MacRae and Taylor. In a few minutes, he would ride. He was walking so fast the breeze pushed at the broad front brim of his plumed chapeau, the same one he’d worn at Richmond and the Petersburg Pike. His hand reached reflexively to his left hip to pat the hilt of his cavalry saber—but in the rush, he had forgotten to buckle it on.

Sam Jenks met them coming the other way. He greeted Waddell and his cousin and fell into step with them. He could tell by the look on MacRae’s face that these men were out to do serious business this morning. He could almost smell their nervous adrenaline, rank as sweat.

The Light Infantry had been mustering at the armory since before dawn. Everything had been arranged. All the right people had been told. Every man had his assignment. When Waddell’s party arrived, Donald MacRae and Captain James were waiting. Several hundred men armed with Winchesters and Colt pistols were milling about in the yard by the steps. Some of them had spent the night guarding First Baptist Church or patrolling the neighborhoods, reporting at intervals to Colonel Roger Moore, grand marshal of the vigilantes. Moore had set up command a few blocks from Waddell’s house in the other direction, at Fifth and Chestnut.