“Not me,” Danson said.

“Goddamn it! Why couldn’t he have died in battle?” Faulconer turned the horse. “Adam! Duty for you!”

“I’m supposed to be going to the Rosskill depot, sir.”

“Ethan can go.”

“He’s fetching the ammunition.”

“Damn Rosskill! I want you to go to Miss Pelham. My best regards to her, you know what to say. Take her some flowers. Better still, fetch Moss on your way. If a preacher isn’t any good with the bereaved, then what the hell use is he?”

“You want me to go to Rosskill afterward?”

“Send Starbuck. You tell him what to do.” Starbuck had not been in the Colonel’s best books since the night in Richmond when he had stayed out till well past breakfast and had then refused to say where he had been. “Not that you need to be told what he’s been doing,” the Colonel had grumbled to his son that morning, “because it stands out a mile, but he might have the decency to tell us who she is.”

Now Nate was ordered to ride to the Rosskill depot of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad and tell the depot manager to prepare for the Legion’s arrival. Faulconer, who was a director of the railroad, had already sent a letter that, in anticipation of the orders from Richmond, had required two trains to be prepared for the Legion’s journey, but someone now had to ride to the depot and order the engineers to fire up their boxes and so raise steam. One train would consist of the railroad director’s car, which was reserved for Faulconer and his aides, and sufficient second-class passenger cars to carry the Legion’s nine hundred and thirty-two men, while the second train would consist of boxcars for supplies and horses, and open wagons for the Legion’s wagons, cannons, limbers and caissons. Adam handed Starbuck a copy of his father’s letter and a copy of the written orders that had been dispatched to the depot manager at dawn. “Roswell Jenkins’s company is supposed to be there by eleven, though God knows if they’ll be ready by then. They’re going to make ramps.”

“Ramps?”

“To get the horses into the wagons,” Adam explained. “Wish me luck. Miss Pelham is not the easiest of women. Dear God.”