“Scout across the bridge, will you?” McDowell requested genially, “and tell our fellows to send all captured colors back to me. Be sure of that, will you? All of them! And don’t worry about your foreign fellows. I’ll have a chat with them.” The general waved to a passing artillery troop. “Victory, boys, victory! On to Richmond! On to Richmond!” A fat and drunken congressman from New York was riding a limber westward, and the general good-naturedly saluted the politician. The congressman was a rascal, but his good opinion could be useful to a victorious general’s career when this short fighting season was done. “A great day, Congressman! A great day!”

“Another Yorktown, General! A veritable Waterloo!” A victorious general could also be of use to a congressman’s career, and so the fat politician waved his beaver hat in affable salute to the portly McDowell. “On to glory!” the congressman shouted, and waved his hat so vigorously that he almost lost his balance on the narrow limber seat.

“And Starbuck!” McDowell called after his aide who was already forcing his passage across the crowded bridge, “don’t let too many civilians clutter up the rear. That fellow won’t hurt, but we don’t want any ladies injured by stray shots, do we?”

“No, sir!” James Starbuck went to hunt for flags.

Colonel Washington Faulconer was also seeking colors, his own, and he found them in the pastureland north of the turnpike. At first all he could find were the shattered remnants of his precious Legion; a succession of powder-stained, weary men who straggled from the trees, dragging their rifles and scarcely able to recognize their own Colonel. A few men were still in good order, held so by officers or sergeants, but the majority had abandoned their expensive equipment and had lost any idea of where their companies, their officers or even their friends were. Some had retreated with the South Carolinians, some with the Louisianians, just as some men from those regiments now walked back with the Virginians. They were a beaten force, exhausted and stunned, and the Colonel watched them in appalled disbelief. Ethan Ridley, who had at last caught up with Faulconer, dared not even speak for fear of triggering the Colonel’s rage.

“This was Starbuck’s doing,” Washington Faulconer finally said, and Ridley just nodded in mute confirmation. “Have you seen Adam?” the Colonel called to the Legion’s survivors, but they just shook their heads. Some glanced up at the beautifully uniformed Colonel who sat his horse so elegantly then turned away to spit dry-mouthed at the meadow.

“Sir?” Ridley had glanced to his right and seen blue Yankee uniforms advancing from the wooden bridge that carried the turnpike across the small tributary of the Bull Run. “Sir!” he repeated more urgently.