Starbuck pulled the bayonet off his rifle as he watched the Legion climb the last few yards. Maitland had deliberately held them back from the canister fire, and the men knew it, and while they were doubtless grateful to have been spared the last stuttering fire of the Yankee’s melting resistance, they also looked ashamed. The despised Yellowlegs had outperformed them, and Starbuck’s men called jeering greetings to the arriving Legion. Starbuck did not try to stop them, though he knew that Dennison’s company did not deserve the reward of a little pride. “Captain Dennison!” Starbuck shouted.

Dennison slouched along the crest where his men were spreading into empty rifle pits. Dennison expected a reprimand, but instead Starbuck pointed across the crest to the rifle pit he had vacated. “Your men can form the picket line,” he said. “Skirmish order a hundred paces down the hill. You can stay up here.” He pointed toward the rifle pit that he and Potter had vacated. “Make that rifle pit your headquarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t worry about the shell. It’s dead. Go on, hurry. Jump in before some bastard sharpshooter starts practicing on you.”

“Yes, sir,” Dennison said, then shouted at his men to follow him to the forward slope of the hill. Starbuck watched as Dennison jumped into the pit, then he turned away.

“What are you laughing at, Nate?” Colonel Swynyard, his horse abandoned for the battle’s duration, came striding along the hill.

“Just a petty revenge, sir.” He was ashamed of it now, but he could not undo the juvenile prank. “Nothing to worry you,” he added.

“Your lads did well,” Swynyard said, “real well, and I guess they’ll prove just as sound when we have to fight a proper battle. Well done, Nate, well done.” He paused. “You know why the Legion was slow?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I’d better find out,” he said grimly and paced toward Maitland.

And Starbuck tipped back his hat and wiped the sweat off his face. His battalion had fought its first proper fight. The Yellowlegs had not run away and life seemed suddenly sweet.

ADAM FAULCONER HAD ONCE OPPOSED THE WAR. Before it began, when debate had raged like prairie fire across America, he had been passionate in his quest for peace, but that passion had been overwhelmed by the bitterness of his country’s division. Adam had then returned home to fight for his native state, but he could find no allegiance there. His love stayed with a United States and so, risking breaking his family’s heart, he had crossed the lines and replaced his gray coat with a blue.

He had not regained his passion in the North. Instead he had found a dull anger that served as a replacement for what he now perceived had been youthful fervor touched with youthful ignorance. One man, Lyman Thorne had told Adam, can make a difference, and Adam wanted to be that man. He wanted the war to end, but he wanted it to end with complete Northern victory. The man who had once opposed war now embraced it like a lover, for war would be God’s punishment on the South. And the Southerners, Adam believed, had to be punished, not because they were at the heart of American slavery, but because they had broken the Union and so defiled what Adam knew to be God’s country. The South was the enemy of God, and Adam His self appointed champion.