What he was supposed to do now was cross the cornfield and drive the Yankees out of the farther trees, but the Yankees had at least one regiment and a pair of field guns in that far wood and Starbuck’s combat-shrunken regiment had already been bloodied by those two guns. At first, as the Legion had waded into the tangle of rain-drenched corn stalks, Starbuck had thought the guns’ noise was merely thunder; then he had seen that his left-hand companies were being shredded and broken and he had noticed the Yankee gunners handspiking their weapons about to take the rest of the Legion in the flank. He had ordered his men to fire on the guns, but only a handful of rifles had powder dry enough to fire, and so he had yelled at the survivors to go back before the artillery fired again and then he had listened to the Northerners jeering at his defeated men. Now, twenty minutes later, he was still trying to find a way across or around the cornfield, but the ground to the left was an open space commanded by the enemy guns while the woods to the right were filled with still more Yankees.

The Legion plainly did not care if the Yankees stayed or went, for rain was their enemy now, not the North. Starbuck, as he walked toward the left-hand end of his line, noticed how the men took care not to catch his eye. They were praying he would not order another attack, for none of them wanted to stir out of the trees and go back into the water-logged corn. All they wanted was for the rain to stop and for a chance to make fires and a time to sleep. Above all to sleep. In the last month they had marched the length and breadth of Virginia’s northern countries; they had fought; they had beaten the enemy; they had marched and fought again; and now they were weary with marching and fighting. Their uniforms were rags, their boots were in tatters, their rations were moudly, and they were bone tired, and so far as Starbuck’s men were concerned the Yankees could keep the rain-soaked wood beyond the cornfield. They just wanted to rest. Some of them were sleeping now, despite the rain. They lay like the dead at the wood’s edge, their mouths open to the rain, and their beards and moustaches lank and dripping. Other men, truly dead, lay as though asleep in the bloodied corn.

“I thought we were winning this damned war,” Captain Ethan Davies greeted Starbuck.

“If it doesn’t stop raining,” Starbuck said, “we’ll let the damned navy come and win it for us. Can you see the guns?”

“They’re still there.” Davies jerked his head toward the dark wood.

“Bastards,” Starbuck said. He was angry with himself for not having seen the guns before ordering the first attack. The two cannon had been concealed behind a breastwork of branches, but he still cursed himself for not having suspected the ambush. The small Yankee victory galled him and the gall was worsened by an uncertainty whether the attack had really been necessary, for no one else seemed to be fighting. An occasional gun sounded somewhere in the bleak, wet gloom, and sometimes a rattle of musketry sounded over the crashing rain, but those sounds had nothing to do with Starbuck and he had received no further orders from Colonel Swynyard since the first urgent command to cross the cornfield. Perhaps, Starbuck hoped, the whole battle had been soaked into stalemate. Perhaps no one cared anymore. The enemy had been going back to Washington anyway so why not just let them go? “How do you know the guns haven’t gone?” he asked Davies.