LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SWYNYARD STOOD AT THE RIVER’S edge and thanked his God that he had been spared to witness this moment. A small breeze rippled the water to splinter up a myriad of bright sparkles reflected from a sun that blazed in a cloudless summer sky. At least three bands were playing and in this place, on this day, there was only one tune that they would ever play, though the colonel thought it was a pity that they did not play in unison, but instead competed merrily as they celebrated the momentous event. Swynyard’s maimed left hand beat against his sword scabbard in time to the closest band, then, almost unaware of it, he began to sing. “Dear mother,” the colonel sang softly, “burst the tyrant’s chain. Maryland! Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland!” His voice became louder as the emotion of the hour embraced him. “She meets her sister on the plain; Sic semper! ’tis the proud refrain that baffles minions back amain, Maryland, my Maryland.”

A burst of clapping sounded from the nearest company of the Faulconer Legion and Swynyard, oblivious that he had raised his voice loud enough to be heard, blushed as he turned and acknowledged the ironic applause. There had been a time, and not long before either, when these men cursed the very sight of Griffin Swynyard, but they had been won over by Christ’s grace, or rather by the workings of that grace inside Swynyard, and now the colonel knew that the men liked him and for that blessing he could have wept this day, except that he was already weeping for sheer joy at this moment.

For the Southern army of Robert Lee, which had fought again and again against the Northern invaders of its country, was crossing the Potomac.

They were going north.

The Confederacy was taking the war into the United States of America. For a year now the Yankees had marched on Southern soil, had stolen from Southern farms, and boasted of sacking the Southern capital, but now the invaded had become the invaders and a great dark line of men was crossing the ford beneath the battle flags of the South. “I hear the distant thunder-hum,” Swynyard sang and this time the Legion sang with him, their voices swelling beside the river in wondrous harmony. “Maryland! The old line’s bugle, fife and drum, Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb; Huzzah! She spurns the northern scum! She breathes, she burns, she’ll come, she’ll come! Maryland, my Maryland!”

“They’re in good voice, Swynyard, good voice!” The speaker was Colonel Ned Maitland, the Legion’s new commander, who spurred his horse to Swynyard’s side. Swynyard was on foot because his horse, the one luxury he possessed, was being rested. A man like Maitland might need three saddle horses and four pack-mules loaded with belongings to ensure his comfort on a campaign, but Swynyard had forsworn all such fripperies. He owned a horse because a brigade commander could not do his job without one, and he had inherited a tent and a servant from Thaddeus Bird, but the tent belonged to the army and the servant, a half-witted soldier called Hiram Ketley, would return to Bird’s service when Bird was recovered from the wound he had taken at Cedar Mountain.