It took Starbuck a half hour to arrange the attack. It should have taken only minutes, but the rain made everyone slow and Captain Moxey inevitably argued that the attack was a waste of time because it was bound to fail like the first. Moxey was a young, bitter man who resented Starbuck’s promotion. He was unpopular with most of the Legion, but on this rainy afternoon he was only saying what most of the men believed. They did not want to fight. They were too wet and cold and tired to fight, and even Starbuck was tempted to give in to the lethargy, but he sensed, despite his fear, that if a man yielded to terror once then he would yield again and again until he had no courage left. Soldiering, Starbuck had learned, was not about being comfortable, and commanding a regiment was not about giving men what they wanted, but about forcing them to do what they had never believed possible. Soldiering was about winning, and no victory every came from sheltering at a wood’s edge in the slathering rain. “We’re going,” he told Moxey flatly. “Those are our orders, and we’re damned well going.” Moxey shrugged as if to suggest that Starbuck was being a fool.

It took still more time for the four right-flank companies to ready themselves. They fixed bayonets, then shuffled to the corn’s edge, where a vast puddle was churning with water flooding from between the furrows. The Yankee guns had fired sporadically during the long moments when Starbuck had been preparing the Legion, each shot sending a blistering cloud of canister into the Southern-held trees as a means of dissuading the Confederates from any thoughts of hostility. The cannon fire left a sulphurous cloud of gunsmoke that drifted in the rain like mist. It was getting darker and darker, an unnaturally early twilight brought on by the sodden gray clouds. Starbuck positioned himself at the left-hand side of the attackers, closest to the Yankee guns, drew his bayonet, and slotted it onto his rifle’s muzzle. He wore no sword and carried no badges of rank, while his revolver, which might betray him to the Yankees as a Confederate officer, was holstered at his back where the enemy could not see it. He made sure the bayonet was firm on the rifle, then cupped his hands. “Davies! Truslow!” he shouted, wondering how any voice could cut through the pelting rain and gusting wind.

“Hear you!” Truslow called back.

Starbuck hesitated. Once he shouted the next command he committed himself to battle and he was suddenly assailed with another racking bout of shivering. The fear was sapping him, but he forced himself to draw breath and shout the order. “Fire!”

The volley sounded feeble, a mere crackle of rifles like the snapping of cornstalks, but Starbuck, to his surprise, found himself on his feet and shoving forward into the corn. “Come on!” he shouted at the men nearest him as he struggled through the stiff, tangling stalks. “Come on!” He knew he had to lead this attack and he could only hope that the Legion was following him. He heard some men crashing through the crop near him and Peter Waggoner was roaring encouragement from the right flank, but Starbuck could also hear the sergeants shouting at the laggards to get up and go forward. Those shouts told him that some men were still cowering in the shelter of the trees, but he dared not turn round to see how many were following him in case those followers should think that he was giving up the advance. The attack was ragged, but it was launched now and Starbuck forced himself blindly on, expecting a bullet at any second. One of his men raised a feeble rebel yell, but no one else took it up. They were all too tired and wet to shrill the defiant call.