Rebel Read online

  “Ready by Thursday, Mister Ridley.” The Williams warehouse was selling the Faulconer Legion a thousand pairs of boots, while other merchants were selling the regiment rifles, uniforms, percussion caps, buttons, bayonets, powder, cartridges, revolvers, tents, skillets, haversacks, canteens, tin mugs, hemp line, webbing belts: all the mundane necessities of military paraphernalia, and all of it coming from private warehouses because Washington Faulconer refused to deal with the Virginian government. “You have to understand, Reverend,” Ridley told Starbuck, “that Faulconer ain’t fond of the new governor, and the new governor ain’t fond of Faulconer. Faulconer thinks the governor will let him pay for the Legion, then steal it away from him, so we ain’t allowed to have anything to do with the state government. We’re not to encourage them, see? So we can’t buy goods out of the state armories, which makes life kind of difficult.” Though plainly Ethan Ridley had overcome many of the difficulties, for Starbuck’s notebook was filling impressively with lists of crates, boxes, barrels and sacks that needed to be collected and delivered to the town of Faulconer Court House. “Money,” Ridley told him, “that’s the key, Reverend. There’s a thousand fellows trying to buy equipment, and there’s a shortage of every thing, so you need deep pockets. Let’s go get a drink.”

  Ethan Ridley took a perverse delight in introducing Starbuck to the city’s taverns, especially the dark, rancid drinking houses that were hidden among the mills and lodging houses on the northern bank of the James River. “This ain’t like your father’s church, is it, Reverend?” Ridley would ask of some rat-infested, rotting hovel, and Starbuck would agree that the liquor den was indeed a far cry from his ordered, Boston upbringing where cleanliness had been a mark of God’s favor and abstinence a surety of his salvation.

  Ridley evidently wanted to savor the pleasure of shocking the Reverend Elial Starbuck’s son, yet even the filthiest of Richmond’s taverns held a romance for Starbuck solely because it was such a long way from his father’s Calvinist joylessness. It was not that Boston lacked drinking houses as poverty stricken and hopeless as any in Richmond, but Starbuck had never been inside Boston’s drinking dens and thus he took a strange satisfaction out of Ridley’s midday excursions into Richmond’s malodorous alleyways. The adventures seemed proof that he really had escaped his family’s cold, disapproving grasp, but Starbuck’s evident enjoyment of the expeditions only made Ridley try yet harder to shock him. “If I abandoned you in this place, Reverend,” Ridley threatened Starbuck in one seamen’s tavern that stank from the sewage dripping into the river from a rusting pipe not ten feet from the stillroom, “you’d have your throat cut inside five minutes.”

  “Because I’m a northerner?”

  “Because you’re wearing shoes.”

  “I’d be all right,” Starbuck boasted. He had no weapons, and the dozen men in the tavern looked capable of slitting a congregation of respectable throats with scarce a twinge of conscience, but Starbuck would not let himself show any fear in front of Ethan Ridley. “Leave me here if you want.”

  “You wouldn’t dare stay here on your own,” Ridley said.

  “Go on. See if I mind.” Starbuck turned to the serving hatch and snapped his fingers. “One more glass here. Just one!” That was pure bravado, for Starbuck hardly drank any alcohol. He would sip at a whiskey, but Ridley always finished the glass. The terror of sin haunted Starbuck, indeed it was that terror which gave the tavern excursions their piquancy, and liquor was one of the greater sins whose temptations Starbuck half-flirted with and half-resisted.

  Ridley laughed at Starbuck’s defiance. “You’ve got balls, Starbuck, I’ll say that.”

  “So leave me here.”

  “Faulconer won’t forgive me if I get you killed. You’re his new pet puppy, Reverend.”

  “Pet puppy?” Starbuck bridled at the words.

  “Don’t take offense, Reverend.” Ridley stamped on the butt of a smoked cigar and immediately lit another. He was a man of impatient appetites. “Faulconer’s a lonely man, and lonely men like having pet puppies. That’s why he’s so keen on secession.”

  “Because he’s lonely?” Starbuck did not understand.

  Ridley shook his head. He was lounging with his back against the counter, staring through a cracked dirty window to where a two-masted ship creaked against a crumbling river quay. “Faulconer supports the rebellion because he thinks it’ll make him popular with his father’s old friends. He’ll prove himself a more fervent southerner than any of them, because in a way he ain’t a southerner at all, you know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  Ridley grimaced, as though unwilling to explain himself, but then tried anyway. “He owns land, Reverend, but he don’t use it. He doesn’t farm it, he doesn’t plant it, he doesn’t even graze it. He just owns it and stares at it. He doesn’t have niggers, at least not as slaves. His money comes out of railroads and paper, and the paper comes out of New York or London. He’s probably more at home in Europe than here in Richmond, but that don’t stop him wanting to belong here. He wants to be a southerner, but he ain’t.” Ridley blew a plume of cigar smoke across the room, then turned his dark, sardonic gaze on Starbuck. “I’ll give you a piece of advice.”

  “Please.”

  “Keep agreeing with him,” Ridley said very seriously. “Family can disagree with Washington, which is why he don’t spend too much time with family, but private secretaries like you and me ain’t allowed any disagreements. Our job is to admire him. You understand me?”

  “He’s admirable anyway,” Starbuck said loyally.

  “I guess we’re all admirable,” Ridley said with amusement, “so long as we can find a pedestal high enough to stand on. Washington’s pedestal is his money, Reverend.”

  “And yours too?” Starbuck asked belligerently.

  “Not mine, Reverend. My father lost all the family money. My pedestal, Reverend, is horses. I’m the best damned horseman you’ll find this side of the Atlantic. Or any side for that matter.” Ridley grinned at his own lack of modesty, then tossed back his glass of whiskey. “Let’s go and see if those bastards at Boyle and Gamble have found the field glasses they promised me last week.”

  In the evenings Ridley would disappear to his half-brother’s rooms in Grace Street, leaving Starbuck to walk back to Washington Faulconer’s house through streets that were swarming with strange-looking creatures come from the deeper, farther reaches of the South. There were thin-shanked, gaunt-faced men from Alabama, longhaired, leather-skinned horse riders from Texas and bearded homespun volunteers from Mississippi, all of them armed like buccaneers and ready to drink themselves into fits of instant fury. Whores and liquor salesmen made small fortunes, city rents doubled and doubled again, and still the railroads brought fresh volunteers to Richmond. They had come, one and all, to protect the new Confederacy from the Yankees, though at first it looked as if the new Confederacy would be better advised to protect itself from its own defenders, but then, obedient to the insistent commands of the state’s newly appointed military commander, all the ragtag volunteers were swept away to the city’s Central Fair Grounds where cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were brought to teach them basic drill.

  That new commander of the Virginian militia, Major General Robert Lee, also insisted on paying a courtesy call on Washington Faulconer. Faulconer suspected that the proposed visit was a ploy by Virginia’s new governor to take control of the Legion, yet, despite his misgivings, Faulconer could scarcely refuse to receive a man who came from a Virginia family as old and prominent as his own. Ethan Ridley had left Richmond the day before Lee’s visit, and so Starbuck was ordered to be present at the meeting. “I want you to make notes of what’s said,” Faulconer warned him darkly. “Letcher’s not the kind of man to let a patriot raise a regiment. You mark my words, Nate, he’ll have sent Lee to take the Legion away from me.”

  Starbuck sat at one side of the study, a notebook open on his knees, though in the event nothing of any great impo
rtance was discussed. The middle-aged Lee, who was dressed in civilian clothes and attended by one young captain in the uniform of the state militia, first exchanged civilities with Faulconer, then formally, almost apologetically, explained that Governor Letcher had appointed him to command the state’s military forces and his first duty was to recruit, equip and train those forces, in which connection he understood that Mister Faulconer was raising a regiment in Faulconer County?

  “A legion,” Faulconer corrected him.

  “Ah yes, indeed, a legion.” Lee seemed quite flummoxed by the word.

  “And not one stand of its arms, not one cannon, not one cavalry saddle, not one buttonhook or one canteen, indeed not one item of its equipment, Lee, will be a charge upon the state,” Faulconer said proudly. “I am paying for it, down to the last bootlace.”

  “An expensive undertaking, Faulconer, I’m sure.” Lee frowned, as though puzzled by Faulconer’s generosity. The general had a great reputation, and folk in Richmond had taken immense comfort from the fact that he had returned to his native state rather than accept the command of Abraham Lincoln’s northern armies, but Starbuck, watching the quiet, neat, gray-bearded man, could see little evidence of the general’s supposed genius. Lee seemed reticent to the point of timidity and was entirely dwarfed by Washington Faulconer’s energy and enthusiasm. “You mention cannon and cavalry,” Lee said, speaking very diffidently, “does that mean your regiment, your Legion I should say, will consist of all arms?”

  “All arms?” Washington Faulconer was unfamiliar with the phrase.

  “The Legion will not consist of infantry alone?” Lee explained courteously.

  “Indeed. Indeed. I wish to bring the Confederacy a fully trained, fully equipped, wholly useful unit.” Faulconer paused to consider the wisdom of his next words, but then decided a little bombast would not be misplaced. “I fancy the Legion will be akin to Bonaparte’s elite troops. An imperial guard for the Confederacy.”

  “Ah, indeed.” It was hard to tell whether Lee was impressed or aghast at the vision. He paused for a few seconds, then calmly remarked that he looked forward to the day when such a Legion would be fully assimilated into the state’s forces. That was precisely what Faulconer feared most—a naked grab by Governor John Letcher to take command of his Legion and thus reduce it to yet another mediocre component in the state militia. Faulconer’s vision was much grander than the governor’s lukewarm ambitions, and, in defense of that vision, he made no response to Lee’s words. The general frowned. “You do understand, Mister Faulconer, that we must have order and arrangement?”

  “Discipline, you mean?”

  “The very word. We must use discipline.”

  Washington Faulconer ceded the point graciously, then enquired of Lee whether the state would like to assume the cost of outfitting and equipping the Faulconer Legion? He let that dangerous question dangle for a few seconds, then smiled. “As I made clear to you, Lee, my ambition is to provide the Confederacy with a finished article, a trained Legion, but if the state is to intervene”—he meant interfere, but was too tactful to use the word—“then I think it only right that the state should take over the necessary funding and, indeed, reimburse me for the monies already expressed. My secretary, Mister Starbuck, can give you a full accounting.”

  Lee received the threat without changing his placid, somewhat anxious expression. He glanced at Starbuck, seemed curious about the young man’s fading black eye, but made no comment. Instead he looked back to Washington Faulconer. “But you do intend to place the Legion under the proper authority?”

  “When it is trained, indeed.” Faulconer chuckled. “I am hardly proposing to wage a private war on the United States.”

  Lee did not smile at the small jest, instead he seemed rather downcast, but it seemed triumphantly clear to Starbuck that Washington Faulconer had won his victory over Governor Letcher’s representative and that the Faulconer Legion would not be assimilated into the new regiments being hurriedly raised across the state. “Your recruitment goes well?” Lee asked.

  “I have one of my best officers supervising the process. We’re only levying recruits in the county, not outside.” That was not wholly true, but Faulconer felt the state would respect his proprietorial rights inside Faulconer County, whereas if he too openly recruited outside the county the state might complain that he was poaching.

  Lee seemed happy enough with the reassurance. “And the training?” he asked. “It will be in competent hands?”

  “Extremely competent,” Faulconer said enthusiastically, but without adding any of the detail Lee clearly wanted to hear. In Faulconer’s absence the Legion’s training would be supervised by the Legion’s second in command, Major Alexander Pelham, who was a neighbor of Faulconer’s and a veteran of the War of 1812. Pelham was now in his seventies, but Faulconer claimed he was as able and vigorous as a man half his age. Pelham was also the only officer connected to the Legion who had ever experienced warfare, though as Ethan Ridley had cattily remarked to Starbuck, that experience had been confined to a single day’s action, and that single action had been the defeat at Bladensburg.

  Lee’s visit ended with an inconsequential exchange of views on how the war should be prosecuted. Faulconer vigorously pressed the necessity of capturing the city of Washington, while Lee talked of the urgent need to secure Virginia’s defenses, and afterward, with mutual assurances of goodwill, the two men parted. Washington Faulconer waited until the general had gone down the famous curved staircase, then exploded at Starbuck. “What chance do we have when fools like that are put in command? Dear God, Nate, but we need younger men, energetic men, hard-driving men, not washed-out, cautious buffoons!” He paced the room vigorously, impotent to express the full measure of his frustration. “I knew the governor would try to kidnap the Legion! But he’ll need to send someone with sharper claws than that!” He gestured scornfully toward the door through which Lee had left.

  “The newspapers say he’s the most admired soldier in America.” Starbuck could not resist the observation.

  “Admired for what? Keeping his pants clean in Mexico? If there’s going to be war, Nate, it will not be a romp against an ill-armed pack of Mexicans! You heard him, Nate! ‘The paramount importance of keeping the northern forces from attacking Richmond.’” Faulconer gave a rather good imitation of the softspoken Lee, then savaged him with criticism. “Defending Richmond isn’t paramount! What’s paramount is winning the war. It means hitting them hard and soon. It means attack, attack, attack!” He glanced at a side table where maps of the western part of Virginia lay beside a timetable of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Despite his denial of planning to wage a private war on the North, Washington Faulconer was plotting an attack on the rail line that fed supplies and recruits from the western states to the city of Washington. His ideas for the raid were still forming, but he was imagining a small, fast force of mounted soldiers who would burn down trestles, derail locomotives and tear up track. “I hope the fool didn’t see those maps,” he said in sudden worry.

  “I covered them with maps of Europe before General Lee arrived, sir,” Starbuck said.

  “You’re a brisk one, Nate! Well done! Thank God I’ve got young men like you, and none of Lee’s dullards from West Point. Is that why we’re supposed to admire him? Because he was a good superintendent of West Point? And what does that make him? It makes him a schoolmaster!” Faulconer’s scorn was palpable. “I know schoolmasters, Nate. My brother-in-law’s a schoolmaster and the man isn’t fit to be a cookhouse corporal, but he still insists I should make him an officer in the Legion. Never! Pecker is a fool! A cretin! A lunkhead! A heathen! A he-biddy. That’s what my brother-in-law is, Nate, a he-biddy!”

  Something in Washington Faulconer’s energetic tirade triggered Starbuck’s memory of the amusing stories Adam liked to tell about his eccentric schoolmaster uncle. “He was Adam’s tutor, sir, yes?”

  “He tutored both Adam and Anna. Now he runs the county school, a
nd Miriam wants me to make him a major.” Miriam was Washington Faulconer’s wife, a woman who remained secluded in the country and suffered from a debilitating variety of mysterious maladies. “Make Pecker a major!” Faulconer hooted with derisive laughter at the very idea. “My God, you wouldn’t put the pathetic fool in charge of a henhouse, let alone a regiment of fighting men! He’s a poor relation, Nate. That’s what Pecker is. A poor relation. Ah well, to work!”

  There was plenty of work. The house was besieged by callers, some wanting monetary help to develop a secret weapon they swore would bring instant victory to the South, others seeking an officer’s appointment with the Legion. A good number of the latter were professional European soldiers on half pay from their own armies, but all such petitioners were told that the Faulconer Legion would elect only local men to be its company officers and that Faulconer’s appointed aides would all be Virginians too. “Except for you, Nate,” Washington Faulconer told Starbuck, “that’s if you’d like to serve me?”

  “I’d be honored, sir.” And Starbuck felt a warm rush of gratitude for the kindness and trust that Faulconer was showing him.

  “You won’t find it hard to fight against your own kind, Nate?” Faulconer asked solicitously.

  “I feel more at home here, sir.”

  “And so you should. The South is the real America, Nate, not the North.”