The Sword (26 page)

“No, I don’t think I do,” Butler said grimly. “If there’s a crime committed in my territory, I need to know it, and I need to do something about it.”

“I’ve committed a crime. I shot a man, and even if it was self-defense, in other days you would have arrested me and made me stand trial for it. But those old days are gone now, aren’t they? We’re getting ready to go to war, and the Howard brothers and I are on the same side, fighting for Virginia. I want stupid arguments like the one we had to be forgotten. There are much more important things at stake now.”

Butler continued to stare hard at Clay. “If I know those boys—and I do—I think they might have been so red-eyed mad about Belle that they might’ve chased you down. I think they might’ve chased you down like a stray dog. And when they found you, they might not have worried about who shot first or any niceties like self-defense.”

Clay was surprised at how close Butler had come to the truth. But it was true—the Howard brothers were all notorious for their tempers. Butler had dealt with them before. Clay merely shrugged and said, “Like I said, Sheriff, I want to forget all that now. So, unless you need me for anything more, I’m headed over to the fairgrounds.”

The sheriff finally nodded. “All right, Clay. Maybe you’re right. It’s time to fight some Yankees instead of each other. Me and my boy are joining up, too. I expect you’ll run into the Howards. If you have any more trouble with them, you just let me know. War or no war, I’ll slap them behind bars so fast their eyes will cross.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. But I don’t think I’ll have any more trouble with them.”

“Better not,” he said.

The Hermitage Fair Grounds, a wide field just northwest of the city, had in October of 1860 been renamed “Camp Lee,” after Colonel
Henry Lee, or as he was better known, “Light-Horse Harry Lee,” the best cavalryman in the Revolutionary War and a proud son of Virginia. Even before Lincoln’s election, soldiers—in particular, cavalrymen, for Virginia men loved their horses—had gathered as volunteer companies in Richmond. By November, sixteen companies, about eight hundred men, were camped there and gave weekly parades and reviews. An article in the
Richmond Dispatch
praising the encampment said, “The land is now overshadowed with ominous clouds, and none of us can tell how soon the services of the troops may be needed.”

Now that the time had come, the fairgrounds—as people continued to call it—was a mass of men, with hundreds of tents large and small.

As Clay rode onto the grounds, he saw that there were probably as many horses as there were men. Even poor men in Virginia usually had at least one fine saddle horse.

There was much shouting:

“Here! Henrico Light Dragoons here!”

“Hey you, Private What’s-your-name! What do you think you’re doing, riding a mule? Get down off that horse!”

“Officers of Company B Chesterfield! Meeting at two o’clock this afternoon!”

Such was the confusion that Clay had no idea where to go to enlist. A big two-story home was on a small rise overlooking the fairgrounds, and he guessed that would be the headquarters, so he carefully moved Lightning along in that general direction.

He paused before a large tent, obviously a field headquarters. Two men on powerful horses were standing at the ready behind a line drawn in the dirt. Ahead of them a path had been cleared to the far side of the grounds. Obviously a race was in the making, and Clay stopped to watch. The signal was given, and the snorting horses thundered off. Men lining the path cheered and whistled and yelled catcalls. When the race ended, the smaller horse, a graceful bay, had won over a much larger and more powerful gray. The two men turned and trotted back, grinning.

Someone slapped Lightning on the neck, and Clay looked down. A man stood there, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, wearing a wide-brimmed U.S. Cavalry hat. He was wearing a U.S. Army frock coat, but the insignia had been removed. As he looked up, eyes narrowing in the bright sunlight, Clay saw that he had blue eyes so bright they looked as if they projected their own light. His cinammon-colored mustache and beard were thick and bushy.

“Hello, sir,” he said, “that is a fine-looking mount you have there.”

“Thank you, sir,” Clay said, dismounting to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Clay Tremayne, from Lexington.”

“I’m Jeb Stuart,” he said, “of the great state of Virginia. I’ve just been commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel of Virginia infantry. Are you here to enlist, Mr. Tremayne?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” Clay replied. “I was just on my way up to headquarters to see the adjutant.”

Stuart stroked Lightning’s neck then in the expert manner of a true horseman, ran his hands down his chest and forelegs. “Very fine animal.” Standing upright again, he looked at Clay, and again Clay was impressed by his piercing blue eyes. Just now they were dancing with joviality. “I’d like to invite you to join me, Mr. Tremayne. I’ve already assembled a very fine group of men, and I think you’d be a valuable addition.”

“Me or my horse, sir?” Clay asked, stolid.

Stuart laughed, a rolling, booming laugh from deep in his chest. The men surrounding him couldn’t help but grin, including Clay.

“Both,” Stuart said. “In fact, if you think you might want to join up with some other outfit, I may ask your horse to volunteer.”

“But sir, didn’t I understand that you’re a colonel commanding infantry?” Clay asked in confusion.

“So they tell me,” Stuart said with some regret. “But somehow, it seems, most of the men who have volunteered for my command have very fine horses. It looks like we may be mounted infantry. Until we’re cavalry, that is,” he finished with a devilish grin.

Clay thrust out his hand. “Sir, my horse’s name is Lightning,
and he wishes to volunteer. And sometimes I think this horse is smarter than I am, so I generally do whatever he wants to do.”

Jeb Stuart said, “My kind of man.”

It was nine o’clock before Clay returned to Jacob’s wagon.

He and Chantel had stopped under a stand of trees just north of the fairgrounds, and they had been doing a brisk business all day. Although the government was provisioning the soldiers effectively, their numbers had grown to around eight thousand men in the city of Richmond, and so the food was spare and plain. Men flocked to the peddler’s wagon, buying candy and dried beef and canned foods.

Even at nine o’clock at night, there were still a bunch of them there, gathered around Jacob’s campfire, laughing and talking and trying to flirt with Chantel. Clay noticed that she smiled at them and was polite to them, but she took no part in any private conversation with any of them.

After a while they drifted away, and Clay rode in.

Jacob called, “Clay! Come in, come in. Share our fire. And I think that we have something left for supper, though I must say that we’ve almost been cleaned out of foodstuffs. I’ll have to get busy tomorrow and go to the warehouse district. I know I’ll be able to find wholesalers there. Anyway, we want to hear about your day.”

Clay dismounted and hurried to help Chantel, who was setting up a tripod over the fire. Soon they had it done, and she brought out a big iron pot. “I’ve been soaking these potatoes and carrots in beef broth all day, me,” she told Clay. “I put back one big slab of beef. I had to hide it or Grandpere would have sold it.” She gave him a very small smile.

Chantel had laid out the cot mattresses under the trees, and they went to sit by Jacob. Clay told them about Jeb Stuart. “And so Lightning volunteered to fight for the Glorious Cause, and Colonel Stuart is allowing me to come along with him. I hope you get to meet Colonel Stuart. He’s a very interesting man.”

Jacob looked out over the field, a sea of tents lit by hundreds of lanterns. “So many men,” he murmured. “And they’ve come so quickly to go to war.”

“All over the South there are camps like this,” Clay said. “And we’re spoiling for a fight. In fact, Colonel Stuart already has his orders. In a few days, we’re going to Harpers Ferry. The commanding officer there is a Colonel Thomas Jackson. He’s already invaded,” he told them, grinning. “Colonel Stuart told me he crossed the Potomac and seized Maryland Heights. Sounds like a good start to me.”

“It sounds as if you and your colonel spent some time talking,” Jacob observed. “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but then he’s not like any officer I ever heard of,” Clay answered. “He’s not at all standoffish. We started out talking about horseflesh and went to see some of the horses that his men have. Then we just started talking about the forces and some of the plans the War Department has already formed. And then he did something else I’ve never heard of.”

“What’s that?” Chantel asked curiously.

“He gave me a note to take to the adjutant when I enlisted,” he said. “I thought it was something to do with the regiment. But when I went in to enroll, the clerk looked up at me and asked, ‘Have you attended West Point, sir?’ Of course I said that I hadn’t, and then he told me that Colonel Stuart had recommended me as an officer. Second Lieutenant,” he finished with pride.

“Is—is that a good thing?” Chantel asked uncertainly.

“Sure is. I mean, this is a whole new way of forming an army, so a lot of the companies that form elect their officers. It’s not as if you have to have a commission from the War Department, unless it’s a promotion to a colonel or above. But still, I can’t imagine why Colonel Stuart just decided like that to make me one of his second lieutenants. Maybe it was because it’s so obvious that Lightning is a gentleman of quality.”

“Maybe,” Jacob said lightly. “But then again, maybe he saw the same thing in you.”

“Doubt that,” Clay said, smiling a little at Chantel. She didn’t return it, but he thought that maybe her expression was not quite as remote as it had been.

“I wonder,” Jacob went on, “just how many men will join this new army in the South. It will take many, many men to form an army that could defeat the United States Army in the North.”

Carelessly Clay said, “Who are they, anyway? They’re businessmen and merchants and farmers. In the South we grow up with rifles in our hands from the time we can walk. I believe with leaders like Colonel Stuart we will outfight them every time.”

“Maybe,” Jacob said softly. “I only pray God will shorten the time, and it will be over quickly.”

“It will be,” Clay said confidently. “I think that we’ll whip them, Jacob. And I think that they’ll turn and run right back across that river and leave us alone.”

Jacob nodded, but his thoughts were nowhere in agreement with Clay’s. He had lived in the North, traveled around it for years. He had seen the enormous bustling cities and gotten a sense of the hundreds of thousands of men who were of age to be in an army. He had seen the great factories, the commerce, the prosperity of the northern parts of America.

All of these were in stark contrast to the South. It was sparsely populated, its economy was based on cotton, and almost all of the industries that existed were based on cotton, too. There were no great munitions factories in the South, and as far as he knew, it had not developed an import-export trade to the extent that they could easily import arms.

But he said nothing of this to Clay, who was so obviously excited. Since he had known him, Clay had seemed to be a beaten man, aimless, unhappy. At least now he had a sense of purpose.