Читать книгу Pale Blue Light - Skip Tucker - Страница 12

On the second day of the new year 1861, Canon took in one last gigantic example of what Mary Anna called a “Canon breakfast.” Classes were about to resume at VMI, and Mountain Eagle had written that preparations were under way for spring planting. It was time to return to the plantation, though Canon was reluctant to leave.

The professor walked Canon to the train station. The train for Montgomery was not scheduled for departure until noon, but the two wanted a long stroll and a talk. They had spoken rarely of the prospects of war and they were sick of hearing braggarts yearn for it.

In November, the lanky compromise Republican candidate from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected president of the United States. He was to take office in March. Until then, said the professor, no one would know what the man really stood for. Earlier in his political life, Lincoln had spoken in favor of the abolition of slavery. Now he had moderated his views. Let slave states remain slave states if it will keep the union together, Lincoln said. Let there be more power in state’s rights. But he said the union must remain inviolate.

James Buchanan, the lame duck president, had in early December argued against secession but expressed doubt of the constitutional power of Congress to make war upon a state.

South Carolina took him at his word and on December 20 became the first state to secede from the Union. The professor felt that all Southern states would secede, then use their secession as bargaining power to re-enter the Union on a basis of stronger state’s rights. Still he believed there could be no war.

“War is a great and terrible thing, Rabe,” he said. “I’m glad mine is behind me. It is my belief and my greatest wish that there is not one awaiting you.”

“What if there is war, professor?”

“There will be no war.”

“But what if war comes?”

“There will be no war.”

A light snow had dusted the ground New Year’s Day but evaporated with only a bit of mud left in its wake. The day was dry and chill. A west wind scudded high white clouds across a background of blue. Against it, both men wore heavy wool coats.

The black Arabian stallion named for the professor’s late nemesis had already been taken to the stable car by a groom.

Canon shook hands with the professor, who thanked Canon for the visit and wished him well. Promising to write, and extracting a promise from Canon to return in the summer for another visit, the professor bid him farewell.

He had been home five days when news flashed across the nation that Confederates had fired on the Union ship Star of the West as it tried to slip soldiers and supplies to relieve Fort Sumter.

Canon attempted to downplay the incident. He told Buck and Mountain Eagle of the professor’s doubts on the possibility of war. But the two men had shaken their heads, unconvinced.

Canon slipped easily back into the rituals of preparing for spring cotton planting. Gear was mended. Equipment was checked. Plow animals were put on rich feed and exercise. Old Scratch was enrolled in the Mountain Eagle school of obedience.

It was a dicey moment when Scratch came into the corral with Hammer. Canon and Mountain Eagle had tried to familiarize the huge horses with each other, holding them under rein as they sniffed and snorted. But sooner or later the two had to be by themselves in the big corral.

That day, had their natures ruled, the horses would have fought until one was defeated, likely dead. But the palomino had learned to love and trust his master, just as Scratch would learn. They faced each other, nostrils flaring, flanks quivering. Stamping and pawing, the gold and the black pealed out war cries to each other as the men cooed soothing words to them.

Love for the humans triumphed over Hammer’s nature. The horse spurned millennia of instinct when he turned his back on Scratch and trotted away. It took weeks for the animals to truly accept one another, but love and patience finally led the stallions into a friendship as fast as those developed by draught horses that pull side by side for years.

Scratch would learn from Hammer, as well as his trainers, and Hammer’s training was as complete as the three men could make it.

As a youth, Canon had seen circus horses perform tricks and feats of apparent intelligence he could hardly believe. He saw what animals could accomplish, and the idea was reinforced by the cunning of the Old Scratch turkey.

Mountain Eagle told tales of his time on the plains where he had seen Indian ponies perform in an almost magical manner.

An Indian’s war pony would on command stand stone still for hours at a time, refusing food or water, until released by his owner. At a touch, or even a signal, a war pony would drop to the ground either to hide or to act as a shield for his master. Like circus ponies, they would prance, rear, buck or circle on command.

All this and more had been taught Hammer. Hour upon hour, since Canon had brought the horse home, Hammer learned through a system of reward and withholding of rewards. He learned to respond only to commands from his masters. For the sheer joy of it, he had also been taught to respond to hand signals, code words and pressure signals transmitted by his rider through knee or hand.

But if given a certain code word or signal by any of his trio of trainers, Hammer would perform for anyone who gave commands. He would allow only the three on his back unless another code word or signal gave permission for another rider.

When the men thought Hammer ready, they gave a summer barbecue at Mulberry so they could put the big horse through his paces. The Canons and Mountain Eagle delighted in remembrances of the day.

Canon had walked through the crowd on the manicured back lawn, a rigless Hammer heeling like a hunting dog. On command, he pranced, danced, rolled over, reared. He counted for the crowd, pawing the tended lawn to the precise number of strokes called out by Canon. He fetched a lady her bonnet, then took the same bonnet from her head and circled the crowd left, then right, before returning it. He knelt to allow Canon easy access to his broad back, then rose so gently that a reclining Canon was never in danger of falling.

After that day, Hammer and Canon became the highlight of many a barbecue and rodeo.

On his return to Mulberry from Lexington, Canon set out to give Scratch the same training. But he was surprised by the intensity that Buck and Mountain Eagle put into it. Where they had worked three hours with Hammer, they worked six with Scratch. Canon put in his time, too, but Buck let plantation duties go in order to spend more time training Scratch.

He wondered about it, but the explanation came on the evening of the day they learned shots were fired on the Star of the West.

Canon knew at dinner that something was going on. Buck and Mountain Eagle, his two fathers, were strangely silent and preoccupied throughout the meal. When Buck invited Canon into the library for a drink, he knew by the grave demeanor of the men that he was about to learn whatever it was that troubled them.

In the library, on a corner study table, were two large wrapped packages. Buck sat in an easy chair near the window and motioned for Canon to take the seat next to the study table. Mountain Eagle poured brandy into three snifters then stationed himself stoically by the door, as if daring anyone to try to enter.

Canon was struck by the depth of the moment. What a strange family they were, but a wonderful one. The dusky Indian was dressed as usual, in a pullover linen shirt open at the neck and denim trousers. He was lean as the day he stepped out of the woods to challenge Buck. The elder Canon had grown broader, stocky as the stump of an oak. He wore as usual a short open coat, cotton shirt dyed gray and black cotton trousers. Canon was in his dinner dress of white planter’s suit.

He knew the three of them conversed less than other more conventional families, but it was a comfortable silence born of understanding and trust.

Buck motioned to the packages on the table.

“Belated Christmas gifts from me and the Eagle, Rabe,” he said. Canon rose, hefted one package, then the other. He chose the larger, lighter one. It was bulky. Under the wrapping was a hand-tooled gunbelt with twin cutaway holsters and cartridge loops. Each holster had a leather thong to slip snugly onto a pistol hammer to keep the weapon tied down. Leather thongs descended from the bottoms of the holsters so they could be strapped to the legs.

Its buckle was turquoise and carried the emblem, in silhouette, of a hawk’s head. The leather was light and supple and of an unusual color that looked liked muddy milk.

“It is made from the skin of a white buffalo,” said the Eagle simply. Canon could only nod. He knew what had to be inside the smaller, heavier package. A mahogany case gleamed, reflecting the lamplight, as he removed the paper wrapping.

The case was two feet by two. In the polished wood of the hinged lid was a lock, in the lock a key. Canon turned it, lifted the lid and swallowed hard. The twin pistols, lying barrel over barrel, were unlike anything he had seen.

Nestled in crushed red velvet, they gleamed as if with inner light. But as the metal of the pistols reflected light, so the handles absorbed it. They were of teak, Canon later learned, with luster deep enough to smell. Each grip bore the hawk silhouette.

The metal was too rich for iron. It beamed as if white hot. Canon lifted one of the huge guns out almost with reverence and, lo, it was part of his hand. There was weight, but no heaviness. That made sense, thought Canon. How could his own hand feel heavy?

“They are made of steel,” Buck said, “from Herr Krupp in Germany. I sent him a pair of your gloves. He wrote me that it took two weeks for him to find someone whose hands fit the gloves exactly. Then it took six men six months to make them.”

Canon knew his father’s statement wasn’t a boast or grandstand. He was simply explaining the reason for the wonderment in Canon’s eyes. He recalled telling Buck of the Krupp steel factory in Germany. He visited it during his time at Heidelberg. The pistols must have cost a fortune.

“They’re machined to .50 calibre,” said Buck. Canon lifted the pistol’s twin from the case, noticed that each revolver held seven rounds rather than the usual six. He put them aside and buckled on the gunbelt. Then he picked up the pistols and dropped them into the holsters, withdrew them. The holsters seemed to grab the pistols down, then spring them back into Canon’s hands, and the hawk heads kept the grips from being too smooth.

He looked to the two men.

“No one has ever gotten such a gift,” he said. “I thank my fathers.”

“The hawk is your war totem, my son,” said Mountain Eagle. “It is the hunting hawk, and I now so name you.”

“War?” said Canon hollowly.

“Listen to me, Rabe,” said Buck, “and please let me have my say before you speak. It’s time we settle this thing. Now it used to be I was pretty certain in my mind on most things. A thing was right or wrong, and no room in the middle.

“But the Eagle here showed me different. I’ve learned from him there are few absolutes, as he calls them, in the world. There’s no absolute guarantee that the sun will rise in the morning or that the mountains won’t shake themselves to pieces before tomorrow night.

“But I absolutely guarantee you that there will be war in this country, and it won’t be long in coming. And I reckon you’ll decide to fight, and you’d best be ready as you can be for it.

“There will be war, because wars are fought for gain, and not principles, and there’s gain to be had,” he said. Canon was surprised to hear Buck echo the professor’s sentiments, if in different terms. He paid attention. Entranced by his thoughts, Buck slipped back into the rugged speech pattern of the early frontier.

“From the time a’ the first ambush, when Cain picked up that rock, all fights and battles and wars have been for profit. Cain wanted Abel out of the way so he would gain the Lord’s attention.

“The Romans, Celts, Goths, Persians—all them tribes and peoples—they knew the more people they had under their rule the more tribute, which is another word for taxes, they could take. And they could use that money to build bigger and better armies.

“The Crusades and the Eastern wars are claimed to be fought because of religious differences. Religion wasn’t nothing but paint over a ugly fact. Whoever controlled the souls of the inhabitants of an area also controlled their wealth and lands.

“The Mongol armies was at least honest about it. One a them raiders even wrote a little poem about it and they took it as their rule. It’s the only poem I know:

I do not have a mill

with willow trees, I have a horse and a whip,

I will kill you and go.

“Right on up to British rule, whether it was rule over America or India or the open sea, if they called the tune, they also set the fee. That’s the way it is.

“Now this country is split just like Cain and Abel. One is industry and one is agriculture. I want high prices for my cotton and I don’t want to pay much to ship it North. And when it comes back to me in the form of a pair a long johns, well, I don’t want to pay much for them.

“The people who run the factories up there want it just the other way. They want me to sell my cotton cheap, and also pay to have it shipped and also pay dear for that pair a long johns.

“Some want me to free our slaves, the labor of which is the only way I can grow cotton cheap. But they want me to give up my labor and sell cheap cotton. Can’t be did.”

Canon held his peace in deference to his father. They had long ago agreed to disagree on the slavery question. “Slavery ain’t the only issue in the troubles between North and South, Rabe, but it can certainly be the fuse to the dynamite. And we all agree that any state or nation which allows a man to imprison or put to the lash any other man without due process of law is in the wrong.

“If the damned Yankee would come in here and talk sense instead of trying to heavy hand their way, this war might could be avoided. But nobody is even offering to pay us back the money we paid the Northern slave traders when they brought ’em here to sell. Not the Washington congress, not the abolitionists. Just wants us to free ’em. But it ain’t those who are behind the war, Rabe. It’s the man in the North who runs the factory. He wants Southern cotton to be cheap and stay cheap, meaning he wants to set the price. If the South separates from the Union, he ain’t gonna get it. And that’s why we ain’t gonna be allowed to go in peace. There will be war.”

“Then the South will lose,” said Canon heavily. “We don’t have the means or men to fight a war. We can’t whip the North. In the long run, we’ll lose.”

“You right about the long run, son. We can’t afford a long war. We got to whup ’em quick and whup ’em good, and we can do it. Because what little we have got in the way of men and equipment is ready and waiting.

“Southern units been drilling for war nearly a year. We ready for the thing and the Yankee ain’t. They don’t want to fight and don’t believe we will fight. But we will. We want to. And that’s the three main words which have been spoke here today. We want to. And a ounce of want to is worth a pound of anything else.

“I reckon England and France will jump in on our side, too, Rabe. They ought to, quick. They got a stake in this. They got between them every bit as much equipment and supply as the North. The only thing England and France ain’t got is the one thing we have got, by the field full, and that’s cotton. Let’s hope our friends won’t stand idly by. But even if they do, we can win, if we win quick.”

“Sir, you told me once that the South would win a long war.”

“Not a regular war, with regular armies, the way this one is shaping up to be. We could win a hit and run war, like we did the Revolutionary War. Any invaded country, and history will approve me on this, can outlast the invader if they wait long enough. And it will be us who gets invaded.

“I believe the South can and will win a war with the North if it lasts ten months or ten years. Anything much longer or much shorter, and we’ll be in trouble.

“One of the problems we got is this notion of Southern chivalry. All you young bloods want uniforms and yessir and nosir and face-to-face fights, more’s the pity. I don’t trust it.

“I tell you, if we could find a buyer who would run this plantation the way we run it, I would be in favor a’ selling and heading out to see the world.

“Two things are wrong with the idea. One is faith. Like I say, the South has got the want to, and want to ain’t nothing but faith. If we sell Mulberry, then some folks will think we ain’t got faith and it might shake their own faith a little bit. And it might be that little bit that might be needed to end this war quick, afore we get a lot of our boys killed and kill a lot of Yankee boys who probably ain’t so bad if you could get them to take a bath every now and again.

“The other thing is that I reckon you’ll feel like you got to fight, and nothing me or Mountain Eagle could do would stop you.

“You study tonight on what I say, Rabe, and you’ll see I’m right. And then you get some sleep a’cause you’ll need your rest.

“As of tomorrow daybreak, this here plantation goes on a war footing. Now let’s all have one more taste of brandy, and turn in.”

Buck and Mountain Eagle soon headed for their beds, but Canon stayed in the library until rooster’s hours. He found pen and paper. Next day, he mailed his letter to Bill Kelley.

Five weeks later, three hundred black horses ended a long trail drive from Houston when they were herded into a series of new corrals at Mulberry. Kelley had not been able to make the trip, though he had hoped to come so he could attend a ceremony held in Montgomery.

It was there, on February 18, 1861, that Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America.

The Canons were present for the oath. Mountain Eagle stayed at Mulberry to continue the care and training of the new horses and the men who would ride them. Canon had advertised in newspapers throughout Alabama for skilled riders to comprise a light brigade of cavalry.

Within two weeks, he picked three hundred of more than five hundred applicants. The morning of the inauguration, having been elected captain of the unit, Canon enrolled his and three hundred other names on the muster list of the Confederate Army.

He had reported to the makeshift garrison in Montgomery. There, he was told to return to Mulberry following the day’s ceremony and continue training until such time as needed.

That evening, he and Buck attended the Inaugural Ball. Buck was uncomfortable in tail coat; Canon was resplendent in his dove gray captain’s uniform.

Going through the receiving line, he saluted his new commander-in-chief. To his surprise, President Davis leaned over as he shook Canon’s hand and invited him to a meeting in his office.

Buck was not surprised, and said anybody who lays out the cash for three hundred horses and equipment ought to be in line for a word of thanks from the president of the Confederacy.

At the named hour of eleven P.M., Canon approached the door of the president’s office and was admitted by one of two burly guards standing sentry.

Inside, a coal fire tried to cast light throughout the large, well furnished office. Two lowered lanterns assisted the effort, but the room remained dimly lit. Davis greeted him warmly and drew him into the room.

The president was a small man, dwarfed by Canon’s huge frame. As is the nature of many smaller but successful men, he exhibited an air of confidence that bordered on arrogance.

Cigar smoke hung heavily in the room. In the feeble light, Canon could make out dim profiles of two men who sat in armchairs facing the fire. One of the men rose, and Canon recognized Robert E. Lee.

Lee, of late the commandant at West Point, had refused the position of leader of the Union Army in order to accept leadership of the South’s Army of Northern Virginia. He was under the command of General Albert Sydney Johnston, who as general of the armies was to remain in the deep South to command defense of the Western Theater.

He saluted Lee, then shook his hand.

“Captain Canon,” said President Davis, “there is someone else here I think you already know.”

“Forgive me for not rising, Captain,” came a familiar voice from the armchair in front of the fire. “I inadvertently took some black pepper in the president’s otherwise excellent vegetable salad, and my left leg is numb as cork.”

“Professor!” said a delighted Canon, hurrying to shake his hand. He stopped abruptly and had the forethought to stand at attention and salute. The professor wore colonel’s insignia on the sleeve of his gray coat.

“Merely a formality, sir,” said the professor genially. “The lads at VMI insisted I lead their unit. I doubt we see action. General Lee disagrees.”

Lee took it up as he, Davis and Canon took the other armchairs.

“Oh, I don’t pretend to far sight,” Lee said, “especially with so little to go on. But it appears we must prepare for the worst. That way we shall be ready for anything. If war is thrust upon us, there will certainly be battles. But I wish those people,” he pointed in the general direction of Washington, “would just leave us alone.”

“Neither do I pretend to far sight,” said Davis. Canon, as had the professor, refused the proffered humidor of Cuban cigars to which Davis was addicted. “We have little to go on as to how serious is the Northern threat of invasion,” Davis resumed. “But it appears to me we must prepare the best we can for the worst to happen. That way we will be ready for anything. There is, after all, the matter of the Star of the West.”

Canon wondered how the professor would respond to one of the hot issues of the day. On January 9, Confederates at Charleston had fired on the merchant vessel Star of the West as it approached Fort Sumter.

South Carolina had seceded in December and claimed Fort Sumter as its own. The Union garrison refused to leave. When the Confederacy laid siege to the fort, Star of the West attempted to secretly reinforce Sumter. Soldiers and supplies were concealed in the merchant steamer.

Many Southerners believed that President-elect Lincoln had intentionally leaked information about the attempted reinforcement, forcing the Confederacy’s hand.

“It was an astute political move by the North,” said the professor. “The Confederacy is perceived to have committed an overt act of war. But it made little real difference to the situation. It would still be madness for the North to attempt to invade the South, and vice versa.

“I fully agree that preparation for war is necessary, and we must protect our borders. But I maintain that war with the North is a preposterous notion. Yet we will play our part and set our bluff. And I will pray to God that neither side is so foolish as to start shooting.”

Discussion of strategies and tactics continued until midnight. Davis had been graduated through West Point as had Jackson. Canon, who was out of his depth and knew it, sat silently in rapt attention for most of the evening.

As midnight approached, Canon learned the reason for his being included.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed the companionship of you two this evening,” said Davis. “Now let us end the night by setting plans—contingencies, if you will.

“Colonel, on your return to the Institute, you will continue to drill and train your artillerymen, but on a more pressing basis. We must have expert artillery if we are to be an army.

“Captain Canon, you will return on the morrow to your home and also step up the training of your cavalry unit. If war comes, Southern cavalry will be the one facet in which we far outstrip the enemy.

“Artillery needs scouts. I am assigning you, Captain, on a tentative basis to the Virginia brigade. If the national crisis worsens, you will join your friend the professor in Virginia. You will prepare yourself and your troop and remain in readiness for my call.

“We will not be invaders, gentlemen, but neither will we allow ourselves to be invaded. We will, as noted, defend our borders.”

Davis showed the two friends to the door, shook their hands warmly and bade them goodnight. The professor took his leave from Canon.

“I am happy to know, Rabe,” he said, “that in the unlikely case of war, you will be with my Virginians. But I doubt we will see a shot fired in anger, and that is my hope and prayer.”

Canon raised his hand to salute Davis goodnight.

Canon dropped his hand, and three hundred grayclad horsemen streamed screaming with him down the hill toward the blue coated soldiers on the road below.

Canon was confident of his men. They had trained hard the past six months. When he left President Davis and the professor and returned to Mulberry, he found that Mountain Eagle had the plantation on a war footing. Campsites dotted the plantation fields like a village of Indian tepees.

Throughout February and March, the men of Mulberry had driven their three hundred volunteers mercilessly. When Fort Sumter finally fell on April 14, 1861, the call from Montgomery came. Canon’s cavalry was to join the Southern troop build up in Virginia.

Next morning, Captain Canon took his three hundred cavalrymen, every man on a sleek black horse, down the river road leading away from his home. He looked back once at the splendidly shining manor house, before the winding way hid it from view.

He could see miniature figures of Buck, Mountain Eagle and the house servants waving until they passed from his sight. He wondered if the other riders felt as he did as they left their own homes. Canon thought he would never see his home again.

Entraining in Montgomery, the light brigade detrained a day later at Harper’s Ferry. The Federal arsenal there was abandoned four days after Sumter surrendered. Professor Tom Jackson had been placed in charge of it, and Harper’s Ferry was now a training ground for the Confederacy.

Canon found that the professor had been given a nickname by the raw Rebel volunteers he trained. The men, for the most part, were illiterate but willing. However, they did not understand such things as feints and forced marches. The professor, used to autocracy in the classroom and having a penchant for secrecy, did not deign to explain these things to the recruits. He merely gave orders and expected them to be carried out.

After a few weeks of having men march five miles in one direction, then turning them back on their tracks to send them ten miles the opposite way, the professor came to be a sort of bad joke to the boys he trained.

They called him “Fool Tom” or “Tom Fool.”

But Canon watched the professor engineer a great coup that had earned him fame in Montgomery. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran through Harper’s Ferry. The South had little rolling railroad stock, and coveted the locomotives which passed through the town every day. Davis hoped that Maryland would join the Confederacy and forbade interference with the trains.

When it became clear that Maryland would not join the secession, the professor was given leeway to act. He sent a telegram to the owner of the B and O. The trains passing through his camp disrupted the routine of his men, he said. Would the railroad please restrict its schedule to one day per week?

A very accommodating railroad president returned word that he would be happy to do so. For a month, trains ran through Harper’s Ferry only on Wednesdays. Then the railroad president, happy that his trains were safe, received another telegram.

It would be an inconvenience, the professor said, but the trains passing at all hours on Wednesday still disrupted his men. Would it be possible for them to run only during a four-hour period on Wednesdays? The railroad complied again, and for a couple of weeks, the B and O railroad was the busiest in the world for four hours Wednesday afternoons.

On the third Wednesday, the professor sent troops twenty miles down the tracks in each direction, cut the track and captured twelve locomotives. Each was loaded on a specially built flat bed and pulled ten miles by horse to the nearest Southern line.

The professor was a hero in Montgomery, but still “Fool Tom” to his men.

Early in the evening of June third, Canon was called to the professor’s headquarters. Union General George McClellan had that day attacked and routed a Confederate stronghold at Philippi in western Virginia. It was a small victory, but one which cast the South in a bad light.

As his friend outlined the day’s dreary event, Canon’s excitement grew. The South would retaliate: Canon’s cavalry had been chosen for the attack.

Word had come from agents in Washington that a Union detachment which had captured Fort McHenry, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, was about to attack a nearby Confederate camp. The raid, as reported, was to take place within the week. Canon would take his cavalry and stop the Northerners. When he took the word to his men, the surrounding woods echoed with their Rebel yells.

But time passed with no orders to ride. For five days, Canon fidgeted. On the sixth, it was reported that there was troop activity at the fort. Canon called for his bugler to blow boots and saddles. Fifteen minutes later, riding Old Scratch, he led his men out to war.

By late afternoon, Canon had chosen the site for his ambush. It was an open plain on the road from Fort McHenry to the Confederate camp, near Old Bethel Church. A rolling hill lay five hundred yards to the eastern side of the road, the church house on the other.

As the Confederates made cold camp in thick fog on the far side of the hill, Canon walked apart, and whispered a prayer that he be granted war weather for next morning, that the fog hold.

Canon wanted the element of surprise, but he desired even more the element of fear.

Mountain Eagle told him years before of the White Horse Band of plains Indians. Twenty braves had each obtained a white horse, a signal of their totem. When they raided the villages of other tribes, the band always attacked at dawn, out of fog or mist when possible.

The band’s reputation soon grew to the point of myth. It became so that when the pale ponies thundered in, enemy braves ran or huddled in wigwams as often as they fought.

Canon also appreciated the use of fog or mist as ground cover. He had learned at Heidelberg how ancient Celts used fear and fog as allies. He studied the fierce strike troops of the Celts known as the Black Watch.

There was little in the way of strategy and tactics in those wild days. Invading armies marched in, the home guard marched out. Wherever place the two armies came together became the battleground.

The Celtic Black Watch changed all that.

Members of the Watch, in black tartan kilts, were berserk bagpipers who led the Celts into battle. Berserk, the Norse word for bear, was the term for warriors who became so charged with energy they went into frenzy in battle.

Wearing bearskins, the berserkers would fight on with wounds that would have killed most people. Greatly feared, the berserkers led the old Norse Viking into battle.

So it was with the Black Watch.

When the Celts went out to meet an invading force, they marched to within a mile of the aggressor and set up camp. They always arrived at dusk. They were always certain there would be a heavy ground fog the following morning.

Once battle fires were lit to announce their presence to the invaders, the Black Watch brought out bagpipes. The skirling of a single pipe, floating eerily out of the mist-shrouded night, reached the ears of the invaders.

Then the one pipe was joined by another, and another and another until, by midnight, the air for miles was charged with a keening cacophony that sounded as if God had stepped on the tail of Satan’s cat.

All night, hundreds of pipers played their war pipes. An hour before daylight, the piping would swell, then cease. Ireland’s mists would have covered the land like a pall. No birds twittered, no foxes barked. All living things were silenced by the shattering wail of the pipes.

White silence wrapped the invaders in the wraithy mist like a giant spectral spider web. After an hour of that oppressive nothingness, the nervous invaders would be half wild. Then the bagpipe music would burst like a pent-up flood and the army would begin to move, and the invaders knew the pipers were coming, and were coming for them.

Just as the morning mist began to lift, the Black Watch would lead the Celts screaming onto the enemy ground.

On most occasions, the unnerved enemy simply fled.

This effect Canon desired. Hence the three hundred coal black horses. Hence the prayer for ground fog.

Canon awaked at four A.M. the morning of June 10 to the ground fog he wanted. He sent out scouts, then had each man in the unit check harness and weapons. And he made sure each man took at least a mouthful of food. He wanted no hunger, no weakness.

The scouts returned a little after five A.M. with word that five hundred Federal infantrymen were on the road toward Bethel. An hour later, the cavalry was strung out side by side behind Canon, who lay on the ground just beneath the rise of the hill.

By seven A.M., the fog had begun to lift. Where the hell are they? Canon had fumed to himself, checking the Krupp fifties for the fiftieth time. I need this fog, dammit, he thought, going up against a force almost double our own.

The thrumping stamp of a marching troop came so fast on the heels of his silent plea that Canon could hardly believe it. Yet here they came, blue coats with brass buttons gleaming in the misty air.

Within ten minutes, the Yankee infantry column was arrayed in front of him. He back-crawled down the hill, turned and mounted Old Scratch. Canon drew his saber, held it high in his right hand. He felt, rather than saw, the men stiffen behind him. Of a sudden, battle lust of the ages was on him, in him, filling him with a blood rage.

But inside Canon’s head, sweet music he had never heard began to thrum. That it was ancient, he knew. It sounded of thousands of voices and orchestras of strange anachronistic instruments. It stirred him in a way he never felt. His mind seemed to take on a new dimension of clarity. He saw, heard, thought with crystal clearness.

“Reins in teeth, pistols in each hand, and scream like the devil, lads,” Canon shouted. “Send the Yankees to hell!” He rose high in the stirrups. The Black Horse Cavalry, as the unit came to be known, charged over the crest and down the hill with a shriek.

The yell had frozen and confused the Federal troop. The Union soldiers looked up and saw black horses, ridden by gray men through a gray fog, crashing down on them. Hear the roar of it! The sight was terrible to them. So numb were they that not a single musket was lifted before the Confederate cavalry was upon them.

Canon segued Scratch down the hill. The Black Horse scythed into the shocked Union column. The Northerners lost a third of their men on the first pass. Canon’s sword swept through a neck, with his other hand, he fired a bullet into the brain of a Yankee sergeant.

Into and through the blue column rode the cavalry, then it wheeled as one and pounded into the enemy again. The slaughter was over in minutes. Canon doubted that fifty shots were fired by the Union column. Most had thrown down their guns in surrender, many had bolted, not a few had fallen trembling to the ground.

It was not that the men weren’t brave. It was simply that they were unnerved and in a state of true shock from the suddenness and ferocity of the attack.

More than a hundred Union soldiers died, one-hundred fifty were wounded and the rest were taken prisoner. Canon did not lose a man.

Some survivors were so terrified by Canon’s cavalry that the professor released them to return to their army. In Richmond, in Montgomery, in Washington, word was spread of the terrible Black Horse Cavalry. He wanted the word spread. It was.

The rejoicing lasted only a month

On July 11, Union General George McClellan smashed a force of four thousand Rebels at the Battle of Rich Mountain. A week later, the real war got set to begin.

Twenty miles from Washington, in a picturesque valley cut here and there by small streams known to the locals as “runs,” a Jewish merchant named Manassa had in the early 1800s opened a general store. It sat at a crossroad, a junction, of two main thoroughfares. And though, by 1861, both the store and its owner had long since disappeared, the area still bore his name: Manassa’s Junction. It became known simply as Manassas.

Through the area ran the shallow stream, the run known as the Bull. Bull Run.

Manassas was now an important railroad junction, one that both North and South considered important. Both sides considered the junction their own.

The morning of July twenty-first, Canon and the professor sat on their horses, atop Henry House hill, and through field glasses watched the Union Army move this way and that, preparatory to attack.

Finally, at ten A.M., the blue army massed and thrust toward the Confederate middle. The gray line tightened to receive the charge.

“No, no,” muttered Fool Tom, under his breath, as if to himself. “It is a feint. Our troops must not concentrate so.” Again the Union troops began a charge, and again broke it off. More grayback soldiers rushed to support the center of the line.

“It is a feint, it is a feint,” said the professor. “Anyone could see that it is a feint.”

Canon, who could see nothing of the sort, remained silent, but the professor became more and more agitated. Canon, knowing not else what to do, said, “Professor, are you sure?”

Pale blue eyes, cold as ice, turned on Canon. “I am as sure,” came the reply, “as I am known as ‘Fool Tom.’”