The man who put a company together generally won the election by which the volunteers chose their captain. There was no such familiarity and friendship to produce a similar outcome in Charles's troop; his roster included boys from the mountains, the piedmont, even his own low country. This assortment called for a leader who possessed not only good family background but also plenty of experience with military organization. Ambrose Pell, who'd opposed Charles in the election, had the former but not the latter. And Wade Hampton had indicated his clear choice before the balloting. Even so, Charles won with only a two-vote margin. He was beginning to wish he'd electioneered for Ambrose.

With the sweet summer breeze bathing his face, and Dasher moving smoothly under him, however, he felt he might be too concerned with discipline. Thus far, the war was a lark. One Yankee general, Butler, had already been trounced in a sharp fight at Bethel Church. The Yankee capital, presided over by the Western politician many South Carolinians called "the gorilla," was said to be a terrified village as deserted as Goldsmith's. The main problem in the four troops of Hampton Legion cavalry seemed to be an epidemic of bellyaches brought on by too many fetes in Richmond.

All the volunteers had signed on for twelve months, but none of them believed this muss between the two governments would last ninety days. Inhaling the fragrance of sun-warmed grass and horseflesh, Charles, twenty-five, tall and ruggedly handsome and deeply browned, found it hard to believe there really was a war in progress. He had even more trouble remembering the watery feel of the gut when a man heard bullets fired in anger, though he'd dodged his share before he resigned from the Second U.S. Cavalry in Texas early in the year and came home to join the Confederacy.

"Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west —" Charles smiled; Ambrose was singing the poem in a monotone. Others quickly joined in. "— through all the wide border his steed was the best"