It's an easy read about an unlikely confederate: Nathaniel Starbuck is the son of a Northern abolitionist preacher. Although he was destined for the ministry himself, Starbuck makes a series of bad choices that land him desperate and destitute in Virginia just as Fort Sumter is fired upon.
He must choose a side.
And as so often happens, that choice depends on a girl.
Once he has chosen to abandon his family and his family's values, he leads a ragtag, amateur bunch of hopped up Virginians in the Battle of Bull Run... where they flee in defeat. But that battle is just beginning and Starbuck will live to see the Southeventually defeat the North soundly in that first major battle.
Now I have to read the next one!
At first, I was a bit disappointed that Starbuck saw his religious family and its values as worthy of rejection. Obviously, I heartily disagree. I also don't love that he's fighting for slavery and the right to own people.
But it's Cornwell. I think he relishes making religion, specifically Christianity, look hypocritical and soul-crushing. It's more fun to rebel against the True, Good, and Beautiful. I should have expected nothing less. In Cornwell's world up is down and good is bad and morality is how you define it. I guess that works in fiction, but I know enough to know it's a fools errand.
But it is awfully fun to read and to relive history that way!
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