Rebel is the first in the Nathaniel Starbuck series. Cornwell is best known for the Richard Sharpe series, but he has also written novels about Stonehenge and the Arthurian legend (all on my must-read list). The Starbuck series follows Nate Starbuck, son of Elial Joseph Starbuck, a radical abolitionist preacher, to the South, where he enlists in the Faulconer Legion, more from antagonism toward his father than from any allegiance to states’ rights or slavery. Nate, while at Yale Seminary, had become enamored of a lithe (lithe, always lithe) young actress, who cons him into helping her rob the owner of the theater where she is performing. They flee together to Virginia just as Fort Sumter falls. She is met at the station by her lover and dumps Nate who, recognized as a Yankee, is about to be tarred and feathered by a mob, when he is summarily rescued by Washington Faulconer, an incredibly wealthy Virginia scion. Faulconer’s money was all made in the stock market and railroads, so his manumission of household slaves hardly represented much commitment to any particular position on the slavery issue. He takes Nate on first as his secretary, then as a lieutenant in his new legion. Elial is incensed at his son’s betrayal of abolitionist values.
Elial is the classic zealot who insists one can recognize a Southerner on sight because of their ape-like features stemming from poor breeding, hence their addiction to slavery. Elial glories in the destruction and blood of the battlefield and hands out biblical tracts to dying men, ignoring their pleas for water. Thaddeus Bird, Faulconer’s brother-in-law, is one of the funniest characters, and he nails Faulconer’s braggadocio and arrogance. He recognizes Nate's valuable qualities. "He can think, Adam, and that's a distressingly rare talent among young men. Most of you believe that it is sufficient to merely agree with the prevailing sentiment, which is of course what dogs and churchgoers do. Starbuck has a mind. . . . and he's endowed with a talent for cruelty."
Another favorite quote of mine attributed to his famous general grandfather is: "War is much like making love to a woman, an activity full of delights, but none of them predictable, and the best of them capable of inflicting grievous injury on a man.” Vignettes of famous people abound. The image of Nathaniel Banks, the Union general at Second Manassas, filled with self-importance, who wanted nothing better than to run for president, preening himself in front of his sycophants until he realizes things are not going so well against Stonewall is a minor classic. Belvidere Delaney, the Southern attorney who presciently realizes the North will win the war and who volunteers to spy for the north is another wonderfully drawn character. Another great character is the foul-mouthed swear-you-under-the-table Nathan Evans, a Confederate colonel. For example: "Faulconer doesn't have men, boy, he has white-livered fairies, Milksops, Mudsills, Black-assed, shadbellied, shit-faced, pussy-hearted trash. . . ] Boston, a shit hole. A piss hole. A city of puking crap, Christ, but I hate Boston. A city of Black-assed Republican trash. A city of interfering, hymn-singing, lickbelly women who are no damned good for anything." Let's see Tony Soprano top that!
Cornwell must have done considerable research. One scene has all the qualities of verisimilitude and too delightful not to quote. A surgeon has just amputated a Northern soldier’s leg and the patient won’t come up from under the chloroform haze despite the ammonia spirits the assistant is waving under his nose. “ ‘Give me the chloroform,’ the doctor ordered, then took a scalpel to the patient’s torn trousers and cut back the tattered, bloody cloth to reveal the man’s genitals. ‘Behold a miracle,’ the doctor announced and poured a trickle of chloroform onto the unconscious man’s testicles. The man seemed to go into instant spasm and tried to sit up. ‘Frozen balls,’ the doctor said happily, ‘known in the profession as the Lazarus effect.’ ” The book culminates with the Battle of Manassas, during which Starbuck discovers his true vocation, that of a soldier. The battle scenes, while horribly realistic, are less interesting than the characters surrounding Nate. Nate, having met the “elephant” realizes that even though terrified, it appeals to him. He learned that “war was a gigantic game of chance, a huge gamble, a denial of all predestination and prudence.” The adventures continue in the second volume, entitled [b:Copperhead.
