The first book in Bernard Cornwell's bestselling series on the American Civil War. Nathaniel Starbuck is a rebel, a young Yankee fighting for the South against the North. Estranged from his family and girl, Nathaniel Starbuck, a northern boy, arrives in Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederate south. He enlists in the Faulconer Legion, even though it means fighting against his own people in the first battle of Manassas that will announce the beginning of the American Civil War.