My second Dark Confederacy posse has its roots firmly planted in the old Virginia aristocracy, although in this case it is very much the sort of aristocracy whose neighbours learned that an invitation to dinner was best accepted before sunset. At its centre is Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair, master of Blackthorn Hall, an old plantation lying among the wooded ridges and rolling farmland of Virginia, where the Saint Clair family had accumulated land, influence and enemies for generations.
The Saint Clairs traced their American ancestry back to the colonial period and regarded themselves as Virginians first and almost everything else a very distant second. Generations of the family had served as lawyers, magistrates, militia officers and politicians, while younger sons had traditionally entered the army or found some other suitably respectable occupation involving horses and firearms. Blackthorn Hall reflected that history, with family portraits covering its walls, weapons from earlier wars hanging above fireplaces and a library containing several generations of correspondence, military journals and books that became considerably more unusual the farther one ventured towards the locked cabinets at the rear of the room.
Lucien grew up surrounded by stories of family service and developed particularly strong connections with the 27th Virginia Cavalry (Author’s note: I know there were only 26 Virginian Cavalry Regiments in the “War of Southern Independence”), with relatives, neighbours and family retainers serving in its ranks during the war. Blackthorn Hall became an unofficial stopping place for officers and men whenever circumstances allowed, its stables supplying fresh mounts while its cellars and kitchens supplied those things that cavalrymen generally considered equally important. Lucien never forgot the sight of Confederate horsemen gathering beneath the trees before riding away, nor how many of those familiar faces never returned.
Although wealthy enough to avoid much of the hardship experienced by ordinary soldiers, Lucien was no coward and remained closely associated with the regiment and its veterans. The war nevertheless affected him profoundly, as casualty lists steadily removed relatives and childhood friends while the world into which he had been born collapsed around him. When peace finally came, Blackthorn Hall remained standing, but its fields were neglected, its fortune diminished and many of the chairs around the Saint Clair dining table permanently empty.
Lucien increasingly withdrew into the family library, where an earlier interest in history and antiquarianism gradually moved towards spiritualism, folklore and considerably darker subjects. He became fascinated by the possibility that death might not represent the absolute boundary that conventional religion and science assumed, and his considerable remaining wealth allowed him to acquire obscure manuscripts, forbidden texts and strange objects from dealers throughout America and Europe. Visitors became increasingly rare, servants began finding excuses to leave Blackthorn Hall and strange lights were occasionally reported in rooms that had supposedly been locked for years.
Behind the house, beyond an avenue of ancient oaks, lay the Saint Clair family burial ground, surrounded by a large wall and dominated by weathered monuments carrying names familiar from almost two centuries of Virginia history. Among them were several comparatively recent graves belonging to men who had ridden with the 27th Virginia Cavalry, including that of Colonel Augustus Beauregard Saint Clair and his beloved charger, Beauregard. one of the family’s great Confederate heroes and a celebrated cavalry commander whose exploits had become part of Saint Clair legend.
Lucien began spending more and more time there after dark.
Precisely what he discovered among those graves remains uncertain, although Blackthorn Hall’s remaining servants became accustomed to seeing their master walking towards the family plot carrying books, lanterns and occasionally objects that respectable gentlemen had little reason to possess. There were nights when unusual lights could be seen between the headstones and mornings when the earth around particular graves appeared to have been disturbed despite there being no evidence that anyone had entered the cemetery.
Lucien himself dismisses such observations as the imagination of superstitious servants, although he has never provided a particularly satisfactory explanation for why several old cavalry saddles have recently disappeared from the Blackthorn Hall tack room.
What is certain is that Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair is no longer simply an eccentric Virginia gentleman with an unhealthy interest in the occult. He has become a necromancer of considerable ability and the centre of a new Dark Confederacy posse, drawing around him former soldiers, desperate gunmen and men whose loyalty to the old cause survived considerably better than the cause itself. Some follow him because of the Saint Clair name, others because of his money, while a few seem to have known Blackthorn Hall and its master for much longer than their appearance should reasonably permit.
Visitors occasionally remark that the Saint Clair family plot contains rather more empty spaces than it once did.
Lucien merely smiles, pours another glass of Bumgardner’s Pure Old Rye and changes the subject.