Jack of Harts

The Virginia Defense Force is one of the very few regiments in America with a battle history going back to before the United States was even formed. What is often simply called the Virginia Regiment has served in nearly every major conflict since the French and Indian War. Or elements of it have, at least. It usually represented a final reserve of fighting potential, or a cadre of volunteers ready for more important duties, but by the beginning of the Second Great Depression, it served primarily in non-combat roles to support civil order. It was a glorified civil service agency with delusions of a grand history. That is what most people thought. It may have even been true. But the Virginia Regiment lived up to its name when it helped the Lexington police department rescue their captured mayor from Federal custody. And when they swore to rescue Virginia from Richmond’s tyranny.

The Commonwealth of Virginia military largely left Richmond and the eastern counties after Commonwealth and Federal law enforcement officers burned downtown Lexington to the ground and kidnapped the mayor and his family. It was not an entirely bloodless affair. Most of the higher ranks were loyal to Richmond, while most of the enlisted soldiers were loyal to the rest of Virginia. The torching of Lexington was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Firefights raged all over eastern and central Virginia for over a week, sometimes touched off by a unit moving without orders. Sometimes loyalty tests conducted by Commonwealth officials touched off the fighting when soldiers refused to be arrested for being insufficiently loyal to Richmond. Those units that made it to the west were rarely complete.

The mayor of Lexington took a bullet during the final firefight to rescue him and his family from the Federal law enforcement officers that had taken them from Lexington, Virginia. The Virginia Defense Force secured them and the surviving Lexington police department tended to the many wounds the mayor and his family suffered during the long ordeal. And when the mayor conducted his press conference an hour later, their injuries were visible for all to see. They were mostly scratches and bumps and bruises, but the mayor’s arm hung in a sling, and the bullet hole and bloodstains in his suit told that tale without words. His words were simple. The Federal government had burned his city, killed his people, and kidnapped his family because they had dared to protest against government abuses. He said that the time for protest was over. It was time to stand up to their abusers.