View attachment 556448
The Freedom Party Guards, in their role as Featherston's personal bodyguards, still retained this role with gusto even as their duties began to branch outwards. Close to the President's office were the "Cardinals" division, named for their symbol, the State Bird of Virginia. With Featherston's sympathies to the state after his wartime role in the First Richmond Howitzers, he made sure the division was made up of "Hearty Virginia Stock" and personally ensured no "Highbrow Fourth Generation Fops" were enlisted into the division.
Physical requirements meant each member of the unit was the exact same height as Featherston, and were well-built but not muscular (It wouldn't do to make Featherston look like "a shrimpy farmboy" when they were escorting him up close) and had prior combat experience, either in the Great War or in Mexico afterwards.
The unit earned the nickname "Bloody Birds" for their rumored side duty of silencing critics of the Featherston Regime. It was said men from this unit were the ones who personally slew or arrested Whig officials who criticized the Featherston Regime after Jake's election, and hunted down Willy Knight's co-conspirators after the Stalwart leader's coup attempt.
The 3rd was among the few FPG units not deployed as combat troops or as guards over the Population Reduction camps, being kept close to Richmond to both protect Featherston and ensure a core of loyal men were close by in the event of a coup or, as the war progressed, Yankee Breakthrough.
the Unit met their end in the battle of Richmond, where the last 300 of the division held off Yankee troops from taking the Confederate Capitol Building for a good three days after the city's nominal surrender. Not one of the men surrendered.
their Red-winged Cap Badges are among the most prized of FPG emblems to collectors and museums, as so few were minted and even fewer were captured intact, as the guardsmen tried to ensure the badges were destroyed as to not end up as "Yankee Souvenirs."