"I'm going," she gasped.

"Madam," the officer said, "General Lee will provide for your safety and protection." He paused.

"If it was me," he whispered, "I'd want my Eleanor to be at my side."

Emily looked up at the officer. She felt at this moment that she should hate him with all her soul. It was someone in that uniform who had shot her James. But the look in his eyes, which were brimming with tears, stilled her anger.

"Thank you, Captain…"

"Cain. Bill Cain, ma'am. Headquarters staff for General Lee, stationed here in Baltimore. It's where I grew up."

He forced a smile through his tears.

"You might not remember me, Miss Hoffman, but I once danced with you at a social before the war. I met your fiance that night, an honorable gendeman."

"Mama, pack my things," Emily whispered.

Washington

August 26 6:00 A.M.

He almost wished that he was back on the train racing across Pennsylvania. At least for those wonderful twelve hours he was able to stretch out and sleep. No one disturbed him, the passenger car sealed and guarded. No news, no decisions, just peaceful rest.

He and his escort rode down the narrow streets of Georgetown, which in spite of the early hour was awake, filled with traffic. Troops by the thousands lined the roads, fully laden with backpacks, haversacks stuffed to overflowing, the men in long lines shuffling forward a few dozen feet, stopping, then moving again.

As he rode past them, the soldiers looked up, saluting. A few called his name, but they were tired, having been up nearly the entire night, filing down from the fortress lines. They kept the city awake with the constant tramp of their marching, the rumble of field pieces, the cracking whips of drivers urging on supply wagons. Men leaned wearily against muskets, swaying, some actually falling asleep standing up, then comrades nudging them awake when the column moved forward again a few dozen feet.

He caught sight of Winfield down by the docks. Amazingly, the man was actually on horseback, his features pale in the morning light, Elihu by his side. At his approach Winfield smiled and saluted.

"How goes it?" Lincoln asked.

"Oh, sir, the usual chaos." Winfield pointed to the docks and wharfs of the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal. Dozens of barges were lined up, troops filing aboard. A hoist was swinging the barrel of a thirty-pounder Parrott gun out over a barge and slowly lowering it down. The men were nervously standing back as the barrel came to rest in the hull, the boat sinking deeper into the water as it took on the burden.

It did indeed look like chaos, hundreds of workers hauling boxes of rations, ammunition, barrels of salt pork, and stacking them up inside the bulk-hauling boats, many of them coated with layers of coal dust from their years of service bringing coal down from the mountains of western Virginia. Troops were filing aboard passenger boats, a hundred men or more to each, and he could see a procession' of barges was already heading up the canal. Once aboard and settled in, the men relaxed, lying down to sleep, some sitting up, digging into their haversacks. One man had a small concertina out and was playing a lively jig.

"Ready to go!" The barge carrying three of the Parrott guns cast off, the four mules hauling it braying, digging in, their driver cursing at them, snapping a whip. The barge inched away from the wharf.

Resting in a sling by the side of a wharf was the massive barrel of a hundred-pound Parrott gun, twenty tons of metal, its iron carriage in another sling, dozens of men swarming around the monster, hooking cables to the thick woven mat the barrel was resting on. A work crew was busy carrying individual shells aboard, a hundred pounds each, and massive bags of grape and canister shot. Farther down the wharf, another boat, surrounded by sentries with bayoneted rifles, was loading barrels of powder, with hand-lettered EXPLOSIVES signs marking the entrance to the wharf.

"I should be leaving soon," Winfield said. "I think they've got the system down. I'll leave staff here to keep moving it along. I want to get up to the front. We have a brigade of mounted troops moving up the canal ahead of all this. Word will get out, and Mosby and his boys might try some mischief. I want to be up there if he does."

Lincoln nodded and extended his hand.

"Be careful, Winfield. You're a good man. Take care of yourself."

"Oh, I will, sir."

He started to dismount and a couple of young staff officers moved quickly by his side. It was not so much a dismounting as it was a lifting-down. He grimaced with the pain, but then, remembering Lincoln, he smiled.

"See, sir, no problem at all." He accepted his cane and leaned heavily on it. Then he limped off.

"Think he can handle it?" Lincoln asked, looking over at Elihu.

"If anyone can, it's him. He spent an hour with me yesterday morning, went over the details, and then was down here at the docks all day and clean through the night He knows his job."

"Fine, then. We made the right choice."

"Something curious going on you should know about," Elihu said, and motioned to a sidestreet, leading Lincoln as they wove through the columns of troops queuing up to get aboard the canal boats.

As they turned the corner Lincoln was startled to see hundreds of black men standing about in a crowd, many with shovels, picks, and axes on their shoulders. Others had wheelbarrows loaded down with baggage. Two men had between them a large two-man whipsaw. A scattering of them were armed with old muskets or pistols.

At their approach the milling crowd fell silent, many of the men taking their hats off, stepping back at Lincoln's approach. To his amazement Lincoln saw Jim Bartlett standing in the crowd-rather, standing out, since he was dressed in a fine suit while most of the men wore the ordinary clothes of laborers.

"Jim?" Lincoln asked. "May I ask what is going on here?"

Jim braced his shoulders back, staring Lincoln straight in the eye.

"Mr. President, remember last night when you asked me to see if men would be interested in volunteering short-term for some work?

"Well, we know where them boats are going." He nodded toward the canal barges loading up.

"How do you know that, Jim?"

With that a number of the men started to chuckle.

"Ain't no secrets from us colored folk, Mr. Lincoln," a burly worker replied, and that brought on more laughter.

"Too many of you white folks think we're invisible. We're cleaning the dishes and the missus starts gossiping with other ladies about what her husband just told her, we're sweeping the floor at Willard's and the officers are boasting, or we're emptying trash in the War Office and pieces of paper just come falling into our laps. Oh, we know."

That brought renewed laughter, and Lincoln could not suppress a grin. He instantly saw the wisdom of it, thinking himself of so many conversations in the White House with servants walking in and out of the room. By heavens, of course they'd know.

"What are you and your friends proposing, Jim?" Lincoln asked.

"Our hands, our backs. There are tens of thousands of colored in this city who want to do something, anything. Let us go with the soldiers. We can dig for them, and, sir, we know that's a worry of yours."

The burly man nudged the man next to him, a thin, frail gentleman with graying hair who stepped forward nervously.

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Washburne, I hope you ain't mad, but I brought coffee into the room while you and a general were talking. I heard you say something about moving the men, but maybe not having time to dig in proper, building forts and such."

Washburne looked at the speaker in amazement.

"You know I oughta fire you," he blustered. "What you overheard is a military secret."

"Oh, I heard Mr. Stanton talking all the time, a lot of things, sir, maybe you should know about, considering all the fuss he's kicking up in the newspapers."