“He did indeed. The troubles, as you see fit to call them, are a bloody invasion and a bloody war!” He knew that his wife disliked vulgarity and it gave him perverse pleasure to use it at this time. She was English by birth, very distantly related to the Queen, as she was fond of reminding him. Her eyes widened slightly, but she refused to be dragged into an argument.

“War?”

“The Americans, it seems, are the new masters of Ireland. While our troops are mucking about in Mexico, plotting some piddling invasion, the Americans have jumped the gun and are here. Now.”

“Our troops?” Sarah asked, stressing slightly the our.

Henry turned, fists clenched, to stare unseeingly out of the window. He was part of the Protestant landed gentry, one of the titled few in a sea of Catholics. Irish-born and reared, except for the few years at Cambridge, he was neither all of one nor part the other. Sarah had no problems. English-born, she carried that country locked into her bosom. But what about him? Where did he stand? What of his future?

Patrick Riley, manager of the estates of Trim Castle, had no such problem of identity. He had left the castle and walked to the row of tied cottages by the gatehouse. The door to his house opened directly into the kitchen. Peter, the Blessington butler, was waiting for him there. Seamus, the head groom, as well. Riley nodded at them and took down the stone crock and glasses for them all. Poured out good measures of whisky.

“Here’s to Ireland — free at last,” he said as he raised his glass.

“ ’Tis true, then,” Peter said.

“True as I’m sitting before you and drinking from this glass.”

“Not just rumors?” Seamus asked, always the suspicious one.

“Read it in the paper yourself,” he said, as he pulled a copy of the Irish Times from his tailcoat pocket and slammed it onto the table. The black letters of the headline leaped out at them:

“Glory be to God,” Peter said in a hushed voice, brushing the back of his hand across the newspaper, as delicately as he would a lover’s cheek.

“I gave his lordship a word or two about what was happening. But this paper is mine, for my children and their children’s children,” Riley said. “History has been made this day.”

“It has indeed,” Peter agreed, bending over to read the blessed words.

General William Tecumseh Sherman was also admiring the bold headline in the Irish Times. The first issue of the paper that had been published since the army had reached Dublin. Through the open window he could hear the cheering of the crowd outside in Sackville Street. He had moved his headquarters to the General Post Office here as soon as the telegraph wires had been repaired; all of them seemed to have terminated here. One of his aides had hung his big battleflag outside on the pole next to the main entrance. Now the street was packed solid with people come to see the flag and to cheer the liberating army.

“You are the man of the hour, General,” General Francis Meagher said as he came through the door.

“That credit belongs to you and your men in the Irish Brigade. First in battle, first in peace. We should hang an Irish flag up next to the stars and stripes.”

“We would if we could — but we don’t have one. Yet. I’m thinking that that will be the first order of business. But I’ll be forgetting my head next. The telegraph to Limerick is working again. The troop ship Memphis Star has finished loading and is just waiting for the message.”

“Fine. Here it is. Addressed to President Lincoln.” He handed it to an orderly who hurried away. “The Memphis Star is the fastest ship we have. Got a load of British prisoners below decks. Her captain assured me that she’ll do twenty-one knots all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia — that’s where the new cable to the United States ends. That message will be in the President’s hands just as soon as the ship docks there.”

Meagher shook his head. “It is a miracle of modern telegraphic communication. It is a brand new world that we live in.”

The Cabinet was meeting when Hay brought the telegram to the President and laid it on the table before him.

“The message from General Sherman that you have been waiting for, Mr. President.”

Lincoln found his fingers trembling slightly when he put his glasses on. But his voice was firm as he read the telegraph message aloud.

“ ‘It is with the greatest pleasure that I inform you that our forces in the field in Ireland have achieved success on every front. The landings in Limerick and Galway were relatively unopposed, so that the attacks on Dublin and Cork went as planned. There was fierce resistance from British troops defending Dublin, but their defeat was the order of the day. The same might be said of Cork as well. The joint operation with the Navy was most successful in all the cities. However the defenders of Belfast, and the counter-attacking forces in the north, put up a strong resistance. They were in the end overwhelmed and defeated.

“ ‘I have declared martial law until the garrisons and pockets of enemy troops we bypassed in our swift attack are neutralized. They pose no real threat to peace since they are few in number and disorganized. I can therefore truthfully state that we have prevailed by might of arms. Ireland is free.’ It is signed General William Tecumseh Sherman.”

“I make it five days from beginning to end,” the Secretary of War said. “History has seen a Forty Years’ War, as well as other conflicts both longer and shorter. But, gentlemen, I don’t think history has ever seen a war before that began and ended in less than a week. This is a new kind of war, just as General Sherman told us. A lightning war where the enemy is overwhelmed — even as they are discovering that they are being attacked. Ireland is taken, the usurper defeated, the deed done.”

“For that we are most grateful,” Lincoln said wearily. “I, for one, am tired of war no matter how swiftly executed, how rapidly won. Perhaps now our British cousins will read the handwriting on the wall and will begin to understand. The warring is done. We look only to peace in the future. My fondest wish is that they will now withdraw their troops from this hemisphere and join us in looking forward to a peaceful future.”

“This is impossible!” Queen Victoria shrieked, her face flaming red under her white face powder. “You stand before Us and say that We are no longer Queen of Ireland?”

Lord Palmerston bent his head in a sorrowful bow. “That, Your Majesty, appears to be the case. We have had the wired report from the Conqueror about her investigations of Cork. In Northern Ireland the Scots troops have fought a successful retreat and have returned with the news that Belfast is taken as well. In addition there is the telegram from Holyhead that the mail ship from Kingstown has arrived on schedule, for the first time in a week. There were only British passengers aboard, and the vessel was short-handed since only British sailors remained on her crew. However she did carry copies of an Irish newspaper, which, in its entirety, is being telegraphed here even as we speak.” He straightened up and proffered a handful of telegraph papers. “These are the first to arrive. They speak in some detail of the defeat of our forces and the jubilation of the natives at what is referred to as the removal of the English yoke…”

Palmerston ceased speaking when he realized that the Queen was no longer listening. She was wailing, half-fainting, crying into the kerchief held by one of the circle of ladies-in-waiting who attended her. Murmuring his regrets Lord Palmerston bowed his way out.

“A damn’ black day indeed!” he said as the door closed behind him. He shoved the papers into his pocket as he turned to leave the palace.