1862

“He looks worried,” Nathan said to John Hay. They had declined to climb onto the parapet.

“Wouldn't you be?” Hay replied wryly. “He is surrounded by his enemies, both figuratively and nearly literally.”

Access to Washington from the rest of the Union was only by one Baltimore & Ohio rail line and a bad dirt road, the Bladensburg Pike. Both ran from Baltimore and it was feared they could be cut at any time. Nathan recalled travelling the Bladensburg road so many months before.

Two of Mr. Lowe's three observation balloons soared thousands of feet into the air, where observers confirmed the obvious-no Confederate army was in the vicinity. To further confirm this and to assist the balloons on those days when weather kept them grounded, numerous patrols were undertaken by the army.

At President Lincoln's insistence, his small entourage had taken carriages to Fort Stephens just so the president could see the defenses. He had done it before, and appeared to enjoy the opportunity to interact with the soldiers who ma

The previous day he had cleared his schedule and a

Nathan heard a distant pop. It sounded like a bubble bursting. “What the hell?” he said, and then recognized the sound. “Gunfire?”

A couple more pops followed and then the sound of a scream. A body toppled back behind the earthen wall. A soldier standing near Lincoln had been hit in the face and lay twitching on the ground. To Nathan's horror, Abraham Lincoln was still exposed on the parapet, although the others were scattering rapidly. Nathan jumped up beside the president. Lincoln looked stu

“Why did they shoot that boy?” he asked in confused disbelief.

More gunfire was heard and Nathan saw clouds of gun-smoke from about two hundred yards out. He grabbed the president and unceremoniously shoved him off the embankment and down to safety. As he landed behind Lincoln, he heard the thwack of bullets smacking the earth where they had just stood.

“Sir,” Nathan gasped, “they weren't shooting at that boy. They were shooting at you.”

Lincoln had regained control of himself. He realized that he must have made a splendid target in a top hat and standing exposed on the wall of a fort. He was about to say something when the great guns of Fort Stephens opened up on the place where smoke from the sniper's guns still hung in the air. Nathan didn't think any enemy sharpshooters would be hit because they were a small target and probably hidden in the fold of the ground, but their lives would be damned miserable until they were able to slink away under the cover of nightfall. He hoped Meade would send a patrol out quickly to find them.

Then he began to wonder if the shooting was a coincidence or not. It seemed rather unlikely that a rebel patrol would be hanging around Fort Stephens just at the time Mr. Lincoln decided to take a stroll on its walls.

The soldier struck by the first bullet was dead. Looking at the wound that had blown his face away, it seemed that he had died virtually instantly and that any motion observed earlier had been nothing more than involuntary spasms.

“I thought this place was safe,': said John Hay. He, too, was visibly shaken. People who work in the White House do not ordinarily see violent death close up even though they frequently cause it.

“The observation balloons and the patrols can find armies,” Nathan said, “but a handful of men bent on murder can generally slink in like what just happened.”

The ca

President Lincoln had just about made it to his carriage when there was another brief burst of gunfire. One of the patrols had stumbled onto the Confederates' hiding place. A distant shout informed them that at least one prisoner had been taken. Now they might find out just how and why a Confederate patrol just happened to be at that place and at that time.

Nathan glanced towards the president, who smiled quizzically. “Do you believe in coincidences, Mr. Hunter?”

“Not really, sir.”

“Nor do I. Mr. Hunter. Coincidences belong in novels.”

Abigail Watson had hung back in the hallway while General Wade Hampton was carried into his room by men who awkwardly handled his stretcher up stairs and around corners. She had not been noticed by his accompanying officers and doctors as they finally managed to carry his stretcher into the Haskills' largest bedroom. She was just a darky slave and nothing more important to them than a piece of furniture.

It had not been the first time that a wounded or ill Confederate officer had been brought there instead of to one of the numerous military hospitals that ringed Richmond. The city's hospitals were overwhelmed, overworked, staffed by unqualified perso

General Hampton had stayed at Haskill's Hotel on a couple of previous occasions, so his presence was taken pretty much in stride. The only difference was that he had taken a Union bullet in the shoulder and now required both care and continuous observation lest the wound reopen and cause him to bleed to death.

With only so many people available, some of the responsibility for watching over Hampton while he slept as soundly as the drugs given him would permit had fallen on Abigail's slender shoulders. Abigail would sit on a chair in the corner and simply watch while the general slept, his chest heaving rhythmically beneath the massive bandages that swathed him.

She had mixed emotions about her assignment. Part of her rejoiced that a Confederate of Hampton's stature was out of the war, while another part of her was angered that he hadn't been killed outright. She wondered if she was capable of finishing the job by putting a pillow over Hamptons face and suffocating him.

She decided it wasn't worth the risk. First, he might wake up and push her away. Even in his weakened state he looked like an enormously strong man. If caught, even if she succeeded, she would guarantee herself the same awful death that had befallen Ha

Other thoughts impeded her ability to commit murder. There was the practical matter that Hampton, while both famous and important, wasn't all that essential to the Confederate war cause. He would be replaced, and both slavery and the war would continue without missing a step. Next was the fact that Hampton, in his previous stays at Haskill's had been correctly courteous in his dealings with her. No swearing, no hollering, and certainly no physical punishment or attempts to force himself on her sexually like so many other guests had done.