him, and at all of them in turn. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t need to know. I’m not even sure I want to know. But good luck in your own war.” She turned and vanished into the kitchen.
“What was the poem?” Jason asked after a moment.
“ John Brown’s Body , by Stephen Vincent Benét. The reason she hasn’t heard of it is that he’ll write it in 1929.” Dabney shook himself and turned to Jason with a pleading look that would have melted the heart of an iron statue. “Commander, please tell me what you saw and heard in there.”
“You’ll have a chance to review it all when we get back and my recorder implant is downloaded,” Jason assured him. But he recounted Lee’s meeting with Davis. Dabney nodded his head sadly.
“Yes. Lee will go public with his long-standing support for freeing and arming the slaves in mid-February. And in mid-March—about three weeks before the fall of Richmond—the Confederate Congress will narrowly pass a bill to enlist black soldiers . . . but without offering them freedom, although Davis will override that part by executive order.”
“ What! ” blurted Mondrago. “You mean to say they expect the slaves to . . .” He trailed to an incredulous halt. “Talk about too little and too late!”
“Lee used those exact words, just now,” Jason recalled.
“He would,” sighed Dabney. “He was always ambivalent at best about slavery. And he was flatly opposed to secession—spoke out against it strongly, in fact, arguing that the framers of the Constitution wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble if they’d intended for the Union to be broken up at will by any of its members. But once his Virginia voted to secede despite his advice, that was the end of it as far as he was concerned. He turned down an offer from Lincoln to command the United States army. Only a stern sense of duty induced him to accept a commission from the nation he would come to symbolize, and which he kept alive for four years against impossible odds.”
They all turned as one and looked down Clay Street, where a departing carriage could still just barely be seen.
“He was,” Dabney said simply, “the last of the knights.”
CHAPTER TEN
Three days later they were riding through Fauquier County, Virginia in steadily worsening weather.
Lee’s requisition had worked its expected magic at the Government Stables. Officials had practically fallen over themselves in their haste to provide “Captain Landrieu” and his men with the best mounts available. Of course, that didn’t mean as much as it once would have, even though the Confederate government still had agents making the rounds of horse farms and buying all the horses they could with increasingly worthless paper currency and even more worthless promissory notes. There simply weren’t as many horses to be had as there had been earlier in the war, and the conditions under which they were raised were harsher. So the agents brought in horses that were too young or poorly nourished or both.
Still, the time travelers had been given their pick of what was available, and they also got tack whose leather was still supple, not dry and stiff. They had even been able to obtain items like bedrolls and rations on the side. The rations consisted mainly of the corn bread which the Southerners generally used in place of the Yankees’ hardtack, and which attracted vermin even better than the latter. They had no intention of eating it except as an alternative to starvation.
Then they had departed the city, riding northwestward more or less parallel to the railway tracks, through Gordonsville, Orange and Culpeper, spending their first night at a very basic inn. Then they reached Warrenton, county seat of Fauquier County, a town of twelve hundred with various amenities, including three small hotels. After a relatively comfortable night (thanks to Jason’s gold dollars), they set out along the dirt road to Rectortown, leaving what was called
“What was the poem?” Jason asked after a moment.
“ John Brown’s Body , by Stephen Vincent Benét. The reason she hasn’t heard of it is that he’ll write it in 1929.” Dabney shook himself and turned to Jason with a pleading look that would have melted the heart of an iron statue. “Commander, please tell me what you saw and heard in there.”
“You’ll have a chance to review it all when we get back and my recorder implant is downloaded,” Jason assured him. But he recounted Lee’s meeting with Davis. Dabney nodded his head sadly.
“Yes. Lee will go public with his long-standing support for freeing and arming the slaves in mid-February. And in mid-March—about three weeks before the fall of Richmond—the Confederate Congress will narrowly pass a bill to enlist black soldiers . . . but without offering them freedom, although Davis will override that part by executive order.”
“ What! ” blurted Mondrago. “You mean to say they expect the slaves to . . .” He trailed to an incredulous halt. “Talk about too little and too late!”
“Lee used those exact words, just now,” Jason recalled.
“He would,” sighed Dabney. “He was always ambivalent at best about slavery. And he was flatly opposed to secession—spoke out against it strongly, in fact, arguing that the framers of the Constitution wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble if they’d intended for the Union to be broken up at will by any of its members. But once his Virginia voted to secede despite his advice, that was the end of it as far as he was concerned. He turned down an offer from Lincoln to command the United States army. Only a stern sense of duty induced him to accept a commission from the nation he would come to symbolize, and which he kept alive for four years against impossible odds.”
They all turned as one and looked down Clay Street, where a departing carriage could still just barely be seen.
“He was,” Dabney said simply, “the last of the knights.”
CHAPTER TEN
Three days later they were riding through Fauquier County, Virginia in steadily worsening weather.
Lee’s requisition had worked its expected magic at the Government Stables. Officials had practically fallen over themselves in their haste to provide “Captain Landrieu” and his men with the best mounts available. Of course, that didn’t mean as much as it once would have, even though the Confederate government still had agents making the rounds of horse farms and buying all the horses they could with increasingly worthless paper currency and even more worthless promissory notes. There simply weren’t as many horses to be had as there had been earlier in the war, and the conditions under which they were raised were harsher. So the agents brought in horses that were too young or poorly nourished or both.
Still, the time travelers had been given their pick of what was available, and they also got tack whose leather was still supple, not dry and stiff. They had even been able to obtain items like bedrolls and rations on the side. The rations consisted mainly of the corn bread which the Southerners generally used in place of the Yankees’ hardtack, and which attracted vermin even better than the latter. They had no intention of eating it except as an alternative to starvation.
Then they had departed the city, riding northwestward more or less parallel to the railway tracks, through Gordonsville, Orange and Culpeper, spending their first night at a very basic inn. Then they reached Warrenton, county seat of Fauquier County, a town of twelve hundred with various amenities, including three small hotels. After a relatively comfortable night (thanks to Jason’s gold dollars), they set out along the dirt road to Rectortown, leaving what was called
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