“It’s a fine body of men, you are, with some good horseflesh as well…”

“Saddle up.” The order sounded down the road.

“That was mighty good likker,” the cavalryman called out as he mounted his horse, “and I’ll never forget it. And you want to pass the word to your sergeant that we been running into some companies of riflemen down the valley apiece. They was on the way south, reinforcement looks like. They fresh and they mean as rattlesnakes. Take care, you hear.”

Private O’Mahony duly passed this information on to the sergeant who in turn told it to Captain Meagher.

“More redbellies — a blessing from the Lord. Let us find the bastards and kill them all.”

Meagher meant it. He had been a revolutionary in Ireland, a Fenian, the underground movement that was fighting for Ireland’s freedom. He had been battling the English for most of his adult life. On the run all of the time and watch out for informers. In the end he had been caught because of the price on his head that was so large it became irresistible in that poverty-stricken country. Once in jail the charges against him mounted up, so much so that the sentencing judge felt no qualms about giving him the most severe sentence on the books. In Anno Domini 1842, early in the reign of Queen Victoria, he had been sentenced to be hanged. But more than that. Before the noose had killed him, he was to have been taken down from the gallows to be drawn and quartered while still alive. But a more lenient review court had taken offense at his medieval sentence and had commuted it to banishment for life in Tasmania. For nearly twenty years he had labored in chains in that distant land, before making good his escape and fleeing to America. It was understandable that no man had greeted war with the English with more exuberance than he had.

“Get the lads moving, Sergeant,” he ordered. “This neck of the woods is clean of the English for the moment. Let’s see if we can join up with the rest of the division before dark…”

A sudden burst of fire sounded down the line. There was shouting and more firing as a picket ran through the trees.

“Sir, redcoats, a fecking mob of them.”

“Over the wall, me boys. Take cover behind these stones and show them how Irishmen can fight.”

The enemy were appearing from among the trees now, more and more of them. Private O’Mahony took aim with his brand new Spencer rifle and put a bullet through the nearest one.

“That’s the way,” Captain Meagher shouted happily, firing again and again. “Come on you English bastards, come and meet your maker.”

An English officer heard the shout and smiled grimly at the Irish accent. Up until this moment it had been a good war for Lieutenant Saxby Athelstane. His attachment to the irregular Canadian cavalry, which he had so loathed, had turned out to be a godsend. His report of the treacherous and deadly night attack by the Americans had gone right to the top of the chain of command, to the Duke of Cambridge; the Commander-in-Chief himself. He had been called back to headquarters and queried for details of the invasion, and had been more than happy to supply them. His gallantry against great odds had been noted, and the general himself had ordered his promotion to captain.

With the promotion came a new regiment, to replace an officer carried away by fever. The 56th West Essex Regiment, which had been transferred from Bermuda to reinforce the invading army. Although nicknamed The Pompadours, they were a tough and seasoned lot and Captain Athelstane found it a pleasure to lead them into battle.

He cupped his hands and shouted back. “I say, is that Fenians that I hear? You should have stayed in the old sod, Paddy, instead of coming to the New World to be killed.”

Dark figures slipped forward as the firing intensified.

It was an unfair and uneven battle with the Irish outnumbered over three to one. But they had their rifles and their spirit — and their hatred. They brought down more than their own number of the enemy as they died. Not one of the Irish tried to escape, not one surrendered. Out of ammunition in the end they fought with bayonets. Meagher laughed with pleasure as an English captain pushed through the struggling soldiers and attacked him with his sword. With practiced skill he stepped forward with his left foot and, with a single thrust under his attacker’s sword, he ran the startled officer through the heart.

Meagher twisted the bayonet as the officer fell, pulled it from his body and turned to the attack. In time to see the muzzle of a musket leveled at him — to flare fire into his face. The flame blackened and burned his skin, the bullet struck his skull, threw him to the ground blinded by blood, unconscious. An English soldier clubbed to death P.J. O’Mahony, who had just killed his sergeant.

Only a handful of Irishmen still remained alive when the gray-clad cavalry swept down the road, firing as they came. The surviving English troops sought safety in the forest.

Captain Meagher groaned as consciousness brought fierce pain to his bruised head. He rubbed the blood away so he could see, sat up and looked around at the carnage, the dead Irish soldiers. Very few had survived. There were no wounded among them — for they had all been killed as they lay. There were tears in his eyes as he looked at the destruction.

“You fought like men and died like men,” he said. “This day will not be forgotten.”

In the ordinary course of events President Lincoln would write his address to Congress, then have one of his secretaries carry it over to the Capitol, where a clerk would read it out for him. He considered this, then realized that this time it must be different. This time he wanted the Congress to understand the depths of his feeling; he wanted to gauge as well the quality of their response. At no time during his short term as President had he felt that a speech of his was of such great importance. He knew that Mill had opened their minds, pointed the way toward a bright future. President Davis was in complete agreement and they had laid their plans accordingly. Now the speech was done.

“Seward has had his say,” the President said, slowly going through the sheets of foolscap one last time. “Even Welles and Stanton have read this. All the lawyers in the cabinet are worried because what I propose to do flies in the face of the Supreme Court decision in the Dredd Scott case. I told them that these little legalistic quibbles would have to wait until after the war. But I have considered and made emendations when they were needed and now the work is complete.”

Lincoln put the speech into his stovepipe hat, clapped it onto his head and stood.

“Come Nicolay, walk with me to the Congress.”

“Sir. Would it not be wiser to go by carriage? Less tiring and, surely, the gravitas of the situation warrants a more formal entry.”

“I always get worried when someone uses one of those foreign words, as though simple old English, as spoken by a simple old rail-splitter, was not good enough. Now what is this gravy-tas I’m supposed to have more of?”

“I mean, Mr. President, that you are the most important man in Washington City and your deportment should echo that fact.”

Lincoln sighed. “I’ll take your carriage, Nicolay, mainly because I’ve been tired of late. I’ve had little rest.”

And little food, his secretary thought. Plagued by constipation the President took more of his blue mass medicine than he did of vittles. Sometimes he had only a single egg for dinner that he just pushed around and around the plate. His dark skin was sallow now, and his always-rumpled suit even more rumpled as it hung from his skeletal frame. Nicolay went ahead to get the carriage.

The platoon of cavalry accompanied them so it was indeed an arrival at the Congress that was appropriately impressive. The doorway of the building was charred and reeked of smoke where the British had attempted to fire it before their retreat. Lincoln walked among the Congressmen, having a few words with old friends, even stopping for a talk with bitter enemies. Walls must be mended; he must have the firm and committed backing of Congress. And the people.