She sat back in her chair, not at all sure if what they asked of her was even possible. “If I facilitate a Union spy’s escape, what happens to me?”
“You’ll be free to return to your unit.”
“None of this makes sense.” Frustration throbbed in her every word. “I’ll be considered a traitor.”
Stanton puffed, filling the room with a cloud of smoke. “We’re confident you can find a way without compromising yourself.”
“You’re confident.” Maybe it was time to yank off her wig and beard, confess, and throw herself on the mercy of the president, but it might get her thrown into prison instead. She waved away the smoke blowing in her direction. “If I don’t do this, Sheridan has threatened to burn my family home to the ground. If I’m found to be a traitor, my neighbors will do it for him.” She made a low sound, like someone absorbing a body blow.
They sat in silence as the noise level in the hallway increased in sharp contrast to the present-day White House. How did the president work in this environment with dozens of people waiting outside the door to see him? No appointment needed. All you need do is show up and wait.
“How serious are your agent’s wounds? Is he able to walk?” she asked.
“We don’t know his condition, but we have to get him out. He has valuable information Jefferson Davis wants, which could compromise a dozen or more northern sympathizers,” Stanton said.
Something in his expression told her he wasn’t telling the truth…or he wasn’t telling all the truth. “Will his information shorten the war?” she asked.
Stanton tapped his cigar against the edge of an ashtray already filled with a day’s worth of ashes. “The information we get from the sympathizers is invaluable. If we lose even one, we lose a link which took us months to establish.”
“Do you want the war to end?” Lincoln asked.
“I never wanted the war to start,” Charlotte said. “But what’s to stop me from assisting Jefferson Davis?”
“I’m a firm believer in people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet the crisis. You want the war to end. This will bring the end closer.” He picked up a pen and placed a sheet of writing paper in front of him. The scratchy nib didn’t glide effortlessly across the surface of the paper, but it didn’t seem to bother the president, who scratched away with a flourish.
“A ship will take you to City Point, where you’ll be met by an escort who will introduce you to General Grant. Then he’ll see you through the lines,” Stanton said.
“Will I be on my own in Richmond?”
Stanton puffed more smoke in her direction. “You’ll be met by a member of the underground.”
Lincoln put down his pen, folded the note, and handed it to her. Then he sat back and swung his legs over the chair arm.
As she held the paper, still warm from the president’s touch, her fingers quivered. “I need food, sleep, and a bath.” Her voice was hoarse with emotion.
“It can be arranged on board ship,” Stanton said.
She cleared her throat. “I have one more question. If your Richmond contact can get me in, why can’t he get your agent out?”
Stanton’s face tightened. “He’s a railroad president, not a doctor.”
“And one of the northern sympathizers you can’t afford to lose.” She looked first to Stanton, then to the president.
Lincoln reached out with his long arms and drew his knees up almost to his face. “He’s one of them, yes.”
“Does your agent have a name?”
Lincoln and Stanton shared a quick glance then Stanton said, “Major McCabe.”
Charlotte rolled the name around her tongue. “A Scotsman.”
“A lawyer,” Stanton said.
“And a damn good friend,” Lincoln said. “Bring him home.”
6
City Point, Headquarters of General Ulysses S. Grant, 1864
After a long day, Charlotte trudged aboard the sidewheel steamer River Queen, Grant’s private dispatch boat. She could barely stand, but her mind wouldn’t shut down. If she did sleep, she’d probably have fitful dreams about wounded soldiers and a magical sapphire brooch.
Charlotte’s Virginia Civil War knowledge was legendary among her peers. She could be a winner on Jeopardy if all the questions related to the Commonwealth’s history between 1861 and 1865, or medical history during the same time period. When Stanton told her she would travel by riverboat to City Point, she knew exactly where she was going and why. Since June, the small port town at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers had been Grant’s headquarters and the base for the forces fighting in Petersburg. Her meeting with Grant would take place at his command tent on the east lawn of Dr. Richard Eppes’s plantation known as Appomattox.
Once on board the steamer, while she took a sponge bath and ate, she analyzed her predicament. There had been no flashbulb moment of enlightenment in the past forty-eight hours. It would be nice to open the brooch and disappear, but if she did, Sheridan would act on his threat. She still didn’t understand why the brooch had carried her to the nineteenth century. Until she could figure out an alternative, she had to continue to play the cards as dealt, because folding gave her no hope of winning a return trip to her time with the homeplace intact.
When she finally climbed into her berth, she dropped off immediately into a much-needed, surprisingly dreamless sleep.
Now, as a new day dawned, she prepared for what was to come in much the same way as she prepared for surgery. She sucked in long, lung-filling breaths while thinking ahead to her meeting with General Grant. Visualizing Chimborazo was easy. From previous visits to the historical site and visitors’ center, she was familiar with the Confederate hospital’s layout, but she had no workable plan. Her only advantage was knowing the hospital guards would be more concerned with keeping the enemy out than keeping patients
