Harry scuffed at his boot. He wanted desperately to be out of this uniform.
“Marse Harry, she’s takin’ care of the little girl.”
“I’m sending her to the farm, too.”
Caesar Augustus got to his feet as well. “Me, Estelle, and Evangeline, livin’ like a happy little family.”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m sending them there to be out of harm’s way, and I’d appreciate it if you’d look after them.”
“Like a father.”
Harry said nothing.
“Marse Harry, how do you want that little girl brought up?”
Harry started walking back to the camp. Caesar Augustus lingered a moment, then came up following.
“Marse Harry, do you want Evangeline brought up white?”
“Caesar Augustus, I want her brought up the way Arabella would have wanted.”
Leahy and Harry stood at the port rail of the steamer as it plowed north up Chesapeake Bay. They were just passing the wide estuary of the Potomac—some fifteen miles across at this point.
“You still don’t think the Monster could run up this river?” Leahy asked.
“Not near enough to Washington to do any damage, not drawing twenty-two feet. There are shoals all across the Potomac just north of Alexandria. She’d have foundered for sure.”
“Well, it doesn’t much matter now. That Monitor of ours sent her packing up the James. If she comes out again, she won’t get far. The blockade holds. And all this big beautiful bay is Union water.”
“She could still wreak havoc with General McClellan’s march on Richmond, if he goes that way.”
“I fear he knows that,” the Irishman said. “He’ll march slow. Probably go along the York River instead.”
They had passed at least fifty southbound ships and boats. Looking now up the Potomac, they could see more craft dotting the hazy horizon.
“At least the campaign is under way,” Harry said.
“Mr. Lincoln has got to be a happy man.” Leahy grinned. “Did I tell you what he’s supposed to have said when they showed him Ericsson’s plan for the Monitor?”
Harry shook his head.
“He said, ‘All I can say is what the girl said when she put her foot in a stocking: “I think there’s something in it.”’”
The remark was worth at least a smile.
“You’re taking a ship to Texas from Baltimore?” Harry asked.
“Yes I am. Under the damned British flag. But she’s a fast steam packet. Get me to Galveston quick.”
Harry looked toward the bow, where bunches of passengers were grouped on the foredeck, Caesar Augustus, Estelle, and Evangeline among them. The little girl was skipping around the two adults, still in her pretty blue shoes. She looked to Harry and smiled. He waved. Of a sudden, he wondered if he was about to make a mistake.
But he really hadn’t any choice.
“We’ll be at Point Lookout directly,” Leahy said. “Then I guess it’s good-bye to you for a while.”
Harry reached into the pocket of the fine frock coat he had purchased in Hampton and withdrew a flask of whiskey, taking a draught. Leahy, a temperance man, watched unhappily, though not so unhappily as when Harry went to another pocket for a cigar.
“If it’s all the same to you, Joseph, I’d like to accompany you to New Mexico.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“I’d be right glad of it—if you’d try to curtail your vile and evil personal habits. In fact, Mr. Pinkerton suggested you come. I just didn’t think you’d be of a mind to.”
“Well, I am of a mind to.”
“And why is that, laddybuck?”
Harry turned to look south along the green-gray Virginia shoreline, to where it disappeared into the haze. On the nearer water, the sun was sparkling.
“I’ve come to see what this war is all about. I know now what it’s going to take to bring it to an end. I want to do whatever I can.”
“It’s going to take the destruction of the South.”
“Yes. I’m afraid it is.”
“But you’re a Southerner.”
“So is Abraham Lincoln.”
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Harrison Raines, Louise Devereux, Palmer and Arabella Mills, Caesar Augustus, and Joseph Leahy, among others, are fictional characters. The goal here, though, is to present their story as part of a significant chapter in Civil War history—the battle of the Ironclads Virginia and Monitor—and to do so as authentically and accurately as possible. Elizabeth Van Lew was a very real and heroic person. Nestor Maccubbin, Captain Godwin, and their Plug Uglies were just as real. As best as I can determine—from Davis’s inauguration to the destruction of the USS Cumberland and USS Congress—events unfolded as depicted here.
Michael Kilian
McLean, Virginia
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Ann McMillan, Ernie Cox, John S. D. Eisenhower, William Seale, and Marc Pachter for their help and/or encouragement in the creation of these books. My deep appreciation to Gail Fortune and Dominick Abel for their splendid guidance and assistance. I am grateful to my wife, Pamela, and my sons, Eric and Colin, as only they can know.
About the Author
Michael Kilian (1939–2005) was born in Toledo, Ohio, and was raised both in Chicago, Illinois, and Westchester, New York. Kilian was a long time correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, reporting from Washington, D.C. He also wrote the Harrison Raines Civil War Mysteries. In 1993, with the help of illustrator Dick Locher, Kilian began writing the comic strip Dick Tracy. The author is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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Copyright © 2002 by Michael Kilian
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2005-3
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The Ironclad Alibi Page 27
