Starbuck crossed to the well and drew up its wooden bucket. He had meant to wash his face clean before drinking, but he was too thirsty to wait and, gripping the pail with both hands, he greedily tipped the water to his face and gulped down great cool mouthfuls. The liquid poured down his face and his bloodied tunic and trousers, and still he drank, slaking a dry thirst stoked by the hours of powder smoke and heat.

He rested the bucket on the well’s edge, panting, and saw a blue-eyed, pretty face watching him. He gaped back. A woman. He must be dreaming. A woman! And a pretty woman, an angel, a vision, a clean, crisp, pretty woman in a lacy white dress and a pink-trimmed bonnet shaded by a white fringed parasol, and Starbuck just stared, wondering if he was going mad, when suddenly the woman, who was sitting in a carriage in the road just beyond the yard’s fence, burst out laughing.

“Leave the lady alone!” the sergeant barked. “Back here, rebel!”

“Let him stay!” the woman demanded imperiously. She was sitting with a much older man in an open carriage drawn by two horses. A Negro driver sat on the carriage’s box, while a federal lieutenant was attempting to turn the carriage back. They had come too far, the young officer explained to the woman’s companion, there was danger here, they should not have crossed the bridge.

“Do you know who I am?” The man was a middle-aged dandy in a colored vest, tall black hat and white silk tie. He carried a gold-topped cane and had a small gray beard elegantly cut to a jutting point.

“Sir, I don’t need to know who you are,” the northern officer said, “you should not have crossed the bridge, and I must insist—”

“Insist! Lieutenant! Insist! I am Congressman Benjamin Matteson, of the great State of New Jersey, and you do not insist with me.”

“But it’s dangerous here, sir,” the lieutenant protested weakly.

“A congressman can go wherever he finds the Republic endangered,” Congressman Matteson answered with lordly scorn, while the truth was that he, like so many others from Washington’s society, had merely followed the army so that he could claim a share of the victory’s credit and collect some trifling keepsakes like spent rifle bullets or a rebel’s bloodstained cap.

“But the woman, sir?” The lieutenant tried again.

“The woman, Lieutenant, is my wife, and a congressman’s wife can share any danger.” The woman laughed at her husband’s absurd compliment, and Starbuck, still dazzled by her, wondered why so young a beauty would marry so pompous a man.

Mrs. Matteson’s eyes, blue as the flag’s field of stars, were full of mischief. “Are you truly a rebel?” she asked Starbuck. She had bleached gold hair, very white skin and her lace-trimmed dress was smudged with red dust from the summer road.