“I’m sure they will. They’re going to have a mighty victory parade, all honking bands and congratulations, and the prisoners will be marched at gunpoint before being slaughtered in the grounds of the White House.”

“Don’t be absurd, Lucy. I do beg of you not to be absurd.” The Honorable Benjamin Matteson frowned.

“So maybe they’ll parole you instead,” Lucy Matteson smiled at Starbuck, “and then you’ll come to supper. No, Benjamin, don’t argue, I’m quite decided. Give me a carte de visite, quick!” She held out her hand until her husband, with obvious reluctance, surrendered a pasteboard card which, with a smile, she passed down to Starbuck. “We rebels shall exchange war stories while these cold northerners frown at us. And if you need anything in prison, you are to ask me. I wish I had something more than scraps of fruit to give you now, but the congressman ate all our cold chicken because he said it would go bad once the pounded ice melted.” There was a pure venom in her words that made Starbuck laugh.

The lieutenant who had originally tried to turn the congressman’s carriage around now reappeared with a major whose authority was considerably greater. The major would not have cared if half the U.S. Congress had been in the carriage, it still had no business blocking the turnpike in the middle of a battle and so he touched his hat to Lucy Matteson and then insisted that the driver turn the carriage round and take it back across the Bull Run.

“Do you know who I am?” Congressman Matteson demanded, then half ducked as a rebel shell exploded a hundred yards away and a piece of shrapnel rustled overhead and cracked harmlessly against the stone house.

“I don’t care if you’re the emperor of France. Get the hell out of here! Now! Move!”

Lucy Matteson smiled at Starbuck as the carriage jerked forward. “Come and see us in Washington!”