“Yes, it’s okay for two reasons,” said Ashley. “First, from my perspective as a military officer, I follow orders. The California is a US Navy ship, and Wells is the Secretary of the Navy. That’s the easy part. But second, I have to say this. Gideon Wells wasn’t the only one in the room who felt emotional after you read those horrifying casualty numbers. I kept wondering, how we can we prevent this.”
“Captain, may I offer a contrarian view?” asked Rick.
“Father, I may be your commanding officer, but you’re my pastor and my friend. Please tell us what’s on your mind.”
“Well,” Father Rick said, “I want to talk about Iowa.”
“Iowa?” said Ashley and Jack simultaneously.
“Yes, Iowa. As I may have mentioned, I have a distant ancestor, Randolph Sampson, who fought in the Civil War on the Union side. He called Pennsylvania his home. I’ve tracked down my ancestral history and discovered that he had befriended a man from Iowa who was a wealthy landowner. They met at Appomattox, shortly after the South surrendered. According to correspondence between the two, the man had fallen from a carriage and sprained his ankle badly. Grandpa Randolph, according to the letter of thanks, carried the man on his shoulder to a doctor’s office some distance away. A few months later, as their friendship grew, the man offered Grandpa Randolph 100 acres of land for a cheap price. Grandpa Randolph was a farmer by trade, and he jumped at it. That was the beginning of many generations of Sampsons in Iowa, but most particularly, Peter and Margaret Sampson, my parents.”
“I can never forget the story of how they met. It was May 19, 1958, a rainy day in Dubuque. My mother, a schoolteacher, was driving home when she had a flat tire. It happened right in front of Sampson’s Automotive Supplies. As she stood there looking at the flat tire, a young man came running out with a jack, followed by a clerk carrying a tire. ‘Do you get a lot of business this way?’ said my mother. She and the young proprietor of Sampson’s Automotive Supplies had a good laugh. He refused to accept payment, in exchange for her buying him a cup of coffee at the corner luncheonette. So they met, fell in love, got married and three years later brought into the world a future priest named Richard Sampson.”
“There’s a butterfly in this story somewhere, yes?” Ashley chided the chaplain.
“There certainly is Captain. A guy falls off a carriage in 1865, and in so doing sets up a series of events. Ninety three years later, those events lead directly to my parents meeting on May 19, 1958, and on November 9, 1961, to the birth of your humble priest. Compare that guy falling off his cart to a butterfly flapping its wings.”
Father Rick continued. “Now suppose we slipped through a wormhole and wound up at Appomattox in 1865. Suppose a strong young sailor named Jack Thurber was there at the scene. He sees the horse rear, runs up to the carriage, and prevents the man from falling and spraining his ankle. Grandpa Randolph would be a bystander, looking on. He would later return to his small farm in western Pennsylvania, and would never even visit Iowa. In 1958, there would be no Peter Sampson to save the damsel with the flat tire. And of all the things that happened in Dubuque, Iowa on November 9, 1961, the birth of Richard Sampson would not be one of them.”
Oh shit, thought Ashley, I can see where this is going.
“That,” said Father Rick “is why I wanted to talk about butterflies today.”
“Lieutenant Jack,” said Ashley, “Any thoughts on this?”
Jack looked at Ashley and said, “The uncomfortable thing about logic, Captain, is that you can’t resist it. You don’t have to understand the Butterfly Effect to get the point that Father Rick makes. When I had those two incidents of slipping through a time portal, I did nothing to change what was going on when I got there. I just slipped into the past and slipped back. But Father Rick paints a picture that’s pretty clear. A small change in the past can revoke history as we know it.”
“Here’s my serious concern,” said Father Rick. “In the story I just told, I changed everything by just inserting a hypothetical correction — the guy never sprained his ankle. What we’re talking about in our present circumstances goes much further than changing a fact or two. We intervene in the Civil War, and in so doing we change history. If everyone on this ship tracked their ancestry like I did, would they be able to predict with certainty that they are really here. Each of the little serendipities of life point us in different directions as well as our ancestors. Can we say that the lineage of everyone on this ship will remain exactly the same, even though we change the entire course of history?”
Father Rick continued. “So we intercede in the Civil War, after which we try to find our way back to 2013 by locating the wormhole. It’s been six generations from 1861 to 2013. Every generation begins with the same simple story: boy meets girl. We’ll feel the bumping and the night will turn to day. Will any of us exist after it happens?”
Ashley stood up and walked over to a port hole. She loved the ocean and never tired of looking at it. The ocean was her home, and when she looked at her home, it calmed her. She didn’t have to think or analyze anything. The sea gave her answers. If ever she needed some answers it was now.
“I’m not a philosopher or a theologian,” Ashley said, “I’m just a grunt line officer serving her country. But I do have faith in God.” She looked at her friend Father Rick, who just closed his eyes and nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard more Rick Sampson sermons than I can remember when you talked about God’s plan for us, how the joy of life comes from surrendering to His loving grace. Something inside me, and I can’t explain it, says that God’s plan goes beyond a sprained ankle or a flat tire. Something inside me says that our existence isn’t as haphazard as a butterfly flapping its wings. I believe that God put us here. It’s our job not to blow it.”
Ashley continued, her voice rising slightly. “We’re going to intervene in the Civil War, probably at the Battle of Bull Run. We’re going to kick ass, scare the living shit out of the Confederacy, bring an early end to the horror, and save a few hundred thousand lives. Then we’re going to find a way home, and we’ll all be there when it happens. If I’m wrong, Father, you won’t be around to say ‘I told you so.’”
“The meeting’s over gentlemen. Thank you both for your thoughtful input. God bless you.”
God bless all of us, she thought.
Chapter 28
Gideon Wells’ carriage rattled along the oval drive to the front entrance of the White House, as the President’s residence was commonly known. It would be decades before the White House became the official name of the building. The circular drive leading up to the front entrance provided little security. As the years went by, presidential safety concerns would rearrange the entrance, replacing the long drive with a large and defensible lawn. There had been heavy rain recently and the path to the front door was its usual mess of potholes and ruts. One of the White House staff ran to the carriage and opened the door for Wells. His assistant climbed out the opposite door. Wells strode through the entrance, his shoes making a loud clapping sound on the stone floor. His assistant carried two large suitcases laden with items that Wells had been given on the California.
An aide escorted Wells into the President’s office. He had suggested that Admiral Farragut be part of the meeting, but Lincoln let it be known that he wanted to meet with Wells alone. Lincoln stood to greet his old friend. Lincoln, as many a biographer would later note, did not try to be imposing, preferring instead to let a man be his own and speak freely. But at 6 feet 4 inches tall, Abraham Lincoln simply was imposing, whether he intended to be or not.