The officer in charge of the guard detachment saluted as Lee’s carriage rolled up. “The congressional delegation arrived a few minutes ago, sir. Per your instructions, they are waiting in the outer office of that suite.”
“Thank you, Major.” Lee got down from the carriage. So did his bodyguard. He tossed his head. The only time he had to himself these days was in the privy or the bathtub—and had the tub been bigger, a guard likely would have joined him there. Assassins murdered freedom merely by existing.
The senators and congressmen turned as Lee came in through the entry to the AWB suite. So did Judah P. Benjamin, leaning heavily on two sticks. Luckily, the bullet that had gone through his calf missed the bone; the wound was healing. But the former Secretary of State still moved like an old man instead of with the imposing presence he had once enjoyed.
“Gentlemen, you have my sincerest gratitude for joining me today,” Lee said. “If you will be so kind as to come with me, I will show you why you were invited here.”
“It had better be good,” growled Senator Wigfall of Texas. “When I tried going into that room yonder, the one with the heavy door, the damned guards said they’d shoot me to stop me. I’m not accustomed to our own good Confederate soldiers turning into Hessians, and I don’t care for it, not one bit I don’t.”
“They were but obeying my explicit orders, sir. You will see the reason behind them, I assure you. The guards will admit you now, as you are in my company.”
And indeed, with Lee heading the group, the soldiers presented arms to Wigfall and the other senators and congressmen. The officials turned this way and that, staring at the unfamiliar office furnishings within the secret room. Wigfall pointed to the qwerty on one desk. “What the devil is that thing?”
“If you can tell me, Senator, I shall be in your debt,” Lee said.
Congressman Lucius Gartrell of Georgia, a Confederate rather than a Patriot in politics, looked toward a hole in the wall not far from the door. “What happened there, Mr. President?”
“The device which made those tubes overhead”—Lee pointed—”give light was housed there. After it ceased operation, we removed it in an effort to discover the principles by which it worked. Our best guess is that it ran out of fuel.”
“Can’t you just give it more wood or coal, then?” Gartrell said.
“It does not appear to burn either, but rather a combustible fluid of some sort,” Lee answered. That was what his military engineers had told him, based on the few drops of strong-smelling liquid left in the tank marked FUEL. Whatever the liquid ‘Was, it wasn’t whale oiclass="underline" of so much the engineers seemed certain. Past that point, no certainty existed. Most of the savants working with the RONDA GENERATOR—for so it proclaimed itself to be—believed that what it generated was electricity, but what the stuff was good for once generated they hadn’t a clue. The Rivington men had known, though.
Duncan Kenner of Louisiana, another congressman of the Confederate persuasion, said, “This is all very interesting, I’m sure, Mr. President, but why are we here?”
Lee nodded to Judah Benjamin, whose usual small smile never wavered; Benjamin had primed Kenner to ask just that question. Lee said, “The answer, Congressman, reaches back more than four years and has until recently been a tightly held secret. Even now, before I continue, I must require your word of honor, and that of your colleagues, not to divulge what you learn here today without my prior permission.”
Most of the legislators agreed at once. Mulish Wigfall said, “Be damned if I’ll buy a pig in a poke.”
“Very well, Senator, you may go; I am sorry to have wasted your time,” Lee said politely. Wigfall glared but, seeing Lee prepared to be inflexible, added his promise to the rest. Lee nodded his thanks, then went on, “In early 1864, as you must all be aware, our Confederacy’s prospects in the war for independence were poor. We were outnumbered and outfactoried from the start, portions of our land had been overrun, and the North was beginning to find in Grant and Sherman and Sheridan officers who could bring its full strength to bear upon us.”
Even Wigfall had to nod; the staunchest Southern fire-eater remembered how bleak things had looked then. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Mississippi, newly returned to Congress as a Patriot and as staunch a fire-eater as any ever born, said, “The coming at that moment of the Rivington men and their repeaters always seemed to me to be visible, even miraculous, proof of the favor which divine Providence showed the Confederate States of America,” Several other senators and congressmen solemnly nodded.
“I confess that I inclined toward a similar view for some time,” Lee said. “I have since been disabused of this notion. We were indeed shown favor, but of a sort neither divine’ nor miraculous. Hear me out, my friends; the story I am about to tell you may seem implausible, but I assure you it is the truth.”
He told the legislators what he knew of the Rivington men and their travel through time to come to the South’s aid. Part of what he said was gleaned from Andries Rhoodie, part from the volumes in the chamber where he now stood. As he spoke, he watched Louis Wigfall go paler and paler. That did not surprise him; the men of the AWB must have given Wigfall their own version of this tale. Lee finished,” And so you see, gentlemen, they helped us gain our freedom, not out of consideration for our virtues, but so we might serve as pawns in their game.”
Silence stretched when he was through. Finally Congressman Lamar said, “This is an—extraordinary web you spin, Mr. President, so extraordinary that I hope you will not be offended if I say it would be all the better for proof.”
“I can offer that, or at least corroboration,” Judah Benjamin said. “I heard much of this same tale from Andries Rhoodie’s lips, as did Jefferson Davis and, if I be not mistaken, Joe Johnston and Alexander Stephens as well.” Benjamin looked around the room. “And unless I am much mistaken, my friends, some few of you will have heard it as well. We are not so good at keeping secrets, even important secrets, as we might be.”
Since Lee kept secrets without difficulty, he had not thought of that, but by the expressions on several legislators’ faces, Benjamin had a point. Lee glanced toward Wigfall. Almost defiantly, the Texan said, “I’ve heard it, yes, but not through gossip and chit-chat. The Rivington men told it to me and General Forrest, though their interpretation of the events differed substantially from that ascribed to them by Mr. Lee.”
“‘By their fruits ye shall know them,’ or so the Bible says,” Lee answered. He waved to the book that lay open on every desk in the secret room. “To few folks is it given to learn how history would judge them. Thanks to the men of the AWB; we possess that opportunity. I have taken the liberty of marking certain passages in these books, passages I believe to be representative of the whole. By no means do I require you to take these as all-inclusive, however; feel free to browse as you would, to learn how the future thought of some of the issues our confederacy was in part founded to uphold.”
“You mean niggers, don’t you?” Wigfall said. “In the end, it always comes down to niggers.”
“There, Senator, I find I cannot disagree with you,” Lee said, thinking this was one of the few occasions on which he could truthfully say that.
He took a step back, indicating that the congressmen and senators might begin their examination. Instantly, he was reminded of a game of musical chairs, for legislators outnumbered chairs to hold them. His momentary amusement vanished as fast as it formed; just such a contretemps at his inauguration had led him to bring Mary up onto the platform with him and, shortly thereafter, to his becoming a widower.