Free Ghosts of Time by Steve White Page A

Jason was glad this was an all-veteran group, without any first-time academics. Slavery was a grim constant of the human condition for most of history; time travelers simply had to deal with it.
    Beyond the island the bridge continued on its stone piers over a relatively narrow stretch of river to the city side, then passed over a canal. There had been little waterborne traffic on the river, just a few small steam- or sail-driven craft. Here a procession of barges were being raised or lowered from one level to another in locks.
    “The James River and Kanawha Canal,” Dabney explained. “It was built to bypass the rapids and waterfalls. This city got started as a transshipment point in the eighteenth century, when oceangoing ships could get this far upriver but no farther.”
    Then they were in the city, walking north along Fourteenth Street. Passing through the cluttered establishments of the canal-front and Exchange Alley, they turned left on Main Street and entered more genteel surroundings, passing various substantial banks, newspaper offices and other businesses as well as the prestigious Spotswood and American hotels. At Ninth Street they turned right and walked north with the well-landscaped Capitol Grounds rising to their right and various government offices on their left. But even in these precincts, there was no escaping the miasma of a city under siege and a failing polity. It went beyond the underfed look of everyone they saw, and the shabbiness of the clothing—little better than that of the slaves, in most cases. No, it was a psychic miasma, as though the Confederate capital was dimly aware that no further sacrifices on its part could be availing. An unspoken realization that, after four years of defeating or stymieing armies twice the size of his own, Robert E. Lee was finally out of miracles. Jason remarked on it to Dabney. The historian nodded again with evident sadness.
    “Perhaps these people understand that the Confederacy lost its last hope a month ago.”
    “In November?” Jason was puzzled. “But I thought the armies were still deadlocked in the trenches before Petersburg, and will be until—”
    “I’m not talking about a loss on the battlefield. I mean Lincoln’s victory in the United States presidential election. George McClellan, a dismissed general, was running against him on a platform of negotiating a peace settlement on the basis of Southern independence. If he had been elected, and carried through on his promise, the South would have won the war politically after having already effectively lost it militarily.”
    “Sort of like North Vietnam, a little over a century from now,” Mondrago commented.
    They crossed Broad Street, pausing for a train that clanged and clattered by on the tracks running along the center of the street. They took care not to flinch at the smoke and cinders it belched, for no one else did. Then, two blocks further north in an area of handsome homes, they turned right onto Clay Street, which, after three short blocks, ended in a cul-de-sac. Here, to the right, was the White House of the Confederacy.
    It was a handsome three-story mansion in the “Italianate” style, overlooking the valley of Shockoe Creek to the east, although the terraced gardens in that direction were partially concealed by a carriage house and other outbuildings behind a wall. Smoke rising from one brick outbuilding suggested that it was the kitchen.
    “So the Confederate president is in there?” asked Nesbit, gazing at the mansion.
    “Probably not, at this time of day,” said Dabney. “Jefferson Davis has his working office in the Treasury building, which is on the far side of Capitol Square. But he sometimes works in his private office here when he is ill, as he frequently is.”
    Jason’s intention had been to reconnoiter. Now he began to think about organizing a system of watches by which they could keep the mansion under constant observation while seeking food and lodgings.