A sergeant knocked on the door. “Sorry for the interruption, sir, but there's news from Richmond.”
Napier smiled genially. “Have we won the war?”
The sergeant was momentarily confused, then recovered and smiled tentatively. “No: sir. Nothin' that sweet.”
“Then what is it, Sergeant?”
“Mr. Lincoln has gone and freed all the slaves, sir.”
“The freeing of the slaves is so thrilling it is almost beyond measure.” Rebecca said. She was ecstatic. She turned and swirled around the room. Nathan had never seen her this excited and animated, and decided he liked it.
“I was rather hoping my safe return would be thrilling beyond measure,” Nathan teased.
“Of course it is,” she laughed and slapped him gently on the knee as she sat on the couch beside him.
Her face was flushed with excitement, and the scar on her chin and neck stood out. Funny, he thought, but she wasn't at all concerned about it anymore. There was no attempt to hide it with a scarf or a high-necked gown. He wondered if it was like his limp. He no longer even thought about using a cane for assistance, although he still carried it as a weapon.
They were seated in Nathan and Scott's library. The general was upstairs taking a nap, Sergeant Fromm had disappeared into town on an errand, and Bridget Conlin was rattling around in the kitchen. It was as alone as the two of them had ever been, and the light touch of her hand on his leg had sent an almost electric jolt through him.
“I am more than delighted to have you return, Nathan, but the Emancipation Proclamation represents a sort of culmination of what so many of us have worked years for.”
“I know,” he said. She had leaned against him in a gesture that was tender and familiar. Nathan made no attempt to shift; the feel of her next to him was just too delicious. He had promised her he would never compare her to Amy, but the affectionate, intimate, comfortable gesture was virtually the same as with his late wife. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and she leaned her head back against it.
Nathan had returned to his Washington home that morning. With the situation in Canada stabilized, he felt he could be more useful back in the capital. Grant had concurred and released him from their informal arrangement. “No more armies for you to get to surrender,” the general had said with a grin.
Nathan had not relinquished either his uniform, his rank, or the authorization that identified him as one of Grant's staff officers. He had found that he liked being back in uniform and, despite the carnage he'd seen, he believed that he had done something useful in saving a number of lives both at London and at Hamilton. This had been confirmed with a toast by the British general Hugh Gough at an uncomfortable dinner hosted by General Grant after the surrender of the British forces at Hamilton.
Toronto had fallen without a shot, and the Americans were now well east of the city at Oshawa, and, to the north, had taken Guelph. Grant was consolidating and taking Ontario as he wished. The remaining British forces were frantically entrenching at Ottawa and Montreal, while Grant, unknown to them, had no intention of pursuing them that far. At least not in the foreseeable future.
“Now that the slaves are free, all we have to do is free the slaves,” Nathan said cryptically.
The Emancipation Proclamation had freed only those slaves in the rebelling Confederate states. Those slaves in the so-called border states remained in bondage. Lincoln was able to free the slaves in the rebelling states by acting in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces. As such, he was striking at an enemy's capability to wage war. However, he had no such authority over those states not in rebellion; thus, their freedom awaited an act of Congress. This was being debated, with the only problem to be resolved being the amount of compensation to be paid to the slave owners.
In the meantime. Lincoln had promised a grant of one hundred dollars for each adult slave who made it north from the Confederacy. This would be given either in cash, land for resettlement, or passage back to Africa. In conversations with free black men, the Union government and the abolitionists had been astonished at how few wanted to go to Africa, even to Liberia, the nation founded by the United States on behalf of freed slaves. The vast majority of the black freemen had been in the United States all their lives, as had generations before them. The importation of slaves had been legally halted more than a half century before; thus, many Negroes were descended from slaves who'd arrived in America well before many white people. They had no cultural ties to Africa, only the faintest possibility of distant relatives in the Dark Continent, as few blacks had any real idea where in that enormous continent their ancestors had come from, and no desire to go to a land they all perceived as savage and barbaric.
The United States had terrible problems regarding Negroes, but to most black people it was still better than living in Africa. Or the Confederacy.
The freeing of the slaves was considered a major political stroke against Great Britain, as it put England squarely on the side of slaveholders. Previously, she could claim that the North held slaves, too, so what was the difference? The British government had quickly tried to claim that the retention of slavery in the border states was blatant cynicism on the part of Lincoln; thus the urgency to pass the legislation that would free slaves everywhere. It amused Lincoln and Seward to be outmaneuvering the old fox, Lord Palmerston.
General Scott had commented that the outflow of slaves from the South would be crippling economically to the Confederacy, and would be damaging militarily. Many troops would have to be assigned to protect slave owners' property and to return those slaves who attempted to migrate north.
Militarily, the North had won a great victory in Canada. Politically and morally, the North had won a great victory with the Emancipation Proclamation.
“I have missed you,” Rebecca said, “and your fame as a negotiator goes before you.”
“When you're in a position of such enormous strength as General Grant was, you are dictating, not negotiating,” he said. Although only a colonel in an army filled with colonels, he had noted a degree of respect conferred on him in brief meetings with other officers encountered en route to Washington. It was heady stuff, and later he was to meet with Lincoln and Stanton to discuss both Grant and the Canadian situation.
She shifted so that she was kneeling on the couch and facing him. She was not wearing hoops, which would have made the move ludicrous, if not impossible, and she moved with a dancer's grace. “Enough of politics and emancipations,” she said with a catlike smile.
Nathan pulled her to him and she slid across his lap. Her arms went about his neck and they kissed with an intensity that astonished both of them. They broke free and stared at each other. Then they laughed softly.
“Like young adolescent children, aren't we?” Nathan grinned.
“But alone,” she whispered. She recalled her brothers taking young girls into the shed behind the house and returning later all disheveled and flushed. She laughed inwardly at the memory. None of her brothers friends had tried to take her into the shed.
They kissed again and Nathan felt himself getting aroused. For a moment he felt embarrassed, then reminded himself that Rebecca'd been married for several years and doubtless knew what was happening to his body.
She pulled her lips away. “Do you know what the future will bring, Nathan?”
“I don't have a clue,” he said hoarsely. “But I hope and pray that a large part of it will be with you.”
“As do I, dearest Nathan. But we are alone for the first time since we met, although it's likely to end at any moment. So let us take advantage of it while we might and, yes, like adolescent children.”