Behind him, the flap to the tent opened and a large man in a flannel undershirt and wearing military pants peered out. He had no boots and his socks were filthy.

“What the hell was that about,” yelled Sergeant Grimes.

“Just one harmless rider,” Billy yelled back.

“You sure he wasn't a rebel spy?”

Billy stifled a laugh. Grimes saw rebels everywhere. If it weren't so rainy, he'd see his shadow and be afraid of it. Grimes grumbled something and went back to his card game.

Nathan Hunter's first visit to Washington had been as a small boy. He had visited his uncle, who had served one term as a congressman from Indiana. Nathan recalled the city as being little more than a raw small town with more than a hint of the frontier about it. That had been more than two decades ago, and Nathan had been there since then and seen the city expand and grow but little.

Nathan's uncle had managed to get him into the Military Academy at West Point just before Nathan's father, another Indiana lawyer and politician, had died in a wagon accident. Nathan's mother had died trying to give birth to what would have been a brother for Nathan.

The last time Nathan had been to his nation's capital, it had been with his wife, Amy, at his side. Dear Amy, he thought sadly, How incomplete his life had been since the moment she had died. He shook his head. So much death had touched his family, and now so much was touching the entire country.

As he rode, he digested the immense changes that had occurred since the beginning of the war with the Confederacy. The sleepy frontier town of Washington was still raw_: but no longer sleepy.

Despite the bad weather, the streets were clogged with people and animals. There was a newness about the nation's capital that astonished first-time visitors, in particular those from more elegant European cities. The unpaved roads generated clouds of dust in the dry weather and oceans of mud in the wet.