The streets were so congested that he congratulated himself on having arrived on horseback, rather than in a carriage. He might have been drier in a carriage, but that would have been the only advantage. Many carriages were stuck in traffic or were wallowing up to their axles in stinking brown goo, while his horse easily picked its way through the mess. Of course, sometimes Nathan drew glares as he guided the horse across some private property, or through pedestrians, but he didn't let it bother him.

Finally, he drew up to his destination, a large house on a low hill in the prestigious Georgetown area, overlooking the Potomac River. Nathan was pleased to see that there was a stable behind the house, and wondered if that was where he would be sleeping. At least it would be dry, he thought.

As he dismounted and eased the pain from his stiff leg, a boy ran from the stable and took the horse, which Nathan gratefully gave up. He walked to the front door of the house, which opened before he reached it. A stocky, middle-aged man with the aura of a retired sergeant glared at him-a bulldog protecting his master.

“I am Nathan Hunter,” he said as he handed the former soldier his card, “and General Winfield Scott is expecting me.”

CHAPTER TWO

GENERAL WIN FIELD SCOTT was a gigantic and corpulent caricature of himself. At seventy-five years of age, he still stood six feet, five inches tall, but now weighed in at a flabby three hundred pounds plus instead of the hard and muscular two hundred and thirty of his youth. It was difficult for him to walk, much less ride, and his breath came in wheezes. He knew he should cut down on the rich food and the good wine, but he was helplessly addicted to the finer things of life.

Scott was a study in contradictions. While he condemned the abuse of liquor by his enlisted men, he saw nothing wrong in drinking it himself. He also believed that a true American was of Anglo-Saxon stock and distrusted the wave of immigrants from Ireland and Germany as a threat to the United States. Still, he readily admitted, they served a noble purpose in the Union army.