His Heart's Revenge (The Marshall Brothers Series, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

junction near the farm when a Rebel scouting party cut him off. He looked for a way around them, couldn't find one, and spent the night writing a letter to his family in New York, preparing them for his imminent capture.
    It happened the following morning, just after daybreak. Allen's betrayal became clear when the scouting party returned directly to their unit immediately after taking Logan prisoner. He did not have to be hit over the head to realize they had been sent out to assure his capture. Logan did not have time then to contemplate how the colonel had managed such timely intervention. Too many other incredible things had begun to happen.
    Mary Catherine's carefully copied dispatch, delivered into Confederate hands by Rose and Megan, and sent on to the rebel troops at Chancellorsville, was no mere correspondence now, but a true godsend. General Robert E. Lee took fierce exception to Major General Hooker's boast to President Lincoln, "The rebel army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac." Since the Union general made his boast based on superior Union forces and superior tactical positioning, but did not account for the fact that no shots had yet been fired, nor any flag raised, Lee found Hooker's brash statement a trifle premature.
    In a daring series of maneuvers Lee split his army into three sections, and over the next four days, from May 1 to May 4, drove Hooker and the Union forces back across the Rappahannock River. In terms of casualties it was not the decisive victory Lee could have wished for. Although the South suffered fewer losses, the percentage of deaths in relation to troop strength was far greater than the North's. Still, the victory kept the Union at bay and opened up Lee's second drive into the North, a drive that would culminate in a sleepy little Pennsylvania village called Gettysburg.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2

     
    November 1864—Richmond, Virginia
    "I got me twenty-four! Twenty-four! Lookee here!" John Edward held out his hand, keeping the palm flat. He had a black piece of cloth, ragged at the edges, lying over his palm. Standing out in small relief against the black background were two dozen nits that he had pulled from his beard.
    "Twenty-five," said Logan, reaching into his own dark beard. He carefully extracted the lice egg with a fine-toothed comb half the length of his pinky finger. He smiled at the group of six men surrounding him. "Gentlemen. Make good your wagers."
    "Dammit, Marshall!" Edward swore. "I'm thinkin' you're cultivatin' the critters! This wager weren't open to farmers!" He pointed accusingly to the lice comb that Logan was pocketing. "You never said nothin' about no equipment! Ain't fair!"
    "Don't be a poor sport," one of the other men grumbled. "It was a good wager."
    Logan didn't say anything as the bounty started pouring in. He got half a potato from Billy Waters, a compass from the Covington twins, Able and Joe, a watch fob made from a lock of some sweetheart's hair, courtesy of Tom Jenkins, and two carrots—a plump, bright orange stump from Davey Powell, and a scrawny, limp one from John Edward. Logan wrapped everything into a kerchief and tucked the whole of it in a black lacquered box he had won on a previous wager. Thanking the others, he turned away, keeping the box securely under his arm, and went in search of other amusement.
    In Libby Prison amusement was whatever, wherever one could make or find it. Logan survived in part because he sought it out in the most unlikely places, and where it didn't exist, he created it.
    Richmond's Libby Prison was nothing more than a tobacco warehouse converted for warehousing Union soldiers. On the outside it was unimposing. Red-bricked and tidy, with uniform windows and well-maintained grounds, it appeared to be a satisfactory, even humane answer to the problem of what to do with Federal prisoners. But each evening, a few hours after dusk, when the dead were collected and taken to wagons waiting in the rear, Libby