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practice.”
    “I’m not sure I understand, sir,” Braxton said, genuinely confused. He’d heard the Rebel claims that the war was about seizing their land and goods for the industries of the north, but doubted that’s what the President meant.
    “Have you studied history, Captain Wright?”
    “A little,” Braxton admitted. “When I was in school.”
    “If you look back in history,” Lincoln said, “you’ll find only a handful of nations where men tried to be free, to live together under their own rules, not at the suffrage of some king or magistrate. Every other society in history has been some form of tyranny,” he said. “Whether ruled by potentates, prophets, or parliaments, it’s always been the will of the privileged few that governed the common man. The United States are the exception to thousands of years of history, a nation ruled by its people, subject to laws made by those selfsame people. Would you agree, Captain?”
    “Yes, sir,” Braxton nodded slightly. “I believe I would.”
    “It is a blessed state of freedom we live in,” Lincoln said, his dark eyes intent on Braxton. “That’s what we have to preserve, Captain Wright. History says that the odds of any free nation surviving are not good.”
    “Why?” Braxton asked. “Begging your pardon, sir.”
    “Because, the agents of tyranny are always among us,” he said. “There are always arrogant and evil men who believe that their ideas are better than their neighbor’s. If such men cannot convince their neighbors, they then seek to coerce them. Liberty becomes anarchy, and anarchy always gives way to tyranny, freshly born.”
    “Look what happened in France,” Pinkerton said. “They had a revolution based on anger and envy, not ideas. It devolved almost immediately to anarchy, and within a decade they had old Bonaparte declaring himself emperor.”
    “That’s the tricky part of freedom, Captain,” Lincoln said. “It only works when the people are morally sound.”
    “You mean like John Adams.” Braxton had read that in school.
    “That’s right, son,” Lincoln nodded. “What did he say?”
    “That our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
    “Now ask yourself,” Pinkerton said. “Can we be a moral people if we tolerate the evil of slavery?
    Braxton felt his skin go cold. Inside he knew Pinkerton was right.
    Lincoln leaned forward, his eyes intense, glittering in his gaunt, pale face. “I believe this Union is the best hope for freedom in the world,” he said. “Maybe the only hope. We have to preserve her, whatever the cost. If we don’t, I fear our children and grandchildren will come under the yoke of tyranny, just as the French have. That’s why I won’t sue for peace. That’s why I’m fighting this war.”
    He let the words sink in, drawing out the silence in the room.
    “What I need to know, Braxton,” Lincoln said, using the captain’s familiar name for the first time, “is are you with me?”
    Braxton felt his chest tighten like the air was being squeezed out of him. He couldn’t argue what he’d heard. Somewhere in his soul, he knew it to be right. If freedom was to survive, they had to win. He met Lincoln’s gaze and nodded.
    “God help me, sir,” he said. “I am.”
    “We had hoped for nothing less,” Pinkerton said, leaning over the map again. “You mentioned the Rebel’s Gray soldiers,” he said. “They’re pressing our boys pretty hard even without the dragons. We think we’ve found a way to even the odds a bit.”
    Despite his trepidation, Braxton leaned over the map as well.
    “We know the Rebs have to inject the Grays with some chemical solution at least every fortnight,” Pinkerton explained. “We suspect that if they don’t, the Grays will begin to deteriorate.”
    Braxton shuddered at that image. The lifeless Gray soldiers were terrifying by themselves, he couldn’t imagine them marching on