Chapter 7

It may seem strange, but we had no trouble eating our picnic lunch after what we had just seen. I suppose that we both had seen so many dead people in the past year or so that we were just inured to the idea of death. Whatever it was, we had no trouble enjoying the excellent repast that had been fixed for us. By some quirk of fate, Shirley had not tasted fried chicken before now, and she thought it was delicious. I had to agree with her, but I admit to being partial to ham. Oh, well, to each his own.

We spent the rest of the day in Central Park without any more adventures, and we left in time for me to pick up my suit at the tailor’s. He was truly an artist! The suit fit perfectly with no adjustments required, and I paid for this suit on the spot with a generous gratuity added. The tailor was duly appreciative, and he promised to have the other two suits ready when originally scheduled. I thanked him and left his shop dressed in my new suit. He wanted to throw away my old suit, but I said that I wanted to give it to charity, since it still had a lot of wear left in it. Actually, I was going to keep it and wear it myself at Gettysburg, if not sooner.

There was a lot to see in New York City, even if the Statue of Liberty was not yet in place. We hired a cab and toured the city in it. Only a fool would ride around in an open carriage, what with all of the shit and other filth kicked up by passing horses. I could easily understand how the people of cities welcomed automobiles for the way they eliminated the odor of the waste dropped by horses. No matter how you looked at the problem, the New York City of 1861 stank!

I picked up my other two suits on the appointed day, and I was ready to leave for Philadelphia. Shirley seconded the motion, and it was carried by acclamation since James picked that moment to howl. The androids did not vote.

I was not sure where we would wait out the time until July 1, 1863, but I thought that Philadelphia was an appropriate place. The other most likely possibilities were Washington, DC, and Baltimore. It seemed like the most prudent plan was to wait and see. If we didn’t like Philadelphia, we could always move.

We took the train to Philadelphia and stayed in a hotel for a few days. The city seemed pleasant and interesting enough, so we decided to spend at least a year there. We looked around and found a suitable house which we purchased at a reasonable price. It was already furnished, so that saved us a lot of trouble. There was a large carriage house associated with the main building, so we had a place for the androids to stay.

We moved in and set about meeting our neighbors. This was a neighborhood filled with successful businessmen and their families, so there were plenty of women for Shirley to associate with. Of course, we did not need servants because the androids could do all of that. They were even good cooks! The only problem, such as it was, was that Shirley had to do the actual food shopping. I went with her on her first couple of excursions for food, but she quickly and easily picked up on the way things were done in Philadelphia.

Shirley quickly made a number of friends among the other women in the neighborhood, and was soon inviting and being invited to afternoon tea parties. These amused her greatly because this was the place to hear all of the latest gossip and dirt about the women who were not there. She also found out about the best stores for all kinds of shopping, so Shirley was in seventh heaven.

I joined a couple of men’s clubs that were recommended, and used the opportunity to increase my skill at poker. Actually, my main problem was in remembering not to win too much. Despite that stringent limitation, I did enjoy playing poker with the other men and did gain the reputation of being very skilled at cards. Actually, most of my skill was in reading people, but I didn’t argue with the popular misconception.

We spent most of the summer of 1862 touring Gettysburg and its environs. I wanted to get a good picture of what the battlefield really looked like. According to Joe, the Confederates had beaten the Union to the prime artillery site, and I wanted to prevent that. In fact, I wanted to beat the Confederates so badly that there was no option of splitting into two alternate universes where each side won. The latter situation would help Joe’s cause, but it would not be as effective as completely preventing the possibility of a Confederate victory.

Under these circumstances, it looked to me like my troop would have to annihilate the Confederate artillery, not just decimate them. My tentative plan was to destroy all of the Confederate guns; with that done, it did not make much difference how many men we killed. Frankly, that fit better with my idea of how a war should be fought. We knew enough of the Confederate order of battle from my time line, so we knew where to ambush their artillery before they ever reached the battlefield.

On the fifth of November, Shirley announced that she was pregnant again. Uh-oh, that would play Hell with our plans for Gettysburg. Oh, well, back to planning again. From what we knew of this version of the battle, the crucial factor was to keep Confederate artillery off of Little Round Top. The army that placed its artillery first on that hill was going to be the winner of the overall battle. Therefore, it behooved us to keep the Confederates at bay.

In this universe, the Confederate artillery we were most concerned about was traveling up the Emmitsburg Road from where it crossed the Potomac River. There were nearly 170 cannon and massive quantities of gunpowder and shot in the artillery train. Of course, destroying the powder would have been the best way to halt the train of wagons and destroy the Confederates’ ability to bombard the Union lines, but that would also be the most difficult thing to do.

The best alternative that I could see was to shoot the mules actually pulling the cannon and accoutrements, though I hated to harm the poor animals. That kind of attack could be managed with our guns set at low pressure and firing darts. That way, our attack would be almost silent, and the darts would have no problem in penetrating the skin of the mules, even if a hit was made on an area protected by leather. The sharp point of the dart would take care of that.

Fortunately, the androids did not need any refresher training, since their computer-controlled “muscles” would always do the same thing from the same commands, no matter how separated in time the commands might be. The only one who needed refresher training was me, so I set up a range in our back yard and practiced there for at least an hour each day as long as the weather permitted.

Life proceeded apace, and the winter turned into spring. Shirley’s baby was born, and this time it was a beautiful little girl. We named her Marie Shirley Roberts, and she was the same kind of handful that James had been. At least James was weaned so that Shirley was only nursing Marie, by when the time came for me to leave on my great adventure to salvage this universe.

I left one android with Shirley and the children to be both a bodyguard and a maid. The remaining android and I headed to where the Confederates would be crossing the Potomac River. We arrived four days before the Confederate artillery was due and set up our first ambush. I had decided to kill only a few mules at this point, and to follow that pattern on the road to Gettysburg. Had we tried to kill all of the mules, we would have been besieged by the CSA (Confederate States Army) and might have been pinned down. Also, they would have had time to find replacement mules and to continue the march north.

Instead, we killed only one mule in each team of four mules, and that caused a lot of delay while the men cleared the mule from the traces and replaced it. Doing it this way caused several hours delay for each cannon. Thus, the CSA artillery made only about five miles that day, instead of the 15 they had been counting on.

Also, since we were using the low pressure setting for our pistols, we did not mark our positions with gun shots. The Confederates knew that they were being shot at, but they could not spot where the shots were coming from. The fact that they could not hear the sound of the gunshots suggested that our fire was coming from a long distance, and it was not practical for them to try to find us.

We spent four days sniping at the artillery train, and that was enough to ensure that they would not beat the Union artillery to Little Round Top. This turned out to be so much easier than we had expected that we never had to participate in the Gettysburg battle, itself. That made me happy because I was afraid of doing too much and causing other changes in history that that would not help our plans.