The Lincoln Project

by Dan Gutman

  “Nope,” David said. “Who cares?”

  “It was 1877,” Luke told him. “That’s fourteen years from now.”

  “So?” asked Isabel. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well,” Luke explained, “Edison recorded sound for the first time ever in 1877. So any sound that was made before that year was lost forever.”

  “Go on,” David said, sitting up against the wall.

  “So I was thinking,” Luke said, becoming more excited as he continued, “Lincoln was killed in 1865. Nobody in our time knows what Lincoln’s voice sounded like, because there was no way to record sound in his lifetime.”

  “And the camera Miss Z gave us can shoot video, right?” Isabel said.

  “And audio,” replied Luke. “We can film the Gettysburg Address tomorrow and bring home the only audio recording of Abraham Lincoln’s voice! How much money do you think that might be worth?”

  “You’re right!” said Julia.

  “And the beauty of it is, we don’t have to bring anything home except the camera,” Luke said, “which we’re bringing home with us anyway. We don’t have to change history. We don’t have to steal anything. I just have to push the button.”

  “You are a genius!” David said.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Nobody did. One by one, the Flashback Four dropped off to sleep, dreaming of making history, and making millions.

  CHAPTER 17

  LOOK WHAT I FOUND

  LUKE, DAVID, ISABEL, AND JULIA WERE AWAKENED in the morning by the sound of a rooster crowing.

  Cock-a-doodle-dooooo . . .

  “Are you kidding me?” Julia moaned, covering her ears. “They really do that? I thought it was just something roosters did in cartoons.”

  “No, they actually do it,” Luke said. “My grandfather grew up on a farm.”

  “I need more sleep,” Julia groaned.

  “I need something to eat,” Isabel said.

  “I need a shower,” said David, “and I want to brush my teeth.”

  It was Thursday, November 19, 1863, and the sunlight streaming into the barn promised it was going to be a good day. It was the right day, at least. This was the day that Abraham Lincoln would deliver the Gettysburg Address, less than a mile away.

  A moment after the rooster crowed, the kids were jolted by another sound—a bugle call, followed by a series of thundering explosions echoing in the distance.

  “What is that?” asked Isabel. “Is there another battle going on?”

  Julia and Isabel hurriedly put their dresses on and joined the boys, who had already hustled outside to find out what was going on. They couldn’t see it, but on Cemetery Ridge, a section of the Gettysburg battlefield, a sixteen-round artillery salute was being fired in honor of President Lincoln. He and Secretary of State Seward were getting an early-morning tour of the battlefield, with all the military ceremony deserving of a president. After his tour was over, Lincoln would be taken back to the Wills house, and the parade to the cemetery was scheduled to begin at ten o’clock.

  The air was crisp, but not cold. In the light of day, the kids could see that the barn they had slept in was at the corner of a large farm. Fields of pumpkins, turnips, and other crops could be seen stretching into the distance.

  There was a shovel leaning against the barn. Luke used it to dig a small hole in the ground. David threw in the gun they had knocked out of John Wilkes Booth’s hand the night before and covered it with dirt.

  “This stays here,” Luke said to Julia sternly. “Understand?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled.

  Luke’s idea made more sense anyway, and Julia knew it. Instead of trying to sell Booth’s gun to make money, they could record the Gettysburg Address with Miss Z’s camera. The video and audio would be worth millions, and the modern world would get the chance to hear the sound of Abraham Lincoln’s voice for the first time. They wouldn’t be taking back any souvenirs—other than some electrons on a computer chip. There was nothing illegal about it. They wouldn’t be changing history in any way. They would just be observing and recording it. And they would still be able to get a photo of Lincoln delivering his speech for Miss Z. It seemed like a perfect plan.

  Bzzz. Isabel felt the buzz of the TTT in her pocket.

  GOOD MORNING, the message read. THIS IS YOUR WAKEUP CALL.

  WE ALREADY GOT A WAKEUP CALL, Isabel typed back.

  “Don’t tell her about the new plan,” Julia said.

  Bzzz.

  PARADE TO CEMETERY BEGINS AT 10, Miss Z texted. LINCOLN SPEECH AT 2.

  “How are we supposed to know what time it is?” Julia asked. “She has our cell phones.”

  “It’s around seven o’clock in the morning,” Luke said, looking at the horizon in the distance.

  “How do you know?”

  Indeed, how did Luke know what time it was? It had never occurred to the others that you could get a sense of what time it was by the elevation of the sun in the sky. For centuries, that’s what people did to tell time. We’re so used to watches, clocks, and cell phones that we are sometimes hopeless without them.

  “I’m starved,” David said.

  “It’s a farm,” Luke told him. “There’s food all over the place.”

  “Is this legal?” Isabel asked as they wandered into the field. “Isn’t it stealing if we take something from here without asking?”

  “There’s nobody around,” David said. “Besides, we won’t eat much.”

  There were tall corn stalks all around, but the ears had been picked clean during the summer, when corn was in season. Deeper in the field, they came upon a smaller garden.

  “Berries!” Luke said, just about diving into them.

  There were rows of huckleberries, black crowberries, cape gooseberries, and others. Luke started picking them off the vines and stuffing them in his mouth.

  “How do you know they’re not poisonous?” Julia asked.

  “Why would a farmer grow poisonous berries?” Luke asked, the juice running down his chin.

  “To keep people like us from eating them?” David guessed.

  But after seeing Luke enjoying the feast and not toppling over, David got down on his knees and began picking berries himself. Isabel did the same.

  “Hey, these are good!” she said, filling her mouth.

  Julia stood back a few feet, watching them.

  “That stuff grows in dirt,” she said, wrinkling up her nose. “That’s where the word dirty comes from. I’ve never eaten anything that didn’t come in a package.”

  “So don’t eat it,” David told her. “More for us.”

  In the end, even Julia consented to trying the berries, and she enjoyed them as much as the others did.

  When they’d had their fill, the Flashback Four walked deeper into the field to see what else might be on the menu. What they found strewn about, however, were mainly fragments of war-ragged knapsacks, canteens, shoes, holsters, clothing, and other belongings that had been left behind by soldiers who had fought there four months earlier.

  After a few minutes, they detected a smell, faint at first, and then powerful and pungent as they got closer. On the ground next to a large maple tree, they discovered the rotting corpse of a horse. Everybody gasped at the sight of it.

  “Ugh,” Luke said, covering his nose and mouth. “That guy didn’t make it.”

  “The poor thing,” Isabel said.

  “I think I may throw up,” said Julia.

  I know what you’re thinking, reader. What was a dead horse doing there? Good question. In addition to all the men who were wounded or killed at Gettysburg, five thousand horses and mules were casualties of the battle. Burying them was out of the question. Most of the large animals had to be doused with oil and incinerated where they fell. But the horses that had the misfortune to die right next to a house or a tree couldn’t be set on fire. There was nothing to do but let them rot on the ground.

  “I say we get out of here,�
� David suggested.

  The farm was quite large, and it was hard for the kids to retrace their steps back to the barn and the main road where they had started. They set off in the wrong direction at first, walking single file through a row of tomato plants. David led the way, so it was David who stubbed his toe on a large gray object that was half-buried in the dirt. It was shaped like a two-liter soda bottle. David bent down to pick it up.

  “Hey, check out this old bottle,” he told the others. “This thing is heavy!”

  “Just drop it,” Luke advised.

  “DON’T DROP IT!”

  The voice was rough, loud, and urgent. It came from behind them. David was so startled that he nearly dropped the thing he had just been warned not to drop.

  All four kids turned around. There was a heavy man with a beard standing behind them, and he was holding a shotgun.

  “Oh no, not again!” David groaned.

  “We’re sorry, sir,” Isabel said quickly. “We ate some of your berries. We were hungry and we didn’t have any money.”

  “DON’T DROP THAT!” the man repeated, just a little more calmly.

  He rested his shotgun on the ground and approached David cautiously.

  “That ain’t no bottle, son,” he said. “It’s a shell. And I reckon it just might be a live one.”

  “You mean, the kind of shell that explodes?” Julia asked.

  “Well, it ain’t exploded yet,” the man replied. “But it could blow anytime.”

  David looked terrified.

  In case you don’t know, a shell is basically an explosive charge packed with gunpowder and wrapped by an iron casing. Some were designed to detonate in midair. Others had a percussion fuse, so they would detonate on impact. Either way, the shell would burst into a dozen or so iron fragments that were designed to rip through human flesh.

  Thousands of shells were fired in the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of them landed in fields without exploding, to be discovered days, months, or even years later.

  “Maybe it’s a dud,” David said hopefully, holding the shell at arm’s length.

  “You willin’ to bet your life on that?” the man asked.

  “Okay, okay!” David said. “So what should I do with it?”

  “Follow me,” the man said. “And don’t trip over nothin’ and fall down with that thing in your hands, you hear? That could be the end of you.”

  As they walked, the man said his name was Big Jim and that he owned the farm. He didn’t mind the kids eating a few of his berries, but he said he sure didn’t want them blowing themselves up on his land. This was the third unexploded shell he’d found on his property since the battle ended.

  These days, of course, bomb squads have sophisticated techniques they use to defuse bombs. But Big Jim had a simpler idea. He led the Flashback Four across the field and down the road until they reached a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence was a steep drop into a narrow ditch.

  “Can you throw good?” Big Jim asked David. “You got a good arm on you?”

  “Sure, I can sink a shot from half-court, nothing but net,” David replied, not realizing that basketball was twenty-eight years away from being invented.

  “Ah don’t know what in tarnation that means,” Big Jim replied. “But I’m gonna need you to chuck that shell as far as you can into that gully over yonder. Think you can manage that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’d do it myself, but I got me a bum arm,” Big Jim said.

  “Is it going to blow up?” Isabel asked.

  “That’s what we’re gonna find out,” Big Jim replied. “Let ’er rip, son.”

  All eyes turned to David. He took a deep breath. The others backed up to give him room.

  “Okay, here goes nothing,” he said.

  David spun around a few times like an Olympic discus thrower. Then he let the shell fly with a grunt, heaving it high in the air.

  “Now duck!” Big Jim shouted.

  Boom!

  Nobody saw the explosion. But they heard it, and saw the dirt flying. It was a long time until the sound stopped echoing across the fields.

  CHAPTER 18

  A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM

  “WELL, YOU DON’T SEE THAT EVERY DAY,” ISABEL said after everybody had picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and checked to see if any body parts were missing.

  “Everybody all right?” asked Big Jim.

  “I’m fit as a fiddle!” David replied.

  It was past eight o’clock in the morning and the kids were anxious to see the parade to the cemetery. They were also anxious to shoot the video of Lincoln and go home.

  But when Big Jim insisted that they come into his house, meet his wife, and have breakfast, it was hard to refuse. Mrs. Big Jim (they never did catch her name) was lovely, and seemed to effortlessly put together a spread of eggs, bacon, biscuits, potatoes, and some kind of stuff that none of the kids could identify but ate anyway just to be polite. It was all delicious and really hit the spot.

  Big Jim and his wife didn’t have any children of their own, so they took a special delight when kids came around to visit. As they chatted over breakfast, the Flashback Four were extra careful not to mention the internet, microwave popcorn, Cartoon Network, Froot Loops, or any other references that might be incomprehensible to people in the nineteenth century.

  “Well, we’ve got to go, uh, boil our shirts,” David told Big Jim and his wife. “But we’re much obliged for this fine breakfast.”

  By the time they got back to Baltimore Street, it was jam-packed with people, most of them heading north toward the square. Men, women, and children were decked out in their finest attire. Military bands were marching up the street in formation, looking sharp. American flags were everywhere, hanging outside each building and being waved around by people of all ages.

  The Flashback Four fell in step with the crowd. The atmosphere felt different than it had the day before. It wasn’t a party anymore. People looked more somber, and for good reason. On this day, the president of the United States had come to honor the soldiers who had died at Gettysburg four months earlier.

  Luke turned on the camera and checked the controls. Everything seemed to be working. Just to be on the safe side, he fired off a few practice shots. Then he turned the camera off to avoid draining the battery.

  It seemed like everybody in town had gathered at the square for the parade to the cemetery. It was a huge crowd.

  “I bet John Wilkes Booth is out here somewhere,” David said, looking around nervously.

  “Yeah, but we took away his gun,” Luke reminded him, “and I don’t think he’s gonna find it.”

  “What if he has another gun?” asked Julia.

  “Look, we don’t have to worry about Booth,” Luke reminded them. “If he tries anything today, we know he’s going to fail. If he succeeded, it would be in the history books, right?”

  “Yeah,” David said, “but what if his other gun is better than the one we took away from him? Then we changed history and he shoots Lincoln with his other gun.”

  “I think my head is going to explode,” Luke replied. “We can’t worry about that stuff.”

  At precisely ten o’clock, the front door of the Wills house opened and President Lincoln appeared in the doorway. Polite applause washed across the square as people stopped, pointed, and whispered to their neighbors. There were no raucous cheers or drunken hooting. Not today.

  Lincoln was dressed, as usual, in a plain black suit, bow tie, and stovepipe hat. For this special occasion, he also held a pair of white gloves in his hand. He had a serious look on his face as he reached out to shake hands with a few people who had the courage to approach him. A little boy was rewarded with a pat on the head.

  As he ambled down the steps, the president moved awkwardly, almost like a man on stilts. He walked slowly between two lines of soldiers until he got to a reddish-brown horse, which had been specially selected to carry him to the cemetery. The horse was quite shor
t, and when Lincoln mounted it, his feet nearly touched the ground. It was comical looking, and on a different day people might have laughed at the sight of such a tall man on a short horse.

  “I wonder where Tad is,” Isabel whispered.

  “Oh, I’m sure that little troublemaker is around here somewhere,” replied Julia.

  It took a long time to organize all the various marchers into a parade line. In front of the president, a five-man color guard waving huge American flags led the way to Baltimore Street. The Marine Band followed them, playing a crisp march. After that came a squadron of cavalry, two batteries of artillery, and a regiment of infantry soldiers. They were followed by marshals on horseback wearing black suits decorated with white sashes. Behind them was the Second United States Artillery Band, blasting away with trumpets and drums.

  The president’s horse looked anxious to get going, prancing back and forth in place, much to the crowd’s delight. When he finally got the signal, Lincoln snapped the reins and bowed his head to the left and right to acknowledge the applause from the citizens lining both sides of the street.

  The parade moved slowly, because there were so many marchers. Following Lincoln was a large group of generals, congressmen, governors, clergymen, dignitaries, and prominent citizens like David Wills, who had graciously invited the president to stay at his home the night before. Behind that group was a line of local civic organizations and professors from Gettysburg College. Finally, bringing up the rear were dozens of soldiers who had been wounded in battle, many of them walking with crutches and canes.

  The Flashback Four were following the crowd down Baltimore Street when Isabel felt the now familiar vibration of the TTT in her pocket. Bzzz.

  ARE YOU AT THE CEMETERY? asked Miss Z.

  ON OUR WAY, Isabel typed back.

  “We’d better hurry up,” she told the others. “We need to get to the front of these people if we’re going to get a good position to shoot the video.”

  “That’s right!” Luke said, slapping his forehead. “Let’s move!”

  He started jogging down the street, dodging left and right around marchers like a running back. David was right behind him, and the girls—with their giant dresses—struggled to keep up.