Assassins of History- Transference

by Vernon Dutton

  PRAISE FOR

  ASSASSINS OF HISTORY:

  TRANSFERENCE

  “Vernon Dutton has provided an amazing piece of historical fiction in this story. Vernon provides, in vivid detail, a great description of daily life in the nineteenth century during the American Civil War in the year 1862 of this alternate history. The story keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting to see what might happen next.”

  Josh Williams

  Historian/Curator

  “Vernon Dutton takes us on a journey back to the Civil War, where the past is not the past as we know it to be. If you ever thought about going back in time to the Civil War, read Vernon Dutton’s book, and be careful what you wish for!”

  Patrick Falci

  Actor/Historian

  ASSASSINS OF HISTORY:

  TRANSFERENCE

  Vernon L. Dutton

  2017 Time Travelers Publishing. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

  Assassins of History: Transference is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialogue, and characters, with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situation, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9857444-2-7

  Cover Design: Donelle DeWitt First Printing: May, 2017

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my Virtual Assistants, Lisa and Tim Petree, who have stood by me during the transition from retiree to author, coach, and motivational speaker. They have been there to listen to and hone my weird ideas for years. I couldn’t have written this book without their support.

  I want to thank Lisa Beavers for her excellent copy editing. Her observations as to weak points that needed more clarification were greatly appreciated.

  I also want to thank Donelle DeWitt for her wonderful content editing. Also, her exterior and interior design of the book are awesome. Her fantastic front cover caught the essence of the novel’s story.

  Lastly, I want to express my love, thanks and devotion to my wife, Nancy. Her gracious love, understanding and belief in me have carried me through our 49 years together. Not only is she a great corrector of my manuscripts, but she pushes me to strive for my best.

  Nancy, I love you.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 1

  The young woman standing in the small private room at the bank in Little Rock, Arkansas, pulled the faded manuscript from the safety deposit box. She turned to the first page. It began:

  “If you are reading this, I must be dead and you have found this journal in my safety deposit box. You are going to think that the following descriptions are the ravings of an unbalanced mind, but what I’m about to divulge is true. I promise. All I ask is that you please read and digest this journal with an open mind.”

  I am going to start my account with a rhetorical question.

  Have you ever thought you would like to go back into history and live like our forefathers?

  Well, believe you me, you better wish, hope and pray you never get the chance, especially when your life hangs in the balance. Besides there is a lot to be said for 21st Century conveniences such as: running water, air conditioning, flush toilets, fast food restaurants and showers.

  My name is Shelton Owen Woods. I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas. I will have to warn you that I do not have the acumen of a PhD in Physics. I won’t be able to explain what happened in scientific terms. So, you will have to settle for my rather unscientific mundane explanations. Also, you are going to question how I obtained portions of the encounter that I will impart. This will be revealed at the specific time it occurs in the account.

  Initially you will need a little of my personal background to understand my fate. I promise not to go back too far, but a small amount of my personal information is needed.

  I have always been a Civil War buff. I was raised in the South and all the Confederate Generals were my heroes. Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest were the first, with John Brown Gordon, John Bell Hood and Stonewall Jackson joining the pantheon later in life.

  I hadn’t been very actively reading Civil War books for years until Ken Burns made his epic Civil War documentary for public television. Then the bug bit me again and I went on a Civil War bender. I fixated on the Battle of Antietam. For some reason, it stood out from all the battles mentioned in the Burns documentary. I read all I could about the battle, including the officers, the units, description of the battle site and the deployment of the armies. I thought I had become a Civil War resource of some repute. I could rattle off regiments, brigades, divisions and corps utilized in this battle at a moment’s notice.

  As I got more into the background of how both armies ended up in western Maryland during 1862, I was forced to go back in my research to June 1862, which was when Robert E. Lee took over the Confederate Army near Richmond and named it the Army of Northern Virginia. This opened up for me the whole idea of Southern strategy employed during the war and I was again reveling in a cloud of Civil War history. So, I read more Civil War history books and I visited the Antietam Battlefield at least once a year, which led to what happened to me.

  The incredible events started in September 2012, when I had planned to travel by car to western Maryland to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. I had scheduled vacation days for the whole week of September 10th through the 14nd plus the following three work days Monday-Wednesday, September 17th through September 19th. I would be leaving the weekend before the 10th and returning on September 18th and 19th.

  My wife couldn’t go because she had to help take care of her family in Little Rock, but she gladly acquiesced to me being out of the house for about 12 days.

  My co-workers were ecstatic to see me go. I had made it quite clear where I was going for my vacation and had about driven them crazy each day with historical facts about what had been happening 150 years ago during the Maryland Campaign. Needless to say, they were sick and tired of hearing about it. They were looking forward to not having to listen to me and thought that maybe, when I returned, I would be so tired after the trip of 2000 miles that I would at least give it a rest when I got back from my foray.

  I began my pilgrimage after work on Friday night the 7th of September. Over Friday night and the next two days, while listening to Bobby Horton CDs of Civil War Songs of the South, I motored 1000 miles toward Shepherdstown, West Virginia, which is located just across the Potomac River from the Antietam Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Each night I would call my wife and we would exchange the news of our days’ events.

  During the drive, I began reminiscing about one summer’s visit to Virginia. I remembered that my wife and I motored to every Civil War historical marker in the Shenandoah Valley and had our picture made next to each marker. It took us two and a half days. Years later I read in the book “C
onfederates in the Attic” that this type of journey is called a Wargasm. Our trek would definitely have qualified.

  Anyway, I made it to Shepherdstown on Sunday afternoon, September 9th, and took a drive down the main street, which is called German Street. I love to look at the old store fronts and see what businesses are still there and if any new businesses have sprung up. Getting back on the main highway, I crossed the Potomac River into Washington County, Maryland and two miles later entered Sharpsburg.

  Proceeding through town, I turned north on Highway 65 and went to the Antietam National Battlefield Park. As I drove this last mile to my Sacred Ground, I looked off to the east to view all the terrain over which the fighting in the central part of the battlefield took place. Further on, I looked back to the west and saw the position of the 3rd Arkansas Infantry during the battle, which was on a small ridgeline overlooking the highway. Just past this point I turned into the driveway to the Antietam National Battlefield Visitor Center. I parked and, as I went up to the front doors, looked at the cannon situated in front of the building just to the right of the entrance. My mentor and battlefield guide, James Smith, had passed away due to a heart attack, while standing in front of “that” cannon just before he was to give a lecture about the battle. I gave a nod to James’ spirit as I entered the center.

  The Visitor Center has made a few changes to the history room over the years, but overall it is the same as when I first visited it in 1994.

  However, the Antietam National Battlefield Park itself has doubled in size due to acquisitions by the National Park Service and property donated by various non-profit entities over the past 20 years.

  I went up to the overlook deck on the second floor and looked out from the glass-encased viewing room at the landscape. You can see all the way from “Bloody Lane” in the south to “The Cornfield” in the north. You can even see the Pry House property in the distance where Union General McClellan spent most of his time during the battle.

  Just taking in all this scenery brings a euphoria that I have the privilege to stand on Hallowed Ground, where my heroes walked, fought, were wounded and some died.

  After a few minutes of revelry, I went down stairs, paid my five dollars for a park pass and visited the bookstore. The bookstore has a wealth of books not only on Antietam but the whole Civil War. They also have some T-shirts and sweaters so I bought a new T-shirt and vacated the building.

  I drove north to the North Woods, which is the northern boundary of the battlefield. This was where the main battle started between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, September 17, 1862, when the Union 1st Corps started their advance south from this point with the Iron Brigade in the vanguard.

  I got out of the car, faced south and surveyed all points of the battlefield. I deliberated on how the soldiers must have felt on what became the Bloodiest Day in American History.

  I have been all over the Antietam Battlefield. I have trespassed, I mean, traversed historic landscapes that were on private property and battlefield property that I wasn’t supposed to enter. For example, I walked all the way from the Piper House Bed and Breakfast east following the old Piper’s Lane until it crossed the lower part of the Sunken Road. Part of the Lane was privately owned. Also, I have jumped a fence in the very northern part of the battlefield and traversed some woods to a clearing just before a small incline called Hauser’s Ridge, which was where the Confederate Artillery deployed to bombard the Union advance during the late morning hours of the battle. In both instances, I didn’t get caught.

  Due to my previous nefarious visitations, I had gotten this wild idea of having a spiritual encounter with an earthbound spirit of a soldier in a portion of the battlefield called the East Woods. Thus, before I left on my pilgrimage, I proposed to enter the park from the east after dark by way of the old Smoketown Road and sneak onto battlefield property for such a séance.

  So, during my initial touring of the battlefield, I decided to implement my stealthy illicit spiritual reconnaissance of the East Woods the next night.

  With this venture determined, I left the park and checked into a motel near Shepherdstown. I was beat. After a beer and hamburger at the motel grill, I retired to my room, called my wife with a daily event summary and fell fast asleep with pictures of Civil War soldiers in my head.

  The next morning, I awoke with a growling stomach demanding food. After showering and dressing, I bounded down the stairs to the motel’s continental breakfast bar and gorged on eggs, biscuits and coffee. Once substantially full, I journeyed back to the battlefield and spent the day touring.

  I walked about five miles surveying many historical points in the northern part of the battlefield. Then I drove to the southern part of the battlefield and walked another five miles scrutinizing the historical ground over which many charges and countercharges raged during the afternoon of the battle.

  I even studied the area where Confederate General Lawrence O’Brien Branch was killed and where Confederate General A.P. Hill’s division hit the Union Army in the flank and saved the Army of Northern Virginia from annihilation.

  By this time, it was well past my lunch time, so I went into Sharpsburg and ate a turkey sandwich at the local convenience store and then went to the local ice cream parlor for dessert. To say the least I was stuffed after partaking of the blue-collar gourmet fare.

  After lunch, I went back to the Visitor Center and watched their film about the Battle, took a run through the bookstore, went across the street to the Dunker Church and visited the Maryland Monument, which lists all Maryland units from both North and South that fought during the Civil War.

  Finally, it was getting dark and the park was shutting down. The park rangers were closing the few existing gates onto the park. However, there isn’t a gate closing off the park’s eastern entrance from the Smoketown Road.

  So, I motored the six miles east to Boonsboro, Maryland and had a snack at a local hamburger joint while waiting for the park rangers to finish their last rounds and vacate the park.

  

  The Dark Mage’s Log: Axeylon 5: Galaxy Date: 16312

  Lord Dendaras, Ruler of The Eastern Third of the Fourth Galaxy, looked down on his two Watchers with benevolence.

  The information that scrolled on the screen of his contact lens indicated Jarbree was experienced and had participated in many transferences. The other, Jarreal, was new to this type of assignment and this would be his first transference. Lord Dendaras didn’t take the time to read the additional descriptive information on each of the two Watchers provided by the Eternal Oracle.

  “Brethren, may Tantas watch over you and your mission,” uttered Lord Dendaras. They bowed, clicked their heels, about faced in unison and proceeded to their different departure points.

  

  I waited until about 9:00 p.m. before risking my stealthy invasion. It was quite dark and I had arrived the weekend before all the crowds would descend on the site. But still, I wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any tourists or park rangers in the park.

  As I was coming back from Boonsboro toward Sharpsburg, I encountered a multitude of blue lights whirling from three state police cars ahead of me. As I approached the scene of what appeared to be a car accident, there was a police car blocking my lane. In front of the police car I could just barely see a wrecked vehicle. A State Trooper was signaling me to go around his car and the wreck. Following his directions, I pulled out in the left lane and proceeded. A quick glance out of the corner of my eye to the right disclosed that two cars had collided almost head on with one ending up in the right lane and the other upside down in the ditch to the right side of the road. The front end of the car resting in the right lane was so completely smashed that the hood was only about one foot long. As I made my way past the wrecked car, another quick glance yielded the sight of a medical crew pushing a gurney apparently containing a body covered with a bloody sheet toward an ambulance. I had chills run up and down my spine. I quickly looked back at the road.
I didn’t want to imagine what the body under the sheet looked like, but in another sense, I did. Back in high school I attended a safety driving course. At the end of the course, we were shown a film of the aftermath of car wrecks. I still get the heebie-jeebies remembering all the dead bodies from the film.

  As I got back into my lane and headed toward Sharpsburg, another State Trooper had about four cars stopped in the oncoming lane and he was moving his flashlight for me to continue. I complied and, as most people who view a bad wreck, I was just thankful it wasn’t me in either of the cars. Then I felt guilty as most people do and hoped no one else was badly hurt. After just observing one of the worst ways for a person to die, I had second thoughts about my little infiltration operation tonight. But I reasoned, if I don’t do it tonight, I won’t have another time to do it. There will be a lot of crowds during the next few days that will preclude me from my adventure. So, I talked myself into proceeding with my idiotic idea.

  In the old days, the road I was traveling left Boonsboro and went west through Keedysville, Maryland. Just past Keedysville, the road split with the left branch continuing to Sharpsburg and the right branch winding in a northwesterly direction ultimately crossing the Hagerstown Pike and continuing to Williamsport, Maryland, where in 1863 part of Lee’s army crossed the Potomac after Gettysburg. If you take the Williamsport branch of the road, you will cross over the “Upper Bridge”, which is one of the original bridges over Antietam Creek that portions of the Union 1st Corps, 2nd Corps and 12th Corps used on September 16th and 17th, 1862.

  Once you cross this bridge and travel another two miles, you will see a gravel road that leads off to the left toward the battlefield. This is the old Smoketown Road. It still retains much of its 19th century character. The wooded terrain and fields on either side of the road appear much as they did during the Civil War. When previously accessing Antietam Battlefield on my annual visits, I always entered the park utilizing this scenic route to get into a 19th century mindset. The Smoketown Road proceeds to and through the East Woods, ultimately dead-ending at the Hagerstown Pike in front of the Dunker Church. During the battle the East Woods was the scene of horrific fighting in the late afternoon of September 16, 1862 and during the morning of September 17, 1862.