April 19, 1861 — an excerpt from The First Assassin:
Lincoln returned his spyglass to its place on the desk. If he had continued to look through the window, he would have observed the George Page, a ferry steamer that shuttled people between Alexandria and Washington. On this trip, it was moving in Lincoln’s direction. The ship stopped at a dock and unloaded a handful of passengers.
The last person to disembark was a man who had made it to Alexandria only the day before, after spending the night in Richmond. He slipped a bank note to a porter and asked him to look after his trunk–he would send for it in a few hours. Unencumbered, the man now turned his sights to the city spread before him.
Mazorca had arrived.
