Summer seemed to be over. Cold, damp air washed over the deck of the sailing ship as it crossed the gray water of the lake.

Standing at the stern of the brig, below flapping sails, with his hand on the ship’s wheel, Captain Marsh scented the air for danger like a huge hound scouring the bayou for threats.

His gray beard bristled under sharp blue eyes. His heavy black coat flapped in the breeze as the captain looked ahead with a hint of a smile. He was in his element, the lake his home.

Nearby a man dressed in Confederate gray looked at the captain with something akin to jealousy.

Holding one of the port foremast ratlines in a tight grip Major Robert Cane fought memories of his family in Mississippi, unseen over two years. He brought himself firmly to the present knowing such thoughts formed a wide path to madness. Simple common sense told Robert he would see his family again just as he and the rest of the men traveling on the Tulip had seen the last of war.

He glanced at Captain Marsh, and for a moment envied the captain’s freedom and joy.

Fate made Robert a prisoner of war. Capture brought its own form of peace after years of death and foolish glory. For all the men of the Third Mississippi Volunteers the only risk now lay in the honor of their captors, and in their march across the country the Union soldiers had been surprisingly kind; perhaps men who knew the horror of war appreciated the value of compassion.

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It had been the civilians who were hard-pressed to restrain themselves as the Confederate prisoners made the long trek north. Civilians threw rocks and epitaphs as if their lives held greater pain than those who had endured battle. They threw manure to validate the righteousness of their politics.

It was hypocrisy of the worst kind, a foolishness seen both north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Foolish men, long of beard and age, goaded young men to war and decried the enemy without leaving the safety of their homes. They screamed curses at the passing prisoners from the open doors of churches and homes without thinking of God.

Over time, Robert believed that only soldiers who had paid the price of war could understand the true nature of war. Only soldiers and innocent civilians paid the price of death for the politics of men, who in their hubris felt their ideas were more important than someone else’s life.

This entire war had been an exercise in frustration, a lesson in the lengths of insanity men of power would pursue to control a people. In defending their own freedom from an oppressive government, they defended slave-owners, beings as reprehensible as the very institution they embraced. It was a partnership with the devil that they could not leave, just as tar-stained skin. There was no justice for men like that, nor for the politicians who used war as a bludgeon to achieve their aim.

This desolate place was another creation of politicians. Only a politician would place a prisoner of war camp on an island in the center of a vast lake. Only politicians sorely lacking in a remote understanding of logistics and the base concept of humanity could place the lives of prisoners at risk. A trace remained of the southern shore of Lake Superior, fading astern as the Tulip headed north. The water was more than a chasm, more than a wall; it was the river Styx; it was death.

The gray water seemed to last forever, leading to a God-forsaken purgatory.