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 John Brown's Body

Harper's Ferry, Virginia - November 1859

Commander Pike once again called upon his "Sword and Shield" agents, charging them with going to Harper's Ferry to retrieve the body of John Brown. In reality, he wanted what Brown possessed- the original Bill of Rights, a powerful document. However, John Brown was able to bring his influence to bear before he was executed, and turned Pike's agents against him by telling them of his evil machinations- including the fact that he keeps the Bones of George Washington under his office floor. The magician Atalanta was so broken by Brown's noble spirit that he embraced his true nature at last and swore himself to the abolitionist cause for life.

In the course of these events, the Masonic agents also found themselves negotiating a conflict between Col. Lewis Washington- great-great nephew of George Washington- and a dead slave who haunted the nearby woods.

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 The Pike Raid

Charleston, South Carolina - March 1861

Following years of doubts sown by John Brown, the "Sword and Shield" agents came together again to settle the matter of Pike's true nature. Ms. Randolph and Pvt. Bean, having traveled to France to leave the Bill of Rights in safe hands, join "Atalanta" and Mr. Coombs in Charleston, just as the Confederates were massing to take Fort Sumter. Breaking into Pike's estate, the group liberated the Bones of George Washington- but unfortunately not the War Helmet of Cornwallis- before starting a fire that consumed the house. After a brief tangle with Pike's guards and his superior servant Monroe, they managed to save some hapless slaves and escape into the night.

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 The Boundary and Bull Run

Washington, DC - July 1861

As the tensions of war began to build, the agents found themselves on the run from the Masonic order, who watched their every move. In Washington DC, they were forcefully invited to dinner with Col. Washington, a member of the order himself. During this dinner he pushed them to declare a side in the growing conflict, and told them of the great boundary stones of the District of Columbia, and their importance as a mystic defense of the capitol. He said that General P.G.T. Beauregard of the Confederate army was poised to break the boundary and invade, unless they interfered. Attempting to negotiate a price for such labors, the agents were rebuffed and told that this would simply settle their debt.

As a result, the angry group split up, sending Randolph and Coombs out of the city under cover of night to meet with Beauregard and seek a better offer. Meanwhile, Bean and Atalanta sought out an audience with President Lincoln himself.

Randolph and Coombs eventually spoke with the general, and found he had no clue about the boundary stones. In order to keep themselves in his good graces (and out of prison) they agreed to spy for the Confederacy. Bean and Atalanta met Professor Thaddeus Lowe, whose aid they required in getting into the White House. There they told the President everything they knew- including that Atalanta had been forced to give the Bones of George Washington to Seamus O'Brien.

Over the following days, Randolph made herself indispensable to Gen. Beauregard, while Coombs returned to the city and his companions. He had heard that the "Shaw & Braddock Traveling Carnivale of Delights" would be in town, and he knew that his enemy, Jack Straw, was close at hand.

Atalanta and Bean came to find that, like Harwood, Caleb Law was working with the president to secure the Union. The trio reacquainted themselves over a seance intended to raise the ghost of George Washington. Though the seance was intended to help them find the man's bones- and O'Brien with them- it was a failure. Falling back on more reliable methods, they hunted down O'Brien's lair in the Astoria Hotel and attempted to attack him. This led to a brutal confrontation with Frederick Cooper, a hardened mercenary in the Irishman's employ.

By dawn, the agents had overcome Cooper and dragged him to the top of the unfinished Washington monument- a shambling wreck 150 feet high, left unfinished by the Know-Nothing politicos. While threatening to kill Cooper for information, a tussle ensued between Coombs and Bean, who wanted to protect the prisoner. In the end, Bean fell to his death, and Cooper broke. They had their lead at last.

The next evening, while the last remaining Bean worked feverishly with Professor Lowe to ready the Enterprise for the coming battle, the others entered the Big Top at the carnivale, set up on the Washington Mall. There they met Benjamin Sweet (an irritating carny), Perry "The Inferno" Halleck, and Jack "Straw" Shaw, the ringmaster. After the show, Coombs sought out his mother ("the Naga" a scaly boy called her), but his ultimate goal was to find Jack Straw.

Atalanta and Law, ears plugged with tallow, found O'Brien in a carny wagon. They attempted to wrest the location of the Bones of Washington from him by gunpoint, but soon found themselves confronting two O'Briens and a fight ensued. Although everyone ended up hurt, Atalanta used his phantasms to make their escape.

Coombs talked to Straw- a man made of sand and clay, apparently- who appealed to Coombs sense of greed. "There are deeds that need doing, Mr. Coombs, and I need men like you to do them." In the end, Coombs vengeance led him to attack, but Straw merely bled sand. "Inferno" attacked, Coombs fled, destroying another incarnation of Straw as he went.

The following day, as the group fled to New York to lick their wounds, Bean assisted the professor observing the Battle of Bull Run. Though they were shot down and fell behind enemy lines, their intelligence gathering proved invaluable to the routed Union forces, allowing them to hold the enemy's advance at the boundary of the District. That evening, Col. Lewis Washington was arrested by the President's men, but protested his innocence, and provided incontrovertible proof that he neither met with the former-Masonic agents nor planned any conspiracy against the union. In point of fact, he had only just arrived from Harper's Ferry to petition Lincoln for permission to recover relatives from the District.

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The Rising Star

December 21st, 1861

After cooling their heels in New York through the fall, the group headed to Boston hot on the trail of Washington's Bones. Pike, following the same tip, sent Monroe and the Waterboy in pursuit. After a brief scuffle in a warehouse on Long Wharf they were able to repel Pike's men. As it turned out, the Bones were nowhere near Boston. In fact, they weren't even in the country. Dr. Morris of the Eastern Star, angling for an alliance, had tricked the group into coming to Boston in order to ascertain their "righteousness". Their fitness having been assayed, a meeting was arranged for the following evening.

The next day, the group met with Mr. Gray, an associate of Lincoln on the venerated campus of Harvard. Mr. Gray relayed Lincoln's request for aid in protecting the two political prisoners, Slidell and Mason, being held at Fort Warren on Georges Island. The group tentatively agreed, though they (rightly) suspected Mr. Gray was not being entirely forthcoming.

Later that evening the group arrived at the palatial mansion of Dr. Morris. Over a dinner which included the company of five enchanting women, Morris layed out his plan to extract Slidell from Fort Warren. It was believed that Slidell was in posession of something very valuable. Morris requested the group's aid in retrieving Slidell on the night of the 24th. Atalante, perceived by Morris to be the group's leader, heartily agreed to help.

In the end, the group decided to help neither Mr. Gray nor the Eastern Star, lengthening their already long list of enemies. A plan was hatched to take both Slidell and Morris on the 23rd. Had the plan remained secret it may have been successful. However, the following day, Tabitha Randolph, feeling a certain kinship towards the Eastern Star and a definite frustration with Atalante's misogynistic affectations, approached Esther and allowed her to "comprehend" the group's plans. As if this were not enough, Harwood, having utterly succumbed to Electa's feminine allure, confessed all in an attempt to prove his devotion. His fumbling advances were charming, if a bit naive, and not entirely without their short term successes. Ultimately, Harwood had aimed too high and gotten himself in over his head. Electa would be his downfall.

Later that night, the group put their plan into motion. Atalante, insistent that no women take part in the dangerous assault on Fort Warren, hired two thugs to detain Ms. Randolph. The thugs would later be summarily dispatched and Tabitha beaten until she divulged the group's plan to Yin and Yang. On the island, the group managed to bluff their way into the fort and locate the prisoners' quarters. As the plan began to unfold, confusion broke out on the parade grounds. A drunk Harwood provided a somewhat ineffective distraction while Caleb Law attempted to grab Slidell. In the darkness, Law mistakenly grabbed Mason. Bean and Atalante, preparing their escape through the sewers corralled Slidell and left Law and Harwood to fight the confused soldiers and Yin and Yang who had just shown up. The group miraculously made it through the sewers only to be ambushed by members of the Eastern Star. Adah, Martha and Ruth took Slidell, but not before Law surreptitiously injected him with a mortal poison. Slidell's body would turn up later in the Charles River, the flesh from his back having been entirely removed.

Defeated, the group returned to their hotel to find Tabitha barely alive. Mason revealed that Slidell possessed a map, imprinted on his back, locating the position of some artifact of great power. Though Mason could not remember the precise location, he was able to narrow it down to a general area in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

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The Battle of Shiloh

April 6th, 1862

Several of the heroes joined the Union army at Lincoln's request, while Ms. Randolph and Copperhead made their way to the Confederate lines. A battle was fought, during which the machinations of Albert Pike and Atalanta came together to raise the unquiet dead. In the end, the battle turned against the Rebs, who retreated with the Spirits of America as captured prisoners.

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Andersonville POW

December 21st, 1861

The group was swept up in the chaos that ensued after Shiloh and taken prisoner by the Confederacy. Regardless of their allegiance, they were marched down South with a passel of Union troops and promptly deposited in a prison camp near Andersonville GA. The march itself was unusual--in situations like these, captured soldiers expected to be quickly paroled in prisoner exchanges.

Expectation dwindled to hope as weeks went by and no word of parole reached the captured soldiers. The food supplied by their captors was scant and the only source of water was a slow moving stream. It didn't take long before the combined waste of the soldiers turned the stream into a breeding ground for disease. Injured men faltered and fell ill, healthy men dwindled.

The camp itself had an unholy aura, George Washington's bones were sighted from time to time hovering in the darkness above the camp and seemed to inhibit all of the gifted's powers.

By the time we picked up our heroes' story, they were battered and worn, yet still held the spark of defiance and virtue in their hearts.

Lewis Black, a notorious tough, made untoward advances on Tabitha's virtue, but was shamed into proper conduct by her even reminder of the proper respect owed a woman.

2LT Frost of the 17th Kentucky tries to hang Pvt. Archibald Pollock for stealing bread. Tom Daring convinces Frost that the man is at least due a proper trial and volunteers to locate other officers to serve as judge and jury. En route to that trial, Coombs tricks him into revealing his stash with the false promise of being able to save him.

A rousing speech from Daring, though, does rallies Captain Standish and his Lt. Statistowitz to his way of seeing things. Daring is put in charge of punishment detail and entrusted with grateful Pollock.

Men, desperate for freedom of any sort, rush past the deadline and are shot. When one remains alive, wounded, it is Harwood who rushes out to retrieve him. Tabitha convinces the guards to give them just enough time to retrieve the wounded man.

Coombs steals a precious locket with a picture of 'Jenny May' from a soldier's tent, the woman's beauty strangely comforting to him in a way he has yet to fully understand.

As things get worse, desperate plans are made. Harwood gets himself shot and falls into the stream, letting it carry him out of the camp where he takes a pigeon nest, defeating two armed confederate guards barehanded, regrowing his lost arm. Chaos ensues inside the camp when a zombie enters the infirmary, seeking solace perhaps, but is treated to fire when it frightens Tabitha. It flees, burning several tents, forcing Coombs to choose between money or his precious new locket--he chooses the locket.

Harwood realizes that the cage exerts a dark force over the camp that allows the guards to see clearly even in the darkness.

Guards fire into the camp, Bean demands that the commandante speak to them, explain to them what is going on. It is none other than Monroe who is brought to speak to them, who explains that the camp is one massive experiment to create zombies, gifted zombies, that the liquor being secreted into the camp is accelerating the process.

Harwood makes his move, moving in secret around the fort and using the ladder to knock Monroe into the camp. Monroe falls forward, but the nest teeters back and crushes Harwood beneath its weight.

Daring challenges Monroe to a fair fight and is summarily smacked to the ground, after which Monroe bursts through the gates to the outside of the camp. Harwood shoots Monroe in the eye before Monroe summarily tosses him over the wall into the camp, broken. The despair in the camp is palpable.

Following this exchange, the broken Spirits of America try to find fresh hope. They are spurred by the dead prisoners rising from the dead, which causes chaos within the camp. Tabitha escapes with Coombs, only to be abandoned by him just outside the pallisades. Tabitha goes to find the source of the evil magic, and finds Monroe huddled over a mystical model of the camp.

A fight breaks out between them, with Monroe trying to manhandle the former Southern belle, as Tabitha cuts through to his heart with her precise intuition. Suprisingly, this ends with both of them beaten and finding a spark of forbidden love between them, as he reaches out break the magic and free her companions.

The prisoners all escape as the camp burns and the dead walk the earth once again. Coombs risks all to save the Locket of Jenny May while the rest organize the Union POWs and send them to relative safety toward the Union lines.

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The Last Straw

May, 1862

The Spirits find themselves racing hell-bent-for-leather toward the Union stronghold of New Orleans, looking for a safe haven in the deep South. There they meet Tom Daring, American Patriot, and members of the Eastern Star. The ladies of the Star treat with Tabitha and Bean, and seek help in investigating a mystery involving missing women in the city. Meanwhile, Coombs and Daring seek out Jack Straw's carnival to confront him and determine his true allegiances. This meeting is inconclusive, but suggests Atalanta's involvement as well.

Later the group is caught in an explosion with the Eastern Star, as Albert Pike's mansion is consumed in a great blaze, engineered by Perry Halleck. Tabitha - and her lover Monroe- are presumably destroyed in the explosion, while Ruth dies in Martha's arms. This event is witnessed by Thomas Nast, who joins the group in an effort to get their story.

The Spirits return to Straw's ship, seeking revenge, only to have Coombs finally give in to his weaknesses and promise to join Straw and forsake his friends and loved ones forever. This leads to a deadly game of cat and mouse with Caleb Law, ending with Coombs dying on the end of Law's blade in front of his own mother, the Naga. The boat burns, the Naga is freed, and Straw and his men escape into the night.

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The Sonora Aero Club

June, 1863

Starting out in the ruins of York, PA, the heroes opposed a returning raid by a detachment of Jubal Early's Confederate division, under the command of Col. James Pettigrew. Pettigrew, wearing the Spurs of Paul Revere, was able to spot the ambush and turn the tide against the heroes. Though they failed to stop the raid, The heroes earned the attention of Pettigrew, who would later get his revenge on Harwood.

Afterwards, the group was contacted by President Lincoln- through his intermediary Professor Thaddeus Lowe- who asked them to personally look into the disappearance of General George Meade from the Greenfield Inn in Herndon VA. Lincoln impressed upon them the assistance of a Lakota indian named Standing Bear, whom they grudgingly accepted into their ranks. In addition, the president sent them a few clues from the scene- a calling card with the word NYMZA printed on it and a strange metal tube, apparently filled with liquid. When Harwood unwisely opened the container, it shot into the sky, taking out his teeth on the way.

Through his own connections, Thomas Nast determined that his paramour, Kate Reynolds, had taken it upon herself to investigate General Meade under disguise as a Union officer. As it turns out, she was kidnapped along with the General under suspicious circumstances. Investigation determined that two men- dressed in black cowboy hats and "bat wings" took the pair and flew with them out of the window of their room at the inn. Despite his best efforts, Nast could draw only these few scant details of the incident, as his drawings were dominated by an image of a girl in a glass coffin- the exact image of Jenny May, from Willie Coombs locket.

The group determined that NYMZA might be related to the New York Metropolitan Zoological Association, and promptly arranged a train to the city. En route they were attacked by "Fleigenmann", flying bat men. During the struggle, the heroes managed to capture one of the men, who turned out to be a German and a member of the "Sonora Aero Club." Under interrogation, he revealed that the "suppe" cannisters that allowed them to fly were the invention of Gustav Freyer.

In New York, Nast worked his contacts while Bean learned- by trial and error- how to fly in a bat suit. The group found the headquarters of NYMZA and went there to confront Freyer. Freyer offered to trade Meade for "Columbia", the girl in the coffin. When he realized they didn't know about her, he attempted to escape, leaving them to deal with a ticking bomb and a struggle with a gang of "Dead Rabbits" led by Dorsey Doyle. Freyer fled, with Bean on his back, and they flew off to the "Aero Rondo" flying dome.

Eventually the others caught up with Bean, but not before he'd been freed from captivity by the shadowy Caleb Law. The two made short work of the fleigenmann and their flying dome, bringing everything to a crash in the midst of the New York farmland. Since all indications suggested that the Aero Club had captured Meade and given him to the Confederates in PA, the heroes returned to the front lines.

After fighting some Reb scouts and taking their uniforms, the group made a plan to rescue the general and his attache (Kate). Bean and Harwood captured a cannon as a distraction while the others crept into the POW area. On their way out, Harwood met Pettigrew and they fought, which resulted in Harwood taking a facial wound from the spurs that would not heal. After this Pettigrew quit the field, his job done. Though the heroes escaped with their prize, signs began to point toward an end-game.

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The Gettysburg Ritual

July, 1863

In July of 1863 the Spirits of America stood with Harrow's Brigade against Picket's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. They knew- both from intelligence and bitter experience- that the Masons were planning to use the massive death toll of the battle to harvest lost souls for their own nefarious purposes. Seeing Col. Lewis Washington leading the Confederates into battle was all the proof needed.

Caleb Law and Harwood led a pathetically small charge against Washington, in hopes of convincing the Rebels to turn back by raising their dead comrades before them. Washington put an end to Law's plans by riding him down in a hail of covering fire.

In a flashback, we saw the heroes at South Mountain, PA where they were returning General Meade to the Union Army. Electa and the Eastern Star arrived with Tom Daring, bringing news of the Masons' plans for Gettysburg. That evening, Harwood and Daring had a terrible row, in which Daring picked apart the Kentuckian's self-pity and hatred for God using only his optimism and keen sense of integrity. Although the argument ended with Harwood throwing punches, it was clear he was the beaten man. Broken and confused, he gave in to Electa's comforting embrace and made peace with God.

While Harwood and the others argued, Caleb Law and Standing Bear went behind enemy lines to gather intelligence. During this time Caleb tempted fate by confronting General Lee himself and trying to reason with him. He explained the Masons' plans for Lee's men, and asked for leave to prove it by talking with Col. Washington. Suprisingly, Lee agreed, and gave him a short diplomatic window to prove himself. Law took this opportunity, but found Washington well prepared for him. With "The Servant"- a Cree indian conjuror- as his bodyguard, Washington refused to give in to Law's questions, meting out the time until the Union diplomats pass had expired. Law and Standing Bear barely left in time, and only after a significant enmity had developed between the two indians.

Flashing forward, we saw the battle of Gettysburg ended, and the Masons reaping the rewards of their success. A great ceremony was set to take place. The greatest occult figures of mid-19th century United States had come together after the battle to see the culmination of the Masonic plan- the crowning of the King of the West and his subsequent marriage to Columbia, the soon-to-be-revived Spirit of America, "Columbia".

The Scottish Rite Masons, with Albert Pike at the helm, had pushed the Confederates into a bloody defeat, releasing enough spiritual energy to reawaken Columbia through an arcane ritual. This ritual would be overseen by the animated skeleton of the founding father George Washington. Also in attendance was the Order of the Eastern Star, Pike's one-time servant Monroe (a slave descendant of Thomas Jefferson), and of course the rebellious members of what Pike once called his "Sword and Shield."

The Gettysburg battle was a turning point in the war, and the war a turning point for the nation. The outcome of this ceremony would decide everything- If Pike succeeded, the Spirit of America would be strong again, the rifts between brothers healed. However, the union would be broken and the nation rebuilt in the Masons image. If Pike lost, the Union would win the war eventually, bringing about a nation united against it's will, but retaining individual spirit and free will. And, as usual, the Spirits of America were there to tip the balance, one way or the other.