Chapter thirty-five
Liverpool, England — April 1865Joshua and Marie Denning relaxed in the back seat of the covered carriage and let the driver take them through the wet streets to the docks alongside the Mersey River. It was the kind of spring weather England was noted for, cloudy and rainy.
The driver drew the horses to a halt. The rain diminished, then stopped altogether. The sky remained a somber gray. There loomed a heavy smell of smoke. The Dennings were in the heart of the industrial shipbuilding region of England. Many of the blockade runners had been built here and were still being built for the Confederacy. Joshua took his wife’s hand. The two emerged from the carriage and looked upon the dozen or so large runners on the busy dry dock under various stages of construction from t
