Excerpt from A Broken Sword: A Tale of the Civil War It was a soft, balmy April morning - early April at that - and New York in general, and Grace Church in particular, had been taken by surprise. Furs and heavy overcoats had been the vogue up to Friday night and, as noontide of Sunday drew near, and, with it, the climax of the Doctor's sermon, Brown, the big sexton, had thrown open the outer doors and was actually mopping his brow. Two young men stood chatting in subdued tone on the stone step at the main entrance when the heavy portals unexpectedly swung inward. Broadway at the moment was silent and well nigh deserted. None of the dozen "bus" lines profaned the Sabbath stillness of those days by jar of hoof or rumble of wheel upon the Russ pavement. Cabs and hansoms were unknown. A policeman sauntered along the opposite sidewalk in front of the St. Denis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.