The Day After Gettysburg

by Robert Conroy

  “Do think Wallace can engage with Early?”

  “Well, let me put it this way, Mr. President. If I were him, I would.” Heintzelman gazed out over the battlefield. “Early must be aware of that too. Wallace has been picking off some of his foraging expeditions. Jubal must be getting a little nervous.” He turned back to face them. “He’ll be gone by this time tomorrow. Wouldn’t surprise me to know that he’d started pulling back already.”

  Lincoln looked back out over the field. From somewhere to his right, a cannon roared. A shell arced out over the Rebel lines and exploded. The blast was followed almost immediately by a scream, clearly audible in the twilight. Lincoln bit his lip as the sound died out. Some poor boy was taking his final breaths. A home in Old Virginia, the Carolinas, or points south would soon be plunged into despair.

  He made a gesture to put on his hat but checked himself. He turned to Heintzelman. “Well, General, thank you for the tour. And for holding back our Rebel guests as well, needless to say.”

  “Just wish we could do more, Mr. President.”

  “You’ve done plenty.”

  They walked silently back to the carriage. Lincoln felt obscurely disappointed. He was unsure of what he’d been looking for here, but whatever it was, he hadn’t found it.

  In a moment they had reached the carriage. Lincoln hoisted the stovepipe and gazed at Stanton. “Isn’t that life, Edward? Just when it’s time to put the hat back on, it’s time to take it off again.”

  The general looked a little perplexed. Stanton smiled. “So it might seem, Mr. President.”

  “There he is, swinging his old hat. The Apeman in person.”

  Booth stroked his mustache as he watched Lincoln speaking to a man in uniform. There was a good-sized crowd milling around the road, being kept away from the line by a squad of pickets. “And there’s Stanton, Mr. Roly-Poly.”

  “Stanton, that’s right,” Dean said. He started at the crackle of rifle fire from the front.

  Booth turned to Sid. Nate, for his part, had been caught pilfering a shop and was relaxing in the district jail. Mary Nardelli was back in Baltimore, following a fit of temper from Booth. They could have used both of them tonight. “When that carriage starts moving, you run straight down to that corner to tell us.”

  Sid frowned slightly, as if putting effort into remembering the instructions, and nodded curtly. Booth turned to Dean. “Come along.”

  In a moment they had reached the spot where Jessup, glare-eyed as ever, stood leaning against a fencepost. He fell into step with them without a word. Jessup was wearing a long coat and holding his arms close to his sides.

  Booth pointed ahead of them. “There, where the road narrows. That’s where we’ll take him.”

  “I don’t see a lot of plannin’ here, Booth,” Jessup said.

  “Which is the way it should be. We go by instinct, my man. There is a tide in the affairs of men, and it’s flowing in our direction now at full flood. We will go where it takes us.”

  Jessup shrugged.

  “Now, you take Hillyard . . . . Where is he, anyway?”

  Jessup nodded toward a dark spot down the road in which a tall figure was barely visible.

  “You get on either side of the road . . .”

  “No, we ain’t doin’ that. We’d just shoot each other.”

  “All right. Set it up however you want.” Booth looked over his shoulder. “But do it now.”

  He turned to Dean. “Okay now, Dick . . .”

  “I did pretty good, didn’t I?”

  “You did fine.” He pointed at a building with blazing lanterns hanging from the front porch. “Go to that shop there and buy a half-dozen packets of pepper. Quickly, now.”

  Dean did as he told. When he emerged, Sid had just arrived, out of breath. A few feet beyond them, Jessup was speaking to Hillyard, a man who could have been his twin. Dean handed the twisted paper packets to Booth.

  “Halloo there, you young sports,” Booth called out to a gang of layabouts sitting across the street from the store. “How would you like to each earn a whole silver dollar?”

  Their interest piqued, the street Arabs got up and approached Booth. They were all in their teens, seemingly of every ethnic background imaginable. At least one was clearly a mulatto. Booth conferred with them for a moment. The boys cackled as they accepted the packets and coins. “Straight for their eyes,” Booth said, as he stepped away.

  He walked up to Dean. “Check your weapon.”

  Dean obediently lifted the Colt Navy pistol out of his coat pocket. He opened the cylinder and checked the balls by hand, then snapped it shut again. He slipped it under his arm where it wouldn’t be seen.

  Booth was gazing up the street. The first horses of Lincoln’s escort were in sight, the carriage right behind them. Slipping off his kid gloves, Booth shoved them into his pocket. He turned back to Dean. His eyes were shining, his jaw working beneath the mustache. “Nervous, are we?” He put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Don’t be. This is a God-sent moment. We have a firm grip on the fulcrum of history, young Dick, and we will now move it as we will’t.”

  He swung away and went on up the street, a well-dressed figure taking in the evening. If Lincoln’s guard noticed him at all among the crowd, they gave no sign, any more than they did to Jessup and Hillyard standing together a few feet on, as if in deep conversation.

  Dean looked nervously about him. What had happened to the street boys? Only two of them were visible. Where were the others? As he glanced around, a passerby, an older man, caught his eye. Dean dropped his head. The pistol under his arm felt as if it weighed a ton.

  He snapped his head up at a sudden explosion of shouts and animal cries. In the street before him, the two lead horses were rearing backward while their riders fought to control them. The boys, having unloaded their packets of pepper into the horse’s eyes, were now running off, throwing shouts of scorn over their shoulders.

  Gunfire roared to Dean’s left. Booth was firing a derringer at the cavalrymen to the rear of the carriage. Jessup pulled a sawed-off double-barrel from under his coat and opened up on the next horseman, while beyond him Hillyard blasted away with a pistol much like Dean’s own.

  Dean shifted his attention to the riders in front of him. Raising his pistol, he aimed at the closest bluejacket, but at that moment the panicked horse shook him off and he fell to the street. Dean shifted his aim to the second rider and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t see if the bullet had hit, so he fired again. The man threw his arms up and dropped from the saddle.

  Dean took aim at the carriage driver, but the man leapt off and ran for his life. A glance at the first rider showed him lying unmoving as the horse’s hooves stomped his torso repeatedly.

  Jessup was firing once again. Hillyard, crouched down, seemed to be in full-bore gunfight with the remaining guards. And Booth . . .

  Booth was loping toward the carriage, his face intense as he reloaded the derringer. He grabbed the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. As Dean watched, he kicked the door once, and then again, before once more gripping the handle. This time, the door swung wide. Leaping forward, Booth raised the derringer. The blast sounded like a cannon going off.

  Lincoln and Stanton sat together in easy silence as they thought about what they had seen on the battle line. Stanton was turning toward him when the carriage jolted and a sudden uproar of shouts and the neighing of horses broke out on the street.

  Stanton was clutching at his glasses. “What the devil . . .”

  The stovepipe had fallen from Lincoln’s lap. He was bending for it when the first shots rang out.

  Stanton’s eyes went wide. “Abraham . . . Mr. President . . .”

  Several blows struck the carriage door. It suddenly burst wide and a pistol roared, the muzzle blast blinding in the twilight. Lincoln would have been hit if another jolt of the carriage hadn’t thrown him back at that very moment.

  A man clambered inside, his face shadowed. Lincoln could make out
a mustache and nothing else.

  With an inarticulate cry, Stanton lunged at him. The man clubbed Stanton several times with the pistol and then shoved him back into the seat. Grabbing for Lincoln, he raised the pistol.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl for Lincoln. He took in the well-dressed figure before him. There was something that he was sure that this city-bred fool didn’t know—that very few knew, though Lincoln had made no effort to keep it a secret. When he was a young man back in the 30s, Abe Lincoln had been widely known as a wrestler. At county fairs, picnics, Independence Day celebrations, or random weekend nights in town, Lincoln had taken on local champions across Kentucky and had beaten virtually every last one of them. In over four hundred matches—he’d lost the exact count many years ago—he had never been defeated. Oh, there had been a draw or two, sure enough, but Lincoln had never lost once.

  Flexing his legs beneath him, the champion wrestler of the state of Kentucky flung himself at the assassin.

  The man grunted as Lincoln gripped his wrist. He slammed the hand holding the derringer against the roof of the carriage. The third time, it went off with a roar.

  Lincoln grabbed the shoulders of the man’s frock coat and yanked him toward him. The man struggled, entangled in Stanton’s flailing legs. Lincoln slipped off the seat, dragging the man down with him. He struck him in the temple with his fist and then slammed his head against the front partition. The man let out a cry, half shock, half fear. Lincoln slugged him once again.

  He felt a sharp pain in his arm. The fellow had a dagger, did he? Grabbing at that hand, Lincoln seized his little finger and twisted it backward as the man slashed him a second time. There was an audible crack followed by a high-pitched shriek.

  The knife clattered against Lincoln on its way to the floor. The man was flailing against him, no longer attacking but simply trying to get away. The back of Lincoln’s head hit the carriage door, knocking it open. He slid out, his head only inches above the rutted street.

  He gripped the man by the throat and shook him like a man-sized rat. Pulling his arm back, he readied a solid final blow.

  A lantern from a nearby shop illuminated the terrified face above him. Lincoln paused as he stared in shock.

  John Wilkes Booth?

  Dean backed away from the carriage. Around him people were screaming as they fled from the gunfire. He looked to the rear of the carriage. Jessup and Hillyard were still firing. He couldn’t catch sight of the remaining guards. Sid was nowhere to be seen.

  Hillyard, trying to reload, suddenly folded up against the fence to his rear. Jessup squatted down and continued firing. He had a pistol himself now, with the shotgun lying at his feet.

  There was a roar from within the carriage. Dean took a step forward, then raced over and clambered into the driver’s seat. It took him what seemed an eternity to find the reins. “I know where to go,” he muttered as he took them in hand. “I know . . .”

  Booth took the opportunity to strike Lincoln twice in the face. Dropping his elbow, Lincoln gave him a full shot in the eye. Booth slumped against the partition and let out a moan.

  Lincoln kicked at him, trying to get himself untangled. A little too hard, it seemed—he found himself sliding right out of the carriage onto the street.

  He lay there stunned a moment before raising his head. The carriage was moving away. Booth appeared in the open door, gazing wide-eyed at Lincoln. He raised his hands. He was holding the derringer, trying to reload it. Then the carriage jolted as a wheel passed over a body lying in the street and the gun fell from his hands. Booth stared at it in perplexity before once more lifting his eyes to meet Lincoln’s.

  A young fellow leapt onto the carriage and climbed next to the driver. A man wearing a ragged coat ran past Lincoln and jumped onto the baggage platform in the rear, hanging on for dear life.

  Lincoln felt a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. President, are you all right?”

  Nodding silently, Lincoln started to get to his feet. A soldier appeared beside him, aiming a carbine at the carriage.

  “No!” Lincoln shouted. “Stanton’s still aboard!”

  “That’s right.” It was Hammond, this month’s commander of the guard. “Cease fire . . . everyone.”

  Lincoln looked about him. Two troopers lay unmoving in the street. Another was moaning a few feet to the rear. Against a fence, a ragged man lay, a pistol at his feet. Two of Hammond’s men were searching him.

  Now that the gunfire had stopped, the crowd was returning. A woman pointed at Lincoln and let out a shriek. “Oh my God, he’s bleeding!”

  “Sir, you’ve been hurt.”

  “So I have,” Lincoln agreed. “It’s not that bad.”

  “All the same, sir, you need a doctor.”

  “Yes—at the White House.”

  “Sir—we can return to General—”

  “No, Major, the White House.”

  The officer hesitated. “Yes, sir.”

  A large mass of cavalrymen had appeared from the direction of the battle line. They were shouting at the crowd to move aside.

  Lincoln looked westward along the street. There was no sign of the carriage. They would never run it down now.

  “John Wilkes Booth,” Lincoln said to himself. It could not be denied that this life was full of surprises.

  “What was that, sir?”

  Lincoln shook his head. A man appeared before him, holding the ruin of his stovepipe. The president took it from him. It was torn and flattened almost beyond recognition. “My thanks,” he said.

  Cassie sat with one finger resting on a page of a McGuffey Reader, trying to make out the words in the dim light of a lantern hanging from a tree branch. Beale, one of her students, was working his way through the same passage in a loud but melodic voice.

  She had a larger class than she had seen for the past few weeks. All of them had wanted to ask her about Mariah, and many had remained to be schooled. At the other side of the campfire, some of the older men were playing cards. Lemuel was among them, showing more facility with a card deck than Cassie thought strictly appropriate for a boy his age.

  Her father had sent Lemuel and Scooter, their other hired boy, after her on muleback. At first she’d thought they intended to take her back home, but it seemed they were actually only tasked with keeping an eye on her.

  Scooter, a free colored boy who made his living as kind of a freelance farrier and reins repairman, sat a few yards beyond them, playing his mouth organ for a small group of listeners. It was a strange, stirring type of music, unlike any she’d before heard, wailing notes that didn’t quite sound right but called to mind thoughts of cold winds in a bleak, twilit landscape.

  “Noise,” she told Beale, who was stumbling over the word.

  “That’s right,” he said. The rest of her students burst out in laughter. Hadrian, watching the card game, looked over at them. He had greeted her gruffly today. He’d visited Mariah once at the house, staying only a few minutes before leaving in a visible rage, not even stopping for the food Cassie had prepared for him. His expression at the moment spoke volumes. Woe betide any Copperheads who stumbled into his path this night.

  Cassie had found the group in a better state than she’d feared after her several days of enforced absence. Some local farm women had dropped off food for them—guilty conscience over the attack on Mariah, perhaps? They’d scarcely been aware of the battle. The campground was just a little too far for most of the noise to carry. All she’d heard since she’d arrived was the occasional distant rumble of cannon. They were surprised to hear of the Rebel attack, and pleased to learn that it was going nowhere.

  “Ol’ Abe, he’ll take care of that right quick,” Toby had said.

  The words had raised an image in Cassie’s mind of Abraham Lincoln, the Railsplitter, waving an axe and chasing off masses of butternut-clad men. If it were only that easy.

  A sudden clatter in the darkness caught her ear. She got to her feet, along with most of the blacks. All of them
thinking about poor Mariah, no doubt.

  A carriage was approaching out of the night, from the direction of Washington. Cassie set down her copy of the Reader. Looking about her, she saw that most of the men had slipped off into the night. Something that Hadrian had worked out, she would guess.

  The carriage had approached close enough so that she could make out a single man sitting in the driver’s seat. He raised a hand in greeting. The blacks muttered uneasily among themselves.

  “Cassie!” the man called out.

  She stared a moment in pure shock, then closed her eyes. Richard, she thought. It was Richard Dean, and none other. What could that silly man possibly want here?

  The carriage drew to a halt. Richard hopped down and stood gazing at her, hands on his hips. The door to the carriage opened and another man got out, this one well-dressed. From the other side, two more appeared, a handsome young man and a greasy-looking figure that Cassie might have taken for a tramp. Reaching the door on this side, they half-hauled, half-helped an older man out of the carriage.

  The ill-assorted group came toward them. Richard was smirking in a fashion that called up nothing good in the way of memories. The older man was staggering, scarcely able to keep on his feet. Cassie gasped as she saw his face, masked by a curtain of blood.

  The well-dressed man in the lead wasn’t in much better shape. In truth, he looked as if he had been mauled by a bear. His right eye was almost closed, his face swollen and turning purple all around it. He seemed slightly familiar to Cassie, though she couldn’t quite place him.

  They came to a halt about ten feet short of Cassie’s group. The older man sank to his knees. Richard gestured at him. “Cassie,” he said. “May I introduce you to Mr. Edward St—”

  ‘That’s enough, Dick.” The well-dressed man’s voice was audibly slurred.

  “But . . .”

  “Shut up, Dean,” the ragged man said. The younger man, his face striking in the firelight, looked on as if none of it had any connection to him.