Grant

by Ron Chernow

  In honor of Lee’s surrender and the city of Mobile’s fall the previous day, the capital was to be grandly lit that evening, and the Lincolns wanted Grant to accompany Mary Lincoln in a coach to view the sights. Julia was pointedly excluded, but after the dreadful parade ground incident with Mrs. Ord, she was relieved to be spared the First Lady’s trying company. Grant and Mary Lincoln rolled through a capital bathed in the brilliant glow of lights, while rockets and fireworks augmented the effect, streaking skyward over the Potomac. On the ride, Grant received ovations everywhere. “The people were wild with enthusiasm,” wrote Horace Porter, “and wherever the General appeared he was greeted with cheers, the clapping of hands, waving of handkerchiefs, and every possible demonstration of delight.”3 Mary Lincoln, suspecting a possible rival to her husband in Grant, disliked the idolatry lavished on him. When crowds chanted “Grant,” she asked the driver to let her get out; only when they cheered the president did she allow the journey to resume. Grant found the experience so unsettling, he later confided, that it entered into his decision to spurn the president’s offer to escort him to Ford’s Theatre the next evening.

  That night, the Grants attended a party at the Stanton household with military bands performing outside. Before they arrived, Sergeant John Hatter, standing guard on the doorstep, was accosted by a mysterious man in a dark suit who inquired whether General Grant was inside. In a portrayal perhaps colored by later events, the stranger was described as a “small, delicate-looking man with pleasing features, uneasy black eyes, bushy black hair, and an imperial, anxious expression shaded by a sad, remorseful look.”4 Hatter pegged him as a curiosity seeker out to glimpse Grant. “If you wish to see him,” Hatter said, “step out on the pavement, or on the stone where the carriage stops, and you can see him.”5 The man reacted oddly, stopping to muse a moment before he disappeared. Later on he returned as the Stantons and Grants filed onto the front steps to witness fireworks. Approaching Major Kilburn Knox, who was stationed in front of the two prominent couples, he inquired, “Is Stanton in?” “I suppose you mean the Secretary?” replied Knox. “Yes. I am a lawyer in town. I know him very well.”6 Although Knox warned him not to bother Stanton, the stranger spotted Stanton and stood behind him for a time. Finally he entered the house and was asked to leave, especially since he seemed to be intoxicated. He turned out to be Michael O’Laughlen, a former Confederate soldier and boyhood friend of John Wilkes Booth who had plotted with him to kidnap Lincoln. Later fingered by Hatter and Knox, he was charged with stalking Stanton and Grant, with intent to kill, and was sentenced to life in prison. It’s quite possible that O’Laughlen was guilty as charged, but his lawyers argued that he had “walked away” from the Booth conspiracy and gone unarmed to the Stanton household.7 One historian has even claimed it was “far more likely that he stopped at Stanton’s house to warn him of Booth’s plot, but lost his nerve.”8

  On the morning of Good Friday, April 14, Lincoln shared a breakfast with his son Robert, who provided him with firsthand details of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It seemed as if the day would be noteworthy in American history as the fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Fort Sumter. Northern dignitaries and abolitionists congregated in Charleston to watch General Robert Anderson hoist above the harbor ruins the same American flag hauled down in shame on April 14, 1861. On that same day four years later in Virginia, Major General John Gibbon wired Grant that Lee’s army had yielded its artillery, small arms, and flags, with somewhere between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand men paroled. In a hopeful vein, he wrote, “I have Conversed with many of the surrendered officers & [am] satisfied that by announcing at once terms [of] a liberal merciful policy on the part of the Govt we can once more have a happy united Country.”9 It seemed as if the war was ending and might give way to amity on both sides.

  Invited to the weekly cabinet meeting at 11 a.m., Grant was treated as an honored guest and cabinet secretaries applauded his entrance. Uplifted by recent events, Lincoln was in a cheerful, extroverted mood. However eager he was to absorb ex-Confederate states back into the Union by December and restore normal trade relations with them, he had decided not to recognize existing rebel governments. On the other hand, he admitted, “We can’t undertake to run State governments in all these Southern States. Their people must do that,—though I reckon that at first some of them may do it badly.” Stanton proposed a plan that envisioned an interim period in which military rule would prevail, with Virginia and North Carolina merged into a single military district. When Gideon Welles squawked at annulling state boundaries, Lincoln asked Stanton to redraw his plan before the next meeting and implored his cabinet to ponder the knotty topic of Reconstruction for “no greater or more important one could come before us, or any future Cabinet.”10

  The discussion turned to Appomattox and Grant’s pledge to Lee that defeated soldiers would not be prosecuted for treason so long as they abided by their paroles. Someone inquired about the terms extended to ordinary soldiers, and Lincoln smiled broadly as Grant explained, “I told them to go back to their homes and families, and they would not be molested, if they did nothing more.”11 Lincoln made it abundantly clear that Grant had operated within the spirit of his wishes and that he “hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them.”12

  A fine raconteur, Grant narrated for the cabinet his hot pursuit of Lee and described the dramatic finish at Appomattox. He confessed he hadn’t heard from Sherman in North Carolina and couldn’t verify the fate of Joe Johnston’s army. He was certain news from Sherman would shortly arrive. In his diary Welles recorded Lincoln’s startling response:

  The President remarked [that the news from Sherman] would, he had no doubt, come soon, and come favorable, for he had last night the usual dream which he had preceding nearly every great and important event of the War. Generally the news had been favorable which succeeded this dream, and the dream itself was always the same . . . he seemed to be in some singular, indescribable vessel, and . . . was moving with great rapidity towards an indefinite shore; that he had this dream preceding Sumter, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone[s] River, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc. General Grant said Stone[s] River was certainly no victory, and he knew of no great results which followed from it. The President said however that might be, his dream preceded that fight. “I had,” the President remarked, “this strange dream again last night, and we shall, judging from the past, have great news very soon. I think it must be from Sherman.”13

  Contrary to Grant’s sarcastic gibe that Stones River “was certainly no victory, and he knew of no great results which followed from it,” the battle (known as Murfreesboro in the South) had been a Union victory, if a terribly bloody one.14 The victor had been Grant’s old nemesis, General William S. Rosecrans, and Welles thought Grant’s carping betrayed his “jealous nature.”15 Certainly Grant’s willingness to quibble with the president at a cabinet meeting showed anew the confidence he had attained during the war and Lincoln’s respect for his opinion.

  The session droned on until 2 p.m., and Grant lingered afterward to chat with the president, who invited him and his wife to see Laura Keene in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre that evening, with Mary Lincoln forming part of the group. The newspapers had already announced that Grant would accompany the president and the theater had distributed handbills to that effect; the house would be liberally draped with flags and bunting. For security reasons, Stanton protested heatedly that such a public event would endanger both Lincoln and Grant. As Samuel Beckwith recalled, Stanton issued a vociferous warning: “He had for some months been aware that threats of assassination were being made by certain evil minded persons against the leaders of the Federal government and army . . . The presence of the President of the nation and the Lieutenant-General of the armies at any public function at such a critical hour was simply courting disast
er.” Lincoln reacted flippantly, chaffing Stanton “for his lack of faith in human nature.”16 The president of a democracy, he averred, had to show himself to the people, and some danger was an inescapable hazard of office. “To be absolutely safe,” he told John Nicolay resignedly, “I should lock myself up in a box.”17 Lincoln knew dangers always lurked in the shadows—his office desk had a pigeonhole stuffed with more than eighty threatening letters—but not until November 1864 were four plainclothes policemen assigned to the White House.

  Lincoln urged Grant to accompany him to the theater, hinting that the nation expected to see the victorious president and general united at such a moment. Having just been in the public spotlight, Grant wished to escape town. At this awkward moment, a message from Julia arrived, listing her reasons for wanting to set out for Burlington in the late afternoon. Fortified with these excuses, Grant politely declined to attend Ford’s Theatre, joking that he now had a command from Mrs. Grant. As he subsequently said, “I was glad to have the note, as I did not want to go to the theater.”18 Lincoln, who was disappointed, understood. “Of course, General, you have been long from home, fighting in the field, and Mrs. Grant’s instincts should be considered before my request. I am very sorry, however, for the people would only be too glad to see you.”19 As Porter later commented, “It was probably this declination which saved the general from assassination, as it was learned afterward that he had been marked for a victim.”20

  Shortly afterward, Lincoln drove out with Mary in an open carriage ride, pouring forth bittersweet reflections as they recaptured a particle of their prewar happiness. To Mary, the president seemed lighter, carefree, more like his younger self. “Dear Husband,” she announced, “you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness.” “And well I may feel so, Mary,” he answered. “I consider this day, the war, has come to a close.” He tried to turn the page on the dark chapter of the past four years. “We must both, be more cheerful in the future—between the war and the loss of our darling Willie—we have both, been very miserable.”21 Having been spurned by the Grants, the Lincolns invited a young couple to the theater: Clara Harris, the daughter of a New York senator, and her fiancé and stepbrother Major Henry R. Rathbone. The Lincolns had an early dinner at the White House and Noah Brooks recalled that, as they left for Ford’s Theatre, the president’s last thought turned to Grant: “Grant thinks that we can reduce the cost of the army establishment at least a half million a day, which, with the reduction of the expenditures of the Navy, will soon bring down our national debt to something like decent proportions.”22

  For Julia Grant, this eventful day was shot through with baleful omens. To close friends, she would candidly confess that she had refrained from going to Ford’s Theatre that night because “she objected strenuously to accompanying Mrs. Lincoln.”23 Her memories of Mary Lincoln’s diatribes against Mrs. Ord and high-handed treatment of her at City Point still grated, and Julia elected not to subject herself to her sharp temper again. Julia wasn’t the only one who had felt the lash of Mary Lincoln’s tongue. According to Adam Badeau, Lincoln had also invited Stanton and his wife to the theater that night. Mrs. Stanton suddenly called on Julia and told her that “unless you accept the invitation, I shall refuse. I will not sit without you in the box with Mrs. Lincoln.”24 The two women decided jointly to boycott the theater outing.

  Around midday, a messenger tapped at Julia’s door at the Willard Hotel, purporting to bear tidings from Mary Lincoln. “Mrs. Lincoln sends me, Madam, with her compliments, to say she will call for you at exactly eight o’clock to go to the theater.” Somewhat flustered by the message, Julia replied, “You may return with my compliments to Mrs. Lincoln and say I regret that as General Grant and I intend leaving the city this afternoon, we will not, therefore, be here to accompany the President and Mrs. Lincoln to the theater.” Julia found something disquieting about the man, who was “dressed in [a] light-colored corduroy coat and trousers and with rather a shabby hat of the same color,” but she couldn’t specify what seemed so disturbingly amiss.25 Only later did she suspect the man hadn’t been dispatched by Mary Lincoln at all.

  After packing her bags for Burlington, Julia and son Jesse lunched with Mary E. Rawlins and her little girl. Across the dining room Julia saw four shifty-looking characters and thought one was the queer messenger who had rapped on her door. As she studied this motley quartet, her gaze was arrested by one of them, “a dark, pale man,” who “played with his soup spoon, sometimes filling it and holding it half-lifted to his mouth, but never tasting it.” Because he seemed to eavesdrop on their conversation, Julia thought he must be mad. “Be careful,” Julia whispered to Mrs. Rawlins, “but observe the men opposite to us and tell me what you think.” Mrs. Rawlins glanced at them and also found them peculiar. “I believe they are a part of [John Singleton] Mosby’s guerrillas,” Julia speculated, “and they have been listening to every word we have said. Do you know, I believe there will be an outbreak tonight or soon. I just feel it, and am glad I am going away tonight.”26 As it turned out, Julia’s intuitions served her exceedingly well.

  By the time the Grants took a carriage to the station to catch a 6 p.m. train, the weather had turned cool and gusty. Julia sat in the backseat beside the wife of General Daniel Rucker while her husband democratically shared the front with the driver. The journey was forever imprinted on the memory of young Jesse Grant: “I remember clearly the drive down Pennsylvania Avenue to the depot, the iron-tired wheels of our carriage rattling and bumping over the cobblestones. It was in the early evening, but the Avenue was deserted and quiet as midnight. We were nearing the railway station when a man on horseback overtook us, drew alongside, and, leaning down, peered into our carriage. Then he wheeled his horse and rode furiously away.”27 Julia Grant also had lasting memories of the horseman who flashed by twice “at a sweeping gallop on a dark horse,” then circled around and dashed back toward them, thrusting his face at Grant and glaring at him both times.28 Julia recognized the rider as the same dark, pale man who had menacingly toyed with his spoon at lunch and told her husband so. Grant was likewise disturbed by this stranger flitting by and eyeing them. “I do not care for such glances,” he remarked. “These are not friendly at least.”29 Grant later learned the glowering horseman was John Wilkes Booth, who had been conferring on the sidewalk with his actor friend John Mathews when the Grant carriage sped by and he set off in pursuit of it. From the heaped-up baggage, he must have confirmed that the Grants were leaving town and would not be at Ford’s Theatre. “It seems I was to have been attacked,” Grant stated, “and Mrs. Grant’s sudden resolve to leave deranged the plan.”30

  At the train station, the Grants boarded a private railroad car, furnished by the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. They were accompanied by Samuel Beckwith, the telegraph operator who functioned as Grant’s shadow. In a fortuitous move to ensure Grant privacy, the train conductor locked the doors of his compartment. Somewhere in northeast Maryland, a man attempted without success to barge into the car. A few days later, Grant said, “I received an anonymous letter from a man, saying he had been detailed to kill me, that he rode on my train as far as Havre de Grace, and as my car was locked he could not get in. He thanked God he had failed.”31 That Grant was slated to be killed cannot be dismissed since he was cited as a potential target at the subsequent trial of the Booth conspirators. Whether the nameless author was genuine or a crank cannot be determined since his identity was never ascertained. Subsequently, a witness testified that he knew someone who heard conspirator George A. Atzerodt say emphatically over dinner, “If the fellow that had promised to follow Grant had done his duty, we would have got General Grant, too.”32

  At about 10:13 p.m., John Wilkes Booth entered Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre and executed the gentle president with brutal efficiency. The lone Washington police officer assigned to guard the presidential box had left his post, leaving only a White House footman. “I struck boldly” was Boo
th’s cheap boast in his diary.33 At that moment, the Grants were sliding through the night, oblivious that the tide of history had just shifted its course. While changing trains in Philadelphia, they stopped at Bloodgood’s Hotel for a late supper shortly after midnight. They noticed that the hotel lobby was packed with people who seemed suspiciously silent. A hotel employee thrust a telegram into Grant’s hand. “We walked into the parlor and the three of us, General and Mrs. Grant and I, sat down upon a sofa in one corner of the room,” Beckwith recalled. “He read the despatch and without comment passed it to his wife, who in turn read it and with an exclamation of painful surprise handed it to me. I shall never forget the dumb horror of that moment. My heart seemed to leap into my throat. None of us spoke a word. We simply sat there and wondered. Lincoln was shot.”34

  A slightly different account emerged from Charles Bolles, then a messenger boy at the American Telegraph Company, assigned to carry urgent messages. Julia, he said, had already seated herself on a couch and taken off her bonnet as her husband “remained standing and reached out his hand for the message. As he read the words which bore such sorrow to the nation that night not a muscle of his face quivered or a line gave an indication of what he must have felt at that great crisis. Turning to Mrs. Grant, seated behind him, he handed her the message without a word. She could not have read more than a line or two before her feelings overcame her, and burying her face in her hands, she burst into tears.”35