by Roy Lewis
‘You’re saying she’s been defrauding the Treasury?’
‘Well, she clearly pocketed the difference and is still thousands in debt. But I learned from what the coachman – and his little maid – told me she was terrified that the president found out what she’d been up to. The sum of twenty-seven thousand dollars has been mentioned. All spent on fripperies – against the president’s express injunction!’
I could now guess at what had happened. ‘You managed to have a quiet word with Mrs Lincoln.’
‘Ha! That’s it exactly, my friend. That’s how she came to write the exemption letter. I might not be the best copper on the beat, but I’m one of the smartest when it comes to seeing an opportunity. She was quick as a frightened rabbit to call for my appointment to the White House. And, of course, I learned to look the other way when she was off on her shopping sprees. It’s about scratching backs, ain’t it? Me . . . and the First Lady!’
The conversation came to an end at that point, when I saw that David Herold, higher than Haman, was leaving his bunk, weaving his way towards the exit. I took my leave of John F. Parker and at a discreet distance kept watch on the suspected Confederate conspirator. And I made the mistake of not reporting the Parker conversation immediately to Colonel Lafayette Baker.
Who knows what might have happened had I done so?
Most men wish to leave a mark on the world. A name inscribed on a gravestone, charitable foundations in the name of the giver, the erection of an hotel or a palace or a prison. In America, a young, sprawling country, there were many such opportunities for eternal fame. John Surratt took one such opportunity. He did what many did: he built a three-storied house in an unoccupied area, then when others built nearby he caused the group of houses to be named after him, as the first settler.
Surrattsville, some thirty miles or so from Washington.
It was in a house at Surrattsville – Mrs Surratt’s own house, as it turned out, since her husband had passed on some time previously – that the conspirators had arranged to meet.
Neither Di Rudio nor I had any indication of how Colonel Baker had picked up this information: he hinted it came from his informant inside the group and seemed disinclined to tell us the identity of the individual. But he was certainly able to tell us not only of the location, but also the date of the meeting when all conspirators would be assembled. He also had their names – it was our task to listen in to their discussions, and confirm the identities. The almost imbecile David Herold was one. The others were a giant of a man called Lewis Paine, a nondescript little man of German ancestry and little breeding by the name of Atzerodt, an Irish renegade called O’Loughlin and a former Confederate soldier who answered to the name of Sam Arnold.
‘We’ve intercepted a letter from Arnold to the leader of the conspiracy, John Wilkes Booth,’ Colonel Baker informed us at our rendezvous. ‘We now know them, but we need to learn of their intentions. After that, the whole thing can be nipped in the bud. So, gentlemen, to Surrattsville and your listening post immediately.’
And that’s exactly what it turned out to be.
We rode to Surrattsville, Charles Di Rudio and I, and stabled our horses at a livery on the edge of the small town. We made our way on foot to Mary Surratt’s house where all was dark. As we had been informed, the entrance at the back of the house was unlocked and the house itself was empty. We proceeded, as under Colonel Baker’s instructions, to the first floor and entered the room at the end of the gable-roofed property. It was used to store lumber. There was a dirty stretch of carpet in the centre of the narrow room: we rolled it back as instructed and sure enough discovered that two small holes had been drilled in the planking that served as a floor.
We sat down in the darkness and waited for dawn.
After a while, I said, ‘I’m not convinced this is a good idea. If we’re discovered here, what story do we have to tell? There’ll be no escape, certainly.’
Charles Di Rudio grunted and tapped at his belt. ‘Don’t worry. I’m armed.’
‘As am I! But I feel we’re being set up here! How did the Colonel arrange all this? Who’s his informant? And if Mrs Surratt lets these rooms—’
‘Colonel Baker knows what he’s doing, James. All we have to do is sit tight and wait.’
The conspirators arrived at ten in the morning.
Mrs Surratt herself had been in the house for an hour, busying herself without climbing the stairs – to my considerable relief, I assure you! Through the spyhole, which gave us a view of the sitting room below, I caught a few glimpses of her as she moved about, tidying the room: a well-built woman in her early forties, I calculated, brown-haired, of a pleasant enough appearance. Charles Di Rudio was at the other spyhole: he made a few notes in his pocketbook. The first of the conspirators to arrive was the man I had been trailing in New York and Washington: David Herold. Mrs Surratt made him a cup of coffee and chatted for a little while, but I thought I detected a certain tension in her voice: Colonel Baker had told us she was a Confederate sympathizer, the widow of an avowed Secessionist, and was lending the safety of her home to the plotting group, but was probably too nervous to become deeply involved. This was confirmed shortly after the second arrival made his appearance.
‘George Atzerodt,’ Rudio whispered to me.
I could see him when he sat down, a shrinking kind of man, quite unlike the individual who entered a little while later: a big, hulking, confident young fellow who greeted Atzerodt with a slap on the shoulder and for whom David Herold nervously relinquished a chair immediately.
‘Lewis Paine,’ Rudio whispered, and entered the name in his pocketbook. ‘According to the Colonel there should be three more to come.’
They were all in place around the table when Mary Surratt left them to their discussions: Herold, Atzerodt, Paine, O’Loughlin, Sam Arnold . . . and John Wilkes Booth.
He was last to arrive, neatly dressed, handsome, swaggering in confidently, clearly regarding himself as the head of the conspiracy and a figure of importance. You know, that was the trouble with Wilkes Booth: he saw life as a theatre, and had always tended to over-dramatize his role in life. He thought he was a man of consequence and boasted of his wealth – though was reticent when it came to disclosure of the sources of his funds. He considered himself to be the leading stage actor of his day – even though he was outshone by his older brother, Edwin Booth.
And he possessed a fatal urge for romantic gestures.
Sprawled upstairs, Charles Di Rudio and I listened silently as the discussions began – first, by way of what nearly amounted to a quarrel over the failure of the attempt to kidnap the president on Tobacco Road. It was Booth who had organized the attempt but who now sought to lay the blame for the fiasco on the unfortunate David Herold – an easy target, a man who was far too weak an individual to defend himself. Lewis Paine took Herold’s part, arguing it was the failure of intelligence received that lay at the heart of the matter, and he hinted darkly that in his opinion Lafayette Baker’s Secret Service had foreknowledge of the plot, which suggested they had a traitor in their midst.
I shivered at the thought, for it amounted to reality.
Atzerodt had risen from the table, and was pacing the room. He came in and out of my line of sight: he appeared nervous, distraught, excited. It occurred to me that Paine’s accusation that the group held a traitor had unnerved him, and I began to suspect that he himself might be the man. I had seen too many men in the witness box, quailing at their own inner guilts, to be far wrong in my assumptions and I glanced at Di Rudio, considered sharing my thoughts but he was concentrating on the scene below.
Booth had called the group to order.
‘Recriminations are useless. The past is behind us! What we must do is advance! We are all determined to carry out this kidnapping: it will send a clarion call throughout the Southern States, bring Lincoln’s minions to heel, and put iron into the veins of all true supporters of the South! Holding the president will give us a bargaining
tool to bring the Union to the negotiating table!’
Herold’s tone was plaintive. ‘I don’t see why we can’t stick to the original plan. Since our failure, it seems the president has passed over the Eastern Branch Bridge accompanied by his coachmen and a single guard within the carriage. We can still do it: we need not change our plans!’
Booth made an angry, theatrical gesture, flinging out an arm.
‘It’s not merely the fact of kidnapping Lincoln that is important! I insist we must do it in a manner that will resound throughout the world! We know of the so-called president’s love of the theatre – even if we deplore his low tastes. I believe we must carry out this endeavour in a spectacular fashion: we should seize the man in his own private box at the theatre. I myself shall do it, with Paine’s brute strength to assist me! Arnold, your part will be to lower Lincoln, trussed up like a turkey, down to the stage. The theatre will be in uproar but we will succeed. We shall take him to a waiting conveyance, take him south and the world will marvel at our audacity!’
‘There will be a guard in the box!’ Arnold protested.
‘That will be attended to,’ Booth replied sternly.
‘We’ll need assistance from the stage hands—’
‘It can be organized! My contacts in the theatre have already been consulted!’ Booth insisted, wild-eyed. ‘There is a man called Samuel Chester who has agreed to help us. The main regulating valve for the gas in the theatre is located near the prompter’s desk. Chester will be on hand to turn it off. Darkness, confusion, uproar – and there shall we be, hurtling into the night, thundering to the South with Lincoln in our grasp!’
I glanced again at Di Rudio, amazed. He displayed no emotion but was riveted to his spyhole. I could not believe he was unmoved by the ridiculous nature of Booth’s plan. It was farcical, the product of a monomaniacal mind rooted in theatrical unrealities.
I was not alone in the thought.
A chair scraped back. It was the burly Irishman, O’Loughlin. ‘I’ve heard enough. This is crazy. Booth, you must be out of your mind. An adventure like this might be carried out on the stage, in a melodrama, but what you suggest is utterly impracticable. I’ll have nothing to do with it!’
Silence fell. Beside me, the prone form of Di Rudio wriggled uncomfortably. We lay there listening as the argument began. Booth was alone – apart from the uncertain Herold – in his insistence that a grand gesture such as he had described was necessary. It was clear to me that, though he was outvoted by his less romantically inclined co-conspirators, he would not be moved. He sulked, he waved their objections aside, and it was obvious that he would play the game according to his rules, or else he would not play at all.
And when, finally outvoted by the others, he folded his arms across his narrow chest, glared around at the group and made an alternative proposition, silence fell.
‘There is another way forward. Assassination.’
Immediately, Di Rudio raised his head and glanced at me. I wondered what he was thinking. After all, he had walked that road himself in his attempt to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris that night five years ago. He had since changed his way of life, become a Union soldier and a spy and now he was hearing another would-be assassin declare his intentions.
The silence in the room below was profound. It was broken at last by Sam Arnold. ‘Murder? We’ve not raised this earlier. I’ll have nothing to do with this!’
‘It will be a heroic deed carried out on the public stage!’ Booth declared passionately. ‘Imagine: the large Washington theatre, packed with the great and the good, the best of Northern society, the cream of—’
‘Booth, you’re a madman!’ It was O’Loughlin again. ‘Kidnapping, yes: I see the logic of that, the holding of a trump card while the war goes badly for the South, an opportunity to negotiate, to bring about the collapse of Lincoln’s government. But assassination, no! I wash my hands of this, Booth. Even if we kidnapped Lincoln, if Lee surrenders, which soon might occur, that in itself will have little practical value. But murder . . . there would be nothing to be gained from such a mad scheme! I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.’
‘And I too,’ said Arnold.
They moved from our vision, and Di Rudio and I, we heard the front door slam as O’Loughlin and Sam Arnold left the house.
There was little further talk below. A nervous reluctance seemed to have fallen upon Herold and Atzerodt, while Booth seemed almost stunned by the desertion of two of his band. In a little while, the group dispersed with muttered goodbyes. We caught no suggestion of a further meeting. Silence fell upon the empty house, and Di Rudio stretched his limbs; I rose to my feet, stiffly. I could not think of what to say. I watched as Di Rudio pocketed his notes, looked about him at the drifting motes of dust floating in the dim light creeping through the small windows of the old house.
‘We’d better leave while we can. The conspirators have broken up early, but we don’t know when Mrs Surratt will return. We should go. Now.’ He stared at me, his mouth set in a grim line. ‘We have a great deal to report to Colonel Baker.’
2
Colonel Lafayette Baker was in a strange mood. While Di Rudio and I sat in Baker’s office, the colonel himself seemed unable to remain still. He paraded the length of the room, turned, retraced his steps time and again. He puffed furiously at a cigar, and seemed to be muttering obscenities under his breath. His coffee lay untasted and cold, and he seemed hardly aware of our presence, snorting occasionally in disgust. At last he walked to the window, opened it wide and took in deep breaths of air. We heard the sounds of the street traffic rumbling past, rattling wheels, the cries of vendors, the barking of dogs chasing the snuffling pigs that wandered the unpaved streets.
Colonel Baker turned away from the window and glared at us with undisguised displeasure.
‘I read your report on those damned conspirators. I took it straight to the Secretary of War.’
He seemed to be struggling to say more. When the words came they were underscored with anger.
‘Stanton dismissed the report with an airy wave of the hand! He said that Wilkes Booth was nothing but a jumped-up actor of no talent, who dreamed of action but would be incapable of it, was boastful, disorganized – and not to be taken account of!’ Baker snorted again, and clenched his right hand in fury. ‘I suggested to him that in view of your report, surveillance should be carried out more closely on the damned actor but he waved it aside. I gave him my opinion that the president should be given a stronger armed guard and he announced he had already advised Mr Lincoln on that and the president had refused to countenance the extra expenditure. Expenditure! While that damned wife of his fritters away a fortune in public money on unnecessary frills and furbelows at the Executive Mansion and Stanton himself, to my personal knowledge, is taking kickbacks on military contracts!’
I glanced at Di Rudio uncertainly. ‘We both agreed that Booth seemed . . . committed. And I’ve met one of the president’s personal guards. A man called Parker. I would not regard him as an able man.’
‘Parker? That no-account copper? He’s inveigled himself into Mrs Lincoln’s favour and it’s too late now to do anything about that.’ He shook his head, and sighed. ‘And there’s nothing I can do to persuade Stanton to take your report seriously. When I insisted, he told me coolly that my services – and that means yours as well –are no longer required in Washington. I am required to take up surveillance of the damned Fenians again, in New York. As for you, James, and Di Rudio, you’ll receive your stipend for this month and then you can both go about your business. It’s back to your New York law practice for you, Mr James! Lieutenant Di Rudio, I’ve made arrangements for you to join the Ohio cavalry unit which is supposed to guard the president, and you’ll act as my liaison with the War Department. I want an eye kept on developments regarding Stanton’s activities. You’ll report to me. I’m convinced there’s something fishy going on, and I don’t trust that weasel Stanton.’
He had never previousl
y expressed himself so forcibly in regard to the Secretary of War. But I knew they had a history of disagreements. As for me, the New York law practice. . . . I sighed. Tom Dunphy had been holding the fort during my lengthy absences in Washington, but he was not pleased – and not doing well. The shipping firm work had dried up, and echoes of the Mary Real trial fiasco still resounded to my discredit, so little by way of criminal briefs was coming in. But perhaps it was time I stepped aside from this cloak-and-dagger work and buckled down to my true métier again.
I arranged to take the same train back to New York as did Colonel Baker. We would be travelling in separate compartments.
My feelings at that time? Well, Joe, I still felt I could make a name for myself at the New York City Bar, and Stanton had promised me he would support me in my candidature for a judicial post if I assisted Colonel Baker. Well, that was over now – I needed to return to New York, enlarge my practice and wait for the next judicial election, when I would call in my debt from Stanton.
‘But how could the Secretary of War receive our report in such an offhand manner?’ I wondered, as Di Rudio and I sat in a downtown saloon later that evening by way of saying goodbye and heading off in our different directions.
The gallant lieutenant shrugged. ‘Who knows what makes the mind of a politician tick? He has much on his plate, of course, but the war is coming to an end, General Lee is on the point of surrender, and there is an election looming.’