by Gore Vidal
“While McClellan sweeps the city. Have some fried oysters.” Lincoln and an unknown general were helping fill up everyone’s plate with food.
Eckert himself was now manning the telegraph machine. “Here comes New York,” he said.
But Seward preferred to give his version of what was happening in that most imperial of all the states. “Governor Seymour threatened to call out the national guard, to scare away our people. So Butler promptly called out the army to scare off the national guard. He’s been arresting Democratic agents all day.” Seward poured himself champagne; and toasted Ben Butler.
Eckert reported: “McClellan has carried New York City by thirty-five thousand votes.”
“That was pretty much my estimate,” said the Tycoon, nibbling at a fried oyster.
“McClellan has also carried the state by four thousand votes,” said Eckert.
“Not possible!” Seward nearly dropped his glass. “There is fraud here.”
“That was not my estimate,” said Lincoln, abandoning the rest of the oyster. “But I was certain that I would lose the state.”
“Well, you have won the election,” said Brooks.
“Not quite …”
Eckert announced that Kentucky seemed secure for McClellan. Hay began to add; and subtract. He was obliged to do on paper what the Tycoon could do in his head. Each state’s electoral vote was on file in that swift, subtle but distinctly odd brain. Hay could not see how Lincoln could lose. Nevertheless, if New York’s electoral votes were to go to McClellan, the margin of victory might resemble, more and more, the Ancient’s original gloomy estimate.
Then Eckert, with a grin, announced: “Correction from New York. Lincoln not McClellan carried the state by four thousand votes, and Governor Horatio Seymour is defeated.”
There was cheering in the room, and when Seward insisted that the Tycoon drink a glass of champagne, he did so. “Remember your hopes and dreams for Seymour this very night?” Seward teased Lincoln. “Just think, it might have been President Seymour, with you as his midwest manager.”
“Fate has spared us,” said Lincoln, demurely.
Eckert announced. “Steubenville, Ohio, the hometown of Mr. Stanton, has gone Republican.”
“We are safe!” Lincoln exclaimed. Then, in wheezing imitation of Stanton, he said, “Let’s give three cheers for Steubenville!”
When the cheering ceased, Seward observed, at large, “We owe Mr. Stanton a lot tonight. He got out the soldier vote, and they are the ones who have made all the difference.”
Lincoln nodded, suddenly somber. “It is true,” he said. “But I myself cannot see why they voted as they did—grateful as I am.”
“They are loyal to you.” Again Seward raised high his glass. “They are also loyal to the army, to the Union, to themselves and to what they have done these last four years, and to all their dead.”
“I will drink to that,” said Lincoln; and finished the glass of champagne. “Certainly, I am honored that they have voted for me. Honored and surprised, with all the dead thus far.” The voice trailed off.
“They would favor you, too, if they could vote,” said Seward, expansively.
“The dead?” Lincoln sounded startled. Then he shook his head. “No, Governor. The dead would not vote for me, ever, in this—or any other—world.”
EIGHT
THREE DAYS later, Lincoln met with the entire Cabinet, except for Stanton, whose illness was beginning to cause alarm. Lincoln had carried all but three states: New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. He had a popular majority of a half-million votes; and so he was, just barely, a majority president.
Seward was euphoric. He could not stop talking; he wished that he could stop but the fit was upon him. “Even if we carried New York State by four thousand votes instead of the forty thousand we first thought, it is an extraordinary achievement, given the forces against us, from press to governor to Copperheads.”
Hay entered. “Sir, a report from Nicolay, in Illinois. You have carried Illinois by twenty-five thousand votes.” The Cabinet applauded. Lincoln looked at the report a moment; then he laughed. “I see that I have lost my home county of Sangamon to McClellan. I also lost the state of my birth, Kentucky, to McClellan. It would appear that where I am best known, I am least popular.”
“Doubtless, that explains your triumph in Nevada,” said Seward.
Hay gave the President the latest news from the War Department. The Tycoon announced: “General McClellan has resigned his commission as major-general, and departs, immediately, for a holiday in Europe.”
There was, again, applause from the Cabinet. Meanwhile, Lincoln had given Hay a sealed sheet of paper. “Gentlemen, do you remember last summer when I asked you all to sign your names to the back of a sheet of paper whose inside I did not show you? Well, this is it.” Lincoln held up the paper; then he gave it to Hay. “Now, Mr. Hay, see if you can get this open without tearing it.” Hay took a paper knife and, like a surgeon, made a series of complex insertions. The Tycoon had glued the paper shut at the oddest of angles.
When the document was open, Lincoln read it aloud to the Cabinet. “ ‘This morning, August 23, 1864, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected.’ ” Lincoln glanced at Seward, who was obliged to nod his agreement. “ ‘Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it after.’ ” Lincoln put down the note. “This was written about a week before McClellan was nominated. Since I was fairly sure that he would win, I had made up my mind that when he did, I’d ask him here and say, ‘Look, we’ve got nearly five months before you take office. I still have the executive power, while you have the confidence of the country. So let us together raise all the troops that we can and end this war together.”
The Cabinet looked appropriately grave, except for Seward, who said, “And the general would answer you, ‘Yes, yes’; and the next day when you saw him again and pressed your views on him, he’d say, ‘Yes, yes’; and nothing would ever have got done.”
“At least,” said the Tycoon, “I should have done my duty and my conscience would be clear.”
“We need not grieve for Little Mac,” said Fessenden, newly returned from New York City. “I am told he has been offered the presidency of the Illinois Central Railroad, at ten thousand dollars a year.”
“He will answer ‘yes’ to that quick enough,” Seward conceded.
“So,” said Lincoln, “would I. In his place, that is—where I thought I would be last August.”
Gideon Welles then spoke with some delight of the imminent departure from Washington of the now former Senator Hale, a man of corruption, who had caused the Navy Department much grief. Perhaps he should be punished further; perhaps he should be investigated by the Attorney-General. But Lincoln raised a large hand, and said, “In politics the statute of limitations must be short.”
Since Seward had never known a good politician who was not vengeful, Lincoln was either not a good politician or an anomaly. Seward inclined to the last.
After the Cabinet meeting, Lincoln met with Francis P. Blair. “You will think, sir,” began the Old Gentleman, now very old indeed but still retaining his Jacksonian fire, not to mention impersonation, “that I am here on behalf of Monty, who deserves to be the next chief justice.”
“I had a suspicion that that might be in your mind,” said the President, looking at the pale, truncated obelisk to Washington. “Certainly, it is in my mind.”
“Well, as long as it is there, I will say no more. You have done enough for the Blairs to entitle you to their gratitude and that of their posterity forever.” This sentiment brought forth a degree of saliva which the old man reflexively mopped up, eyes on the portrait of his friend, Jackson. “Actually, I’m here on other business. As you know, I was once on good terms with Jefferson Davis.”
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p; “I know,” said Lincoln.
“I want to go to Richmond.” The Old Gentleman was abrupt; Jacksonian. “I want to talk to him. I want to end this war.”
“How?”
“I want to persuade him to make peace, to return to the Union, and to join with us in driving the French-Hapsburg forces out of Mexico.”
Lincoln was noncommittal. “That is Governor Seward’s dream, too. But is it Mr. Davis’s?”
“Let me find out. I have a perfect excuse to go to Richmond. Those bastards who looted my house took all my papers, and now I want them back. Davis will understand that. He’ll let me come to Richmond. Then I shall tell him my plan.”
Lincoln nodded, as if in deep thought; then he said, “Wait until Savannah falls. Then come to me, and I’ll give you a safe passage to City Point, or wherever Grant happens to be.”
“Not until then?” The Old Gentleman looked somewhat disappointed.
“I think we must tighten the noose a bit more. Also, the slavery question should be solved by then. I have a hunch that this Congress is going to ask for an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery once and for all. When that is done, Mr. Davis, for better or worse, will know just where he stands.”
David knew exactly where he stood with Mr. Thompson: he had been fired, as the wild boys would call it; let go; dismissed. “I have for some time, David, felt that you were not entirely present when you were present, and often when I needed your assistance, you were not present at all.” Mr. Thompson stood, sadly, in front of his long, gleaming row of Latin-inscribed ceramic jugs. The curling gold Gothic letters shone in the bright morning light. “I did my best to overlook your absences, out of friendship to your mother. I, also, I shall tell you now, detected in you, from the beginning, the makings of a first-class druggist. Anyone who can saw wood can be a doctor of medicine but to be a fine druggist is to be an artist born not made. We are the true scientists, and deep in our powders and our elixirs and in our subtle mixings of same, there is health, and there is God. I pray that you will take counsel with yourself before it is too late.” Mr. Thompson opened his wallet. “Your wages, which ceased the day before the election, which was a holiday—though our work is never done despite the day.”
“But I worked all day yesterday …” David argued another five dollars out of Mr. Thompson. In a sense, he was glad to be gone. A lifetime in the back room of a drugstore was even worse than a lifetime in the front room, getting to meet everybody, as Mr. Thompson did. In the last year he had told Mr. Thompson that he had been sick so often that he had now run out of illnesses. The year before, David had worked part-time for Walsh’s, a druggist at the Navy Yard, not far from his mother’s house. Mr. Thompson had an understanding with Mr. Walsh, and during one of David’s many “convalescences,” it was agreed that he work close to home. But that had come to an end when the two druggists compared notes one day and found that much of the time David had been working for neither. Now the curtain was falling forever, thought David, dramatically, on his career as a prescription clerk. Fortunately, there was plenty of work at the theaters; and, best of all, his friend Wilkes was back in town.
For the last time, David shut the door of Thompson’s behind him; and heard, for the last time, the small bell attached to the inner handle clatter. Then he stepped out into Fifteenth Street, a free man. The rain had ceased and the sky was clear. A brisk wind smelled of winter. The mud had turned to hard earth, while the hogs in the alleys seemed more than usually alert. In a good mood, David made his way along New York Avenue to the Surratt house in H Street.
The city was filled to bursting with shiftless ex-slaves and equally, to David’s hardened eye, shiftless white men from the South, who had taken the oath and now had no place to go and no work to do. They sat in open places, making fires out of trash and drinking com liquor. They were not supposed to be armed but all had knives; and, at the slightest provocation, used them. There were now parts of the city where not even David dared go at night.
A regiment of cavalry swept down the avenue, stopping all traffic. But David no longer even noticed the Yankee troops. Like all true Washingtonians, he knew he was living in a city that had been occupied by the enemy and there was nothing to be done about it except mind his own business, which was to kidnap President Lincoln and hold him for a ransom of one hundred thousand captured Confederate soldiers.
Just before the election, the entire Surratt family had moved into the H Street house. Mrs. Surratt had rented the place at Surrattsville for five hundred dollars a year to a man called Lloyd. Since John was no longer postmaster, there was no reason for them to stay in the country when they could live in the city, where he might find proper work, and Mrs. Surratt could make money by turning 541 into a boardinghouse. John had been reluctant to give up his night-rides. But Mrs. Surratt had convinced him that their future was in the city, not at a country crossroads in Maryland. Of them all, Annie was best pleased.
David entered the front parlor—the back parlor where old Mr. Surratt had died now contained the very lively Mrs. Surratt, who greeted David warmly but hurriedly. “Annie’s out, giving lessons …”
“Is John—?”
“Here I am.” John entered the parlor in his shirt-sleeves. He had finally grown a small chin-beard in imitation of Jefferson Davis. “I’m the handyman,” he complained.
“You find any work?”
John sighed. “Labor, yes. Proper work, no. There’s an opening at the Adams Express Company. I’ve applied.” He threw himself on the sofa. “I wish I were back home, where I could be useful.”
“There’s a lot you can do here,” said David, significantly. But nothing that he ever said could be made to sound significant, the way that Wilkes could do with a simple drop in his voice. In any case, since no one took David E. Herold seriously, nothing that he said was ever listened to with any respect or attention, except by Wilkes, late at night when they made their plans. Booth’s blond girl had come to Thompson’s the day after the election. “He’s at the National,” she whispered. Then she fled; presumably back to Ohio Avenue, where her sister kept a fancy house. From Sal, David had learned that Ella Turner was in love with Booth, who paid a certain amount to her sister to keep her relatively pure for him. It was Ella’s dream that he would one day marry her.
David had found Booth shattered by the election. “What is the point to killing the tyrant now, when he will be succeeded by yet another tyrant in the loathsome form of the traitor Johnson?” In the back room of Scipione Grillo’s restaurant, Booth would often sound as if he was acting in a tragical play. David always found such moments entirely thrilling, particularly when he was included in the drama.
“We had our last chance on August 13, when you were to pass him the fatal cup, and I memorialized the deed with a diamond, cutting into the glass of a window in a hovel at Meadville where I was stopping, jubilant at the thought of this glorious tyrannicide which, alas, failed.” David had apologized, at length. There had indeed been a plan for him to try, once again, to poison the President, and for once, the exact day that the poison would be taken was known in advance.
The President had not slept in a week. Late in the afternoon of August 12, the President’s doctor had asked Thompson for a sleeping potion to be delivered the next morning—to be tried out that night. This was the moment, Sullivan declared. David agreed; with Booth behind him—at Meadville; with the whole Confederate government at Richmond, presumably behind Booth; with history back of them all …
But David had lost his nerve. On the morning of the 13th, plain laudanum had gone over to the Mansion; and that night Old Abe had enjoyed a sound night’s sleep. Nevertheless, David was hailed by Sullivan as a brave if unlucky soldier whose gun had misfired a second time.
For the moment, the President was safe from murder. The Tennessee turncoat Andrew Johnson was considered even more dangerous than Lincoln. But the Confederacy was now reeling from the effects of Grant’s grinding-down strategy. There were almost no
men left to fight.
Enter John Wilkes Booth, at the eleventh hour.
Enter a couple named Holohan into the front parlor. “Where is your mother, Johnny?” asked the lady.
“She’s upstairs, fixing your rooms, Mrs. Holohan. She said for you to go on up.” The couple vanished up the stairs. “Boarders,” said John sadly. “We also have a girlfriend of Annie’s staying here. And a chap I was at the seminary with sleeps with me. Thirty-five dollars a month, room and board. That’s all. Why don’t you join us? Three to a bed.”
David shook his head. “I’m living at home now. Like they say, I was just now fired. So I don’t know how I’ll live, except doing odd jobs at the theaters.”
“That makes two of us with nothing to live for.”
“Don’t speak so soon.” David then proceeded to tell John about a friend of his—he was careful to mention no names—who had a plan to save the Confederacy. At first, John was skeptical. “This whole city’s nothing but a garrison. So how are you going to kidnap the chief of the whole thing in the middle of his army and navy? I could see shooting him. That wouldn’t be hard. But to kidnap him …” John shook his head.
“You tell my friend that. He’s well connected. He’s rich. All he needs is somebody who knows the Maryland roads. That’s when I thought of you. I wanted you to meet him last month but he had to go to Mount-royal.”
“Where?” John showed a sudden interest.
“It’s a place up in Canada somewhere. Anyway, when he was in Mount-royal …”
“Montreal.” John corrected him. He got up. “That’s where our secret service keeps its eye on the Yanks. Where’s this friend of yours stopping?”
In the lobby of the National Hotel, Wilkes Booth sat on a horsehair sofa next to Bessie Hale, who was weeping quietly into a handkerchief. Booth appeared to be soothing her. Then, while she was blowing her nose, David caught his eye. Booth made a gesture for him and John to wait by the windows. As they crossed to the large palm tree where Booth and David had plotted before, Booth led Miss Hale to the main stairs. Slowly, she ascended. Quickly, Booth crossed the crowded lobby to the palm tree. Cleverly, David introduced John Surratt to Booth, without ever mentioning Booth’s name.