The Lincoln Conspiracy

by Timothy L. O'Brien

  “The senator won’t want this,” Augustus had told Temple.

  “Lincoln had just brought Hale back from Spain before he was assassinated,” Temple had said. “The senator is in mourning for the president, and he will be sympathetic to our challenge.”

  “We have no reason to accost him so. Senator Hale’s wife has already fled the District for New Hampshire to avoid public shaming.”

  “Augustus, his daughter knew Booth, knew his movements and whom he was consorting with. We need to know whom Booth was close to.”

  “We’ll have no way to secure a meeting with her,” Augustus had said. “Lucy Hale loved Booth and John Hale considers that a curse.”

  “His daughter was secretly engaged to Booth. He’ll find this an embarrassment.”

  “And?”

  “Gardner can help keep news of the engagement out of the papers for a time.”

  Hale was inside the lobby of the National when Augustus arrived, but Augustus waited outside, unable to move through the doors. The senator took Augustus’s hesitation to be that of a Negro uncertain of his welcome in a Pennsylvania Avenue hotel and walked toward him, hand outstretched.

  “You can come in, my friend,” Hale said, before addressing the doorman. “Mr. Spriggs is a most well-received visitor.”

  The senator pulled Augustus through the doors and across the lobby, still misunderstanding his unease for anything other than a raw loathing of hotels. They ascended the stairs to the second floor, and as they walked down the hallway, Hale nodded glumly at room 228.

  “Booth’s,” he said. “The murderer was just doors away from us.”

  “Senator Hale, I appreciate your help, but before we sit with Lucy, I have to share with you a troubling revelation.”

  The men stopped short of the end of the hallway where the Hales’ two-bedroom suite was located, and Augustus lowered his voice. He told the senator that Temple had learned that among Booth’s belongings were photographs of five women, Miss Hale being one of them; the assassin claimed engagements to each.

  Hale absorbed this, shaking his head.

  Augustus cleared his throat.

  “I would not want to hurt Miss Hale in any fashion,” he whispered.

  Hale nodded. “She should know so she understands the measure of that despicable man. She was besotted. She invited Booth to attend the president’s second inauguration with her, as our guest. At our invitation the killer was just feet away from Mr. Lincoln—even then, just steps away.”

  “Temple has told me that he can keep much of the information about Miss Hale out of the newspapers, if that’s of any comfort, sir, but it won’t remain unknown for very long.”

  “We are Hales and we will manage this on our own. You are after the president’s killers, and I believe my daughter has information to impart.”

  Lucy Hale was perched on the edge of a settee in the middle of the suite’s parlor. Her hair lay against her head in two thick braids, a clutch of ringlets dangling near her ears, and she wore a crisp navy blue dress. She was stout and plain, and rumor had it that Booth, who had his choice of the District’s beauties, had targeted Lucy to gain access to her father’s influential circle.

  Lucy’s eyes were bloodshot and she knotted a kerchief in her hands as she looked past Augustus and her father, her gaze settling somewhere on the wall beyond them. A neat stack of letters bound together with green velvet ribbon sat nestled in her lap, with a thick lock of brown hair tucked under the bow. Augustus cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. Lucy’s gaze wandered from the wall to Augustus, and she patted the letters in her lap.

  “Johnny gave me these,” she said. “These, and his hair.”

  She began weeping in heaves, pressing her kerchief to her eyes and rocking back and forth on the edge of the couch as the letters slipped from her lap and spilled onto the floor. Augustus wanted to leave and turned toward the door, but Hale pulled him back by his arm and then walked to his daughter’s side. He retrieved the letters from the floor and placed them by her on the settee, patting her on the shoulder and stroking her hair until she calmed.

  “He had large, dark eyes, and he was kind to me, and he could recite Shakespeare better than his illustrious brothers,” she said, looking up at her father, her eyes still glassy.

  “He was a murderer, Lucy,” said Hale.

  “Do not be a tutor to me, Father!” Lucy screamed. “He was my betrothed and my own.”

  Hale pushed away from Lucy and stormed into one of the bedrooms, slamming the door behind him. Augustus sat down on a stool near the settee, staring at the floor until Lucy spoke again. She pulled the letters back into her lap, dropping her kerchief and twirling the lock of hair in her hand.

  “I could give you these, Mr. Spriggs, but they aren’t of any value. They are Johnny’s love letters to me. There is nothing here of plots or murder. You aren’t the first to visit me, of course. Mr. Stanton sent a very threatening man, a Mr. Baker, to speak with me weeks ago. He read through all of my letters and didn’t keep a single page.”

  “And that was all?” Augustus asked.

  “They ransacked Johnny’s room down the hall and said they found encrypted letters in envelopes bearing New York marks. Mr. Stanton’s man suspected that my letters might conform with an inscrutable code they also found in Johnny’s room. But all they found in his letters to me was love.”

  “Booth never discussed with you a fascination or an obsession with President Lincoln?”

  “Other than his desire to be at the inauguration, he did not.”

  “Well. That is all, then.”

  Augustus rose from the stool, bowed to Lucy, and asked her to remember him to her father. When he reached the door of the suite, she stopped him.

  “That is not all,” she said. “Johnny did meet frequently with others at the Surratt boardinghouse. And as I told Mr. Baker, one person from that group hasn’t been fully claimed by all of these investigators, police, and soldiers.”

  “And who is that person?”

  “John Surratt. My Johnny and he were confidants. Where, I might ask, is John Surratt? Why has no one pursued him?”

  “Good day,” Augustus said.

  “Good day.”

  Augustus left the National alone, the bellman and the doorman eyeing him as he passed through the lobby and onto Pennsylvania Avenue. He pulled at his collar to get some air and walked a block before pausing to lean against a building, clawing at his collar again. He could hear the sounds of crowds swelling to join the Grand Review. He felt penned in, ready to visit his dreams. His right hand was shaking and he covered it with his left, then swiped at his nose, which had started to run. He needed to visit his dreams. He needed to find some smoke.

  THE WAR SECRETARY demonstrated his well-known pluck in the message he sent through Noah Brooks in response to Temple’s request for a meeting: Whoever you may be and whatever “diaries” you may possess, I will not meet with you without further proof of the true value of that which you claim to have.

  Temple responded: Mars: I will leave a packet in your name at the Willard this evening at half past six.

  Allan Pinkerton was at a table in the Willard’s lobby when Temple arrived. He was drumming his fingers, and his hip shook slightly in response to the frantic pumping of his left foot beneath the table. Pinkerton followed Temple as he made his way across the lobby, his pace hobbled by his bad leg and his cane.

  “You look angry with me, Mr. Pinkerton.”

  “I am determined to conclude this very messy affair.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “You will give me the diaries.”

  “I obviously won’t. But you and your men will stop following me and my wife as of this evening.”

  “We’ll do no such thing,” Pinkerton roared, bolting up from the table and shoving his chair aside. “I have four of my men outside who will enter at my prompting and resolve this dilemma.”

  “My friend Nail and his acquaintanc
es have disbanded your guards, Mr. Pinkerton. At this moment, they’re being … transported. I also have a photograph of you in Alexandria consorting with the most well-known madam in the District. The picture can get into the newspapers and it can get to your wife. So sit down, Mr. Pinkerton, and be civil.”

  Allan Pinkerton subdued was like a man tied and gagged, struggling against the emotions binding him and rocking to and fro in search of an escape. Once Pinkerton settled, Temple and he came to terms: Pinkerton would disappear from the District.

  “It was my men at the B&O confronting Baker’s stooges, and it was my men who rescued you at the Center Market,” Pinkerton said. “And for this you would have me exiled?”

  “You came to my aid because you wanted the diaries. But how did you know I even had the diaries?”

  “We tracked you from the B&O right behind Baker’s team when they gave chase.”

  “What took you to the train station to begin with, Mr. Pinkerton?”

  “Stump Tigani. He worked as a courier for Baker, and my network told me what he had.”

  “Which was?”

  “The Booth diary and Mrs. Lincoln’s journal. Was I wrong?”

  “No, you weren’t. But your men needed to slice open Tigani’s throat to get them?”

  “Tigani was a dangerous man. He wouldn’t have parted with the diaries. As you saw at the B&O, Lafayette Baker was there to protect him.”

  “Why was Tigani traveling to New York?”

  “That is a secret that only Baker and Edwin Stanton can unveil. I loved President Lincoln; I served him and General McClellan during the war—until Stanton removed me in favor of Baker. The diaries will serve as instruments for justice.”

  “Justice for whom?”

  “That was what I was intending to discover when you interfered with my work, Mr. McFadden. I believe the journals will aid those seeking information about the assassination of the president.”

  “I’m sure none of your thirst for the diaries involves embarrassing Mr. Stanton. You’re to leave the District, Mr. Pinkerton.”

  “What of your photograph of me in Alexandria?”

  “You have my word that it shan’t circulate and that the plate will be destroyed.”

  “I saved your life, McFadden,” Pinkerton said as he stood again. “My goodwill would have me exiled?”

  “By tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I doubt I can call off my people in Chicago in time. I’ll send a telegram, but they’re already waiting for your wife there.”

  “My wife is a capable woman. Good night and goodbye, Mr. Pinkerton.”

  Pinkerton held Temple’s eyes for a moment, spat on the floor by the detective’s cane, and then turned on his heel. After Pinkerton left the Willard, Temple reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope bearing Edwin Stanton’s name—with “Lord War” inscribed below it—and left it at the hotel desk with the concierge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE GATLING

  Edwin Stanton sent two cavalry officers to meet Temple in front of the Capitol on Wednesday morning, an hour before the Grand Review launched into its second day. The Union boys identified Temple by his cane and put him on a separate mount accompanying them. He was to be seated next to the war secretary as a guest in the reviewing stand.

  Stanton, round as an egg and resolute as an ironclad, took Temple’s measure as soon as he reached the reviewing stand, scanning him up and down and nodding slightly as he did so. He didn’t extend his hand or ask Temple his name before they made their way to their seats, which would place the two men between Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant, both of whom had yet to arrive. Stanton moved deliberately, accustomed as he had become after long years of war and the burdens of his office to giving, rather than receiving, orders.

  “There aren’t many who know me as Lord War,” Stanton said as he sat down. “Your diligence is impressive, Mr.…?”

  “McFadden. You also are known as Mars?”

  “You’ve gotten inside a Vigenère table as well. Also impressive. But you’re putting yourself in a very perilous and untenable place. Why?”

  “I agreed to help uphold the law.”

  “Come now.”

  “It’s the truth,” Temple said, after considering—and deciding against—offering Stanton a more elaborate explanation. “I also deeply admired the president. It isn’t any more complicated than that.”

  “Everything in the District right now is more complicated than it appears. Do you mean to do me damage?”

  “I mean to find out why President Lincoln was killed.”

  Stanton worried about the risks he had taken allowing a stranger to sit so close to him, Grant, and Johnson so soon after the president’s murder. He looked about for his guards, and mopped his brow with a handkerchief before turning back to Temple.

  “I could detain you right now,” he said. “Right here and indefinitely, for no other reason than I wish it so. The state has given me those powers, and habeas corpus is just a cloak that we lift and drop as we intend. You would vanish.”

  “You want what I have and you don’t have it yet,” Temple said. “If you wanted me arrested, you would have had it done when your men met me earlier at the Capitol. And you did not.”

  Crowds were swelling again along Pennsylvania, and with both the Irish Brigade and Sherman’s troops set to march, the morning’s festivities had already turned distinctly rowdy and snapjacket. Scuffles broke out on corners where people jockeyed for better views; some police meant to patrol Pennsylvania Avenue were already drunk; cheers and peals of laughter coursed through windows and from the rooftops of shops and houses; flags and red, white, and blue bunting hung from windows; and, with legions of Union soldiers moving down the boulevard from the Capitol, the sun painted the entire enterprise as if, for a moment, to cleanse it and keep it whole before ancient hatreds threatened to divide it all again in the nights that were to come.

  Temple leaned toward Stanton to continue their conversation, but the war secretary ignored him, rising from his chair to meet General Grant and President Johnson as they arrived. Johnson sat to one side of Stanton and, after the war secretary shooed Temple down a seat, Grant sat on the other, leaving Temple perched next to the man who, after Lincoln, was the most popular hero in the North.

  As on the day before, a band preceded the military procession, but today the musicians were playing the anthem that had come to symbolize Sherman and his Army of the Tennessee, “Marching Through Georgia.” As the band’s refrains boomed louder, the throngs along Pennsylvania began to sing along with the music:

  “Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!”

  So the saucy rebels said and ’twas a handsome boast

  Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host

  While we were marching through Georgia.

  The song was a preamble for the appearance of Sherman himself, who sat tall on Lexington, his chestnut stallion, and rode in a new uniform before sixty-five thousand of his men, including some of the same bummers and free Negroes who had passed along with their ragtag gear and plunder in front of Augustus’s house. The mounted infantry of the Ninth Illinois rode ahead of Sherman and cleared a path for the general and his troops as crowds surged toward the war hero, offering him wreaths and gifts. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which Sherman’s army had played as they left a gutted, ravaged Atlanta the year before, replaced “Marching Through Georgia,” and Sherman bowed in his saddle toward the crowd. All of the onlookers roared in response, clapping and calling out his name.

  When Sherman passed the reviewing stand, he saluted President Johnson with his sword, dismounted, and climbed the steps up to the platform. Sherman and Stanton harbored a well-known hatred of each other; Stanton suspected Sherman of having designs on the presidency and loathed his insubordination, while Sherman saw Stanton as overly sympathetic toward the Negro and in too much of a rush to reconstruct the South in the image of the North. When Stanton ex
tended his hand to Sherman, the general ignored it and shook hands with his good friend Grant instead. Temple was asked to move down yet again so that Sherman could sit beside Grant.

  A minister on the platform, observing Sherman slighting Stanton, rose and shouted: “Edwin M. Stanton, savior of our country under God, rise and receive the greetings of your friends!” When Stanton refused to stand, the minister repeated himself: “Edwin M. Stanton, savior of our country under God, rise and receive the greetings of your friends!” As waves of applause rolled out from the same onlookers who had cheered Sherman earlier, Stanton stood up and received the ovation. Sherman, refusing to acknowledge the moment, leaned in toward Grant and whispered in his ear.

  The generals took no notice of or interest in Temple, and for the rest of the day he would occasionally lean out from his seat and look down the aisle to scrutinize Stanton, taking stock of his comportment, his demeanor, and his reactions to the surges of emotion that accompanied the crowd’s response to each new military regiment as it passed by for review and with each thundering volley of rifle fire that sounded up and down Pennsylvania. When Temple’s friend Michael Gleason, a captain in the Irish Brigade of Illinois, rode by with his sword raised, Temple cheered him, and he noticed Stanton cheering heartily as well. But such outpourings were rare from the war secretary, who was almost regal in his self-possession and who took in the last hours of the Grand Review as a man entranced by the human spectacle and made somber and weary by the sacrifices that gave rise to it.

  When the parade ended at three-thirty, the reviewing stand emptied quickly as the dignitaries tried to escape the crush on Pennsylvania. Crowds encircled Sherman, who lost his temper as he and his wife were besieged; he screamed, “Damn you, get out of the way! Get out of the way!” Temple noticed that Sherman’s protests drew a faint smile from Stanton, but the war secretary knew better than to let himself be caught gloating. His lips re-formed into a thin line and he turned toward Temple, finally ready after several hours to converse. The two of them, and Stanton’s contingent of four bodyguards, were the only ones left on the platform.