Killing Lincoln/Killing Kennedy

by O'Reilly, Bill

  If for some reason they can’t do the job tonight, they will remain in Washington and try again tomorrow.

  Booth shakes hands with each man. They leave one at a time and go their separate ways.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 1865

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  NIGHT

  There once was a fifth conspirator, the one Booth traveled to Baltimore to corral the day before. Mike O’Laughlen, a former Confederate soldier who grew up across the street from Booth, was one of the first men recruited by him last August. Just a month earlier the two men had lain in wait together for a certain carriage making its way down the lonely country road to the Soldiers’ Home, only to find that its occupant was a Supreme Court justice instead of the president.

  Hiding in the tall grass along the side of the road, O’Laughlen had weighed the repercussions of actually kidnapping the president of the United States and realized that he would hang by the neck until dead if caught. He was actually relieved that the carriage belonged to Salmon P. Chase instead of Lincoln.

  The twenty-four-year-old engraver returned to Baltimore and put the kidnapping plot behind him. He wanted a normal life. When Booth came calling a week later with an even more far-fetched plot to kidnap the president by handcuffing him at the theater and then lowering his body to the stage, O’Laughlen shook his head and told Booth to go away.

  But Booth is nothing if not relentless. In Baltimore, he tried to convince O’Laughlen to rejoin the conspiracy. O’Laughlen told the actor he didn’t want any part of the killing. Yet the same day he apparently changed his mind, and he traveled to Washington a short time later. O’Laughlen started drinking the minute he arrived, bellying up to the bar at a place called Rullman’s until his behavior became erratic. Like Booth, who now prowls Washington in the desperate hope of finding Lincoln, O’Laughlen prowls the bustling thoroughfares, unsure of what to do next.

  Meanwhile, General Sam Grant, whose idea of a stellar evening is chain-smoking cigars and sipping whiskey, would be very happy staying in for the evening. But as Julia points out, General and Mrs. Grant have not attended a party together for quite some time. Sitting in their room on this very special night, no matter how luxurious the accommodations, would be a waste. Julia shows her husband invitation after invitation to party after party. She is thrilled to be in the city but also eager to leave as soon as possible to rejoin their four children. Knowing that they have perhaps just this one night in Washington, Grant agrees that they should venture out.

  Reluctantly, Grant leaves the hotel. They engage a carriage to take them to the home of Secretary of War Stanton, who is holding a gala celebration for War Department employees. Four brass bands serenade the partygoers from nearby Franklin Square, and a fireworks demonstration will cap the night.

  Grant has been a target ever since he took command of Lincoln’s army. But even with all the people in the streets he is unafraid. The war is over.

  The Grants arrive at Stanton’s home. A bodyguard stands at the top of the steps, one of the few the general has encountered in Washington. The Grants are greeted with a loud round of applause as they join the partygoers, but they are soon lost in the sea of other prominent faces. Grant gets a drink and settles in to endure the politicking and glad-handing soon to head his way.

  But the Grants have been followed. Mike O’Laughlen, wearing a dark suit, marches up the front steps of Stanton’s house and tries to crash the party. The sergeant providing security brushes him off, telling the unwanted guest, “If you wish to see him, step out on the pavement, or the stone where the carriage stops.”

  O’Laughlen disappears into the night, only to return later asking to see Secretary Stanton. Coincidentally, Stanton and Grant are both standing just a few feet away, watching the fireworks. There is still something of the conspirator in O’Laughlen, a willingness to take risks where others might not. He takes a bold gamble, blends in with the crowd, and slips undetected into the party, despite the security detail. He then goes one better by walking over and standing directly behind Stanton.

  But Mike O’Laughlen does nothing to harm the secretary of war. Nor does he bother Grant. The fact is, he doesn’t know what Stanton looks like, and as a former Confederate soldier with a deep respect for rank, he is too nervous to speak with Grant.

  Observers will later remember the drunk in the dark coat and suggest that his intentions were to kill the general and the secretary. Nothing could be further from the truth: the surprising fact is that O’Laughlen is actually here to warn them about Booth. But even after all those drinks, Mike O’Laughlen still can’t summon the courage. He thinks of the repercussions and how if he informs on Booth, his childhood friend will most surely reveal the story about the kidnapping attempt four weeks earlier. That admission would mean the same jail sentence—or even execution—for O’Laughlen as for Booth.

  No. Nothing good can come of telling Stanton or Grant a single detail of the plot. Mike O’Laughlen disappears into the night and drinks himself blind.

  Meanwhile, a crowd gathers in front of Stanton’s home. For all his attempts at avoiding the limelight, word of Grant’s location has spread throughout the city. Cries of “Speech!” rock the night air, his admirers thoroughly unaware that Grant is terrified of public speaking.

  Stanton comes to the rescue. Never afraid of expressing himself, the secretary throws out a few bon mots to pacify his audience. Grant says nothing, but the combination of a small wave to the crowd and Stanton’s spontaneous words are enough to satiate Grant’s fans. Soon the sidewalks are bare.

  On the other side of town, John Wilkes Booth steps back into the National Hotel, frustrated and tired from hours of walking bar to bar, party to party, searching for Lincoln. The Deringer rests all too heavily in his coat pocket, in its barrel the single unfired round that could have changed the course of history. There has been no news of any other assassinations, so he can only assume that his conspirators have also failed—and he is right. Herold, Atzerodt, and Powell were all unable to conquer their fears long enough to cross the line from fanatic to assassin.

  Perhaps tomorrow.

  One mile away, in his White House bedroom, Abraham Lincoln slumbers peacefully. A migraine has kept him in for the night.

  Hopefully that will not be the case tomorrow evening, for the Lincolns have plans to attend the theater.

  Part Three

  THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY

  The last known photograph of Lincoln, February 1865

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  7:00 A.M.

  It is Good Friday morning, the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified, died an agonizing death, and was quickly buried. All of this after he had been betrayed by Judas and scorned by a public that had lionized him just days before.

  Abraham Lincoln is a religious man but not a churchgoer. He was born into a Christian home in the wilderness, where established churches were rare. His father and mother were staunch “hard-shell” Baptists, and at a young age he attended the Pigeon Creek Baptist Church. Lincoln’s church attendance became sporadic in his adult life. Nevertheless, he took comfort in reading the Bible on a daily basis and often used the words of God to make important points in his public pronouncements. Indeed, his faith has grown because of the war. But because Lincoln never attached himself to an organized religion as an adult, his ability to combine the secular and the religious in the way he goes about his life will later have everyone from atheists to humanists to Calvinists claiming that he is one of theirs. The truth is, Abraham Lincoln does believe in God and has relied on Scripture in overcoming all the challenges he has confronted.

  Lincoln rises at seven A.M. Outside the White House, the Washington weather is a splendid, sunny fifty degrees. Dogwoods are blooming along the Potomac and the scent of spring lilacs carries on the morning breeze as the president throws his size 14 feet over the edge of the bed, slides them into
a pair of battered slippers, pulls on an equally weathered robe, pushes open the rosewood bedroom door, says good morning to his night watchman, and walks down a second-floor hallway to the White House library. The quiet night at home has been good for his soul. Lincoln’s sleep was restful. All symptoms of his migraine have disappeared.

  Petitioners sleeping in the White House hallway leap to their feet upon the sight of Lincoln. They have come seeking presidential favors—a pardon, a job, an appointment. The president is courteous but evasive at their shouted requests, eager to be alone in the quiet of the library. That strangers actually sleep on the White House floor is commonplace at the time. “The multitude, washed or unwashed, always has free egress and ingress” into the White House, an astonished visitor wrote earlier in Lincoln’s presidency.

  The White House’s open-door policy ends today.

  The president’s favorite chair is in the exact center of the room. He sits down and opens his Bible, not because it is Good Friday but because starting the day with Scripture is a lifelong custom. Glasses balanced on the end of his prominent nose, he reads a verse, then another, before setting the Good Book on a side table. He leans back in the chair to meditate, enjoying the only quiet and solitary moments he will know this day.

  Lincoln traipses down the hall to his office. His desk is mahogany, with cubbies and shelves. Behind him is the willow-lined Potomac, seen clearly outside the window.

  Secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay have laid the mail on the desk, having already removed the love letters Lincoln sometimes receives from young ladies, and the assassination letters more often sent by older men. Typically, the president gets almost three hundred letters a day, of which he reads only a half dozen, at most.

  Lincoln skims the mail, then jots down a few notes. Each is signed “A. Lincoln” if it is of a more official nature, or just “Yours truly,” as in the case of his note to William Seward. The secretary of state continues to recover from his horrible accident, his jaw and shattered skull mending slowly. Now he lies in bed at home, a convenient stone’s throw across the street from the White House.

  Breakfast is scheduled for eight o’clock. Lincoln finishes his brief business and enters a small room, where he grooms himself. Daily baths and showers are rare, even in the White House. Lincoln is eager to be downstairs, for his son Robert is just back from the war and will be joining him, twelve-year-old Tad, and Mary for breakfast. More importantly, Robert was in the room when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Though Lincoln heard the story from Grant yesterday, he is keen to hear more about this landmark event. The war’s end is one topic he never gets tired of talking about.

  Just twenty-one, with a thin mustache and a captain’s rank, Robert is still boyish, despite his time at the front. As Lincoln sips coffee and eats the single boiled egg that constitutes his daily breakfast, Robert describes “the stately elegant Lee” and Grant, “the small stooping shabby shy man in the muddy blue uniform, with no sword and no spurs.”

  When Lincoln asks what it was like to be there, his son is breathless. “Oh, it was great!” the normally articulate Robert exclaims, unable to find a more expressive way to describe being present at one of the seminal moments in American history.

  Robert hands Lincoln a portrait of Lee. The president lays it on the table, where it stares up at him. Lincoln tells his son that he truly believes the time of peace has come. He is unfazed by the small but bitter Confederate resistance that remains. His thoughts are far away from the likes of John Wilkes Booth.

  Pressing business awaits Lincoln in his office, but he allows breakfast to stretch on for almost an hour. He can permit himself this luxury, with the war finally over. At last he stands, his body stooped, now just an inch or two less than the towering height of his youth. He is relaxed and happy, even though his severe weight loss makes him look like “a skeleton with clothes,” in the words of one friend.

  Lincoln reminds Mary that they have a date for a carriage ride this afternoon. To Robert, he suggests that the time has come to remove the uniform, return to Harvard, and spend the next three years working on his law degree. “At the end of that time I hope we will be able to tell if you will make a good lawyer or not,” he concludes, sounding more serious than he feels. The words are a sign that he is mentally transitioning from the easy part of his day into those long office hours when, even with the war concluded, the weight of the world presses down on his shoulders.

  By nine A.M., President Lincoln is sitting at his desk.

  Every aspect of Lincoln’s early morning has the feel of a man putting his affairs in order: reading the Bible, jotting a few notes, arranging for a last carefree whirl around Washington with his loyal wife, and setting his son on a path that will ensure him a successful future. All of this is done unconsciously, of course, but it is notable.

  Even if it is not mentioned on this day in the White House, the potential assassination of the president is a topic of discussion in and around Washington. The chattering class doesn’t know when it might occur, but many believe an attempt will come very soon.

  “To those familiar with the city of Washington,” a member of his cavalry detail will later write, “it was not surprising that Lincoln was assassinated. The surprising thing to them was that it was so long delayed. It is probable that the only man in Washington who, if he thought upon the subject of all, did not think that Mr. Lincoln was in constant and imminent danger, was Mr. Lincoln himself.”

  But today it is as if Lincoln subconsciously knows what is about to happen.

  A mile down Pennsylvania Avenue, the man who does know what is about to happen is also setting his affairs in order.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  9:00 A.M.

  John Wilkes Booth walks slowly down the hotel corridor, momentarily at a loss for words. He has come to say good-bye to his beloved Lucy. He struggles to think of a way to break off their secret engagement and intimate that he might never see her again. Even though their relationship has been all but dead since Newport, of all the terrible things he must do today, what he is about to do next breaks his heart like no other.

  The Hales are living in the National Hotel, on the corner of Pennsylvania and Sixth. Booth lives in the same hotel, room 228. Lucy does charity work for the Sanitation Committee and even rode to the front lines of nearby battlefields to visit the troops. It’s well known that her father wishes her to marry someone powerful and well connected. For Lucy to not only slink off to the room of an actor but also agree to marry him would enrage Senator Hale. So while the relationship has slowly become more public, she and Booth have kept their pending nuptials a secret.

  It’s nine A.M. when Booth knocks on her door. He wears a ring she gave him as a keepsake. Booth has the eccentric habit of kissing the ring absentmindedly when out drinking with friends, and he does so now, as he nervously waits for her to answer. This will be the last time he’ll see her for quite a while—perhaps forever. Lucy’s father has been appointed ambassador to Spain, and the entire family will accompany him abroad. Booth plans to escape to Mexico after shooting Lincoln and then perhaps sail to Spain for a clandestine visit with Lucy if all goes well.

  But how to say good-bye? How to make the next few moments as touching and romantic as any farewell should be, while also not letting her know he’s leaving and why?

  Their relationship began in 1862. Booth became enchanted after glimpsing her in a crowd and sent Lucy an anonymous Valentine’s Day love letter. This was followed shortly afterward by another missive, revealing his identity. If its intended effect was to make twenty-one-year-old Lucy swoon, it worked. Booth was at the height of his fame and good looks, delighting women across the country with his performance as the male lead in a traveling production of Romeo and Juliet. One actress even tried to kill herself after he rebuffed her advances.

  But Lucy Lambert Hale was not in the habit of throwing herself at men. So while Booth m
ight have had the upper hand at the start, she made him work hard for her affection. The relationship simmered for two years, starting with flirtation and then blossoming into something more. The pair became intimate. When he was on the road, Booth was as faithful as a traveling thespian could be, which is to say that he made love to other women but considered them second to Lucy in his heart.

  Booth is not the sort of man to mean it when he says, “I love you.” For the most part, women are the objects of his own gratification. But Lucy has long treated men the same way, holding them at arm’s length emotionally, basking in their charms, and then discarding them when someone newer and better comes along. In each other, Booth and Lucy met their match.

  But they are also opposites in many ways. She comes from a more elite level of society, one that does not consider acting a gentlemanly career. She is an abolitionist, and he is most certainly not. He professes a heartfelt belief in the southern cause, while she is the daughter of a ferociously partisan northern senator. The engagement is doomed.

  Booth has not seen Lucy since their ill-fated getaway to Newport. They haven’t so much as exchanged letters or passed each other in the hallway, even though they live in the same hotel. He has no idea how she will react to his visit.