Edwin gave himself the part of the tortured soul Brutus, who obsesses over Caesar’s growing ambition and the possibility that he might emerge as a tyrant. He loves Caesar, but loves the Roman republic more. It’s Brutus who delivers “the most unkindest cut of all” in Shakespeare’s famous words, pulling Caesar close, then stabbing him with a dagger.
Edwin was now thirty-one years old. He prepared for the benefit at a time when he was finally beginning to harness his considerable acting potential. Until very recently, he’d remained an inconsistent performer due to his drinking. “We have seldom seen Shakespeare so murdered,” chided the New York Herald after he staggered through an 1863 performance of Richard III. Shortly afterward, Edwin had decided to battle his condition and had stopped drinking cold turkey.
Since then, he’d been getting along with the aid of cigarettes and copious amounts of black coffee. But he’d also discovered that focus and sobriety were really benefiting his craft, driving him to new heights as a tragedian. The past year had been Edwin’s most successful, critically. At last, he was starting to justify all the ink Clapp had once expended in the Saturday Press, worrying about the actor’s career and potential and choices.
John, twenty-six years old now, was to play Mark Antony, the silver-tongued, double-crossing Roman statesman. It was inspired casting. Throughout the war, despite his avowed loyalty to the Confederacy, John had performed in such cities as Albany, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Hartford, New Haven, and Providence. The actor, whose stated goal was to be loved by the Southern people above all, rarely left the North. He seems to have appreciated the superior roads, better-organized theatrical circuit, greater attendance, and larger paydays available to someone touring through the Union states.
Mostly, John confined his expressions of dissent to baiting his fellow actors. His views were generally not taken very seriously, though he was arrested in St. Louis for making a treasonous statement that he “wished the President and the whole damned government would go to hell.” He was quickly released, after paying a fine and taking an oath of loyalty to the Union. Throughout the war, John had used an address in Philadelphia as his official residence. He also owned a piece of property at 115 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, that most Union of Union cities, the very stronghold of abolitionism. Presumably, he planned to build a home there, or at least entertained the notion in certain frames of mind.
John remained an erratic performer, though, unlike Edwin, this wasn’t rooted in alcoholism, but stemmed instead from lack of discipline, odd mannerisms, and a propensity to ad-lib. One reviewer commented on his “weird and startling elocutionary effects.” Another asked, “In what does he fail? Principally, in knowledge of himself—of his resources, how to husband and how to use them.” Lincoln had recently seen John in The Marble Heart. The actor trudged through the play, giving a listless performance. That was the only time Lincoln ever saw John in a play. By contrast, after Lincoln saw brother Edwin in Richelieu, he returned for six more performances.
Rounding out the leads was Junius Jr., at forty-two the eldest theatrical Booth brother. He was the namesake of the clan’s brilliant but unhinged father, the man Edwin had devoted his youth to shepherding from venue to venue. But mild June (as he was known) was nothing like mad Junius. For many years now, he had been working in California. In fact, he had recently starred opposite Adah Menken, playing the evil Polish count in Tom Maguire’s San Francisco production of Mazeppa. For Julius Caesar, June was to play Cassius, he of the “lean and hungry look.”
The cast was set, a date chosen, and posters went up all over Manhattan announcing an evening “made memorable by the appearance of the three sons of the great Booth.” On November 25, 1864, the brothers performed their benefit at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, near Pfaff’s. Ticket prices were astronomical for those days, as high as $5 for orchestra seats. The desire to witness this historic performance filled the theater to its two-thousand capacity—it was for a good cause besides.
At the conclusion of act 1, the Booth brothers came out and took bows in unison. Cries of “Bravo!” rained down upon them. Mother Booth and sister Asia looked on proudly. Then, the production resumed and continued to roughly the middle of the second act, when there was a bizarre interruption. Bells started clanging, and some kind of commotion seemed to be happening, though nobody in the Winter Garden could see anything. A rumor moved quickly through the audience: The theater was on fire! One after another, people stood up, preparing to bolt.
The play halted, as Edwin conferred with the theater manager. Then Edwin walked to the edge of the stage and calmly explained the situation. There had been a fire, all right. But it was next door, at the La Farge House, a luxury hotel. And it had been very small, had already been put out. The crowd settled down, and without further incident the Booths managed to finish Julius Caesar. It was a critical and financial success, raising $4,000 for the Shakespeare statue to be sculpted by the brilliant J. Q. A. Ward.
On the second morning following the performance, the brothers met for breakfast at Edwin’s home at 28 East 19th Street. The big story in all the papers was the fire that had broken out during the play—or, rather, fires. As it turned out, a group of Confederate officers had set a whole series of them at the La Farge and eleven other hotels as well as the Hudson River docks and a lumberyard. They had hoped that overwhelmed fire companies would be able to respond only to select conflagrations, leaving others to burn out of control. New York City would soon be ablaze. All the fires were quickly discovered, however, and all were extinguished with ease. As plots go, the execution was supremely feeble. (One perpetrator paid with his life—captured, tried, and hung—while the other seven managed to get away.)
The day’s news sparked a heated discussion between Edwin and John. Wisely, the two brothers, born in the border state of Maryland, tried to avoid political discussions, though it was proving increasingly difficult. Only a couple weeks earlier, Edwin had voted for the first time in his life, casting his ballot for Lincoln. John had reacted with utter contempt, saying that Edwin would rue his vote when Lincoln turned America into a monarchy and crowned himself king.
Due to the fires that had broken out during Caesar—and the fact that this was splashed across all the papers—calm between the brothers was now impossible. Edwin lamented that the war’s havoc had made its way to New York City. The fires were warranted, John rejoined, an attempt to pay back recent Northern atrocities such as Sherman torching Atlanta. June looked on in pained silence, trapped between his squabbling brothers.
John kept swearing his allegiance to the Confederacy, declaring his hopes that the South would prevail. Edwin upheld the superiority of the Northern cause and reminded his brother that were New York City to fall under siege, it would be disastrous to the Booth family. By now, the opportunity for sitting down to breakfast together was long past. The two brothers were standing and shouting. Edwin really let loose, calling John a “rank secessionist” and saying that he’d grown weary of his “treasonable language.” Then he demanded that John leave his home at once.
John stormed off into the Manhattan morning.
In January 1865, Whitman’s hushed and homebound period came to an end. The worst symptoms of his illness—the headaches and dizziness—diminished, and he was feeling much better. He returned to Washington and started a new job as a clerk, lowest grade, in the Interior Department’s Office of Indian Affairs. It paid a modest salary ($1,200 per year). He moved into a garret room at 468 M Street.
“I take things very easy,” he wrote to brother Jeff back in Brooklyn, “—the rule is to come at 9 and go at 4—but I don’t come at 9, and only stay till 4 when I want.” The casual schedule allowed Whitman to resume his service in the hospitals. But he was careful not to push himself too hard. “Jeff, you need not be afraid about my overdoing the matter,” he continued. “I shall go regularly enough, but shall be on my guard against trouble.”
; The Washington to which Whitman returned felt different from the one he’d known but a few months earlier. The flow of wounded into the hospitals—always such a reliable bellwether—was slowing down a bit. There was a strange feeling in the air, palpable, a kind of anticipation. It seemed impossible, but perhaps the war was finally about to end. Whitman resumed his routine of taking long walks following the hospital visits. “The western star, Venus, in earlier hours of the evening, has never been so large, so clear,” he would write. “It seems as if it told something, as if it held rapport indulgent with humanity, with us Americans.”
Even the sky looked different. And why should it be otherwise? During the early months of 1865, not long after Whitman returned to Washington, something else also happened in the poet’s life.
His name was Peter Doyle. He worked as a conductor on one of the large horse-drawn omnibuses—with seats enough to accommodate roughly twenty people—that traversed the capital streets. The two first met, during an evening downpour, when Whitman boarded Doyle’s car at a stop along Pennsylvania Avenue. “Walt had his blanket—it was thrown round his shoulders—he seemed like an old sea-captain,” in Doyle’s recollection. “He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night, so I thought I would go in and talk with him. Something in me made me do it and something in him drew me that way. He used to say there was something in me had the same effect on him. Anyway, I went into the car. We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood.”
Whitman remained on the omnibus that first night, traveling past his stop, staying in that empty car with Doyle all the way to the end of the line. The poet’s description is concise: “Love, love, love!”
Doyle was twenty-one years old and handsome, with blue eyes, wavy light-brown hair, and a mustache. At five-foot-eight, he was shorter than Whitman and slimmer. He had an easy smile and was quick to laughter, but his expressions were never entirely free of a certain sad aspect.
Doyle had been born in Ireland and as an eight-year-old immigrated to America. His family split up and made the trip over time on two separate voyages. Ultimately, part of the family—Doyle, his parents, and three brothers—settled in Alexandria, Virginia. Two sisters remained behind in Ireland and appear never to have joined the others. Doyle’s father took a job as a blacksmith. But work grew scarce after the Panic of ’57, and, searching for brighter prospects, the family moved to Richmond. Doyle’s only formal education was courtesy of a church Sunday school. He could barely read or write. Even as a child, he worked various jobs such as cooper’s apprentice to help support the family.
Two weeks into the Civil War, Doyle enlisted as a Confederate soldier, drawn by the promise of steady pay. He joined the Richmond Fayette Light Artillery and was involved in a number of major engagements before being wounded at Antietam. George Whitman also fought at Antietam, though he was across the battle lines from Doyle, on the Union side of that blood-sotted Maryland cornfield.
Doyle was laid up in a Richmond hospital for several months. During that time, he petitioned to be discharged from military service. This was granted on the condition that Doyle promise not to give aid to the enemy. Not a problem: he didn’t have any stake in this conflict. Union, Confederate—they were mere abstractions to him.
In a statement, sworn and notarized, Doyle indicated that he was going to return to Ireland. But then he decided instead to move to Washington, DC, planning to reconnect with some family who now lived there. While heading north, as Doyle attempted to cross Federal lines, he was detained by Union troops. For three weeks, he was confined to the Old Capitol Prison. On agreeing to pledge loyalty to the Union—once again, no problem—he was released on May 11, 1863. He moved in with a brother who lived at 62 M Street, South. When Whitman met Doyle, he was holding down two jobs. Days he spent as a smith’s assistant at the Washington Navy Yard, evenings as an omnibus conductor. He was simply a young man of Irish descent struggling to make ends meet. Or, as Whitman once described him, a “hearty full-blooded everyday divinely generous working man.”
Now, the poet had a companion for his ambitious rambles. “We went plodding along the road, Walt always whistling or singing,” Doyle recalled. Other times, Whitman would join Doyle on the omnibus and ride with him back and forth along the route. When Doyle’s shift was done, they liked to have dinner together at a place near the end of the line, the Union Hotel and Tavern in Georgetown. Doyle worked a long day; by this point, he was often exhausted. Sometimes he’d put his head down on the table and take a nap. Whitman would sit there, not waking him until closing time.
Whitman and Doyle went long stretches without exchanging a solitary word. “It was the most taciturn mutual admiration society I ever attended,” a stranger who saw them together would recall. But they had the kind of relationship in which they savored small moments, little shared intimacies. One time, the two men bought a watermelon at a market and sat down in front to eat it. Whitman took out a pocketknife and cut it in half. Some people walking past snickered at the sight of two grown men gorging on watermelon. “They can have the laugh—we have the melon,” Whitman told Doyle. Years later, both men would vividly remember this tiny episode.
During that magical spring of 1865, Whitman continued to catch sight of Lincoln, constantly. In the course of a single day—March 4, Inauguration Day—the poet managed several different sightings as the busy president moved to and fro through the capital. For the first, Whitman noted that Lincoln “look’d very much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face.” Later, Whitman attended a public reception at the White House. He was standing out front on the lawn when a surge of people—“country people, some very funny,” he noted—began pressing their way into the presidential residence. Whitman was carried along by the crowd directly into the White House. Tradition holds that Lincoln shook five thousand hands at this reception. Whitman stood off to the side, observing: “I saw Mr. Lincoln, drest all in black, with white gloves, and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give anything to be somewhere else.” (“Claw-hammer coat” is an old term for a tailcoat.)
Whitman also attended the inaugural speech itself. The poet was on hand as the president, preparing for his second term, intoned those immortal words: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.” It’s possible that Peter Doyle accompanied Whitman to this event. What is certain, however, is that lurking in the crowd on this historic occasion was a strange and angry young actor named John Wilkes Booth.
Now things begin to move very fast, becoming as frantic as they were hushed before, as Whitman’s life and big events of his time coil like twin vines.
The day after Lincoln’s inauguration, Whitman’s mother wrote to him with incredible news: George had come home from the war! Whitman requested a furlough from his new clerical post and was soon back in Brooklyn once more, this time to see his brother. “His preservation and return alive seem a miracle,” reflected Whitman. In the course of his soldiering career, George had—according to Walt’s calculations—traveled twenty thousand miles across eighteen states, fighting in twenty-one major engagements, and serving under Generals Burnside, McClellan, McDowell, Meade, Pope, Hooker, Sherman, and Grant. He’d also been captured in battle. For the past four months, George had been held in a series of Confederate prisons, including, most recently, a facility in Danville, Virginia. Though he’d been able to write several of his laconic letters while in captivity (“I am in tip top health and Spirits, and am as tough as a mule,” he stated in one), the Whitmans had been sick with anxiety. Then, just like that, he was free. He was home. He’d lost a great deal of weight, but seemed otherwise healthy and whole.
Walt enjoyed a
warm reunion with George. He even recounted his brother’s heroics in a kind of local-boy-makes-good story that ran in the Brooklyn Daily Union.
While on furlough, Whitman also began making arrangements for the publication of his Drum-Taps collection. By now, he had concluded that he would simply have to publish it himself. The war had proved a lean time for poetry; the market was nearly nonexistent. In 1862, for example, the entire publishing industry in the Northern states, such as it was, brought out a total of eighteen books of poetry, according to one count. The following year, the number rose to twenty-one.
Whitman was no stranger to self-publishing. It was the route he’d taken with the first two editions of Leaves of Grass. Whitman hired a printer to do a five-hundred-copy run of his new collection. Funds were limited, so his plan was to squeeze as many poems as possible into a slim seventy-two-page book. To pay the $254 first installment, he appears to have used some savings from his new job and also to have borrowed money. Among the poems slated for the volume were several based on his visit to George at the front, including “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim.” There were poems drawn from his hospital experience such as “The Wound-Dresser” and “Come Up from the Fields, Father,” as well as “Year of Meteors (1859–60),” about that strange celestial event, what had come to seem like an augur of the Civil War.
Whitman was still tinkering with the printer’s proofs, as was his habit, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. It was a “propitious” day, in Whitman’s recollection, when four years’ worth of “woe and failure and disorder” suddenly lifted. He couldn’t believe it. The Civil War had ended, and the inviolable union—something of near-mystical significance to Whitman, a subject visited in so many of his poems—had been restored. Back home in Brooklyn, what he noticed most, what seemed to mark this great occasion, were the lilacs. They were now in full, glorious bloom, their scent filling the air.
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