The Lincoln Deception

by David O. Stewart

  “Louis,” scolded the unmarried sister, Tillie, who seemed to care more about ecclesiastical matters. “You can no longer risk your immortal soul over a bureaucratic disagreement over who manages your church.”

  “Tillie, that’s a hideously false statement of my views,” Weichmann snapped. “The day the American Catholic Church steps forward to acknowledge its involvement in the Booth conspiracy is the day I will consider rejoining that flock.”

  “Balderdash,” Tillie answered. “You don’t believe the Pope was involved in killing Lincoln any more than I do. Father Chiniqui writes utter nonsense about that.”

  “Ah”—her brother answered, one finger pointing portentously skyward—“perhaps not the hierarchy, the bishops and such, and I quite agree that the Pope cared little whether President Lincoln lived or died. But those priests out in southern Maryland and in Washington, those were dangerous men.” He ticked off the points on his fingers: Booth met Dr. Mudd at a Catholic service in Charles County. Michael O’Laughlen was Catholic, as was John Surratt, and it was the priests who hustled Surratt out of the country, then out of Canada, and then on to the Vatican in Rome.

  “What better way to conceal poisonous secrets,” he asked, “than in the robes of a priest? Mrs. Surratt, you will remember, was forever at church. Where better to pass secrets than the confessional, which, after all, is designed for secrets?”

  Certain priests, according to Weichmann, had sworn eternal hostility to him because of his testimony. “They have hounded me for decades, sir, and they hound me still. I will never be comfortable in a Roman Catholic congregation.” He added that he faced ostracism by unnamed others sympathetic to the Booth conspirators. Fraser alternated between thinking Weichmann a lunatic or a man who was paying a high price for being in the wrong place at a very wrong time.

  After the meal, Weichmann led Fraser to a small room in the back of the house. Lovingly, the small, bearded man explained the contents of each shelf and cabinet. Books and pamphlets were shelved according to the attitude of the author: Did he support the prosecution theory that the Confederacy was behind Booth, or did they portray Booth as the mad genius who was responsible for everything, or did they blame the assassination on the Pope, on Stanton, on the Sons of Liberty in the North, or the man in the moon? Weichmann had few volumes that Mr. Bingham had not collected for his own library.

  The treasure trove, though, lay in thirty-five folders of newspaper and magazine articles that began on April 15, 1865. The folders, growing progressively thinner as the years stretched on, ran straight through May 1900. May 1900. Weichmann offered this archive to Fraser with only one condition: He could take notes but could not remove anything, a pledge that would be enforced by his sister Tillie, who would sit in the room while Fraser worked. Fraser agreed. Though he itched to dive into the folders right away, Weichmann said he could begin in the morning.

  Chapter 8

  “What about the money, Louis?” Fraser said. “What can you tell me about Booth’s money?” After two days in Weichmann’s meticulous archive, Fraser was on a first-name basis with the entire Weichmann family. His work was raising more questions than it answered. Weichmann had come home early so they could confer before supper. The odor of boiling cabbage assaulted the room from the kitchen. Weichmann seemed indifferent to the noxious aroma.

  “Ah, the money bothers you, too?” Weichmann was stroking his beard.

  “Of course, Sam Chester claimed that Booth promised him $2,000 and said there were at least fifty people in the conspiracy.”

  “Booth could have been lying. That would be one of his smaller sins.”

  “Lying about the people, sure, but not the money. He would have to pay whatever he promised. Sam Chester was his friend.” Fraser leaned forward. “You know how much they were spending, how they lived. Did they have money?”

  “Lots.” Weichmann allowed himself a grin. “I thought John Surratt got most of the funds. He could secure any type of currency, even gold. But Booth had sources, too. Surratt promised poor Atzerodt a fortune to guide boats stuffed with cotton across the Potomac. Atzerodt would have sold his own mother for any amount. Such a low form of our species. And Surratt and Booth wore beautiful clothes. Those two”—he shook his head—“strutting like peacocks. I tell you, Jamie, they were the best-dressed killers. They were both charming, of course, that was how they made their way. With them, everything was deluxe. Fine restaurants, deluxe meals served in private rooms. Oh, they loved to spout about Southern liberty, but at bottom it was a dirty deal fired by money and greed.”

  “Where did the money come from?”

  “There were only three places. First, of course, was Richmond. Second, there were the Confederates up in Montreal, where both of them went. But”—and here Weichmann paused, stroking his beard again—“my best guess is New York.”

  “Booth was there in November of 1864.”

  “That’s right, and he went back in January. Atzerodt said Booth was going there for money. Say what you will about Atzerodt, and you can say anything you like as far as I care, he kept his eye on the dollars. If he said Booth was getting money there, then he was.”

  “From Booth’s brothers?”

  “I doubt it. They had no connection to his scheme and not much to him.”

  Fraser asked about Bessie Hale, Booth’s fiancée, but Weichmann knew nothing about her. Booth had never mentioned her. Weichmann suspected the conspirators didn’t know about his engagement. “Except, perhaps, Surratt,” he added. “He and Booth were thick as thieves.”

  Weichmann was more helpful about another of Booth’s consorts, a woman referred to in a newspaper article as residing in “one of Washington’s gilded houses of pleasure.” Weichmann knew her as Nelly Starr. Despite her occupation, Weichmann admired her. She was, he said, delightful, a graceful woman with a disarming manner. Weichmann saw her with Booth on several occasions.

  “The newspapers,” Fraser said, “claimed she tried to kill herself after his arrest. They said her name was Ella Turner.”

  “It was a sad story.”

  “She seems to have been more upset about Booth’s fate than his fiancée was.”

  “She may have had more cause.”

  “What do you mean? That she was in on it?”

  “No, no, no, not that. There was talk, you know. There always is.”

  “I see. Did she have a baby? I mean, afterward.”

  “Who knows? She disappeared, the way that type of woman does. John Wilkes Booth surely left babies with more women than Nelly Starr. I was sorry about her.”

  As Fraser raised his questions, one after the other, he found himself in surprising agreement with Weichmann. Both doubted the story of the shooting of Booth. Sergeant Boston Corbett, Weichmann insisted, had been armed with only a pistol, yet Booth was killed by a rifle bullet! Weichmann thought another shooter, one with better aim than Sergeant Corbett, had ended Booth’s life in that burning barn and never came forward to take credit.

  Weichmann also concurred that Booth’s escape was too well organized to be the product of amateurs like Booth and his band of bunglers. Someone with brains and experience planned it. And Weichmann, too, was troubled that so many investigators had ignored the failed attempt to kill other Union leaders. Michael O’Laughlen, he insisted, trailed Ulysses Grant the night before the assassination, while Lewis Paine stalked Edwin Stanton at the same time. The wider and more ambitious the conspiracy, he argued, the less likely that it was the brainchild of a single deranged actor.

  But on all of these matters, Weichmann could offer only his shared skepticism. After a lifetime of chewing on these questions, he had no definitive answers.

  The married sister, who seemed to run the household, announced that dinner would be served. Fraser made his excuses. He had important business at the telegraph office, he insisted, eager to fly from the cabbage. He promised to return in the morning for a final sally into the archive.

  Fraser couldn’t put his finger on i
t. He couldn’t point to a single feature of his hotel room that was obviously out of place, that proved someone had been there. His dirty clothes were still in his valise. His remaining clean collar still sat in a bureau drawer. His shaving brush and razor lay next to the pitcher and bowl. His book sat on the bed table, roughly where he left it. Yet someone had rifled through his belongings; he felt it. There had been nothing to find, of course. Fraser kept his notes with him. He must be imagining it. He was thinking too much about conspiracies hatched in hotel rooms. He was spending too much time with Weichmann, a man who suspected his enemies of poisoning the air he breathed.

  Dinner in the hotel dining room was blissfully free of cabbage. The cook produced a tolerable pork chop with mashed potatoes. The shortcake featured the first strawberries of the season, which might have benefitted from a few more days in the garden. The dish nonetheless signaled warm summer days to come. Fraser rose from the table in a benign humor that flowed from having eaten his fill, plus a bit more. He resolved to deal with the latter sensation by taking a stroll around town before turning in.

  Not far from the hotel, he paused to admire an auto that stood idle on the side of the street. Its high leather seat, open to the weather, would comfortably seat two people. A steering shaft rose through the center of the floor.

  “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” The voice came from the far side of the contraption, where a man was reaching under the vehicle’s frame. “Brand-new design. Eight-horsepower engine. Gas tank’s in back.”

  “It’s handsome,” Fraser allowed. “What’s it called?”

  “A Lambert, after me. I’m John Lambert.” The man straightened. He grabbed a cloth from the floor of the auto and wiped his hands. “I’d offer my hand, but it’s greasy.” He walked around the front of the auto with a proprietary air. “Pneumatic tires, top speed of fifteen so far. I’m working on a new transmission that will make Lamberts the most popular autos on the road.”

  “They’re not for sale?”

  “Not yet. The transmission can be a bit balky, also the brakes.”

  “The brakes?”

  “Yes, the transmission doubles as a braking mechanism. If the transmission seizes up, well, things can go poorly.”

  “We don’t have too many autos where I live. Really, we don’t have any.”

  “These don’t really crash. More like unplanned stops. You get bounced around and might end up on the ground. Nothing to bother a true motorist, but I want the Lambert to appeal to more than just enthusiasts. It’ll be for everyone. We make the parts right here. It’ll be a corker when it’s right.”

  Fraser watched the man light the kerosene lamps at the front of the auto and fire the engine, then rattle down the main street, waving to a passing couple.

  Fraser pondered the wonder of automobiles as he turned down a side street toward the river. The machines were smelly and dirty, of course, but so were horses. An auto might make his life easier. Then he thought of the roads of Harrison County. He could not imagine an auto strong enough to pull through the mud at the bottom of those hills after a downpour. No, not in Harrison County, not yet.

  The river was still a hundred yards before him when a wide figure stepped out and blocked his way. A gruff voice said, “Dr. Fraser?”

  Distracted by movement in a grove of trees to his right, Fraser did not see the blow coming, a powerful fist driven into his midsection. Someone small jumped on his back as he doubled over, then was yanked upright in time to catch a second punch next to where the first one landed. Lacking the breath to cry out, Fraser tried to crouch and turn from his attacker. The next blow landed on his elbow, which shielded his throbbing ribs. The force of that punch, combined with Fraser’s weight, wrenched him from the grip of the man behind him. He fell to the ground and tried to crawl away.

  A rough hand grabbed Fraser’s shoulder and his attacker leaned close, his face inches away. Beery breath, combined with the evening’s pork chops and the beating, made Fraser’s insides heave. He gasped from the pain, his ribs on fire, and couldn’t stop the flow that surged up and out of his stomach. It hurt. Then it stank.

  His attacker pulled back. “Just look at him,” he snorted. “Sort of a delicate type, ain’t he?” The other man didn’t comment. Fraser couldn’t.

  “That’s just a taste,” the attacker hissed at him. The man’s feet straddled him. Fraser was completely exposed. Able to draw some breath now, he tried to rise on an elbow.

  “Don’t be a hero, Doc.” The voice was still close, pitched low. “Just remember that we stopped. This time, we stopped. And we didn’t have to. And also, remember that the Sons of Liberty are watching you.”

  Fraser saw the next punch coming but was powerless to stop it. The fist smashed into the side of his head, driving the other side into the dirt and gravel of the road.

  He didn’t remember the men leaving, nor did he know how long he lay there. The clammy feel and sour stench of vomit brought him back. He thought a rib or two might be broken. Gingerly, he rose onto all fours. Stable in that ignoble position, he experimented with ways to breathe that caused the least pain. Shallow panting hurt. Slow breaths also were bad. He came upright by small stages, each triggering knife blades of pain. His balance gone, he used a tree trunk as an anchor as he lurched to his feet. His head felt wrong.

  Looking around, Fraser wondered about the people of Anderson. It wasn’t late, maybe 9:30. Light shone in the windows of a few houses. Did no one hear anything? Was no one aware of what happened in front of their homes? Perhaps, he wondered, they were all in on it, or were too cowed by the Sons of Liberty to step forward.

  That was crazy thinking, the product of a beating and too much time with Louis Weichmann. He shuffled slowly back the way he had come.

  “Good evening, Dr. Fraser.” The desk clerk handed over his room key but said nothing of Fraser’s battered appearance. Without looking in a mirror, Fraser knew the side of his head was bruised, his face scraped by the gravel on the street, his clothes dirty and askew, his gait wobbly. Were such traits unremarkable in this town? Was the desk clerk in on it, too?

  He held the banister with both hands as he climbed to his second-floor room.

  “Oh, dear, Dr. Fraser, what has happened to you?” Tillie Weichmann still wore her church finery, a wide-brimmed hat tilted at a rakish angle to show off a bold flower of yellow ribbon. She placed her small hand on his forearm as he stood on their front step. Her eyes were large with sympathy. He had spent much of that Sunday morning trying to improve his appearance, starting with a hot bath. He brushed his suit vigorously, donned his last clean collar, and carefully tied his cravat. He could not conceal, however, the scratches on one side of his face or the swelling on the other. His expression probably reflected his injuries. If he sat quietly, he had a lot of pain. Movement was much worse. He had aimed to arrive at the Weichmanns’ in the early afternoon, just before they sat down to dinner.

  He tried to smile and adopt a cheery tone. “Tillie, I was hoping to visit Louis’s library today. And to speak with him, if he’s available?”

  “You must come in and let me see to those wounds.”

  When Fraser followed her into the front hall, Weichmann looked up from the dining room table. His mouth fell open. He threw his newspaper down. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he cried. “He must go. He must go this minute.” Weichmann strode past Fraser toward the archive. He slammed the door behind him.

  “Oh, dear,” Tillie said. “You know how Louis can be. I’m sure we can see to your injuries before you go.”

  “That’s all right. I’m a doctor. Maybe I should return this evening.”

  She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t want you here, and I don’t blame him. He has had bad experiences from all the Lincoln business. You must understand, Doctor. We grow less brave as we grow older, and you’ve just given him quite a fright. He won’t see you. You may be sure of that.”

  “Forgive me,” he said, lowering his voice. “Perhaps you could take him
a note with one simple question.” When she made to object, he raised his hand. “He need not speak with me, but if he would look at my inquiry and make any response he thinks appropriate, I would take it as a kindness.”

  She agreed.

  Drawing a pencil and paper from his case, Fraser wrote:

  Mr. Weichmann:

  I was waylaid last evening by men who called themselves the Sons of Liberty, and who may have been concerned by my inquiries here. I am nevertheless resolved to continue those inquiries. Where should I look next?

  James Fraser, M.D.

  He folded the note and handed it to her. With a careful dignity, Tillie took it and passed back toward her brother’s library.

  She returned with the folded note in one hand, her hat now in the other. “Doctor,” she said in a peremptory manner, “you should leave.”

  When he reached the street, Fraser crumpled the note and was about to throw it in the gutter. When he opened it he found a single word under his question: “Barstow.”

  Chapter 9

  Cadiz looked good to Fraser when he arrived home, though his all-too-visible injuries drew concerned questions from his patients and neighbors. Fraser insisted he had fallen from a horse, though he never detailed which horse, or where, or how. Let them talk, he thought. The real story would not improve his standing as a citizen or a physician. No one wants a doctor who runs off to investigate an assassination thought to have been solved long ago, and then gets himself thrashed by strangers.

  Fraser resolved to abandon his grandiose effort to solve the Booth conspiracy. He had patients to care for, medical journals to catch up on, and a hundred chores he had neglected, beginning with the loose doorknob at the entrance to his examining room. That wobble conveyed to patients an unfortunate message of carelessness. It was intolerable. The tongue-and-groove mechanism had to be replaced. The task consumed an entire evening.