Reveille in Washington

by Margaret Leech

  There is also a story that Booth was in Grover’s office on Friday morning, and there heard the news that the President would not accept Grover’s invitation, but Ford’s. In any case, he was informed of Lincoln’s plans at noontime, when he visited Ford’s to collect his mail.

  Booth sat on the steps of the Tenth Street playhouse, reading a letter. Now and then, he looked up and laughed. Perhaps he laughed at the thought of the favoring stars which preside over a hero’s destiny. Ford’s was the very place he would have chosen for the President on Friday evening. There was no need for the actor to engage a box in that theatre, or to explain his presence there, front or back, at any hour.

  Many people afterward remembered seeing Booth that day, as he went about Washington, making his final arrangements. None of these people, however, were Government agents. Booth was as unobserved by the authorities as though Captain Gleason had never informed the War Department of the abduction conspiracy.

  Under the smooth glaze of his easy manners, he was concealing a feverish excitement. For a week, Deery had noticed the enormous quantity of liquor which Booth consumed at his bar, sometimes taking a quart of brandy in less than two hours. The editor of the Constitutional Union, a recently founded Democratic organ, had a short conversation with him on the Avenue in the afternoon. He remembered that Booth, though he appeared sober, seemed abstracted, and moved his arms and body nervously, as though anxiously thinking of something. His nervousness was plainly noticeable to one of his friends, John Matthews, an actor in Ford’s stock company. Matthews was standing near Willard’s, watching the passing of a group of Lee’s officers, who had been taken prisoner by Sheridan before the surrender, when Booth came riding down the Avenue, and reined in to speak to him. Matthews spoke of the captive officers, and Booth placed his hand on his forehead. “Great God!” he cried. “I have no longer a country!” Then he took Matthews’s hand, and holding it, asked him as a favor to deliver a letter for him to the National Intelligencer next morning. He might be leaving town that night, he said.

  As Matthews took the letter and thrust it in his pocket, a carriage, which had just pulled away from Willard’s, drove past. “John, there goes General Grant,” Matthews exclaimed; “I understood he was coming to the theatre tonight with the President.” Booth turned in anxious haste, squeezed his friend’s hand tight, and galloped off down the street.

  Mrs. Rucker, the wife of the Assistant Quartermaster General, had called to drive the Grants to the station. Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Rucker occupied the back seat, while the general was perched up front beside the driver.

  As the Grants started along the Avenue, a horseman rode past them, staring into the carriage. Presently, he turned and rode back, attracting the occupants’ attention by his close scrutiny. Later, they thought that a photograph of Booth resembled this intrusive stranger. Whether or not Booth followed the carriage, he must have seen the piled-up baggage, as it rolled in the direction of the depot, and realized that Grant’s advertised engagement with the President would not be fulfilled.

  Booth had three accomplices left. His program of vengeance for the South had widened. He now meant to bully Atzerodt into murdering Vice-President Johnson. Paine could be depended on for bloody work. He would go that night to Seward’s bedroom. Davy Herold, who was no killer, would act as Paine’s guide in escaping through Maryland. The elaborate organization for abducting the President from the theatre had ceased to be required. A derringer needed no accomplices. Booth would go alone to Ford’s.

  About three o’clock on Friday afternoon—so Stanton later told a party of gentlemen, of whom Charles Dickens was one—Mrs. Stanton came into the War Office to ask her husband how she should reply to an invitation from the President to go to the theatre that evening. The Stantons were an unlikely pair of guests. The hard-working War Secretary had no interest in the theatre. The only time that he ever entered Grover’s was to hold a whispered conversation with Lincoln in his box during the play. Mrs. Stanton was not on friendly terms with the President’s wife; she did not even call on her. They had frequently been invited to join the Lincolns’ theatre parties, Mr. Stanton said, but they had always refused because he disapproved of the President’s exposing himself. On this occasion, as might have been expected, he again instructed his wife to send regrets.

  After a long afternoon drive with Mrs. Lincoln, the President spent an hour in his office with some friends from Illinois. He had a bite of dinner at six o’clock, and then crossed over to the War Department. Passing some quarrelsome drunkards, Lincoln said to the bodyguard, Crook, that he believed there were men who wanted to take his life. He quietly expressed the conviction that they would do it, commenting that, if it were to be done, it was impossible to prevent it.

  It was probably on this visit that Stanton renewed his expostulations about the theatre party, as described by the telegrapher, Bates. Warnings of danger had influenced the President’s actions on only one occasion, the secret journey to Washington in 1861. During Lincoln’s recent stay at City Point, Stanton had telegraphed to caution him against going to the front, but the next day the President had calmly walked into the tumult of Richmond, a place which certainly appeared to present far greater hazards than a Washington theatre.

  Stanton glowered and protested in vain. Finding the President unimpressed, he told him that he ought to have a competent bodyguard. This was a curious remark. Lincoln himself had perfect confidence in his guard, as he had just assured Crook on the way over to the War Department, saying that he knew that no one could assassinate him and escape alive. If Stanton had any good reason to doubt the efficiency of the policemen on duty with the President, it was his plain duty to have taken some action, instead of tossing off an oblique criticism.

  Lincoln countered by asking Stanton to let him take Eckert, the superintendent of military telegraphs, to the theatre. On one occasion, in Lincoln’s presence, Eckert had demonstrated the poor quality of some cast-iron pokers, purchased for the War Department, by breaking them over his arm. The President, recalling this feat, declared that Eckert would be the kind of man to go with him that evening.

  There was a teasing quality in Lincoln’s request. Not only did it smack of levity, but it invaded Stanton’s domain of authority. The Secretary shortly replied that he had important work for Eckert and could not spare him. Though he had implied doubts of the competence of the President’s guard, Stanton was far too huffy and disapproving to encourage the theatre party by furnishing Lincoln with an able protector. The President pressed the invitation on Eckert himself, but the superintendent knew better than to offend Stanton by accepting.

  On Stanton’s behalf, however, it must be said that the President was apparently to have adequate protection at the theatre; far better, at least, than he had had on many previous occasions. Though the Lincolns had had much trouble in making up their party—even Robert, just home from the front, had begged off because he was tired—Mrs. Lincoln had secured a young engaged couple, Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, the daughter and the stepson of Senator Ira Harris of New York. Rathbone was an able-bodied man. The armed guard would also be in attendance in the passageway of the box.

  The sky was overcast and the air had turned raw and chilly as Lincoln walked back from the War Department with young Crook at his side. Crook should properly have gone off duty at four o’clock, but the relief guard, John F. Parker, a shiftless native of the District who had had a poor record on the Metropolitan Police, was late in showing up. It was long past Crook’s dinnertime and he was tired and hungry, when he left the President at the door of the White House.

  On Tenth Street the theatre was awakening from the darkness and disuse of late afternoon. At six-thirty, Spangler and the other stagehands were at work, while the ushers, with their well-oiled heads, busied themselves in the lighted auditorium. The stage-door attendant, Peanut John, went to his post. Soon the actors sauntered into the gloomy alley, cluttered with Negro shanties. A smell of grease paint floated from the dre
ssing-rooms. Miss Laura Keene adjusted her costume. Mr. Harry Hawk, her principal comedian, prepared to impersonate the Yankee, Asa Trenchard. Mr. E. A. Emerson donned the copious whiskers of Lord Dundreary. Mr. John Matthews took off his frock coat, with Booth’s letter in the pocket. Professor Withers arrived, nervous over the performance of his song.

  The carriages began to roll up Tenth Street to the wide plank platform which bridged the gutter in front of the theatre. The doorkeeper, Mr. Buckingham, a Navy Yard carpenter by day, stood at the entrance to take the tickets. The crowd thickened, the tickets flashed faster into Buckingham’s hands, the ushers hurried up and down the aisles. John Parker arrived to meet the President. He had walked over from the White House, and, perhaps, as he waited, he scanned the bills with interest. Parker’s duty was not supposed to include an interest in the drama. His chair in the passageway did not command a view of the stage. But Parker wanted to see the play.

  The theatre was nearly filled. Only the stage boxes were empty. The eyes of the audience turned expectantly toward the flags and lace curtains on the upper right. Professor Withers lifted his baton, and the orchestra played. Then the house-lights dimmed, and two colored boys raised the curtain, with the landscape and the bust of Shakespeare, on the first act of Our American Cousin. Still, the curtains of the state box did not stir. It was ten minutes after eight when Lincoln reluctantly rose, and, bidding his last callers good night, started off through the gusty April evening on the drive which ended at Ford’s Theatre.

  Although Stanton had given an impression of great activity at the War Office, he did not work after dinner that evening. Instead, he went to pay a call on Seward. The Secretary of State was still a sick man, suffering much pain, unable to bear the slightest pressure on his broken arm, and all but speechless from the injury to his jaw. Though his doctors, in their frequent consultations, expressed satisfaction with his progress, the family continued to feel anxious. Two convalescent soldiers had been detailed as nurses; but his delicate wife, who had hastened down from Auburn, divided the night watches with two of her children, Fanny and Major Augustus Seward, a West Point graduate who was serving as paymaster in the army.

  In the early evening, the Old Clubhouse was humming with the inquiries and attentions inevitable at a house where an important man lies ill. Gentlemen sat in the red and yellow parlors where Mr. Seward had often received his guests, showing them his collection of portraits of the world’s sovereigns and their ministers, whom he laughingly called “my tormentors.” Stanton stayed on, chatting with the other visitors, until about nine o’clock, when the sound of music reminded him that he was to be serenaded by the torchlight procession from the Arsenal. Gradually, the callers took their leave. The family physician, Dr. Verdi, called. An army surgeon paid a late visit. By ten o’clock, Mr. Seward had fallen into a doze on the edge of his bed. The mansion was hushed, like any house where a loved one’s sleep is precious. The gaslights were turned low. Mrs. Seward had retired. Frederick and his wife whispered softly in their bedroom. Augustus was napping in preparation for his turn to watch beside his father. Fanny was on duty with the male nurse, Robinson. In the yellow parlor, Mr. Seward’s tormentors smiled secretly from their frames.

  The doorbell rang, and William Bell, the colored second waiter, went to answer it. A big, red-faced man, with his hat pulled down over one eye, walked into the hall. He had a little package in his left hand. It was medicine, he informed Bell. Dr. Verdi had sent him to direct Mr. Seward how to take it, and he must deliver it personally. Bell told him that he could not see Mr. Seward. It was against his orders to let anyone go up.

  While Bell was expostulating, the stranger was walking slowly toward the stairs. His right hand was in the pocket of his overcoat. He was very tall and broad-shouldered, nicely dressed, with a fine voice, and he “looked pretty fiery out of his eyes” at the colored boy. He seemed so determined that Bell was afraid that he had gone too far in his refusal to admit this authoritative person. He asked the man to excuse him, and led the way up the two flights of stairs. Once he turned and cautioned the stranger not to “walk so heavy.”

  In the dim and quiet third-floor chamber, where Fanny hovered near her father’s bed, the tramping feet sounded loud. Fanny indignantly whispered to Robinson that whoever was coming was not very careful for one approaching a sickroom. Then the girl and the nurse heard a mumble of argument in the upper hall. Frederick was remonstrating with someone. His voice grew peremptory. There was a moment of silence. Robinson could not hear the click of a pistol, missing fire; but, at the noise of a scuffle and pounding blows, he sprang to the door. Two men wrestled there. One was Mr. Frederick, Robinson saw his bloody head. A bowie knife flashed, slicing the nurse’s brow and knocking him over, as the other man plunged into the bedroom.

  Painfully, in the half-dream of an invalid’s awakening, Mr. Seward raised himself. For a moment, as the intruder punched Fanny aside and bounded across the bed, the Secretary of State must have wavered in his belief that assassination was not an American practice. The last thing he remembered was Fanny’s scream. He did not feel Paine’s knife, gashing his face and throat, tumbling him from the edge of the bed to the floor.

  Augustus, aroused from sleep, ran into his father’s room in shirt and drawers. He saw two men grappling at the foot of the bed, but in the dim light he did not recognize Robinson, and did more to hinder than to help the nurse. “I’m mad!” I’m mad!” Augustus heard Paine say, before he broke away, and dashed down the stairs, slashing Mr. Hansell, a State Department messenger, who was on the first floor.

  It had all happened quickly. There was a slouch hat on the floor, and the pistol which had been broken over Frederick’s head. Seward lay unconscious beside his bed, his bandages running crimson. Frederick, with two gaping holes in his skull, was sinking into a coma. Robinson was severely wounded. Hansell had a deep cut in his side. Augustus’s injuries were not serious, but they were bloody. There was blood even on the handles of the doors of the Old Clubhouse. Fragile Mrs. Seward would live only a little over three months after that night of horror. Fanny would be dead in a year and a half.

  William Bell, aghast at the stranger’s sudden attack on Mr. Frederick, had dashed down the stairs and into the street, hallooing murder. General Augur’s headquarters were next door, at the corner of Fifteen-and-a-half and Pennsylvania Avenue, but Bell could not find the guard. Possibly the routine had been upset because the building had been damaged by fire two weeks before, and Augur had been occupying temporary headquarters on Fourteenth Street. Three soldiers came running out, as Bell pelted back to the Old Clubhouse. He saw Paine mounting his horse, and he shouted to the soldiers, but they did not go in pursuit. Paine rode away so slowly that Bell was able to keep after him on foot as far as I Street, where he lost sight of him. When the servant returned to the house, Major Seward was standing at the front door with a pistol. Augustus seems to have been extraordinarily slow of comprehension. He had been in a fog during his struggle with Paine, and, until he spoke with Bell, he had still not realized that the man who had turned his home into a shambles was an assassin.

  A crowd was gathering around the mansion. Physicians, hastily summoned, raced up the stairs. Soldiers and citizens pushed through the door of the Old Clubhouse. Representatives of foreign legations hurried in with anxious inquiries. By the time Gideon Welles got over from the north side of Lafayette Square, the office and the big lower hall were thronged. Two frightened servants were holding the people back from the stairs. They seemed relieved to see Welles, and let him go up.

  Stanton, after making a speech to the serenaders, was undressing, when a man came to his door with the news that the President was shot, that Seward was murdered. Humbug, Stanton told his wife; he had left Seward only an hour ago. But people came rushing in with wild and dreadful stories. Stanton took a hack to Seward’s house, entering the bedroom almost as soon as Welles.

  Surgeon General Barnes had been sent for, but he was late in coming. As he w
as passing Willard’s, an officer had told him that the President had been shot, and, before hurrying to the White House, he had stopped at his office to get assistance. There he had found the call to attend Seward, and supposed the other report a mistake. He was dressing Frederick’s injuries when a frightened Negro hack driver came to the door with an insistent summons to Tenth Street.

  The city shook with rumors of murder in the streets. Newcomers told the crowd around Seward’s house that the President was dying. Welles had scoffed at the improbable tales brought by the messenger who had called him, but now he had seen Seward, unconscious on his scarlet bed. As they went down the stairs, he questioned Stanton, who told him that the rumor about the President was true. He had seen a man who had been at Ford’s Theatre.

  In the lower hall, Quartermaster General Meigs begged Stanton not to go to the President. Others pressed around, remonstrating with the War Secretary. Welles thought that Stanton hesitated, and he urged him impatiently through the crowd to the carriage. Meigs got in with him. Eckert posted up on horseback, to protest against Stanton’s exposing himself. Meigs called for an escort of soldiers. At last the carriage started, and through the traffic of running people the Secretaries of War and of the Navy drove into the mutter of the mob in Tenth Street.

  XIX. Victory, with Harshness

  A NEWSPAPERMAN picked up a silver-mounted pistol from the floor of the double box at Ford’s. There was a tear in the Treasury flag that draped the railing, and a spur had fallen on the stage. Blood darkened the buttoned-in back of the rocking chair which Harry Ford admired.

  When the President had been carried across the street, when the surging aisles were empty and the frightened actors had slipped away, Ford’s settled into a dreary disuse which no morning rehearsal would enliven. Never again would the orchestra play, or the footlights flare as the curtain rose. A vast, inanimate accomplice, the playhouse was marked with guilt. Mr. Hess dashed off a telegram to Leonard Grover in New York. “President Lincoln shot tonight in Ford’s Theatre. Thank God it wasn’t ours.” In the streets, the mob was yelling, “Burn the theatre!”