The First Assassin

by John J. Miller

  From his first days in Washington, Lincoln had made clear his distaste for security. He told Scott that he did not want to be accompanied by thugs everywhere he went, like a dictator whose own people despised him. Rook had been forced to post plainclothes agents at Willard’s because Lincoln would not permit an overabundance of men in uniform. The president-elect, in fact, probably did not realize how many men Rook had sent there to guard him—there were about half a dozen at any one time, and occasionally there were more. The hotel was constantly packed with job seekers and other creatures of patronage, so Rook’s men were barely noticed. But a careful observer would have detected them there, day after day. Scott and Rook had not bothered to ask about the inaugural escort. They simply informed Lincoln of their plans and let him assume that they had been made under Buchanan’s direction, even though this was not true.

  As Rook crossed Seventh Street, he looked over his shoulder. The entourage had journeyed half a mile since starting at the president’s mansion, where it had picked up Buchanan at noon, and then made a short stop at Willard’s to get Lincoln. Rook couldn’t see the White House—the Treasury Department stood in the way—but he marked his progress. Seventh Street was the midpoint, roughly. The Center Market was there, a big building full of grocers and fish-sellers. Behind it lay the seamiest part of the city, south of the Avenue. Some people called it Murder Bay. Rook thought that this might very well have been the most treacherous part of the trip, and he was glad to have it behind him.

  Getting this far had taken long enough. Rook wished he could have hurried the carriage from one place to the next with more speed. Somebody once called Washington “a city of magnificent distances.” Rook did not consider the distances so magnificent. The city seemed empty and incomplete even when it was full of people, as it was today. He could only imagine what it was like during the summer, when the politicians and all the hangers-on were absent. It must seem like an abandoned village or a ghost town, he thought. In the meantime, he was concerned that the man he was supposed to protect was exposed, an easy target for someone taking advantage of Washington’s wide-open spaces.

  Now he looked up the Avenue, over the heads of the marching men in front of him, and on to his destination: the Capitol. The building’s original dome was gone. A new one was rising in its place, slowly. Iron girders bent upward, looking like the ribs of a carcass. They hinted at the dome’s eventual shape, but a large crane right in the middle towered over everything and made plain that this was a work in progress. Rook wondered if it would ever really be done. West of the Capitol, the Washington Monument also lay incomplete. The main difference was that nobody had worked on it in six years. The subscription meant to fund this memorial had run out of money with the obelisk only one-third its intended height. Now it just sat there, dwarf-like and ignored. So much of the nation’s business was unfinished, thought Rook, and yet the country now tottered closer to collapse than completion.

  The presidential carriage banged over a big rut, rattling Buchanan and Lincoln and causing Rook to tense at the sound. It would be nice if they finished the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument, thought Rook, but right now he’d settle for fixing the Avenue. No European capital would allow its streets to deteriorate so badly. Lincoln caught Rook’s eye and smiled as he reached up and adjusted his tall black hat.

  As he looked away from the next president, Rook’s mind returned to the question he had asked himself all along the inaugural route: would he really put himself between Lincoln and a killer? So many others had decided they would not even serve under the man. Over the last two months, he had seen many of his fellow soldiers leave the army. Every day seemed to bring a new name. Most had departed for the South. Was it possible that one of them had stayed behind, plotting the ultimate treachery?

  Scott and Rook had set in motion a security plan for the inauguration that would be difficult to betray: all of their subordinates knew only their own orders, not those of others. Rook felt he had guarded against some of the more outlandish rumors that had been circulating around the city, such as the suggestion that Lincoln and his cabinet would be kidnapped and smuggled to the Confederacy. He took every precaution he could imagine. Just twelve hours earlier, he had found himself racing down the Avenue in darkness to investigate a report that someone had planted explosives beneath the east portico of the Capitol, where Lincoln soon would appear. His search turned up nothing, but he posted a soldier on the spot. At daybreak, another dozen soldiers reinforced him. The colonel wanted no surprises.

  As the entourage crossed Sixth Street, Rook looked at Brown’s Hotel, on his left. This was a headquarters of secessionist sympathy. Southern politicians lived here when Congress was in session. Now they were gone, having abandoned the city in droves over the last several weeks. Still, the hotel was full, just like every place of lodging in the city. When Rook looked into the crowd along the Avenue, he could not fail to notice the large number of carpetbags. Hundreds of people visiting the city simply had nowhere to stay.

  Fourth Street came and went, then Third Street, the site of the Washington Hotel and the St. Charles Hotel. After these landmarks, the crowds dwindled. At First Street, the parade found itself at the foot of Capitol Hill, which was really more of a slight rise on a flat landscape than something deserving the honorific of “Hill.” It was as if the politicians who worked atop its low summit could not resist exaggerating even this simple fact of geography. Rook felt safer near the grounds of the Capitol, where there were fewer buildings to hide conspirators. In the distance, he saw a few pieces of light artillery—an extravagant gesture, he thought, but one that Scott himself had insisted upon in case there was actually an organized attack on the new president.

  The procession now turned off the Avenue and circled to the left. Minutes later, the presidential carriage halted on the north side of the Capitol, where a temporary covered passage protruded about one hundred feet from a doorway leading into the building. Lincoln had barely stepped off the vehicle before Buchanan offered him his arm, and then they were hustled down this corridor. Rook waited for them to disappear. Then he dismounted and entered the Capitol himself.

  The entrance was on the Senate side of the building. Inside, several attendants brushed off Lincoln and Buchanan to remove the dust that had collected on their clothes during the ride. There was a mad scramble all around them to get in position for the formal movement onto the platform where Lincoln would give his speech and take the oath. Senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices, the diplomatic corps, and guests all had to take their assigned places.

  Rook had assigned soldiers to guard the windows above the platform. He decided to make sure they were in position. He left the Senate chamber, turned left, and climbed a staircase. As he was going up, a man was dashing down—a late arrival frantic to take his place in the procession. The rest of the building was empty except for the soldiers at the posts. Everything was as he had expected it.

  Peering from a window, Rook saw thousands of people gathering to hear Lincoln’s speech. They stood shoulder to shoulder, covering acres of ground. Some had scrambled up the leafless trees for a better view. There were plenty of troops among them too. All looked well.

  At the last window he intended to check, Rook came upon a bright-eyed soldier. “Any trouble here, Private?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Rook looked outside again. Dignitaries were filing out of the rotunda and onto the platform. Suddenly Lincoln appeared. His back was to Rook, but there was no doubt about his identity. He stood several inches taller than the people around him. There was also that hat. And then there was the applause—wild cheers the likes of which Rook had not heard all day. If the crowd on the Avenue had treated Lincoln coolly, here it adored him. These were his people. Rook realized he probably did not need troops in this throng. If any person tried to harm Lincoln, he would be swarmed by a mob of avengers. This was the climax of the inauguration, the moment when Scott had speculated Lincoln would be most
vulnerable to an assassin. Rook suddenly understood that Lincoln had never been so safe. He felt a tremendous sense of relief. It had been impossible to rehearse for this day, and now for the first time he was confident the inauguration would be peaceful.

  He stepped away from the window and leaned against the wall. He took off his hat and rubbed his forehead. The soldier across from him was still standing at attention. The whole point of his being here was to make sure another man with a gun would not be. His job was done too.

  “Shall we listen to the inaugural?” asked Rook.

  “Yes, sir!” The young man was excited at the invitation.

  They watched Edward D. Baker introduce Lincoln. He was a senator from Oregon and also one of the incoming president’s closest friends. Rook and the private strained to detect his voice above occasional gusts of wind blowing by the Capitol. It was just possible to hear him, but listening demanded total concentration.

  When Baker finished, Lincoln rose to loud applause. From the corner of his eye, Rook noticed the private wore a huge grin—he was obviously a supporter. Lincoln removed his hat, but then realized that he did not have enough hands to hold his hat and protect the pages of his speech from the wind at the same time. He appeared uncertain about what to do. Then a stocky little figure on the stage got up. This was Stephen Douglas, the man Rook had supported for the presidency. The senator took the president’s hat and returned to his seat.

  The exchange took place a few feet behind the edge of the platform, and Rook was not sure how many people in the crowd saw what had just happened. That small gesture astonished him. Lincoln’s greatest political rival had come to the rescue. Lincoln was a few lines into his speech before Rook even noticed he had started speaking, he was so struck by what Douglas had done.

  Yes, thought Rook to himself, I would take a bullet for Lincoln.

  FOUR

  THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1861

  “This man is gonna help us, Lucius! It can feel it! All the slaves been talkin’ about it!”

  Lucius looked at the short woman standing before him in the foyer. She was trying to speak in a soft voice but could not keep from raising it. This was Nelly, the neighborhood busybody. She had come from next door to borrow a cup of sugar. She was always doing that. Lucius doubted that she really needed the sugar. She just wanted to talk.

  “I tell you again, Lucius: he’s gonna to help us!”

  “How’s he gonna to do that?”

  “He’s gonna to come down here and free us! Why else would all the white folks be so upset? I’ve lived through a bunch of these presidents, Lucius, and sometimes the white folks get upset about them. But they ain’t never been upset like they upset now. This is a whole new kind of upset!”

  “Lower your voice!” said Lucius in a sharp whisper. He turned to look at the staircase leading upstairs, as if he expected Bennett to come down and scold him for listening to Nelly’s nonsense. He knew his master was waiting for a guest who would arrive soon.

  Lucius was used to Nelly’s nattering. She seemed to know everybody on the Battery—and everything, too. Nelly had opinions on most subjects and enjoyed sharing them with anyone who at least would pretend to listen. It always amazed Lucius how she talked with such certainty about things she could not possibly know. Today it seemed as if she had sat in on a dining-room conversation with the Lincolns the night before.

  “He’s gonna to help us, Lucius,” said Nelly again. “Hear me now. That man Lincoln is gonna to come down here and let our people go, like Moses did to Pharaoh.”

  “What makes you think a white will ever care enough about a black to do that?”

  “Lucius, I know of whites right here in Charleston who would free the slaves.”

  “You’re crazy, Nelly.”

  “I ain’t fibbin’.”

  “Maybe Lincoln is a good man. But there ain’t a single white person in Charleston who cares about the slaves, except to make sure they do what they’re told.”

  “Have you heard of the Underground Railroad?”

  “Of course, Nelly. Don’t say it so loudly.”

  “There’s a station right here in Charleston.”

  “That ain’t true.”

  “Lemme tell you something, Lucius—”

  A hard knock came from the front door.

  “Nelly, you gotta go now.”

  “I’ll slip down the hall. You get the door and I’ll come back.”

  The knocker pounded again, this time more urgently. Lucius sensed impatience on the other side. He raised his eyebrows. “Go, Nelly,” he said. “You know where the sugar’s at. Get some and get outta here.”

  The knocker banged against the door again, even harder than before. Lucius started for it. He placed his hand on the knob and looked over his shoulder to where Nelly had been standing. At last she was gone. Sometimes the only way to make her leave was to send her on her way. Lucius turned the knob and opened the door.

  A man stood on the porch, his hand raised as if he were about to knock again. It was getting dark outside, but Lucius recognized the caller immediately. This was Tucker Hughes, a familiar face in recent weeks. He stepped inside without an invitation, brushing against the slave’s shoulder. Lucius wondered why he had even bothered to knock. Before he could ask for Hughes’s hat, it was shoved at him. “Is he upstairs?” inquired Hughes.

  After a lifetime in servitude, Lucius had become accustomed, even numb, to the dozens of little indignities he suffered each day. But for some reason the behavior of Hughes gnawed at him. Over the last year or two, Bennett had taken a fatherly interest in Hughes and treated him almost as a surrogate son. Hughes was a frequent caller when Bennett stayed in Charleston. He had come by every few days since the middle of January.

  Hughes raised his eyebrows. “Is he upstairs?” he asked again, this time enunciating the words as if he were speaking to a half-wit.

  The nasty tone snapped Lucius out of his thoughts. “Yessir, Mr. Hughes, and I can take you—”

  Before Lucius could get the words out of his mouth, Hughes turned toward the steps and started up. Lucius tossed the hat on a chair and sprang after him.

  This treatment perturbed the slave. It was not merely the rudeness. He was used to rudeness from white folks. It was the total disregard for the role Bennett had assigned Lucius to play in this house. Lucius should lead Hughes upstairs and announce his presence. If Hughes just barged in, Bennett would think Lucius was not doing his job. The slave would look bad and Hughes would have gained nothing. It was supremely inconsiderate.

  Lucius wanted Bennett to think well of him. He had lived with Bennett almost his entire life. They were born the same summer at the Bennett plantation. Lucius’s mother had looked after both of them during their early years, and they played together in the rough egalitarianism of childhood. But it could not last forever—not when one of them was white and the other black. Bennett’s father, Richard, separated the boys around Langston’s seventh birthday. Lucius became a full-time slave hand. Bennett’s father introduced his son to the life of a plantation owner. In the mornings, a tutor taught him grammar, history, and arithmetic. In the afternoons, the overseers showed him how to manage a team of slaves in the field. In the evenings, Lucius would lose sleep when he heard the groans of fellow slaves who had been whipped that day by Langston. The boys rarely spoke to each other then, and they certainly never traded words about the past. Sometimes their eyes would meet and exchange a knowing look, but in a moment it vanished. They had their separate roles.

  One day, when Lucius was about fifteen, he walked by an open window at the Bennett manor and heard the familiar voice of Langston arguing with his father. Eavesdropping was a skill that slaves honed to perfection, and Lucius decided to listen.

  “I won’t do it, Father! I cannot!”

  “Langston, he is a slave and you are his master. There can be no favorites on a plantation. You must set aside whatever childish feelings you once had for him from what your responsibilities are
today.”

  “You are asking me to punish Lucius for no reason—for a reason I am to invent! This test you have devised for me is not fair to him!”

  The boy was shouting, but his father replied with cool insistence.

  “Langston, you are becoming a man, and you must bury those sentiments. They do not befit a member of our class.”

  “No, Father, I cannot do it—and I will not do it!”

  Lucius heard footsteps stomping across the floor followed by the slam of a door. He decided he had better get on his way when he heard the elder Bennett mutter something to himself. The words were hard to make out, but Lucius thought he could hear them well enough: “If that’s how you’re going to be, Langston, then there’s only one way to deal with the problem.”

  A week later, Lucius was sold to another plantation ten miles away. The night he arrived, an overseer led him into the fields, where two other overseers waited in the darkness. They beat him senseless. “Just breakin’ you in, boy,” said one of them. Lucius crawled back to the slave shanties when it was done. The overseers knocked him around the next night too, and the one after that. The beatings grew more sporadic over time, but they never stopped—and they rarely occurred for a reason.

  The abuse went on for years. Lucius grew into manhood, but he wondered how long he could hold up. During the day, he was forced to work harder than ever before. He had managed to escape whippings at the Bennett farm. At his new home, with its owner in Charleston most of the time, the overseers had the run of the place. They were cruel men. Lucius felt the lash constantly. He believed the overseers had it in for him. He believed he was a marked man. There were other slaves who were more resistant to authority, and some who did not work very hard. Lucius thought he was the only one to be singled out for torture.