The First Assassin

by John J. Miller

  Lucius was tired too, but he would not let himself rest. Not yet. There was one more thing he needed to do. He poked his head into the dining room to make sure the other house servants were cleaning the table and setting it for breakfast. Satisfied by what he saw, Lucius walked back into the foyer. He stopped at the foot of the steps and listened intently for any sound of Bennett. He waited for several minutes but heard nothing. Then he walked onto the porch and looked down the long lane that led to the road he had ridden from Charleston. To the left he could see the manor’s white clapboard outbuildings: the kitchen, a smithy, chicken coops, and much else besides. It was like a little town, all of it run by slaves—and now closed for the evening.

  The silence of the plantation at night was always something Lucius missed when he was in the city. Charleston had its quiet moments too, but it had been full of noise at all hours for more than a week. He was glad to be back here and looked forward to visiting with family and friends he had not seen since the first part of December, when he and Bennett left for the social season. They had wound up staying much longer than expected, thanks to Sumter.

  Lucius knew that he had a good life with Bennett—about as good a life as any slave could expect. Not every slave on the plantation actually liked Bennett. Their master was capable of employing all the cruel mechanisms at his disposal to maintain order on the farm. But most of the slaves regarded Bennett as fair, and that was high praise coming from the inside of an institution filled with unfairness. Lucius knew that he and his kind could take nothing for granted, and there was plenty to appreciate about residing on the Bennett homestead. There was a certain prestige attached to working at such a large plantation. Most slaves didn’t actually work on large plantations. They toiled for small farmers who could afford to own only ten or twelve slaves at most. That meant they faced the constant threat of having their families split up when a harvest went poorly or their owner needed a little extra money.

  It happened all the time.

  Lucius enjoyed special advantages on the plantation. Not only did he have all the normal privileges a house servant held over field hands, but he also shared an old relationship with Bennett. He was possibly the second-most-important person on the plantation, and he might have wielded more influence over Bennett than Tate or any of the other overseers. Lucius was the one slave who never had to endure one of Tate’s tongue-lashings, let alone a real lashing. Tate knew better than to lay a hand on him. His big family was treated well too. His wife had died years ago, but he had two sons and a daughter who still lived here, plus ten grandchildren. His relatives all benefited from a small degree of favoritism.

  It was a good life, he thought, perhaps the best he could have and better than he might hope for. That was why it had taken him so long to decide that he was willing to betray his master.

  He stepped off the porch and made his way to the lane of buildings on his left. The stables were not in sight of the house—that was one of the reasons he had picked them for his meeting with Portia. He was certain she was already waiting for him and hoped she had not been there for long. More important, he hoped that she had not been noticed.

  When he rounded the smithy, he saw that she was not alone. Her back was to the wall as she faced a man towering over her. In the darkness, Lucius could not tell who the man was, except to see that he was white. Neither of them saw Lucius approach.

  The man grabbed Portia’s arm, but she yanked herself free. “Stop it!” she said. The man started to pursue her but halted when he saw Portia’s grandfather. Lucius recognized him now: Hughes.

  Portia scurried behind her grandfather. Lucius raised his fists. He knew he was no match for the younger man, but perhaps he could hold him off long enough for Portia to get away. He was relieved when Hughes took a step back.

  “Good evening, Lucius.”

  It was the first time Lucius remembered Hughes ever using his name.

  “I was just trying to find a horse to ride, and your granddaughter was here.”

  He smiled awkwardly and took another several steps backward. Lucius stood his ground and said nothing.

  “It’s getting late, so I think I’ll be going.”

  Hughes disappeared into the stable and a moment later emerged on top of a brown stallion. He kept his distance from Lucius and Portia and headed toward the lane in front of the manor. When he reached it, he spurred his horse into a full gallop and rode away.

  “Did he hurt you, child?” asked Lucius.

  “No, but he was comin’ for me,” said Portia. “I was waitin’ in the stables, just like you told me. I heard somethin’ and thought it was you. But it was him. He grabbed me, and then you showed up just in time.”

  “He’s gone now, but we’ll see more of him. He came to Mr. Bennett’s home in the city most every day. It’s like he’s Mr. Bennett’s son.”

  “I’m frightened, Grandpa. What if he comes after me again?”

  “I don’t wanna scare you, Portia, but you know white folks. They like to have their way with us.”

  “Why do we let ’em? There are more of us. We could take over this place and—”

  “Stop talkin’ that way right now,” said Lucius. “It wouldn’t work. It would get us killed.”

  Lucius put his arms around Portia. If Hughes insisted on having his way with her, there was no guarantee he could stop it. He was not sure talking to Bennett would solve the problem either. That might even make it worse. Bennett’s new affection for Hughes had grown so strong that Lucius thought he might even give Portia away if he knew of the young man’s interest.

  These circumstances only added to his resolve. He led Portia into the stables. They sat down on overturned buckets.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Hughes found you. If I had known about him lurkin’ around, I wouldn’t have asked you to meet me here. But what I got to say is very important.”

  Lucius stood up and wandered around the stables for a minute, sticking his head in the stalls to make sure they were truly alone. Then he returned to Portia.

  “You heard of President Lincoln?” he asked.

  “Everyone says he’s gonna set us free.”

  “That’s what I’ve been hearin’ too.”

  “So what about him?”

  “I want you to deliver something to him.”

  “What?”

  “I’m serious. I want you to deliver something to him.”

  Portia was confused. “What do you mean?”

  Lucius reached inside his pocket and pulled out a picture. He handed it to her. It showed a white man standing in profile. The image was a little blurry, but Portia could make out the man’s features. She noticed the half-missing ear.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Mr. Bennett and Mr. Hughes call him ‘Mazorca.’ They’ve hired him to kill Abe Lincoln.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I overheard them talkin’ about it in Charleston, and then this man came by. He’s gonna try to murder the president.”

  “And you want me to take this picture all the way to Washington?”

  “I would do it myself, Portia, but I’m too old. It’s gotta be someone young.”

  “Why me? Why not one of my brothers?”

  “I thought of that. But they ain’t as clever as you, and you’re gonna need wits for this. They’d also be missed around here sooner than you. The dogs would be runnin’ on their trail by the middle of the morning. Also, you’re the only one of my grandchildren who’s been to Charleston.”

  “Charleston? I thought you wanted me to go to Washington.”

  “I know someone in Charleston who can help you get there.”

  “Why didn’t you take care of it while you were still there?”

  Lucius grimaced. “Maybe that would have been best. At first, I had the picture and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then I was thinkin’ that maybe I’d just forget about it. Why risk gettin’ caught? Comin’ up to the house today, though, seeing you and all the little ones—it convi
nced me that something had to be done.” He paused and looked straight at his granddaughter. “You’re the one to do it, Portia.”

  “Can I think about it?”

  “No. There ain’t no time. That man could be in Washington already. I need to know right now if you’re gonna do it or if I gotta find someone else.”

  Portia sat in silence. She stared at the picture, and then her grandfather. She knew he would not ask her to do something so extraordinary unless it really mattered.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t wanna leave this place. There are so many people I’d miss. I might never see any of you again.”

  “I know that, Portia. But this is more important than any single person.”

  She was not sure what to say. Then she thought about Hughes, and so she said the one thing that came into her head: “Okay.”

  “You’ll do it then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Portia. You’re a brave young woman. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Meet me here tomorrow night, when there’s no more light in the sky. Be ready to go.”

  NINE

  THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1861

  The big, black ball rested on top of its pole above the Naval Observatory’s dome. That meant nobody was late. At least not yet, thought Rook, as he walked the final block toward his daily meeting with Springfield and Clark. For several weeks, they had gathered at the foot of the observatory, right by the river at the corner of New York Avenue and Twenty-third Street. They were supposed to begin promptly at noon, a time marked by the ball of black canvas, which was as wide as a doorway. It dropped at twelve, every day and without error. Across the city, people set their clocks by its fall.

  Rook watched Springfield approach. As the sergeant came near, Rook nodded a greeting. “Where’s Corporal Clark?” he asked.

  “He’ll be here,” replied Springfield.

  The black ball twitched and began its slow descent. Just then, Clark turned a corner and came into view on New York Avenue. He was walking at a swift pace. Springfield chuckled as Rook made a show of gazing up at the ball and then at Clark, who got the message immediately and broke into a trot. By the time he joined his companions, the ball was resting on the top of the observatory’s dome. “Sorry, sir,” he said, looking up at the ball.

  “Instead of being sorry, be on time,” scolded Rook, who then turned to Springfield. “If you let a subordinate break little rules, it won’t be long before he breaks big ones.”

  This was more than Rook could say for himself. Here he was, meeting with Springfield and Clark—both good men—to discuss activities that his own superior officer had told him to stop.

  “Sergeant, what’s the latest from Lafayette Park?” he asked.

  Like Clark, Springfield was dressed in plain clothes rather than his blue uniform. He had been posted to Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Instead of keeping an eye on the president, however, Rook had ordered him to watch over the houses that lined the park. These were some of the most prominent addresses in the city—James and Dolley Madison once had lived there, and now the neighborhood was home to everyone from Secretary of State William Seward to Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner. Rook had told Springfield to pay close attention to Sumner’s residence. Among Southern radicals, perhaps only Lincoln was more scorned. Just five years earlier the senator had been assaulted on the floor of the Senate by a South Carolina congressman who objected to one of Sumner’s abolitionist speeches. Southerners hailed the attacker as a hero. It took Sumner more than three years to recover from his injuries.

  Yet protecting Sumner was not Springfield’s only objective, or even the main one. Rook actually had told Springfield to spend most of his time watching over the neighborhood’s Southerners—his primary duty was not protection, but surveillance. Rook wanted the sergeant to determine if any of the secessionists in the neighborhood were more than mere agitators. So far, he had not experienced a great deal of success. A single man covering several city blocks can accomplish only so much, and Springfield’s most interesting observations up to now involved a couple of households packing up and departing across the Potomac. That was the content of his report on this day as well: yet another family with Southern loyalties was making plans to move away. Alarmed by Lincoln’s plan to call up troops from the North, they decided to leave before it was too late.

  Rook listened to this patiently and then asked the question that had been on his mind since his last conversation with Scott.

  “What can you tell me about Violet Grenier?”

  “An interesting woman. Definitely a secessionist. She lives in a big house across Lafayette Park from the president’s mansion. She receives many visitors, including plenty of important ones—senators, congressmen, and so on. Not all of them are Southerners. Most in the secesh crowd stick with those who agree with them. Grenier is the exception.”

  “Anything suspicious?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s a busy household for just one woman, but I don’t see anything suspicious in that. Just bear in mind that I haven’t kept an eye on her around the clock. I may have missed things.”

  “Please watch her closely. I’d like more information on her. She seems to pull many wires in Washington.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Now Rook turned toward Clark. “And what have you seen at Brown’s Hotel?”

  Clark described the events of the previous night—the sudden appearance of ragged-looking strangers, their reappearance in the lobby, and the snatches of overheard conversation. Rook listened without expression until Clark got to the part about them apparently planning to watch a building crumble.

  Springfield perked up. “Do they plan to sabotage a building?”

  “I don’t know,” said Clark. “But that seems like a possibility.”

  “Unless we’re letting our imaginations get the better of us,” said Rook. He was not trying to rebuke Clark for making the report or Springfield for taking an interest in it, but he did want to encourage clear thinking.

  “There’s more,” said Clark. “I went back to Brown’s this morning and got their names from the hotel registry. That’s why I was late getting here a few minutes ago. It was a dumb oversight on my part, not doing it last night. But I didn’t think of it until I had walked out the door, and I hardly felt like I could go back and check and remain inconspicuous.”

  “So, what are their names?”

  Clark reached into a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. He handed it to Rook. As the colonel looked at it, he raised his eyebrows.

  “Jeff Davis? Alex Stephens? You can’t be serious.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” said Clark. “But those are the names they used when they checked in.”

  “You mean Jeff Davis, as in Jefferson Davis? And Alex Stephens, as in Alexander Stephens, the vice president of this so-called Confederacy?” asked Springfield.

  “Yes.”

  Springfield craned his neck to see the paper Rook was holding. In addition to Davis and Stephens, there were two other names on the list: S. R. Mallory and Bobby Toombs.

  “The other names are taken from the Confederate cabinet,” said Rook. “Mallory heads their war department, and Toombs is their secretary of state. Your friends must have something to hide. Even so, going by these particular assumed names strikes me as reckless.”

  “It’s like they’re trying to taunt us,” agreed Clark.

  “I want to observe these men myself, Corporal. Keep them under close watch. Tomorrow’s meeting here is canceled. Instead, Clark and I will go to Brown’s.”

  With the sun almost straight overhead, Portia stood beside the trunk of an oak tree to catch its shade. She had spent the night awake, worrying about the promise she had made to her grandfather. Several times she had decided to back out. But she kept returning to the sight of him staring at her in the stables, his bright eyes shining in the darkness with an urgent plea. She imagined that this was probably how she had
looked at him whenever she had wanted some small favor growing up. He had been so good to her over the years. Just last night, he had turned away that awful man Hughes. Her grandfather might not be around to protect her the next time. By morning, she had resolved to escape. But there was something she wanted to do first.

  Portia leaned against the tree and watched a few dozen slaves stoop in the fields. She saw her two older brothers trying to fix a broken plow. She recalled how they had run off before. Anthony and Theo were always talking about getting away. Anthony was a dreamer. He boasted of making it to the North and earning enough money to buy his whole family from Mr. Bennett. Portia could remember him getting away three times, but the longest he was gone was about two days.

  He had only traveled a few miles when the slave catchers found him.

  Theo’s plans were not nearly as grand. He just talked about freedom and cared less about where he found it. He also had escaped three times, but he had not headed anywhere in particular. He just went lying out in the woods nearby, fishing for food and sleeping under the stars. Once he was gone for almost a month. But each time he came back, usually because he had gotten hungry—it was a lot easier to eat food from a plate than it was to catch rabbits. Her brothers were punished for what they did, but not so severely that they never thought of taking the risk again.

  What if she ran off and was caught? She would suffer the lash, the bite of which she had never known. It would be unpleasant, but she would get over it. A worse feeling would come from the knowledge that her grandfather had made an earnest request and she had turned him down. That kind of pain might never heal.

  Anthony and Theo continued to fuss over the plow. They argued until a third slave approached. He seemed to know exactly what was wrong. The brothers stood silently as he explained what to do. The sight gladdened Portia—not because she cared about the plow, but because this was Big Joe. He was exactly the person she wanted to see.

  “Hello, boys,” she said as she walked up to the group.