By late summer of 1864, Mary had decided that the most prudent course—perhaps her only course—was to find a tenant to manage the tavern and property in Surrattsville, to move her family to the town house at 541 H Street in Washington, and to supplement her income by taking in boarders. But she had another reason to leave Prince George’s County, one even more compelling than keeping a roof over her family’s heads and bread in their bellies.
One week after his father’s death, Junior had succeeded him as postmaster of Surrattsville, a federal appointment that required him to swear an oath of loyalty to the Union. He had so sworn—as countless numbers of Marylanders had before him, submitting to the meaningless, degrading, but necessary ritual to avoid prison or to acquire a job—but he had not abandoned his work as a courier for the Confederacy. As postmaster he could smuggle important dispatches from Confederate agents in the North through Union lines to Richmond and the Confederate armies entrenched around it in greater volume and more reliably than ever.
Unfortunately, although Junior had taken every precaution, his frequent travels had raised suspicions, and on November 17, 1863, Union authorities arrested him just south of the Union pickets with dozens of letters addressed to Confederate officials in his saddlebags. After a few days of absolute terror on Mary’s part, a carefully placed bribe had secured his release from prison, but immediately thereafter he had been sacked as postmaster on the grounds of disloyalty.
Junior’s exemption from the draft vanished with his title, and since the Surratts could not afford to hire a substitute to serve in his place, it was essential for him to find another federal position before he was forced into the Yankee army. “Such work is easier to find in the capital,” Mary reminded him when he recoiled at the thought of surrounding themselves with so many Yankees, “and Washington City is full of Confederate sympathizers. It is, at heart, a Southern city.”
What she did not admit was that, ever mindful of the federal agents watching Junior and the army recruiters scouring the villages and farms for every last potential enlistee, she was determined to whisk her brave, daring son out of range of their scrutiny. And since his arrest had not discouraged him from working as a Confederate courier, perhaps, Mary hoped, he could serve the Cause even better from the heart of the Yankee capital.
She had set her course, but she could not lease the Surrattsville property to just anyone, not after devoting so much time, effort, and personal risk to establishing the crossroads tavern as a reliable Confederate courier post and safe house for spies. Fortuitously, an ideal candidate came along by early autumn. John Lloyd was a former Washington police officer and a bricklayer by trade, but it was his experience running a tavern and running the blockade that suited Mary’s needs perfectly. The five hundred dollars he would pay in annual rent for the tavern, the farm, and the numerous outbuildings would relieve some of Mary’s pecuniary worries, but equally important, since he sympathized with the Southern cause, the Surratt Tavern would remain a crucial station on the routes the Signal Corps and Secret Service followed through southern Maryland.
The four-story, gray brick town house in Washington City had been one of John Sr.’s better investments, although when he had purchased it in 1853, Mary never could have imagined that she would one day assume the role of a widowed landlady there. It was built in the Early Republic style, spacious and comfortable, with a modest entrance for servants and deliveries on the ground level leading to a dining room facing the street and a kitchen to the rear. A wooden staircase along the front of the house led to the formal entrance for tenants and guests on the second floor, which opened into a hallway that ran the length of the building and ended at the interior stairs. The hallway passed two doorways on the left, the first belonging to a pleasant sitting room with a fireplace and two large windows overlooking the street, and the second to a spacious rear bedroom with a small piazza. Mary and Anna planned to share that room, although they knew they might need to change accommodations depending upon the tenants they acquired. Two more bedrooms, one large and one smaller but with a parlor, comprised the third floor, and above that was a small attic with two bedrooms and a small sitting room, somewhat cramped, though the uncomfortable sense of confinement was relieved by gabled dormers that let in sunlight and air. The boardinghouse was ideally suited in a respectable neighborhood convenient to businesses, churches, and numerous public buildings, and despite the blow to her pride, her sense that widowhood had sent her tumbling down in the world, Mary was profoundly thankful that she had managed to hold on to the house through the long, tense, arduous struggle with John Sr.’s creditors. It very well could prove to be her family’s salvation.
In early September, Anna moved into the town house and began advertising for boarders, while Mary stayed behind to help Mr. Lloyd settle in and to reassure herself that the Surratt Tavern would not go under within a fortnight of her departure. Junior traveled between the two towns as well as to points farther south, helping his sister unpack and meeting potential boarders in Washington, supervising the harvest in Surrattsville, and smuggling important dispatches through the lines wherever duty beckoned him.
“You will be pleased to know that I have welcomed our first tenant,” Anna wrote to Mary in early October. “Honora Fitzpatrick, or Nora, as she charmingly begged me to call her, is a young lady of nineteen years, quite shy, and unkind people might call her plain although I will not. She comes from a devout Catholic family, like ours, and I am certain Nora and I shall become fast friends.”
A few weeks later, Junior informed her that on the first day of November, a second tenant had moved in—Louis Weichmann, Junior’s longtime friend and former schoolmate, a cheerful young man with a round face and rosy cheeks, carefully combed hair, and a small, neatly trimmed mustache. Although he was presently employed as a clerk in the Department of War under the Commissary General of Prisoners and proudly served in the War Department Rifles, he had confided to Mary that his most earnest desire was to enter the seminary and become a priest.
The harvest in Surrattsville lasted well into November, and instructing Mr. Lloyd in the proper management of the tavern took much longer than Mary had expected, so it was not until the first day of December that she finally joined Anna in Washington City, accompanied by another new boarder, her eighteen-year-old niece, Olivia Jenkins.
Although it was the capital of the Union, Washington was geographically if not politically of the South, bordered by Maryland to the north and east on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, and by Virginia to the west and south, with only the Potomac separating them. She might have felt at home there if not for the Union encampments filling every park and public square with rows and rows of white tents, and if not for all the free colored folk strolling about boldly without showing proper deference. Slavery had thrived in the city until the Yankee president abolished it in April 1862, or Mary could have brought her favorite maid and cook with her from Surrattsville. As it was, she would have to throw away money she could scarcely afford hiring help instead.
By the end of her first week, Mary had hired a suitable colored housemaid, who soon had the boardinghouse well scrubbed and organized. She had also welcomed four new tenants: Eliza Holohan, the sister of one of Mary’s dearest friends; her husband, John; and their two young children. Before the war, Mr. Holohan had worked as a stonecutter in Baltimore, but the war had created new professions, and he now worked as a bounty broker, disbursing cash bonuses to entice suitable men into enlisting in the Union Army.
When Mary could spare time from running the household, she explored her new neighborhood, searching out the best markets, hiring a reputable laundress, and finding a church. She felt most at home at St. Patrick’s Church on Tenth Street between F and G Streets, which was led by Reverend Jacob Ambrose Walter, a young priest in his middle thirties, fair-haired, bespectacled, and wise for his years, or so it seemed to Mary. He too was a Marylander, a native of Baltimore, and when she introdu
ced herself one morning after Mass, she was compelled to ask, “Father, would you please pray for my eldest son, Isaac, who is off fighting in the war?”
“Of course, Mrs. Surratt,” he said, so kindly and with such warmth that for the first time she felt welcome in the capital. It was a measure of Father Walter’s compassion that he did not ask which side her son fought for, even though he knew she hailed from southern Maryland.
It was through Father Walter that the boardinghouse acquired another resident, a nine-year-old girl from Alexandria named Apollonia Dean. She was a student at the Visitation School, a preparatory academy for young ladies affiliated with the parish, and she soon proved to be a sweet and respectful girl, though often wistful and homesick for her family in Virginia, ever more so as the holidays approached.
• • •
On the morning of Christmas Eve, as Mary and Anna washed the dishes after serving their boarders, Junior came down to the kitchen for a late breakfast alone. “You’ll never guess who I ran into when I was out walking with Weichmann last night,” he greeted them, pulling up a chair at the small kitchen table.
“Santa Claus?” Anna inquired as she poured her brother a cup of coffee.
“No, sis,” he said, grinning up at her, warming Mary’s heart. It was not merely a mother’s vanity to say that Junior had always been a handsome boy, and he had grown into an even more handsome man. Although he was quite tall, his smooth, fair skin and fine, light brown hair made him seem younger than he was, an asset in his clandestine activities. He had deep-set, thoughtful eyes, a long, elegant nose, and an intellectual brow that Mary loved to kiss when he sat still long enough to endure it.
“Go on, tell us,” Mary urged, using a dish towel to protect her hands as she removed his breakfast plate from the oven, where she had been keeping it warm.
“I met our old neighbor from Charles County, Dr. Mudd.”
“My goodness, how very nice,” said Mary, setting his plate on the table before him and pulling up a chair at his right hand. “How is Dr. Mudd? What brings him to Washington City?”
“As to your first question, the doctor looked well, if a bit harried. As to your second, like the rest of the teeming masses out last night, he was Christmas shopping. He mentioned wanting to find a cooking stove for his wife.” With a sidelong grin for his sister, he added, “You’ll never guess who he was with—and no, it was not a jolly old elf from the North Pole.”
“General Lee,” said Anna promptly.
“Wouldn’t that have been a fine surprise? No, he was accompanied by none other than John Wilkes Booth.”
Anna let out a squeal and sat down in the third and last chair. “The actor?”
“No, the dentist. Yes, dear sister, the actor.”
Anna squealed again, covering her mouth with her fingers and drumming her heels against the chair rail.
“Anna, please. Do contain yourself.” Sighing, Mary turned her attention back to Junior. “How astonishing. How is Dr. Mudd acquainted with Mr. Booth?”
“Apparently Mr. Booth hopes to buy some land in Charles County. He made an offer on Dr. Mudd’s farm, but when the doctor said it wasn’t for sale, I gather he agreed to help Mr. Booth find another property instead.”
“John Wilkes Booth is going to become a farmer?” asked Anna, dismayed. “Surely he doesn’t mean to give up the stage. He’s too magnificent an actor to quit.”
“When you say magnificent, I suspect you mean pretty.” Junior laughed when Anna swatted him with the dish towel. “Booth was a perfectly amiable fellow. He invited us all back to his rooms at the National Hotel for drinks. Weichmann was keen to go, but Dr. Mudd was disinclined—he had friends waiting for him elsewhere, or so he said—but when I accepted the invitation, Dr. Mudd decided to join us after all.”
“I wish I had been invited too,” lamented Anna.
Mary gave her a sidelong frown. Over her dead body would her pretty, naïve daughter go for drinks in a hotel room with four gentlemen, even if they were gentlemen in the best sense of the word and one was her brother.
“I have to say . . .” After a moment’s hesitation, Junior leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table, and Mary and Anna instinctively drew closer. “I believe Mr. Booth is sympathetic to our cause. That chance meeting on the street was not entirely by chance. While Booth was pouring drinks and chatting with Weismann, Dr. Mudd pulled me into the hall, apologized, and confessed that Booth has been badgering him to introduce us for quite some time. When our paths crossed on Seventh Street, they were actually on their way here.”
“Here?” exclaimed Anna. “Oh, how delightful it would have been if he had come!”
Mary felt more wary than delighted. “Did Dr. Mudd say why Mr. Booth wanted to make your acquaintance?”
“He didn’t, but he warned me that he suspects Booth might be a secret agent for the Union.” Junior shook his head. “That was not at all my impression. Booth couldn’t speak freely, not with Weichmann there in his War Department Rifles uniform, but he said enough. He told me that he had gotten lost while searching Charles County for a suitable farm to purchase and that he had ridden several miles out of his way. As he spoke, he took an envelope from his pocket, sketched a map of his route, and asked me to help him identify the roads he had traveled and landmarks he had passed along the way. He spoke of Virginia as his beloved country, and he boasted that he can travel freely because his name and his trunk of costumes serve better than any passport.”
“What do you suppose this means?” Mary lowered her voice and spared a glance for the doorway. “Has he heard rumors that you work for the Confederate underground? Does he wish to join it?”
“I don’t know,” Junior replied, “but I’m sure I’ll see Mr. Booth again, and I doubt very much that his interest in the Maryland countryside has anything to do with farming.”
The next morning Mary prepared a special Christmas Day breakfast for her lodgers, but even as the enticing aromas of fried sausages and roasted apples and fresh cornbread filled the boardinghouse, her thoughts turned to the poor Confederate soldiers shivering in their tents and entrenchments, missing home desperately, their stomachs growling, their ears aching for the music of the festive season and the laughter of loved ones. Tears filled her eyes as she imagined the brave men in butternut and gray making a feast of small rations of hardtack and salt pork, washing the dry mouthfuls down with ersatz coffee boiled up from chicory and toasted rye.
Mary found consolation in the beauty of Mass, in the wonder that unfolded anew with every retelling of the birth of the Christ Child in the Gospel of Luke, but the love and hope and peace that filled her heart as she sat among the worshippers at St. Patrick’s Church vanished later that night, when news raced through the city that General Sherman had captured Savannah.
“What will become of our beloved country?” she lamented to Junior as they mulled over the dreadful news alone in the kitchen while their lodgers made merry in the sitting room overhead.
“We’ll fight to the last man,” he said, his voice low and tight, his expression bleak. “But, Ma, the Confederacy can’t go on as it has been and still win this war. General Lee must stun the Yankees with an enormous victory. Great Britain has to enter the war on our behalf. Something must turn the tide or the Cause will be swept out to sea.”
“But what could this something significant be?” Mary asked. “From what you’ve seen beyond the lines, our resources and morale are at their lowest ebb of the war. What can we possibly muster up now that we couldn’t do before?”
“Better minds than mine are pondering that question even as we speak, even as the Yankees—” Junior glanced at the ceiling. “Even as they make merry and sing carols. But I swear to you, Ma, whatever Jeff Davis or General Lee need from me, I will give, whether it’s my liberty, my blood, or my life.”
Not your life, Mary almost blurted, but somehow she managed to ho
ld back the shameful confession that there was only so much she was willing to sacrifice to the Cause.
• • •
On the penultimate day of the year, Junior was hired as a courier by the Adams Express Company, one of the most successful cargo and freight transport companies in the nation. Not only would his new job grant Junior greater freedom to travel unimpeded and provide an irrefutable alibi for his illegal activities, but as the majority of the company’s business came from parcels shipped to soldiers in the field, their couriers were required to know the location of the Union troops down to the regiment and company.
Junior had every reason to celebrate his good fortune that frosty New Year’s Eve, and so Mary made no complaint when he headed out for a night of carousing with friends. Too anxious to sleep, she lay awake in her bedroom saying the rosary and praying for the Blessed Mother to preserve him, body and soul, and was able to sleep only after she heard him return home very late. She did not rebuke him when he staggered down to breakfast the next morning, gray-faced and bleary-eyed, his haggard slump over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table painfully reminiscent of his father’s.
Junior was too unwell to attend Mass, so Mary bundled up in her warmest wraps and set out for St. Patrick’s Church with Anna, Louis Weichmann, and Nora Fitzpatrick. “Do you know,” she told Junior afterward, as she prepared him tea and toast, for his stomach would tolerate nothing more substantial, “when I was leaving church, Mr. Brewster, one of the ushers, asked me if I planned to take Anna to shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln at the White House reception tomorrow. Honestly, can you imagine? Anna and I, shaking hands with that Illinois ape and the dreadful creature who turned her back on her own Southern kin to marry an abolitionist?”
Fates and Traitors Page 27