Fates and Traitors

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Mary Ann found Edwin’s attempt to comfort his sister appalling. “He writes as though his brother is truly dead.”

  “Perhaps he expects that he soon will be,” said Rosalie, barely audible.

  “I love Wilkes and I cannot think of him as no longer my brother,” said Asia. “The doom that fell on him was not wrought from a maniac brain nor a wicked heart, not from an irreligious soul nor a degraded nature. He would have died to save the people of the South, and when Richmond fell and Mr. Lincoln made his triumphant entry into the smoldering ruins of the city, it reignited the fire of patriotism—for his country, as he thinks of it—a zeal that consumed him.”

  “Country,” Mary Ann murmured, remembering her vision in the flames when her precious John Wilkes was no more than a baby nursing at her breast, perfect and beautiful. Her gaze met Asia’s, and she knew Asia was thinking of it too. Then Mary Ann caught herself. “Let us not join in the multitudes that have condemned John Wilkes without a trial, without allowing him to speak in his own defense. We don’t know that our boy has done this terrible thing.”

  “If he has not,” whispered Rosalie, “then where is he?”

  They fell into a mournful silence, broken when Asia took a letter from the second envelope and said that she had heard from June too. He had just finished performing a farewell benefit of The Merchant of Venice at Wood’s Theatre when the news of the assassination had reached him backstage. He had fled to his hotel and had barricaded the door, terrified that a mob would descend upon him and tear him to pieces.

  His fear was not without merit, Mary Ann knew. Even Edwin, beloved as he was to theatergoers around the world, had received threatening letters in the post. In cities both North and South, foolhardy men who had publicly expressed satisfaction at the president’s death had been set upon by angry, vengeful crowds and killed.

  “As soon as June feels it is safe to travel,” Asia said, putting both letters away, “he is coming here.”

  “Clarke won’t mind?” Mary Ann ventured.

  Asia smiled thinly. “Clarke has nothing to say about it.”

  Mary Ann regarded her with surprise, taken aback by the sharp edge to her voice. She knew Clarke and John Wilkes did not get along, and that Asia usually sided with her brother, but until that moment Mary Ann had never suspected any ill feeling between Asia and Clarke.

  But Asia looked tired and hollow-eyed, so rather than worry her with unwanted queries, Mary Ann urged her to lie down and rest. Rosalie offered to sit up with her, while Mary Ann quietly left the room to seek out her grandchildren. By early evening some color had returned to Asia’s cheeks, and she insisted upon coming down for supper, declaring that she knew her own strength and she would not be a prisoner of her doctor’s vigilance.

  Supper was a subdued affair, with the only bright moments springing from the sweet, innocent remarks of the three dear little lambs who knew nothing of their uncle’s dreadful crime. For the children’s sake the adults avoided mentioning the late tragedy, but as soon as the nurse whisked the youngsters off, they began comparing rumors overheard and stories read. John Wilkes had been sighted in cities throughout the eastern states and as far away as Canada and California, but the most credible reports stated that hundreds of federal agents were scouring Washington City for evidence and searching the Maryland countryside for John Wilkes and a companion believed to be responsible for the attack on Secretary Seward.

  When Mary Ann imagined her darling boy fleeing on horseback through the wilderness with vengeful men and snarling dogs in swift pursuit, her heart pained her until she almost thought she could feel it fracturing into jagged splinters beneath her breast.

  “The last time I saw Wilkes—” Asia took a deep breath, sipped water, and started again. “In February, when he last visited, he entrusted a packet to me in case something should happen to him. He said it contained papers and money, and letters he wanted me to deliver.”

  “Something certainly has happened to him,” said Clarke bitterly. “Why did you not mention these papers before?”

  Mary Ann frowned, disliking his tone, but Asia merely regarded him calmly. “In all the distress and confusion, I have only just remembered it.”

  Clarke announced that he would inspect the packet immediately, and without offering Asia assistance from her chair, he strode off to his study. Rosalie helped her sister to her feet, and Mary Ann followed behind as they went to join Clarke at the safe.

  As they drew closer, Mary Ann observed that Asia’s name was written on the envelope in John Wilkes’s familiar scrawl and that the seal had been broken, but in his haste Clarke seemed not to notice. Mary Ann winced at his carelessness as he shook the contents out upon his desk and spread them out with a broad sweep of his hand. They discovered federal bonds worth $3,000 and city bonds worth another $1,000; a deed to Wilkes’s Pennsylvania oil property, signed over to June; and two smaller envelopes, one addressed to Wilkes’s longtime friend and fellow actor Samuel Knapp Chester, and the other to Mary Ann.

  Clarke handed Mary Ann the second envelope and regarded her expectantly, which she understood to mean that she was to read the letter aloud. She opened it, took out a sheet of paper, steadied herself with a deep breath, and complied.

  Dearest Beloved Mother,

  Heaven knows how dearly I love you. And may our kind Father in Heaven (if only for the sake of my love) watch over, comfort & protect you, in my absence. May he soften the blow of my departure, granting you peace and happiness for many, many years to come. God ever bless you.

  I have always endeavored to be a good and dutiful son, and even now would wish to die sooner than give you pain. But dearest Mother, though I owe you all, there is another duty, a noble duty for the sake of liberty and humanity due to my country—For four years I have lived (I may say) a slave in the north (a favored slave its true, but no less hateful to me on that account). Not daring to express my thoughts or sentiments, even in my own home, constantly hearing every principle, dear to my heart, denounced as treasonable, and knowing the vile and savage acts committed on my countrymen, their wives & helpless children, that I have cursed my wilful idleness, and begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence. For four years I have borne it mostly for your dear sake, and for you alone, have I also struggled to fight off this desire to be gone, but it seems that uncontrollable fate, moving me for its ends, takes me from you, dear Mother, to do what work I can for a poor oppressed downtrodden people. May that same fate cause me to do that work well. I care not for the censure of the north, so I have your forgiveness, and I feel I may hope it, even though you differ with me in opinion.

  I may, by the grace of God, live through this war dear Mother, if so, the rest of my life shall be more devoted to you, than has been my former. For I know it will take a long lifetime of tenderness and care, to atone for the pang this parting will give you. But I cannot longer resist the inclination to go and share the sufferings of my brave countrymen, holding an unequal strife (for every right human & divine) against the most ruthless enemy, the world has ever known. You can answer for me dearest Mother (although none of you think with me) that I have not a single selfish motive to spur me on to this, nothing save the sacred duty, I feel I owe the cause I love, the cause of the South. The cause of liberty & justice. So should I meet the worst, dear Mother, in struggling for such holy rights, I can say “God’s will be done” and bless him in my heart for not permitting me to outlive our dear bought freedom. And for keeping me from being longer a hidden lie among my country’s foes.

  Darling Mother I can not write you, you will understand the deep regret, the forsaking your dear side, will make me suffer, for you have been the best, the noblest, an example for all mothers. God bless you, as I shall ever pray him to do. And should the last bolt strike your son, dear Mother, bear it patiently and think at the best life is but short, and not at all times happy. My Brothers & Sisters (Heaven protect
them) will add my love and duty to their own, and watch you with care and kindness, till we meet again. And if that happiness does not come to us on earth, then may, O may it be with God. So then dearest, dearest Mother, forgive and pray for me. I feel that I am right in the justness of my cause, and that we shall, ere long, meet again. Heaven grant it. Bless you, bless you. Your loving son will never cease to hope and pray for such a joy.

  Come weal or woe, with never ending love and devotion you will find me ever your affectionate son

  John.

  Mary Ann’s voice was so choked with sobs she could hardly finish the letter. Oh, her poor, dear, misguided, darling boy. She could not have been the best, the noblest of mothers to have raised him to believe that it could ever be right to shoot a man in the back of the head while he sat with his wife watching a play. What would his beloved late father, who had cherished all life, have thought of such a deed?

  “Wilkes says nothing of planning to hurt the president,” said Asia, stroking her belly absently, a faint light of hope appearing in her eyes. “He says he wants to go and share the sufferings of his brave countrymen. That suggests only that he intended to join the Confederacy, or at the very least, to move to the South.”

  “So he felt in February,” murmured Rosalie, “when he gave you that letter, before Richmond fell, before General Lee surrendered.”

  Reluctantly, Mary Ann added, “He also wrote here that he wanted to do what work he could for a poor, oppressed, downtrodden people. Perhaps, last Friday night, he believed he was doing precisely that.”

  Asia pressed her lips together and shook her head, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Mary Ann set the letter aside and embraced her, and as soon as she did, Clarke snatched up the page. “This letter exonerates us,” he declared, visibly relieved. “Don’t you see? He says here, ‘even though you differ with me in opinion.’ And here, ‘although none of you think with me’—none of you.” Grasping the letter firmly in his left hand, he slapped it with the back of his right. “He says too that he couldn’t express his true feelings even in his own home. That proves he knew no one else in the family shared his opinions, and that none of us could have known about his desire to kill the president or would have condoned it.”

  “It doesn’t exonerate us,” said Asia. “It only condemns Wilkes.”

  “What of the other letter?” asked Mary Ann. “Should we deliver it to Sam Chester?”

  Throwing her a look of thinly veiled exasperation that she would even suggest such a thing, Clarke tucked Mary Ann’s letter under his arm, tore open the second envelope, and withdrew several pages. He unfolded them and read in silence while Mary Ann and her daughters stood watching him, exchanging uneasy glances. “There is nothing in this Confederate screed that will help us,” he said. “He talks about a plan to make a prisoner of the man to whom the world owes so much misery—he means Mr. Lincoln—and about how he loved the Union once, but believes the South to be in the right. He goes on at length to defend the rebels, and to make a rather poor argument for slavery. He ends by calling himself—” Clarke turned to the last page. “He signs the letter, ‘A Confederate, at present doing his duty upon his own responsibility.’ And he crossed out ‘at present.’”

  “Burn it,” said Asia, reaching for the letter, which her husband quickly pulled out of her reach. “Put it on the fire.”

  “That would be imprudent, I think,” said Clarke, returning it to its envelope. “But the letter to you, Mrs. Booth, that may yet save us. If the world learns what he wrote there—”

  “The world must never know.” Mary Ann held out her hand. “That was intended as a private letter to me, and I would like it back now, if you please.”

  Clarke shook his head and tucked both letters into his breast pocket. “I can’t do that. You might burn the only evidence I have to prove that I had no part in John’s scheme.”

  “It is mine,” said Mary Ann sharply. “I would thank you to return it.”

  “Can’t do that,” he said again, gathering up the other papers and bonds and returning them to the envelope inscribed with Asia’s name. Clasping it tightly to his side, he bowed curtly and left the room, leaving them to watch and fear and wonder what he intended.

  • • •

  The furious pounding on the front door Mary had dreaded and prepared for since the detectives left the boardinghouse in the early morning hours of Holy Saturday came nearly three days later at eleven o’clock on the night of Monday, April 17.

  It had been a long, fraught, exhausting day, but Anna, Nora, and Olivia had declared themselves too anxious to sleep, so Mary prepared a pot of tea and cut slices of a lemon cake left over from Easter supper. She had just finished pouring and had settled into her favorite armchair in the parlor when they heard a loud, insistent knock upon the front door. Perplexed, Mary went to answer, wondering if it was William Wallace Kirby, her good friend’s husband and the brother-in-law of Eliza Holohan. The Holohans had left the boardinghouse the previous day—Mary and Anna had discovered the family packing up and moving out when they returned from Easter Mass at St. Patrick’s—but the family had inadvertently left a box of their belongings behind, and Mr. Kirby had promised to fetch it for them. He had said that he might call that day or the next, although she would not have expected him so late.

  The visitor pounded again just as Mary reached the front door, so loud and demanding that she hesitated to open it. “Is that you, Mr. Kirby?” she called.

  “No, madam,” a man replied gruffly, “but open the door at once, if this is Mrs. Surratt’s house.”

  Steeling herself, Mary fumbled with the latch, opened the door, and discovered six officers standing on the staircase, grim-faced and steely-eyed.

  “Are you Mrs. Surratt?” said the one nearest the door.

  “I am.”

  “The widow of John H. Surratt Sr. and mother of John H. Surratt Jr.?”

  She nodded, heart pounding, hand trembling on the doorknob.

  “I am Major Henry Smith.” He gestured to the two officers immediately behind him. “Detective Devore, Captain Wermerskirch. May we come in?”

  She nodded again and stepped back to allow all six men to enter. She led them down the hallway and into the parlor, startling the young ladies, who abruptly fell silent. While the other men dispersed throughout the house, Major Smith regarded the ladies solemnly. “We’re here to bring you to General Augur’s office for interrogation,” he said. “You’ll be treated kindly as long as you’re in my charge.”

  The younger ladies gasped, terrified. “And who is General Augur?” asked Mary coolly.

  “Commander of the Department of Washington.” Major Smith glanced over his shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps, and he nodded to an officer escorting the newly hired colored servant, Susan, and her fiancé, Dan, into the room and ordered them to sit. The servants never sat in the formal parlor, and they glanced uneasily at Mary, who nodded her approval as they edged toward two unoccupied chairs.

  “Are there any other lodgers unaccounted for?” asked Major Smith.

  “Our tenant Louis Weichmann is out for the evening, I know not where,” Mary replied. “My son is traveling in Canada on business.”

  Detective Devore entered in time to hear the last, and Mary bristled to see the two men exchange significant glances. “We’re here to arrest you all,” Detective Devore said with practiced nonchalance, perhaps unaware that his companion had already informed them, perhaps knowing but taking pleasure in their distress.

  As the officers continued to search the house, Mary fought to remain calm, but Anna and the other young ladies became more upset the longer they sat and whispered frantically to one another. “Oh, Mother,” Anna suddenly exclaimed. “Think of being taken down there for such a crime!”

  “Anna, calm yourself,” Mary warned, mindful of the young detective called Clarvoe standing in the doorway, ta
king notes on everything he heard and saw. She went to her daughter, embraced her, and murmured, “Don’t carry on so, darling. You’re already worn out with anxiety. You’ll make yourself ill.”

  She continued to murmur soothingly into her ear, and soon Anna grew less agitated, though she still trembled and sighed.

  Major Smith instructed Detective Devore to arrange for a carriage to take the ladies to headquarters for questioning. “Given the foul weather tonight,” he added to Mary, “you might want warmer wraps for the ride, something to keep the rain off.”

  Mary inclined her head in thanks, but as she went to go fetch shawls and hats for them all, Major Smith ordered her to stop. “Remember, this house is under suspicion,” he said, joining her at the foot of the stairs. “Wherever you go, I must accompany you.”

  She inclined her head again, and while Detective Clarvoe guarded the young ladies to see that, as he put it, no papers were destroyed and no secretive communication passed between them, Mary went from one bedroom to another gathering wraps and sturdier shoes, for good measure. Then she joined the others in the parlor, waiting and listening while the officers meticulously searched every room in the house from kitchen to attic, making observations and collecting evidence. Mary knew from the thickness of the packets three of the officers carried that they had found some items of interest, but she knew not what they had taken or from which rooms.

  Then a young policeman called Dempsey bolted into the parlor carrying a framed picture that Louis Weichmann had given Anna for her birthday, a small colored lithograph titled Morning Noon and Night. Lieutenant Dempsey turned over the frame and showed it to Major Smith, and Anna gasped and went sickly pale as the officers removed something hidden behind the lithograph. Mary went cold as she recognized one of the photos of John Wilkes Booth Anna and Nora had arranged throughout the house. She had told Anna to destroy them all, and Anna promised that she had.