Mary and Anna learned that Olivia was one of these fortunate few, for she had been released after spending only a night or two in prison. Nora too had been released, but she had enjoyed only a few days of freedom before she had been arrested again and returned to her cell, without a word of explanation ever given. Her wealthy father regularly brought her large hampers of food, clean clothes, and comfortable blankets, but Nora suspected the guards kept at least half of what he delivered. Even so, Nora smuggled food from her precious stores as well as scraps of newspaper to Mary and Anna whenever they found themselves in the yard together. Though Nora was three years younger than Anna, she bore the rigors and deprivations of their horrid circumstances much better than Anna did, and Mary was glad to see Anna’s melancholy lift, albeit fleetingly, whenever she was reunited with her friend.
Mary, Anna, and Nora were interrogated, sometimes several times a day, until they were thoroughly exhausted and felt as if their brains had been put through the mangle. The officers demanded information about Junior, Mr. Booth, Mr. Payne, and other men they had never heard of, queried them about papers and letters discovered in the boardinghouse, showed them cartes de visite uncovered during the search of their rooms, pictures of Confederate generals emblazoned with the Confederate flag and bold slogans. “You do know that this is what the assassin John Wilkes Booth shouted after he murdered the president, do you not?” one officer snarled as she showed Mary a card emblazoned with the inscription Sic Semper Tyrannis.
“I did not know that, sir,” she replied. “I had never seen that card before you showed it to me.”
Although they were questioned separately, Mary and Anna were able to converse freely in their cell and with Nora in the yard. Mary urged them to be evasive, to answer simply, to avoid getting caught in a trap of lies, to protect themselves and one another. The younger women nodded solemnly in reply, their expressions bleak, their courage faltering.
Mary prayed they could hold out until time and truth exonerated them.
• • •
The arrival of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train in Philadelphia was announced by the firing of cannon and a salvo of minute guns, which startled Asia as she sat on the sofa trying to coax little Adrienne into a nap. Only later did she learn that a soldier had been accidentally killed in the exercise, and she wondered bitterly if her brother would be blamed for his death too.
Clarke, who had voted twice for Mr. Lincoln and deeply mourned his passing, attended the memorial services, with a pair of detectives following conspicuously after him. Later, at supper, he told Asia and June how thousands of mournful citizens had lined the streets to honor the martyred president as his funeral cortege had made its slow and solemn journey from the train station to Independence Hall. “Every flag along the route was at half staff and heavily draped,” Clarke reflected, his comedian’s malleable face sculpted into lines of grief. “Every house and storefront along the way was quiet and swathed in black. The dismal tolling of the bells, the mournful dirges of the bands—every face was wet with tears, from the youngest children weeping for Father Abraham to the most hardened veteran grieving for his fallen commander in chief.”
Asia and June exchanged a long look across the table, a silent agreement to let Clarke talk uninterrupted. Crisis and tragedy had transformed her husband, Asia thought, or perhaps they had revealed the man he always had been, with weaknesses of character she had not allowed herself to see. Sleepy, the boy from Baltimore who had walked her to school, would have realized that his long narration of the nation’s grief would upset his listeners, the elder siblings of the villain responsible for it. This new Clarke was someone else, someone she scarcely recognized.
Clarke had waited in line for three hours before he had entered Independence Hall, and many of the other roughly thirty thousand mourners had waited even longer. The president’s casket had been placed on an oblong platform covered in black cloth in the center of the hall, opposite the old Independence bell. The same Stars and Stripes that had covered the casket during the funeral procession had been folded back over the foot and covered in wreaths of brilliantly colored flowers. “The lid of the casket been removed far enough so that we could view his head and shoulders,” said Clarke, pausing to clear his throat, his eyes shining with tears. “He seemed to be in perfect repose, as if he were peacefully sleeping. And I say that if any man earned eternal peace, it is Mr. Lincoln, although it should not have come so soon—no, not on the eve of his greatest victory. He should have been granted enough time here on Earth to see peace restored to a reunited nation. That should have been his just reward.”
Asia made no reply, not a look, not a sound.
A few days later, citing suspicious comments discovered in letters June had written to Wilkes, a special agent with the Fourth District of Philadelphia appeared at their door with an order from the War Department for June’s arrest.
Asia was horrified, but June seemed only dumbfounded. “Do you know what letter this order refers to?” he asked. The agent curtly replied that he was not there to answer questions, but to interview June and convey him to Washington. Then, with a pitying glance for Asia, he said that although his orders were to take June away in irons, he would allow June to walk out unencumbered. June thanked him, and in a state of considerable agitation, he gathered a few belongings, kissed Asia, and departed on foot, the special agent at his side.
Frantic, Asia sent a servant running to the theatre to alert Clarke, and by calling in a few favors he was able to learn that June was being held at the Station House on Thirteenth and Brandywine Streets. That evening, he would be taken by carriage to the depot, where he and the special agent who had arrested him would depart on the eleven o’clock train for the capital. Clarke demanded to see his brother-in-law, but his request was denied. All the authorities would reveal was that a letter had been received at Ford’s Theatre, in his handwriting and signed “June,” advising Wilkes to abandon “the oil business,” because it was unlikely to be profitable now that Richmond had been captured and General Lee had surrendered. The “oil business,” according to another man implicated in the plot, was a code phrase the conspirators had used for the scheme to capture Lincoln.
“Wilkes received all his mail at Ford’s Theatre because he traveled so much,” protested Asia to a guard standing outside her front door, in vain hope that he would pass on the information. “Wilkes truly was involved in the oil business. One of your fellow officers carried away the deeds to his properties when the house was searched!”
The guard gave Asia only one impassive glance in reply.
Soon thereafter, Clarke was arrested. “On what grounds?” he demanded as the officers placed him in handcuffs, an indignity they had spared June. He was told that President Johnson had personally ordered his arrest upon learning that the assassin John Wilkes Booth had left his incriminating letters at Clarke’s home in his safe. Shocked, Clarke struggled to speak as the officer led him from the house, and for a moment Asia’s heart was in her throat, for she expected him to declare that Wilkes had left the papers with her, not him. “Telegraph your mother and tell her to come to you,” he called over his shoulder instead, and Asia’s eyes filled with tears as she promised him she would, her heart warming to him as it had not since the first months of their marriage.
The guards posted around her house forbade Asia to leave, but she was permitted to send a servant to telegraph her mother. He had not yet returned from the errand when a carriage and pair pulled up in front of the house and a young officer emerged and knocked upon the door. “Are you Mrs. Clarke?” he inquired when she answered. He looked to be no more than one and twenty years.
“I am.”
“Madam, you are under arrest by order of the War Department. You may pack one small satchel with necessary items, and then I am to escort you at once to Washington.”
“Are you mad?” Asia exclaimed, gesturing to her ample midsection. “My
doctor says I am not even supposed to be out of bed! And who would watch my three young children if I were to go? You?”
The young officer looked discomfited. “I’m sorry, madam, but I’m under strict orders.”
“I must assume that the person who issued those orders has no idea that I am with child,” she snapped. “Is that not possible? Should you not inquire before hauling me away?”
A flush had risen in the young man’s cheeks. “I’ll—I’ll have to consult my superiors,” he stammered. “In the meantime, you should not attempt to leave the premises.”
“Leaving the premises is precisely the last thing I want to do,” she said, and closed the door in his face.
Within an hour, the young officer returned and informed her that she need not accompany him to Washington if she could procure a statement from her doctor confirming that she was unable to travel. Her longtime physician, who had seen her through her previous pregnancies and had tended the family through many an illness, could only with great difficulty be persuaded to come to examine her, presumably wanting nothing to do with a household under such suspicion and shame. But he did confirm the state of her health, and upon receipt of his telegram in Washington, she was informed that she had been placed under house arrest instead. Guards surrounded the residence, and a detective was assigned to accompany her constantly within the house, following her from room to room, observing her even when she simply sat and played with her children.
Her mail was carefully examined before she received it, and she had no way to determine if anything had been withheld from her. Newspapers were allowed, and she studied them thoroughly for news of her brothers and husband. June’s arrest was described in abundant if not entirely accurate detail, and although there were reports of many sightings of Wilkes all over the known world, none of them was plausible, save a brief piece describing a bulletin from the War Department. St. Mary’s, Prince George’s, and Charles Counties in Maryland had been well known for their hostility to the government throughout the war, Secretary Stanton declared, and Wilkes had certainly fled in that direction, and if he escaped it would be due to assistance from rebel accomplices in the region. In addition, reports from informants rendered it “nearly certain that Booth’s horse fell with him on Friday night and, it is believed, caused a fracture in one of his legs.”
Asia felt a stab of pain to imagine Wilkes suffering so. She wished he would surrender, but the whole country had become so frenzied with rage that she could not imagine how he could approach his pursuers without hazarding his own death, even if he lay down his weapons and waved a white flag. His circumstances seemed utterly hopeless, and yet she prayed for his deliverance.
On the morning of April 26, Asia lay on a sofa in the parlor, eyes closed, willing the hours to fly past. Her mother had received her telegram and had replied to say that she would come as soon as Edwin could arrange an escort. Asia expected her that afternoon, and she prayed the trains would run on time.
A knock sounded on the door, startling her, but before she could rise, the maid hurried past and answered. Asia felt too lightheaded to sit up, so she was still reclining when Thomas Hemphill, Clarke’s and Edwin’s business partner at the Walnut Street Theatre, entered the room, pale and haggard. He could not meet her gaze or even greet her, and his gait was so unsteady that he was obliged to grasp the edge of a table to stay on his feet.
She knew at once what he could not bring himself to tell her. “Is it over?” she asked quietly.
“Yes, madam,” he choked out.
“Taken?”
“Yes.”
She steeled herself. “Dead?”
“Yes, madam.”
She could not draw breath. She rolled over on her side and lay with her face against the wall, her heart pounding slowly, but with such great force that she thought it would burst from her breast. Silently she prayed, thanking God that it was over, hoping against hope that her beloved brother had not suffered.
Wilkes was gone. Her childhood companion, the confidant of her youth, the beautiful man by which she measured all others, was gone. The brightest star in her sky had flared once, blindingly bright, and had gone dark.
• • •
Mary Ann agreed that it would be unwise for Edwin to escort her to Philadelphia. Although his influential friends had interceded on his behalf so that he was not forced to join June and Clarke in the Old Capitol Prison, he had voluntarily placed himself under house arrest, not only to avoid provoking suspicions that he intended to flee the country, but for his own safety. Every day he received letters condemning him for his brother’s crime, threats that he would be murdered, his home burned. “Revolvers are already loaded to shoot you down,” wrote one fiend, signing his name as Outraged Humanity. “You are a traitor to this government. Herein you have fair warning. We hate the name of Booth.”
“You cannot travel to Philadelphia alone,” said Edwin tiredly. He had resigned himself to accepting the hatred of the people. He understood that they were compelled to pour out their vitriol upon someone, and John was beyond their reach. Edwin had confided to Mary Ann that he believed he would never again be able to take to the stage. His brilliant career was over.
“I will escort you, Mrs. Booth,” offered Launt Thompson, the celebrated sculptor and Edwin’s loyal friend. He and Mr. Aldrich had hardly left Edwin alone for a moment since he had returned to New York.
Edwin thanked him sincerely, and Mary Ann swiftly packed a bag, and after swathing herself in a heavy black veil, she embraced Edwin and Rosalie and set out on Mr. Thompson’s arm. He stowed her luggage in the carriage, helped her aboard, and settled himself in the seat facing her, and soon they were off, heading toward the Hudson River and the ferry. A train leaving from Jersey City would have them in Philadelphia before nightfall.
As they drove through Manhattan, over the sounds of the horses’ hooves Mary Ann heard what sounded like scores of newsboys hawking extra editions, their voices shrill with excitement. “What are they shouting about?” Mary Ann wondered aloud.
“Heaven knows.” Mr. Thompson leaned over to shut the windows and close the curtains. “With so many of them yelling at once, it’s difficult to make out, isn’t it?”
At last they reached the ferry dock. Mr. Thompson urged her to wait in the carriage while he attended to her luggage, and when he returned to help her descend, he hurried her down the pier, aboard the ship, and into a seat in a secluded corner of the deck so quickly that she hardly had time to catch her breath. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, madam,” he said, and darted off. She watched, bemused, as he left the ship, ran down the pier, vanished inside a news shop, and returned with a newspaper folded beneath his arm, mere moments before the ferry set out.
He said very little as they crossed the water, and he did not glance at his paper even once. An intense sensation of dread stole over her, but she willed herself to remain calm, determined to extend this last little time before the unknown blow fell.
The crossing completed, they collected her luggage, disembarked, walked to the railroad platform, and boarded the train. There Mr. Thompson regarded her solemnly and gave her the newspaper. “You will need all your courage now,” he said. “The paper in your hand will tell what, unhappily, we must all wish to hear.”
Over the sudden roaring in her ears, she became aware of the passengers all around them, talking in varying shades of excitement, anger, gladness, and shock about the assassin John Wilkes Booth. She shut out the clamor of voices and unfolded the paper and read of how only yesterday her darling boy had taken shelter for the night in a tobacco barn on a farm in Virginia, how Union officers had surrounded him and had demanded that he come out, how his companion had obeyed but he had not, how the officers had set the barn ablaze, how John had emerged rather than burn, how a zealous officer had shot him through the neck, how he had fallen where he stood.
How he had died in the earl
y morning hours, calling for her.
She was thankful for the heavy veil that hid her anguish from the world.
• • •
For five days Mary, Anna, and Nora had endured especially grueling interrogations, questions that twisted and turned back upon themselves so that Mary found herself dizzier, more bewildered, the more she tried to hold her ground. She loathed the officers who tormented her, despised them for how they treated Anna, humiliating the poor girl by laying out on the table before her items they had found beneath her bed—sketches of Mr. Booth costumed as Shakespeare’s Romeo, illustrations of her initials and his intertwined within wreaths of rosebuds, pages upon which she had written “Elizabeth Susanna Booth” over and over again in her finest hand, and of course, the photograph of Mr. Booth she had been unable to bring herself to discard. Mary was grimly satisfied when she learned that Anna’s profound embarrassment had rendered her even more reluctant to speak to the officers than before, not that she had much to tell them. Mary had been careful to divulge as little as possible to her tenderhearted, innocent girl.
On a Wednesday afternoon, more than a week after her arrest, Mary was again brought into the interrogation room, where she was startled to discover the warden himself awaiting her. “Be seated,” he instructed her, and by recently acquired habit, she promptly obeyed. “Perhaps you have already heard the news out of Virginia this morning.”
Fates and Traitors Page 42