The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  “The runaway slave?”

  “The editor of a newspaper, the author of a mighty autobiography, an orator of amazing power.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” said Halsey.

  “You must not simply hear of him. You must hear him.” She came across the room and put her hand on his arm. “Oh, Halsey, the sound of his voice and the perfect logic of his reasoning turned me from a silly girl to a crusader for truth in an afternoon. You must hear him and you must read him. Do you know his book?”

  “I have not read it.”

  “Any Unionist who does will become an Abolitionist overnight. Read of a boy torn from his mother. Read of a beloved aunt trussed to a pillar and flogged until the blood runs in rivers down her back. Read of the destruction of manhood, of womanhood, of family. Read of the enforced ignorance that only superhuman effort can overcome. Do you know that it is a crime to teach a slave to read in most Southern states? Why do you think that is?”

  Halsey shrugged. “It has never been my concern.”

  “Because you can read. A man who can read can think, not simply react. And a man who can think can understand his world and the evil perpetrated upon him, and perhaps he can rebel.”

  “One rebellion at a time is enough.” Halsey tried to make a joke.

  But Miss Constance was boring in on an uncomfortable truth. “We are a foolish nation to deny the mental capacity of ten percent of our people, because we wish to steal their sweat and tears. What godly nation would do such a thing?”

  Halsey shrugged again.

  “Read Douglass and hear the whip whistle, hear the chains clank, see the blood of innocents splatter, and know that a greedy nation, north and south, has done evil. And once you’ve read it—”

  Halsey said, “If Douglass is an Abolitionist, he can’t be too happy with Lincoln.”

  “What Abolitionist is?” She took her hand away. “Lincoln moves too slowly. But who is the alternative? My uncle? Do you know what he said in his last editorial?”

  Halsey shook his head.

  “He said that Lincoln would encourage servile insurrection.”

  “A fear in many parts of the country, even among the businessmen of Boston.”

  “So they oppose Lincoln, too?”

  “They are happiest when they and the nation are enjoying the fruits of their prosperity,” answered Halsey, “thanks to a supply of cheap cotton.”

  “It makes you wonder how Lincoln ever got elected,” she said.

  “Now then, your uncle will be angry if he knows you’re here, or if he discovers that you’re stealing notes slipped under his door.”

  “And I will be angry if you’re lying to me about this diary.”

  “I know nothing of the diary or of someone who calls himself McD.”

  “Just prove that you’re not part of this. And restore the book to the president. If you do, the nation—and I—shall be indebted to you. And if we go to the Smithsonian again, perhaps we’ll look for that pillar and—”

  Halsey heard a voice behind him:

  “I am disappointed.” Booth was standing in the doorway, shaking his head melodramatically. “A man and woman in a hotel room in midmorning, and the door left chastely ajar.” He looked at Constance. “I would have closed it.”

  Constance looked at Booth, then at Halsey. “You have famous friends, Lieutenant, but fame does not guarantee a gentleman.”

  She stepped past Halsey and pushed by Booth, who took off his hat and executed a deep bow.

  The men watched her walk down the hall; then Booth said to Halsey, “Strange seduction practices you Boston men have.”

  “Were you eavesdropping?”

  “Contrary to what your lady friend thinks, I am a gentleman.”

  Did she believe that he could simply go to some hiding place and retrieve the book, all for the promise of another kiss? Was she that calculating? Or did she really like him?

  Halsey could not deny that he had enjoyed that kiss in the Smithsonian. And if there were more to be had, he would enjoy them, too. He had no intention, however, of showing her Lincoln’s daybook. He might tell her about it, perhaps in the Smithsonian, in front of that pillar, just as he led her into its shadow. But first, he had to find it, before Squeaker McDillon peddled it to the highest bidder.

  Halsey considered going to McNealy with the truth. Then he might be able to walk into McDillon’s with a flanking party of Provost Guards, demand the book, and identify his cousin’s murderer in the process. But questions would arise. Why hadn’t he turned them in earlier? Why had he removed the president’s daybook … then lied about it? And why this? And why that? It would take him days to explain, by which time the daybook would be on its way to Richmond or New York.

  So he would do his best himself, and if he failed, he would pray that he hadn’t damaged the president. He would ask help of only one man.

  * * *

  “Shine.” Halsey dropped into Noah’s chair.

  “You sure is a good customer, sir.” Noah went to work.

  Halsey asked, “Seen any watchers today?”

  “I don’t see the brown white man, if that’s what you askin’.”

  “Good. Anyone else?”

  While his hands worked, Noah glanced over his shoulder at two women strolling by. One carried a wicker basket; the other held a parasol. “Them ladies could be watchers, but their voices is too happy. They’s on their way to market. And you see the feller with the big belly and stovepipe hat, just crossin’ Seventh? He could be a rebel spy. But he’s a congressman. And they’s the two painters goin’ in the hotel just now. They could be goin’ to rob a room, but I seen ’em enough to know they’s just painters.”

  “You’re not answering my question,” said Halsey.

  “I’m sayin’ I watch everyone. And whoever been watchin’ you … ain’t just now.”

  Halsey studied the back of the black man’s head and wished that he could enjoy a bit of careless happiness himself, just a man doing manual labor in the morning sun. He also noticed, through the back of Noah’s shirt, ridges of raised skin, crossed and crisscrossed. He had noticed them before. Whenever Noah worked, the sweat appeared first in fabric lines on the shirt. Halsey knew they were whip scars. But he never asked about them. It was not his place. And this morning, he had other things on his mind. He said, “Noah, how tall are you?”

  “Five-feet-ten, one hundred and sixty-seven pounds, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Do you have any old clothes?”

  Noah straightened up. “Well, sir, all my life I been tryin’ not to dress like a congressman, and I think I succeeded right well.”

  “Would you sell me a pair of old trousers and a shirt. Maybe an old coat and hat?”

  “What for?”

  “Never mind what for.” Halsey reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar coin, withdrawn from the bank that morning. “Bring them to my room before noon.” He put the money into the black man’s hands. Then he stood.

  “But I ain’t finished shinin’.”

  “No time.” For what he was planning, Halsey would want dirty shoes.

  Back in his room, he rang his bell for hot water to shave. Then he decided a little black stubble filling in the spaces would be a good thing, too, and his beard grew fast.

  * * *

  An hour later, as he was memorizing the map that Booth had drawn, he was startled by a knock on his door. He put a hand on his pistol. “Who’s there?”

  “Jacob Bone.” The boy looked to be about eighteen and met Halsey’s gaze directly, which was unusual among the blacks that Halsey had encountered. “My pa said for me to bring you this.” He handed over a package wrapped in brown paper.

  Halsey gave the boy a tip and sent him on his way.

  Then he put on the clothes—rough linsey-woolsey shirt, moth-eaten old jacket, floppy, sweat-stained brown felt hat. He also put on a pair of uniform trousers. Plenty of men were walking around Washington in uniform trousers … some who h
ad been discharged or mustered out for wounds, some who had simply deserted. With a knapsack over his shoulder, he went down the back stairs and out through the hotel’s basement.

  He walked up to D Street, then turned south on Eighth, crossed Pennsylvania, and went into the great shed at the Center Market. Hundreds of people were milling about, bargaining, shouting, selling, buying. It was a good place for a man dressed as a worker to lose himself or anyone who might be following him.

  He meandered a bit, checked the price of flour, paid a penny for a cellar apple that still had a satisfying snap when he bit into it. Then he found his way to a butcher’s stall because he had an idea. He bought a large beef roast for eighteen cents.

  Then he spied a butcher’s helper pushing a wheel barrow filled with offal. He followed the fellow down Ninth to B Street and across to the low parapet beside the canal, where the helper dumped intestines, stomachs, and other innards into the brown water.

  Halsey said, “I’ll pay you a dollar for your apron.”

  “A dollar? I got a whole day’s work ahead of me. I ain’t splatterin’ guts on my clothes. You know how bad they stink?” The butcher’s helper pivoted the wheelbarrow and almost knocked Halsey over.

  Halsey jumped back and pulled out a coin. “Ten dollars, then … gold.”

  The young man looked at the gold, at Halsey, and then at the apron.

  * * *

  A short time later, Halsey Hutchinson, dressed as a butcher’s helper, carried a paper-wrapped piece of beef past the Whittler, who was still whittling at the front stoop. Then he turned down the alley at the end of the row on Twelfth Street and followed it to the alley along the back.

  A stray cat rattled out from a pile of tin cans.

  Two men rolled a flour barrel off a wagon and into a yard.

  A woman hung clothes on a line.

  A curtain fluttered from the front of a privy.

  Halsey walked along the back alley until he came to the little yard behind Squeaker McDillon’s. From Booth’s map, he knew that the windows of Squeaker’s office were on ground level. So he looked up at the building, pretending to look for an address, then pushed open the little gate and stepped past the McDillon privy.

  He would have preferred to be doing this at night. But McDillon’s would be packed at night. He would have preferred not be doing it at all, or doing it in a more legal way, since he was—almost—a lawyer. But he was also a soldier with a duty and a responsibility.

  So he peered inside. He saw a desk, a safe, a spittoon, a sofa.

  And stretched on a sofa was Squeaker … asleep. Open on his chest, as if he had been reading it all morning, lay the small red leather-bound book.

  Halsey decided to move. He looked up and down the alley. The flour men had gone off. The clothesline woman and her laundry basket had disappeared, leaving smallclothes and sheets fluttering like ghosts in the sun. Even the cat had left.

  So he tried McDillon’s door. To his surprise, it was unlocked. No need to talk his way in with a story about a gift from the butcher. He simply pushed, the door swung open, and he stepped into the back hall. In front of him, a narrow flight of stairs led up to the main floor. A narrow passage led into a kitchen beyond the stairs. And Squeaker’s office was to the right.

  Halsey stood and listened … no shuffling of cards or feet, no voices, not even the sound of a Bowie knife whittling.

  So he stepped into the office.

  Squeaker awoke the instant the floor creaked. “What the hell is this?”

  Halsey dropped the beef and pulled the pistol. “Be quiet.”

  Squeaker started to rise.

  Halsey told him to stay still.

  Squeaker stopped in midmotion. He was leaning on his elbows. The book was still open on his chest. His voice squeaked: “You shoot that gun and—”

  “Just give me the book. All I want is the book.”

  “Who wouldn’t? I got more—”

  While holding the gun on Squeaker, Halsey crossed the room and snatched it.

  And he noticed Squeaker’s eyes shift to something behind him. He whirled, looked into the muzzle of Shag’s Navy six, and fired.

  At the same moment, Squeaker reached up and grabbed Halsey’s arm.

  Halsey swung the pistol and smashed Squeaker across the bridge of the nose.

  But Squeaker was hard-nosed and pushed Halsey away and knocked the book onto the floor. Then he reached under his desk and grabbed for his scatter gun, but before he could clear it, Halsey put a bullet right into the middle of his forehead.

  Squeaker fell backwards, hit the wall, and dropped into a sitting position on the sofa, as dead as the piece of beef.

  And Shag lay facedown, a pool of blood expanding beneath his head and rolling quickly across the floor toward the book.

  Halsey snatched the book before the blood reached it.

  Then he heard someone moving through the room above. He stepped into the hallway, looked up the stairs, saw the Whittler with his Bowie knife.

  “Hey! Stop!” shouted the Whittler.

  Halsey fired twice. He had won more shooting competitions than anyone at Harvard. So it was skill and instinct that put two perfect shots into the Whittler. Chest first, forehead second, like a paper target. But no paper target ever came tumbling down a narrow staircase, straight at him.

  He jumped back so the body wouldn’t hit him. Then he shoved the book into his knapsack and stepped out, past the open door of the McDillon outhouse, where—he now realized—Shag had been busy when Halsey arrived.

  * * *

  The sounds of the city—the distant thrumming of drums, the nearby rumbling of wagons—were enough to muffle four shots from a small handgun in a closed space. After a short distance, Halsey slipped into an outhouse along the alley and pulled off the butcher’s apron and floppy felt hat and shoved them into the knapsack. Then he took out his blue officer’s tunic and kepi and put them on. Then he headed for C Street.

  But he did not turn north for the National Hotel, not yet.

  He had to walk.

  He had to walk because he feared that someone might be following him.

  And he had to walk until he stopped shaking. He had just killed three men. They were not the first men he had killed. He had shot two rebels at Ball’s Bluff. But he had never before killed men as he looked them in the eye.

  He told himself that they had it coming. But he was not yet ready to stroll into the hotel lobby as if nothing had happened.

  So he had to walk.

  He walked west on C, then south to B, then west to Seventh. Across the canal, on the Mall, rows of blue-clad soldiers were marching, maneuvering, moving to bugle calls, keeping cadence with the drums. The Army of the Potomac had gone south. But there were still troops in Washington, and the Mall was a perfect place to drill them.

  On the Seventh Street Bridge, Halsey stopped, dropped his knapsack at his feet, and looked down at a boat tethered to the rock wall of the canal. Then he looked up and out, at the ribs of the Capitol dome, at the dust that tramping feet sent high into the sky, at the half-built Washington Monument, shimmering in the sunlight like a shard of reality in an unfinished dream.

  A wagon went by carrying lumber for the new Armory Square Hospital, under construction in the middle of the Mall. The driver nodded, and Halsey gave a jaunty salute. He waited until the wagon rolled off the bridge. Then he moved his foot and pushed the knapsack through the cast-iron balusters into the canal.

  Then he kept walking south, onto the Mall.

  He went past the training field toward the hospital that fronted on Seventh. As an officer of the War Department Telegraph Service, he could get into any military establishment in the city. As he knew the names of the officers in command, he could tell the guard that he was there to see Major So-and-So. And if anyone was following him, he could easily lose them in the maze of tents and barrackslike wards.

  He hurried past the first patients, soldiers lolling in the sun, some legless, others arml
ess, some reading, others playing cards, others staring into space. The sight of these men reminded him of the cost of this war and made him think, yet again, that Peace Democrats like Benjamin Wood might be right when they said that we should forget slavery and bring the South back into the fold on whatever terms they wanted.

  He went out onto Maryland Avenue, then over Capitol Hill. Then he headed for the National, confident that he had finally gotten control of himself.

  III.

  That night, Lincoln ambled into the telegraph office around eleven thirty.

  More bad news awaited him.

  McClellan reported that Detective Pinkerton’s network of informants had spied large numbers of troops reinforcing the rebels behind the same Yorktown works that the British had defended eighty years before. So McClellan was asking for more men.

  Lincoln read through the message, pursed his lips, chewed his cheek.

  “Down to the raisins, sir?” asked Bates.

  Lincoln nodded.

  “Well,” said Bates, “not much more coming in.”

  Lincoln looked at Halsey. “I’ll take your escort home, then, Lieutenant.”

  On the walk back, neither Lincoln nor Halsey mentioned the daybook … or much of anything else.

  However, if the president had asked Halsey about the betting activities of Benjamin Wood, whose reputation as a gambler was well deserved, or the sexual proclivities of a certain member of the Senate who liked boys more than girls, Halsey could have expounded all night, because what he had found and stolen was not the president’s personal daybook, but Squeaker McDillon’s ledger, a compendium of the ways in which a man could tap, trap, swindle, and blackmail the most powerful people in Washington. It even contained what Halsey hoped was the only record of his cousin’s gambling debts, with the note: Gets drunk, brags on Lieut. Halsey Hutchinson of War Dep’t, his “gentle cuz.” Talks like a poof.

  As for the president’s daybook, it was still out there … somewhere.

  When they reached the White House, Lincoln said, “Lieutenant, you’re a fine walking companion. You know when to speak and when to keep silent.”

  “I only speak when spoken to, sir.”

  “A true skill. It will help you go a long way … in the military or in the law.”