The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  He peered through a space between two twelve-inch boards and tried to find an angle that would allow him to see in the barn window. He could hear muffled voices and words like “Knights of the Golden Circle…” and “We are not Knights…” A dispute? “In Illinois, men are arrested on suspicion of being Knights…” Or agreement? “… a thing that violates every man’s rights.”

  Halsey pressed his ear against the fence, but the words were drowned out by another rumble of thunder, louder, closer. The flicker of lightning appeared higher in the sky. A puff of wind rustled the leaves in the big sycamore that shaded both properties.

  Halsey looked up into the tree and wondered if he could climb onto a low-hanging branch and shinny out over the Wiggins property.

  Then he heard the back door of the barn open and through the cracks in the fence, he saw lantern light. Was someone walking the perimeter, just to make sure there was no one like him hiding in the shadows? He put his hand on his pistol and waited.

  A door creaked and shut, a sound followed by a groan and a thundering of … another kind. Someone was using the privy.

  So Halsey moved along the fence, searching for a better listening post.

  What he heard was a growl. Then a fence board moved, and a dog’s head appeared just a few feet away. It was some kind of terrier. It growled in Halsey’s direction. Then it yipped, as if it didn’t know whether to be aggressive or back away, as if whatever was crouching in the darkness might leap up and eat him.

  When the outhouse door opened, the dog pulled out of the fence and yipped from the other side.

  A man’s voice said, “What’re you barkin’ at?”

  Halsey saw the light of the lantern moving along the fence. He wanted to run. But any movement now would be worse than none. So he held his breath.

  The fence board popped open, then fell back, then popped open, then fell back. The man on the other side was kicking it. He said, “So that’s how you been gettin’ out. Goddamn cur.” Then came a thump and the dog yelped.

  The lantern light went away. The barn door banged shut.

  Halsey released his breath.

  They were having an argument now over the future of “the Copperhead cause” and “the Knights” and “the Sons.”

  Halsey thought of the tree that Squeaker had drawn in his ledger book. A Liberty Tree. The Sons of Liberty? And he remembered the words of Benjamin Wood: “We are the true Sons of Liberty today.” During the Revolution, the Sons of Liberty had gathered around Liberty Trees and rebelled against a tyrant king.

  Then, amidst the muffled talk, Halsey heard something that almost made him vault the fence: “daybook.” Someone said something that began, “Lincoln doesn’t know…,” but it went all muffled in another rumble from the cosmos.

  The distant thunder was no longer very distant.

  Halsey crawled to the loose fence board and lifted, opening a twelve-inch space.

  He took off his hat and stuck his head through the fence. He looked up the alley and down, first toward the Avenue and the streetlamp, a hundred feet to his right, then toward the outhouse, twenty feet to his left. He saw nothing, not even the dog.

  He pulled his head back. He tried to raise a bit of saliva. All he could raise was nervous bile. So he swallowed and stuck his right leg through the space, then his shoulder, then his head. Then a flash of lighting lit the sky and the alley for just an instant.

  He waited a moment. Then he pulled the rest of himself through, but his belt buckle caught on the fence board and made a loud pop. He stopped again, stock-still, waiting, listening, halfway through the fence, his right arm on one side, his pistol on the other.

  But all he could hear was the wind rustling the trees and the low rumble of voices. Nothing was coming … except the rain.

  So he pulled himself all the way through the fence and dropped into the alley. Then he scuttled to the window, stopping where he could finally hear and see inside.

  The men were sitting in a circle. There was a banner tacked to the side of a stall. It was yellow and showed a golden crown and the letters KGC.

  The man in the eye patch was standing beside it. His beard was neatly trimmed. His gray suit fit like a gentleman’s armor. His accent proclaimed Virginia aristocracy. “I’m a Knight of the Golden Circle. I will do what I can to help the South win. And every person in this room should know that.”

  The Wood brothers sat opposite the man and his little pennant, forming a New York delegation of disloyalty, thought Halsey.

  The man with the eye patch went on, “Our goal is to secede, take over Mexico, and create a golden circle of slave states around the Gulf.”

  “The Golden Circle is fantasy, Hunter,” said Benjamin Wood. “We care about the country we have. We care about stopping the war and saving the Union.”

  “We care about liberty for the South,” said the man in the eye patch, named Hunter.

  “But,” said the woman, whose strong voice sounded very much like Harriet Dunbar’s, “we can all work together toward two goals: the preservation of Southern rights and the defeat of Lincoln.”

  “I agree,” said Fernando Wood. “We are all Copperheads. Whether we want to see cotton and manufacture flowing again through the portals of New York Harbor or see slavery extended west and south, we all agree that deposing King Lincoln is paramount.”

  McNealy turned to the potbellied man sitting next to the woman. “What do you say, Dr. Wiggins?”

  “King Lincoln has put out the call for three hundred thousand more troops. It’s our job to discourage recruits, encourage desertions, and damage the war effort however we can. We can do it best by making common cause.”

  The woman now shifted in her seat, and Halsey could see her face: Harriet Dunbar, having a busy night. She said, “The goal should be to defeat the Republicans in November and Lincoln in two years. We fight on the battlefield and the ballot box.”

  The others agreed. Most of them looked prosperous, well dressed, well bearded, well fed. This was not some gathering of rapscallions but a council of war between factions seeking an alliance.

  Halsey thought of Shakespeare’s conspirators, plotting to kill Caesar. So are they all, all honorable men … and women.

  As the first raindrops began to splatter down, Fernando Wood rose and said, “At election time, we’ll need every tool we can get.”

  “Including secrecy,” said Hunter.

  “If secrecy is the thing,” said Benjamin Wood, “we are all for it.”

  “So why,” demanded Harriet Dunbar, “is your niece telling people that you went to Harrison’s Landing to see McClellan?”

  Constance? These people knew about Constance? That—and not the electricity in the storm-charged air—made the hair stand on the back of Halsey’s neck.

  “She’s not really our niece,” said Fernando. “She’s our cousin’s daughter.”

  “And an Abolitionist.” That was McNealy, accusing.

  “True,” said Benjamin. “We failed her in that.”

  “And she’s failed all of us,” said Harriet Dunbar, “because she’s putting it about that you want McClellan to run against King Lincoln.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Dunbar,” Benjamin scoffed. “A politician as smart as Lincoln already knows the names of the men who want to unseat him.”

  “And what does she tell her Boston gentleman?” asked Dunbar. “He’s been seen lurking in front of my house. He rode to see the president this morning. He was looking for her in the Willard tonight.”

  “And last night,” said Hunter, “she read notes to him, aloud, right on the street.”

  That was where Halsey had seen Hunter and his eye patch. He was one of the “heroes” who had offered to help Constance the night before. He had been following her … or Halsey.

  “What kind of notes?” asked Benjamin Wood.

  Hunter turned to the Wood brothers. “Damning notes about things McClellan said in private to you. Notes she copied from your briefcase.”

&nbs
p; For a moment, there was a strange sound from the Wood brothers—silence. Both were apparently struck speechless.

  Fernando recovered first, countering with a question, a good defensive tactic. “How did you hear that?”

  “Skeeter and I heard it. We were hiding in the shadows across the street.”

  “You heard it over the traffic?” said Benjamin.

  “Lose an eye to a Yankee bayonet,” said Hunter, “and see how much your hearing improves.”

  “That girl needs to know that there are some in this room who do not take kindly to spying for Abolition,” said Doc Wiggins. “She could get us all in trouble.”

  “She could get herself in trouble, too,” said McNealy.

  “True,” said Uncle Benjamin, “but I wouldn’t say she’s spying.”

  “That’s a strong word,” said Fernando. “A misled girl, but—”

  “She needs a good talking to,” said Doc Wiggins.

  Talking to? Halsey did not like the sound of that.

  But Fernando was changing the subject: “Now, seeing as I’m just down from New York, I need more of a filling in on this so-called daybook.”

  “It could have value,” said McNealy. “Now … or later. But remember, it’s not a gun you can reload. Once it’s used, it’s used for good.”

  At that moment, the dog found Halsey. He came snuffling around the corner, stopped, and growled at the figure crouched by the barn.

  As a crack of thunder spawned a brilliant flash, the dog began to bark.

  And Halsey heard, “Get up, mister. Get up real slow.” Then a pistol pressed against his head.

  Halsey turned far enough to see the man’s blue kepi, red satin tie, and trimmed Vandyke. He realized that this one had been spying on him and Samantha that afternoon at the canal, and he had been the other “hero” on the street the night before, the one called Skeeter. And just a few hours ago, he had run past Halsey on the stairs in the Willard.

  Now McNealy was appearing from the back of the barn. He was carrying a lantern that obscured his face, but Halsey could tell that lope.

  The voice behind Halsey said, “Is this your boy? What’s he doin’ spyin’ on us?”

  Then came another explosion of thunder, like the bursting of an artillery shell directly above them, and before a thought had fully formed for Halsey, the world exploded in a flash that was cold blue and blinding.

  All in an instant, he felt the current blow through him and knock him backwards. The man with the gun went flying. McNealy dropped the lantern, which shattered against the side of the barn. The dog started yelping. And the big sycamore fell in three directions at once, split from crown to ground.

  The fence collapsed under the weight of the tree.

  Flames flickered to life around the shattered oil lantern.

  McNealy recovered his wits, grabbed Halsey, and growled, “You damn fool.”

  Inside the barn, people were scrambling and shouting. They could not get out the back because the door was blocked by the tree, so they were coming from the front.

  McNealy said, “Run. Punch me and run, but not to the War Department. Head for the C&O Canal, the towpath. Wait for me near the first lock.”

  Halsey just stared at him. Was McNealy helping or setting him up?

  McNealy said it again. “Punch me and run.”

  So Halsey hit him in the face, kicked the dog off his cuff, and scrambled up and over the smoking tree. He glanced behind him and saw the flames rising. Then he heard Harriet Dunbar cry, “Find that son of a bitch and kill him!”

  Halsey dropped from the tree. Then he leaped over a hedgerow into another yard, where a big dog on a chain lunged for him. He sidestepped the dog and ran down an alley and out on the south side of the block, at I Street.

  He could go west toward Rock Creek and get to the C&O Canal in a few minutes. Or he could turn in the other direction. To make the decision, he asked himself a simple question: Did he trust McNealy? He answered by turning east.

  * * *

  Thunder and lightning were blasting a barrage of rain onto the dark Washington streets, turning the dust to mud and driving everyone inside.

  If Halsey could get back to the War Department and time it, he could sneak up the stairs past the duty desk, even if he was soaking wet. But he was wondering instead if he should go straight to the Willard and warn Constance.

  The words “a good talking to” had sounded more than ominous.

  In rain so heavy that he could not see from one end of the block to the other, he ran south on Twenty-second to F, then east to the intersection of Seventeenth. When he got there, he pulled himself up against the side of the Winder Building and peered across the street. He could see the south and west entrances of the War Department. And even in the rain, he could see soldiers at each door. Soldiers? Provost Guard?

  Was this why McNealy had told him not to go in? What was happening?

  He turned back on F and went around the block to the corner of G and Seventeenth for a clear look at the front of the War Department: four more Provost Guard.

  It would not be a good moment to try to sneak by, so he would go to Constance instead. Best take a roundabout route, out of sight of the Provost Guards at the War Department and the half dozen more watching the corner of Seventeenth, in front of the art museum turned supply depot. The Guard seemed to be setting up a perimeter around the whole Executive Area, and Halsey did not want to get caught in it.

  So he turned west and started walking. The storm was blowing quickly away to the east now. But he was soaked through and his shoes squished with every step. He planned to take Eighteenth north to H, then skirt Lafayette Park and get on to the Willard.

  He had not gone far when he saw two dark figures coming toward him through the slackening rain. He reached for his pistol. Then he recognized them and relaxed.

  He usually saw them in the morning, but they were coming now in the opposite direction, moving more slowly, as if they were tired. One carried a shovel, the other a mule harness. One was tall, the other fat. Both were as black as the night. The rain dripped from their hat brims, but they tipped them just the same.

  As Halsey tipped his hat in return, they recognized him.

  One of them said, “Damn wet night, sir.”

  “Seems to be stopping, though,” said Halsey.

  “Y’all be careful, sir,” said the other.

  Halsey gave a wave over his shoulder and said, “You, too. It’s past curfew.”

  “We got passes, sir. Negro night passes. We work late.”

  “Well, good night to you, then.”

  Halsey squished on and noticed another man coming along the block, coming fast with his head down.

  McNealy? No. This was a lone stranger. He did not appear threatening, so Halsey kept walking but went only a few steps more when the man angled toward him, never breaking stride, and jammed a pistol into Halsey’s ribs.

  It was the one in the red tie and Vandyke, the one called Skeeter. He had changed his hat. “We been all over this neighborhood lookin’ for you.” He whistled, and Hunter came bounding from the shadows on the other side of the street.

  Hunter turned his eye patch to Halsey and said, “You are now fucked, Mr. Lieutenant—”

  At that moment, Hunter made a strange sound … or more accurately, his head did. In truth, it was a combination of sounds, a thump and a twang at the same time, the sound of a head hit by a shovel and the sound of the shovel vibrating from the impact.

  Before Skeeter could react, a mule harness smashed into his face, knocking him back. The shovel followed right after it.

  Halsey looked down at the two bodies, both as unconscious as horseshoes.

  Mr. Shovel said, “We done tol’ you to be careful, sir.”

  Halsey Hutchinson tipped his hat.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Mr. Mule Harness, whose name was Jim-Boy Williams, went down an alley off Fourteenth Street and into the service entrance of the Willard Hotel. He
had a message for Miss Constance Wood, to be passed through one of the Negro bellmen. He would not have done it except that Halsey had paid him a dollar, which was twice what he made for a day’s work digging fortifications.

  Halsey would have gone in himself, but as they approached the hotel on the Pennsylvania side, he had noticed four Metropolitan Police standing next to a wagon with bars on its windows. And after seeing all the Provost Guards around the War Department, he was beginning to feel uneasy. Who were they looking for?

  So he and his new friends had doubled back around the block. Now, Halsey and Mr. Shovel, who called himself Jubilo Freedom, waited in an alley on Fourteenth, about fifty feet up the street from the east entrance of the hotel.

  Down the street and across, a group of men stood under a streetlamp, smoking, talking, spitting, laughing: reporters, in their element, and in their own neighborhood. That side of Fourteenth was Newspaper Row, where the Washington Evening Star, the Chronicle, the Daily Republican, and half a dozen other papers kept offices.

  The door of the hotel swung open and a tall man in a police uniform stepped out: William Webb, Superintendent of the Washington Metropolitans. He stuck his thumbs into his belt and cried out. “All right, boys, gather round!”

  The reporters scrambled over and began shouting questions. He threw up his hands and told them all to be quiet. Then he said, “It’s official. She’s dead.”

  “Can you spell her name.”

  “C-O-N-S-T-A-N-C-E W-O-O-D.”

  Halsey suddenly felt sick. He wanted to vomit, to retch right there in the street.

  “Is she related to the congressman?” shouted one of the reporters.

  “She’s the daughter of his cousin.”

  “Do we know who did it?”

  “We have solid evidence that it was the man who’s been seein’ her, by the name Halsey Hutchinson. He works in the War Department.”

  In the shadows, Jubilo Freedom looked at Halsey and whispered, “Ain’t that what your name is?”