The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  Halsey knew that if he hoped to rescue himself and his future with Samantha, he had to think like Lee and act like Grant. He had to know what McNealy wanted, then make a plan and see it through.

  So he tried to remember everything that McNealy had said to him. He tried to understand what McNealy had been doing in the miserable summer when he “ran” the young lieutenant from Boston. He tried to piece together the motivations that might have led McNealy to kill Harriet Dunbar. And he warned Samantha to be careful, because if McNealy was murdering women, he might make a habit of it.

  And Halsey had to get stronger.

  So on Saturday morning, he walked the length of the ward and back.

  That afternoon, news reached Washington that Robert E. Lee had suffered terrible losses at Five Forks.

  On Sunday, Samantha told him she was giving herself a second day off, the Lord’s Day. She had trained enough volunteers to do her work as well as she. Then she walked him to the little chapel on the hospital grounds, where they attended services, sang hymns, and heard readings for the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

  Ninety miles away, the papers later reported, Confederate President Jefferson Davis also went to church, and during the service, he received a message from Lee: “My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be evacuated.”

  That night, the men in the hospital heard shouting and bands playing in the street. Word had reached Washington of Richmond’s fall, of a city in flames, of looters and riots and the last moments of the Confederacy.

  On Monday, Halsey walked the length of the ward twice without a wobble.

  On Tuesday, he put on uniform trousers and jacket, donated by the Sanitary Commission, his old Union kepi, and a yellow neckerchief to cover the scar at his throat. He considered dressing in cast-off civilian clothes from a bin at the back of the ward, but he had decided that a man dressed as a soldier would be a popular figure in the next few weeks, so there might be some advantage.

  Then he and Samantha wheeled George Smith along the Mall to the National Greenhouse. It was warm inside, much warmer than the overcast day. The former Frowner inhaled the aroma of damp earth and exhaled a deep groan of pleasure.

  Halsey and Samantha left him amongst orchids and azaleas and found a bench surrounded by Chinese bamboo. They sat in silence for a time, listening to the trickling of a little indoor fountain. Then Samantha said, “Oh, Halsey, what are we to do?”

  “I can light out for the West and you can follow later. Or we can wait till your work is done here and go back to Boston. But they’ll find me in Boston. I still stand accused of killing a congressman’s niece and five men. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, even in a country where hundreds of thousands have been murdered on the battlefield.”

  “Perhaps you should let McNealy find you then, and get it over with.”

  “Not until I’m stronger.”

  That afternoon, as the papers would tell, Lincoln visited Richmond with no more than a dozen sailors and little Tad as a bodyguard. Thousands of Negroes came out of their homes and hovels to greet him, reach out to him, touch him, but not a single white person appeared.

  Halsey grew stronger day by day. And day by day, the electrical charge of anticipation, of impending victory, seemed to energize the Washington air.

  On Palm Sunday, Halsey went to services with Samantha. Then they walked up Seventh Street to Pennsylvania. It was his longest excursion yet. He felt invigorated in the warm sunshine, and Samantha had never looked more beautiful in her ladylike hooped skirt, hat, and peltote jacket.

  At the Gosling restaurant, they ordered a bottle of champagne. Though Washington was an expensive city and no drink more expensive than champagne, Samantha said that she had saved her pennies for just such an occasion. So they toasted and let the bubbles go to their heads. They ate oysters. Then they had she-crab soup, creamy and rich, with big lumps of crabmeat and roe. They finished with roasted Chesapeake rockfish, known to these New Englanders as striped bass, along with the first beans of spring, sautéed in lemon butter.

  Halsey did not fear discovery in such public places. War’s-end spirit was rising. People were casting off the dark shades and filling the restaurants with laughter again. A clean-shaven corporal with a pretty girl might inspire good-natured envy but not suspicion.

  Halfway through the main course, Samantha’s eyes brightened with champagne and a brilliant idea. She said, “We must get you a presidential pardon.”

  “Wonderful. But how?”

  “In the next week or two, the president is certain to make many public appearances where you might tell him your story. Or I can take to the patronage line at the White House and present myself. Or—”

  Halsey clinked her glass. He liked the plan. He liked her determination even more.

  They walked back across the Tenth Street Footbridge, which led over the canal to the Smithsonian Park. He would have enjoyed taking her to the West Range and his favorite pillar, but the Institute had been damaged in January by fire and was now closed.

  So he stopped by a tall tree, looked around to make sure that none of the park thugs were lurking about, then pivoted her into the shadow and kissed her. This time, she kissed him back. And when he ran his hands along her flanks, she did not twist away. She turned toward his touch, encouraging him to travel higher, to touch her breasts through the fabric, to feel them respond.

  He yearned to feel every part of her, to caress her and possess her. And he resolved that he would do whatever it took to have a life with her.

  * * *

  At five thirty the next morning, as Halsey dreamed of her sweet body against his, a thundering crash of artillery awoke the men of Ward A.

  The windows rattled and the floor shook. A wounded patient screamed in terror. Another started shouting orders: “Take cover! Hidden batteries!” And George Smith did not frown. He wore an expression of total terror, as if he expected another explosion of shrapnel to take his legs again.

  Then someone pulled open the front door and shouted, “The war is over, boys! Lee surrendered yesterday!”

  A burst of cheering and coughing greeted the news while the guns continued to boom. Halsey didn’t bother to count, but it was a five-hundred-gun salute. On and on it went, until seven o’clock, when the church bells began to ring, first one bell nearby, then another, then another until it seemed that a great symphony of bells was playing all across the capital. And the bells were soon drowned out by a military band marching up Seventh, playing “Hail, Columbia.”

  Halsey rushed to the front of the ward and watched them go by. A light rain was falling, so the brass horns flashed like gold in the slick gray light, and the drums set up a booming echo that resonated in the chests of every man in that ward.

  Some of those men were dying, but men were always dying in the bed-lined barracks, and on this day, thought Halsey, they could say for certain that they had not died—or lived—in vain.

  Soon the streets filled with fire engines and work wagons and impromptu parades. A group of navy yard workers marched up from the river dragging a pair of howitzers, firing them just for joy. Then someone came through shouting that up at the White House, they were having “a party to raise the dead and make ’em cheer.”

  Halsey decided that he had to see those grounds, which he had crossed so often in gloomy darkness, on the happiest day in a century. So he dressed in the uniform and yellow neckerchief. Then he glanced across the aisle.

  George Smith said, “I sure would love to see that sight, the dead risin’ up to cheer.”

  And Halsey, who had lived for so long as a loner, decided to do a favor for another friend. He dragged George Smith’s rucksack from under his bed, found his kepi, put it on his head at a jaunty angle. Then he grabbed the wheelchair.

  Halsey told the wardmaster that he was wheeling his friend onto Seventh for a better view. But once outside, he turned the chair toward Pennsylvania and started rolling. He had not gone far when he knew that he had made a mistake
. The rain was turning the streets to mud. The mud was sucking the wheelchair down. Fortunately, as he struggled over the Seventh Street Bridge, help arrived in a wagon full of flag-waving bricklayers.

  “You boys goin’ to the White House?” shouted the driver, a big-bellied man in a leather apron.

  “We fought to see this day,” said George Smith. “We deserve it.”

  “Well, my name’s Appleyard, and me and the members of our little Masonic Order would be proud if you boys would honor our wagon.”

  Soon Halsey and his friend were bumping along B Street, singing patriotic songs and passing a bottle in the gentle April rain. And the whole way, they could hear the rumble of drums and the blasting of bugles and the booming of cannon.

  B Street ran along the canal, so the masons avoided most of the happy madness a few blocks north, but as they came up to Fifteenth, the driver said, “Too much traffic up there. We’ll go around.” They followed the south edge of the President’s Park, then took Seventeenth north to Pennsylvania and pulled up right in front of the War Department.

  One of the bricklayers said, “God damn but will you look at this crowd!” Thousands were gathering on the front lawn of the White House, pushing up the carriage drive, standing on the pedestal of Jefferson’s statue, clambering over the wrought-iron fences, trampling the grass on the graceful ovals. From the White House to the Avenue, from the State Department on the east to the War Department on the west, people were cheering, shouting, laughing, singing, drinking.

  After two joyous blasts from the navy howitzers, now set up on Lafayette Park, Appleyard said, “How we ever gonna get close enough to hear the president?”

  The band near the White House portico was striking up “Rally ’Round the Flag.”

  George Smith shouted, “Use me, lads. I’ll get you close!”

  “Good idea!” Appleyard got in front of the wheelchair and began to wave his flag. “Gangway! Gangway! We got a brave man here!”

  And the people parted, so that George and Halsey and their newfound friends made it halfway up the carriage drive before they could go no farther.

  Men shook umbrellas to the beat of the music. Women waved handkerchiefs. And a great cheer rose when Little Tad appeared in the second-floor window above the front door.

  The boy grinned, then disappeared inside. A moment later, he returned with a captured Confederate flag and began to wave it.

  People went into frenzies of delight. And a chant began for the president. Then the band struck up “Hail to the Chief,” as if to lure him out.

  Finally, the Confederate flag was pulled in. And Little Tad, still in the window, looked up, as if someone was calling to him. And the whole crowd seemed to draw a great breath, as if every man and woman on the lawn knew what was coming and wanted air for the cheer about to burst forth.

  Then Abraham Lincoln stepped into the square of light beside his son.

  Halsey Hutchinson had never experienced such a roar as at that moment, not even under Lee’s bombardment at Gettysburg.

  Men threw their hats into the air. Women screamed. The sound echoed off buildings and shook windows, the greatest roar of joy ever heard on the continent. The day was still cloudy, but in the memory of everyone there, thought Halsey, this scene would always play in sunshine.

  George Smith, no longer the Frowner, was laughing and whistling and waving his kepi.

  And Halsey Hutchinson felt tears of joy streaming down his face.

  Lincoln put up his hands and the crowd simply roared the louder. He did it again and only caused more cheering. Finally a third time, and the crowd settled down.

  Then the reedy voice and sharp prairie accent rang out, “I’m very greatly rejoiced that an occasion has occurred so pleasurable that the people cannot restrain themselves.”

  “You got that right, Abe!”

  And another explosion of cheers shook the windows all around.

  “I suppose arrangements are being made for a celebration tonight or tomorrow night. So I shall have to respond. But, folks, I won’t have anything to say then if I dribble it all out now.”

  That brought loud laughter.

  “We waited four years, Abe,” cried someone in the crowd. “Give us a dribble!”

  And more cheers erupted.

  “Wait, wait,” Lincoln said. “I see you have a band of music with you: I propose for closing up that you have them play a tune called ‘Dixie.’”

  George Smith shouted, “Why in hell you want to hear that for, Abe?”

  Lincoln answered: “I’ve always thought it was the best tune, and our adversaries over the way have appropriated it as their national air. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly and squarely captured it and are entitled to it. I even asked the attorney general his opinion and he agreed.”

  Another wave of laughter rippled across the crowd.

  Lincoln waited for it to settle, looked at the band, and said, “So, gentlemen, play ‘Dixie,’ if you will.”

  And never before had that song, written by a man from Ohio about the beautiful land down South, sounded more rousing, more life-filled, more of an American affirmation. And when it ended, a thousand hats flew into the air, and thousands of voices roared out their joy.

  Lincoln called for three cheers for General Grant and the army, then three more for the navy. Then he gave a wave and disappeared.

  But the crowd was not done. They were turning to the War Department, swarming the steps, shouting, “Stanton! Bring out Stanton! We want Stanton!”

  Halsey looked up at the windows and saw no sign of the secretary. But under a tree on the lawn, he noticed David Homer Bates and Major Eckert. Both of them were still soaking up the music and revelry, which meant the cipher room might be empty.

  And suddenly, Halsey Hutchnson had a bold thought. Considering the ease with which people were passing in and out of the War Department, perhaps it was time to visit his old desk. The future might depend on it.

  So he asked his bricklayer friends to stay with George Smith for a few minutes. Appleyard proclaimed it an honor and stuck his flag into the arm of the wheelchair, then plunked himself down with his pint and passed it to the former Frowner.

  As the band marched out onto Pennsylvania Avenue playing “Yankee Doodle,” Halsey went through the trees and in the east entrance of the War Department. He climbed the stairs he had climbed so often, feeling no pain, though he had climbed few stairs since his wound.

  The duty desk on the landing was empty. The sergeant was out celebrating.

  On the second floor, men were going up and down the hallways shaking hands and slapping backs, passing flasks, laughing, turning the War Department into the Party Department. When the navy yard boys fired their howitzers again from Lafayette Park, everyone in the long hallway stopped, looked around, then roared with laughter and got on with the celebrating.

  Halsey walked down the hallway as if he belonged. He passed the sounding room then looked into the cipher room. Deserted. He stepped inside and heard voices from the other side of the screen door. Stanton was talking to somebody in his office.

  Outside, the crowd was still roaring. And after two more blasts from the howitzers, the band launched into “Marching Through Georgia.”

  Halsey pulled out his pocketknife and went straight to his old desk in the corner. He opened the bottom drawer and took out the codebooks and other materials. He glanced at the door, still heard voices in Stanton’s office, then dug down with his pocketknife and pivoted out the false bottom.

  And there was his hiding place, untouched for three years: a hundred dollars cash, his personal diary, a box of percussion caps, .31-caliber balls and a small powder horn for his Adams, and at the bottom, Squeaker McDillon’s ledger book, a compendium of the sins, debts, and foibles of dozens of famous Washingtonians.

  He grabbed them all and shoved them into his pockets and replaced the false bottom, then refilled the drawer.

  When he turned, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was staring hi
m in the face.

  “What are you doing, Corporal?”

  Halsey froze. What would he say? Admit who he was, or lie? He had lied for so long that it seemed the best course. And Stanton was not a man to look to for help. He said, “I’m getting these things for Major Eckert, sir.”

  “What things?”

  “He asked for his personal diary.” Halsey pulled out his own and showed it to Stanton. “He wants to record the events as he’s watching them. He’s down under a tree, sir, with Homer … er … Mr. Bates, sir. It’s a grand day, a grand day, sir.”

  Someone else came in the front door of Stanton’s office and called. Stanton looked over his shoulder, momentarily distracted. So Halsey politely excused himself.

  But Stanton wasn’t done. As Halsey went down the hallway, Stanton called after him through the crowd. “Corporal, what is your name?”

  Halsey, unable for the moment to think of a better lie, told the lie he’d been telling for two and a half years, “Jeremiah Murphy, sir.”

  “And what unit were you in before you were transferred to the War Department?”

  “Twentieth Massachusetts.” Halsey knew he should have lied about that, too.

  “Well, that yellow neckerchief is not regulation,” said Stanton. “Take it off.”

  Halsey obeyed immediately. He did not wait for Stanton to ask another question. He saluted and hurried down the stairs, back into the roaring party.

  Now he had a bargaining chip in the game that he knew Detective Joseph Albert McNealy was still playing.

  THIRTEEN

  Sunday Afternoon

  “‘A strange case,’ that’s the title Whitman gave to this entry,” said Peter. “He wrote one and two paragraph vignettes about his hospital visits and started them with titles like ‘The Burial of a Lady Nurse,’ or ‘Ice Cream for the Ward.’”

  “Ice cream?” said Henry. “They had ice cream back then?”