A Night of Horrors: A Historical Thriller about the 24 Hours of Lincoln's Assassination

by Berry, John C.

  “Wilkes!” Taltavul called as he recognized the actor.

  “Brandy, my friend.”

  “But of course,” he answered holding up the bottle he had grabbed as soon as he saw Booth sitting down. Booth was an inveterate consumer of brandy. He watched as the brown liquid filled the glass and he felt his salivary glands kick in. He was already wrapping his fingers around the glass before Taltavul had finished pouring. He tossed the drink off in a single large gulp and slammed the glass down on the bar.

  “Another,” he ordered. He held onto the glass while the bartender poured again. This time he took a good pull, but didn’t finish the drink in one gulp. He had taken his hat off and placed it on the bar next to him. He looked around the saloon to see if he knew anyone, but the crowd was thin since the play was still going on. If men weren’t enjoying the play, some would come over to down a drink between acts. Only those who weren’t too concerned about missing part of the next act did that.

  “Taltavul, you scoundrel, how is business?” Booth asked as he felt the brandy begin to course through his veins in a slow and sultry fire.

  “Just fine. The bigger question is when are you coming back to the stage, Wilkes? We miss seeing you in the lights, my friend.”

  “Well, then you’ll be pleased to know that I plan to make a grand return to the stage very soon.” Booth smiled and took another pull on his Brandy.

  “That’s good news. Good news indeed,” the bartender responded and then walked down the bar to serve another customer. Booth looked at the clock and saw that it was now past 9:30. He downed the rest of his brandy and left coins on the bar to cover his drinks. He put on his hat and walked out of the Star Saloon and headed down the sidewalk towards Ford’s Theatre. He stopped next to the President’s carriage and looked at it. His eyes roved to and fro over the exterior and his lips broke into a leer. Abraham Lincoln was here, indeed. He would make his grand act before the world tonight. He walked on to the front of the theater and saw John Buckingham, the doorman with whom Booth was very friendly. As Booth approached him, Buckingham was looking in the other direction. When the doorman sensed someone approaching, he held out two fingers to take their ticket. Booth grabbed his two fingers with his hand, like a handshake and laughed.

  “Buck, you’ll get no ticket from me tonight.”

  “Why Wilkes Booth, how are you? In grand style as usual I see,” the doorman answered taking in Booth’s splendid suit of clothes.

  “How is the house tonight?” Booth asked.

  “Oh it’s a full house. Ford had the ads running this afternoon announcing Grant and Lincoln, so the whole city’s here to see them.”

  “Is that so?” Booth responded.

  “’Course, Grant didn’t come, but the President’s here.”

  “What time do you reckon it is?” Booth asked.

  “Step inside and see for yourself,” Buckingham answered, pulling open his empty watch pocket to show he had no watch on him. Booth stepped inside the door and walked into the lobby to look at the large clock mounted on the wall. It was 9:45. Booth slipped his hands into his coat pocket and felt the gun and knife, secure in his pocket. He paced back and forth and realized that he shouldn’t lurk in the lobby and walked back outside to return to Star’s.

  “I’ll see you, Booth,” Buckingham called after him. Booth had forgotten about his friend.

  “You’ll see me again,” he called over his shoulder.

  Abraham Lincoln sat back in the rocking chair and laughed long and hard. Mary, Clara, and Rathbone were laughing as well. Mary wasn’t sure if she was enjoying the play as much as she was enjoying her husband’s light spirit. He leaned forward and slapped his knee and shook his head.

  “Did you hear that, Mother,” he said to her. The floodlights for the stage were below the box and cast some light up to them. His eyes twinkled in merriment and he broke out in laughter again slapping his knee once more. She pulled her cape around her more closely.

  “Are you cold, Mother?” He asked.

  “I am chilly, aren’t you? You don’t even have your coat on and I am worried that you will become ill again.”

  “I am a bit chilly.” He winked at her and stood up and took his overcoat from the door where he had hung it. Lincoln had ordered his overcoat from the Brooks Brothers of New York. They were delighted to receive the order and went out of their way to make it special for the President. On the silk liner inside the coat, they had emblazoned a bald eagle holding in its beak two festoons bearing the words, ‘One Country, One Destiny.’ They told the President that if he wasn’t happy with the eagle, they would make him another one, but the special liner was their gift to him. Lincoln was delighted with the result and greatly enjoyed wearing the coat. He closed the door to the box after he shrugged the coat on. He slipped on his white gloves as he sat back down and took his wife’s gloved hand to help keep her hand warm.

  Henry Rathbone was also enjoying the play. He still sat on the opposite end of the sofa from the Lincolns in order to be closer to Clara Harris. Rathbone had barely noticed the movement from the corner of his eye when Lincoln stood up to get his coat. The second scene of the third act was just beginning and he leaned forward to see the players on the stage. Lincoln leaned forward again and placed his chin on his hands staring down at the actors on stage. His mind slipped from the play; it went through the various options that lay before him in reconstructing the Union that so many lives had been spent to save. He had no doubts that he would have fewer obstructionists with Congress out of session, but there was no clear-cut way for him to proceed. His principles were clear, but the pathway forward was not as plain. Still, Lincoln was confident. He had been at this place many times over the past three years. He knew that if he held to his principles, then the pathway would emerge from the tangle of politics and emotion and hatred that seemed to infect the Capitol. ‘We have won the war, now we must secure a lasting peace and be done with the hatred and bloodshed,’ he thought

  Lincoln had been looking from the stage to the orchestra section and back to the stage again. The words of the actor and actress weren’t really registering in his mind as he pondered the great conundrum of national peace and harmony that the nation now looked to him to solve. As he looked back to the orchestra section, he thought he recognized someone in the audience. He reached over and held back the flag that was draping the box up so that he could get a better view of the audience. He leaned forward a little and looked to his left.

  Wilkes Booth walked away from John Buckingham and Ford’s theater and went back to the Star. He called out to Taltavul as soon as he walked in the door for another brandy. The drink was sitting on the bar by the time Booth got to it.

  “Are you feeling okay, Wilkes? You look a bit peekid, the bartender commented.

  “I’ve been ill, but I’m better and about to be perfectly fine.” Booth held the glass up to his friend and downed the Brandy in one large gulp. Taltavul laughed and turned to help his other guests. Booth extended both arms and placed his hands on the bar. He leaned against it and took a couple gulps of breath to keep the liquor down. His stomach was churning in acid and his nerves felt like there were butterflies fluttering from his stomach to his throat. Booth breathed deeply and muttered to himself.

  “For God and Country. For the South, by God.” He took one more breath and stood up and walked out of the saloon. To those he passed on the sidewalk, he was an immaculately dressed man strolling at an easy pace. His calm appearance hid the tumble of emotions he felt within.

  “Wilkes, are you back so soon?” John Buckingham called to him.

  “Ay, I just want to check the time again, Buck, if you don’t mind,” Booth said and walked past the doorman to check the lobby clock.

  “What? Has Taltavul lost his clock?” Buckingham thought it odd that Booth was so obsessed with the time as he’d never known him to be a punctilious man. He watched him disappear into the theater and turned back to the chill of night outside. ‘It’s got to be
into the third act at this point,’ he thought.

  Booth entered the lobby and looked up at the clock. It was just after 10:00 PM. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets again and assured himself that his weapons were still there. He slowly walked up the stairway to the Dressing Circle. Once at the top of the steps, he stood along the back wall and looked down at the stage. It was indeed in the third act and the second scene was getting underway. Booth’s heart began to pound in his chest, urging time forward so he could do the deed. But he knew that the timing had to be just right if he was to jump to the stage and out of the backdoor at just the right moment. If done right, the audience, the actors, the stagehands would be spellbound and he would walk right past them unmolested. ‘No one else would dare do what I am about to do,’ he thought.

  Wilkes Booth slowly walked across the back of the dressing circle, keeping to the rear wall. A few audience members looked at him, sensing his presence. A few recognized him as the famous actor. As he approached the door to the box, Booth stepped past a couple of officers and then stopped in front of Charles Forbes, Lincoln’s footman, seated outside of the private box. He leaned down and presented the man with a calling card that said John Wilkes Booth on it. Booth leaned down to talk quietly into Forbes’ ear.

  “The President asked me to call on him,” Booth smiled ingratiatingly and nodded.

  “Are you sure? He didn’t say anythin’ to me,” Forbes whispered back.

  “Of course, I’m sure. But you can go and ask him yourself if you’d like to disturb him,” Booth continued to smile. His hazel eyes sparkled in the half-light of the theater.

  Forbes looked at the card and then looked up into the face of the famous actor. He simply nodded in reply and gestured towards the door. Booth moved around the man, descended the few steps, and opened the door to the small vestibule that led to the President’s Box. Once inside he closed the door and reached down for the piece of plank from the music stand that he’d left behind the door that afternoon. He quietly set one end into the divot he’d carved into the wall earlier and wedged the other side against the door. Booth took a breath and stepped back to make sure the wedge would hold. He was safely locked inside the vestibule with the President of the United States and no one could get inside to stop him. His heart began to pound and he could feel the perspiration beading up on his forehead. He turned around and faced the door to the box where the Presidential party was sitting. He quietly walked through the flickering lamplight of the vestibule and stood just outside, facing the closed door. He paused and strained to hear the dialogue on the stage.

  Laura Keene, as Mrs. Mountchessington, was saying, “Mr. Trenchard, you will please recollect you are addressing my daughter, and in my presence.”

  Then Harry Hawk, playing Asa Trenchard, responded, “Yes, I’m offering her my heart and hand just as she wants them, with nothing in ‘em.”

  “Augusta, dear, to your room.” The actress playing Mountchessington’s daughter exited the stage. Booth knew that there were just two actors on the stage at this point: Laura Keene and Harry Hawke. He had but a few lines until Laura Keene would exit and then Hawk would be alone on the stage. He would then utter the line that always received the largest laugh of the night from the audience. Booth stood there, feeling the second hand of time slow to an eternity between clicks. He wanted nothing more than to step through the door and commit the deed now. To be done with all of the waiting, the plotting, the planning, the failed attempts. Tonight would be a triumph for him and his beloved South.

  Booth quietly knelt down and peered through the peephole that he had drilled into the door that afternoon. He could see Lincoln’s head above the rocking chair, exactly where he needed him to be. He stood up, reminding himself that he’d need to determine who else was with the President and his wife when he stepped into the box. If there was a guard, then he was the only man who could stop him at that point.

  Through the door, he heard Keene utter, “I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you have been guilty.” In a huff, Keene’s character Mrs. Mountchessington exited the stage. It was now Harry Hawk occupying the stage. When Booth would leap to the stage, Hawk would be the only person between him and the ultimate exit. And Booth knew that Hawk would be too dumbfounded to attempt to accost him in any way.

  Now, Hawk would deliver the laugh line. As the actor began the line on the stage, Booth took the Deringer from his pocket in his right hand and cocked the hammer back. He grasped the knife in his left. The bright clean blade caught the licking flame of the lamp.

  John Wilkes Booth gently pushed the door open as Hawk said, “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal. You sockdologizing old mantrap!”

  It was but four feet from the door to the back of the rocking chair. As Booth stepped inside, he glanced to his right and saw that an officer was sitting at the far end of the sofa engrossed in the play. As Hawk finished his line, the entire theater broke into loud laughter and Booth was standing right behind Abraham Lincoln with the pistol held just behind his head.

  Supped Full on Horrors

  Lewis Powell sat astride his horse at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Madison Place at Lafayette Park. He stared at William Seward’s brightly lit home and wondered how many men were inside. He pondered on the number of soldiers who might be inside guarding the Secretary of State of the United States of America. It was plausible there were none, but likely a few. He had to discover which room the Secretary was in quickly or he would be trapped inside. He knew he had faced far different but more deadly situations with Mosby, so he felt confident though very nervous.

  “I see that you gave me the one-eyed horse,” Powell said quietly.

  “Well, I reckon you’re the better rider of the two of us. So, yeah, I gave her to you,” Herold answered. Herold rode on quietly next to Powell and stared at the young soldier. “What’re y’doin’?” He asked.

  “Plannin’. It makes the diff’rence between success and failure. ‘S what we did in the Rangers. Planned and succeeded,” Powell responded without looking back at his partner. “You ‘member the two things you gotta do?”

  “Don’ be bossin’ me aroun’.”

  “I ain’t bossin’. Just tryin’ to make sure you’re gonna be here ‘cause I can’t git outta here without you.”

  “I’ll be a’waitin’. Don’ you worry ‘bout that,” Herold responded and spit out tobacco juice on the street and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He watched Powell take a deep breath, slip off the horse and hand him the reins.

  “Good luck. I’ll be down at the corner a’waitin’ on ya.” He turned his horse and pulled Powell’s horse along with him riding slowly down the street and stopping beneath a gas lamp.

  Lewis Powell took the box in his hand and walked up to the gate that opened onto the sidewalk leading up to Seward’s home. He guessed that it must be after ten o’clock at this point. It was time for him to fulfill his duty. Powell uttered a silent prayer, opened the gate and slowly, but purposefully, and walked up the sidewalk to the front door of the house. Powell felt the same calm that covered him when he’d been in battle or on a mission with Mosby’s Rangers. He knew that from this point forward, there would be no pulling back. He simply would execute and fulfill his orders. It was a focus and a determination that possessed him like a spirit. When he stood in front of the door, he didn’t hesitate but reached up and knocked on the door firmly. A young Negro man answered the door. Powell stood a full five inches over the servant. The servant’s name was William Bell. He was well dressed and had been working in the Seward household for just nine months. He served as both doorman and waiter in the home.

  “Yes, suh?” Bell asked the tall well-dressed man, a strange sense of intimidation rising up inside his belly. Powell stood before him, calm and collected. He wore a light brown coat, black pants, and heavy boots
. His brown hat was pulled down a bit on his head so the light from the gas jets cast his eyes in shadow while he stood outside of the house.

  “I’ve come from Dr. Verdi with this medicine and’ve been instructed to give it to Secretary Seward myself.” Powell held up the small box wrapped in paper in his hand. He kept his other hand in his coat pocket, holding onto the Colt Navy pistol.

  “The Secretary’s asleep. So’s the rest of the house and not to be ‘sturbed. Please give me the medicine and I’ll see he gets it,” Bell replied holding out his hand. Powell stepped towards the door with his right foot on the threshold.

  “I’ve been instructed to give it directly to Secretary Seward and will give it to no one else.” Powell’s voice was firm and the doorman stepped back. He noted the sudden intensity in Powell’s voice and eyes. Bell was growing even more uneasy, but he allowed the visitor to step inside the house.

  “Sir, you can’t go up. Please give me the medicine and I’ll tell Mr. Seward how to take it,” he said as firmly as he could. Bell pushed the door closed behind Powell.

  “I must give it to him myself,” Powell responded and stepped past the servant. The servant had given him the first clue he needed to Seward’s whereabouts. He now knew that Seward’s room was “up,” so he headed towards the stairs located behind Bell, though he still needed to figure out if Seward was on the second or third floor. The doorman walked quickly to get in front of the insistent and threatening young man. Powell was wearing heavy boots and they clomped loudly as he walked up the steps.

  William Bell turned and looked back at Lewis Powell. “Please walk quietly as Mr. Seward is not well and needs his rest.” Powell gave him a blank look, anger rising up in him at being instructed in such a manner by a Negro. They started again, Powell clomping more loudly than before.