Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

by Grahame-Smith, Seth

  His frustration (or his desire to throw Douglas off guard), led Abe to insert several thinly veiled references to the vampire threat during the final debate on October 15th.

  That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.

  Abe had electrified antislavery forces across Illinois and the North. Unfortunately senators were still elected by their state legislatures in 1858. The Democratic majority (or more accurately, its vampire backers) in Springfield sent Stephen Douglas back to Washington for another six years. “Another six years,” as Abe wrote in his journal, “of doing the bidding of Southern vampires.” For the first time in years, he found himself struggling with a bout of depression.

  I have failed the oppressed… the helpless faces crying out for justice. I have failed to meet the expectations of freedom-loving people everywhere. Is this the “purpose” which Henry so often speaks of? To fail?

  His melancholy wouldn’t last long. Three days after his defeat, Abe received a letter from Henry consisting of three short sentences.

  We are pleased to hear of your loss. Our plans continue unabated. Await further instructions.

  II

  The theater had become one of Abe’s favorite escapes over the years. Perhaps it was his love of storytelling that drew him in; the theatrical flourishes he added to his carefully scripted performances that allowed him to relate. Perhaps the nervous thrill he felt when speaking before thousands gave him an appreciation for the performers. Abe enjoyed musicals and operas, but he was particularly fond of plays (whether they were comedies or tragedies didn’t seem to matter). More than anything, he enjoyed seeing his beloved Shakespeare brought to life.

  And so it was with particular delight that Mary and I took in a performance of Julius Caesar on a blustery February evening—the recent troubles of the election behind us at last. Our dear friend Mayor [William] Jayne had been kind enough to lend us his box and its four seats.

  The Lincolns were joined that evening by Abe’s law partner Ward Hill Lamon and his thirty-four-year-old wife, Angelina. The production was, in Abe’s words, “a splendid spectacle of ancient dress and painted scenery”—with the exception of a misspoken line in the first act.

  I nearly broke out laughing when the wretched soothsayer warned Caesar: “Beware the Ides of April.” * I thought it a miracle (and a relief) that no one in the audience had snickered or yelled out a correction. How could such an error be made by an actor? Had my ears deceived me?

  In Act III, Scene 2, Marc Antony stood over Caesar’s slain, betrayed body and began the play’s most iconic speech:

  Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

  I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

  The evil that men do lives after them,

  The good is oft interred with their bones…

  Abe’s eyes welled up at the young actor’s impassioned delivery.

  I had read those words countless times; marveled at the genius of their construction. Only now, though, in the hands of this gifted young man did they ring true. Only now did I comprehend the whole of their meaning. “You all did love him once, not without cause,” he said. “What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him now?” Upon this, however, his speech came to a stop. He leapt from the stage and into the audience.

  What strange interpretation was this? We watched him, bemused yet fascinated, as he bounded toward our side of the theater and disappeared through the door which led to our box. Apprehension suddenly filled the whole of my body, for I was sure that he meant to make a spectacle of my being in attendance. I had reason to worry, for this had happened several times in the past. Such exhibitions were one of the perils of being a public figure, and [they] always produced in me no small measure of embarrassment.

  Just as Abe feared, the young actor entered the box with a flourish, drawing light laughter and applause from the audience. Every eye in the theater was trained on him as he stood behind the Lincolns and their guests. Abe smiled nervously, sure of what was coming next. But (to his surprise and relief) the actor simply continued his speech:

  “Oh judgment!” he cried. “Thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason!” Upon this, he produced a revolver from his costume, leveled it at the back of [Angelina’s] head, and fired. The noise quite frightened me, and I laughed, momentarily certain that this was all part of the play. But when I saw her dress covered with pieces of brain; when I saw her slump forward in her chair—the blood running not only from her wounds, but from her ears and nostrils as water from a well—I knew.

  Mary’s screams set off a panic below, the audience trampling each other to reach the rear of the hall. I drew the knife from my coat (I had taken to carrying one since my meeting with the Union) and rose to meet the bastard as Lamon attended to his wife, lifting her head and calling to her in vain as her blood poured over his hands. I reached the actor just as he leveled his pistol at Mary. I brought my blade down on him, sinking the whole of it into the muscle where his neck and shoulder met, causing him to drop the gun before he fired. I pulled my blade out and made to bury it again. Before I could, the world turned on its side.

  The young actor kicked Abe’s legs out from under him, sending him to the floor and sending the knife flying from his hands. Abe looked down the length of his body—toward the strange, pulsing pain coming from his left leg. It had been twisted at the knee so that it bent neither forward nor backward, but grotesquely to the side.

  At once I felt terribly sick. Seeing me in this state, Lamon left his wife and joined the fight. He turned to meet the devil with his own revolver, but before he could level it, the actor drove a fist into his mouth with such force as to push his teeth inward and loose his jaw from its hinge.

  A goddamned vampire…

  Mary could bear the scene no longer and fainted dead away, falling to the ground near her chair. Lamon stumbled backward and steadied himself against the railing—clutching at his jaw, instinctively trying to force it back into place. The vampire retrieved his weapon, leveled it at Lamon’s head, and fired, sending pieces of skull flying over the railing and onto the empty seats below. He was gone. The vampire next turned the gun on Mary, and despite my screams of protest, shot her through the chest as she slept. She would never wake.

  He came for me next, standing over me as I lay helpless. He aimed the barrel of his revolver at my head. Our eyes met.

  They were Henry’s eyes.

  “Sic semper tyrann—”

  The last word was cut off by the sound of the shot.

  Abe awoke with a start.

  He sat straight up in his bed and shielded his face with his hands, just as he had all those years ago, on the night he saw his father dealing with the devil. The night Jack Barts had condemned his mother to death.

  Mary slept peacefully by his side. His boys were safely in their beds. A thorough check of the house turned up no evidence of trespassers—living or otherwise. Still, Abe would sleep no more that February night. There’d been something so familiar about the dream. So real. He could see every detail of the theater in his mind; every detail of the costumes and scenery. He could feel the nauseating pain of his leg, and hear Angelina’s blood running onto the floor. But try as he might, Abe couldn’t remember those three damned words that his murderer uttered just before he woke. *

  Shortly after Abe’s dream, William Seward, still the heavy favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee in 1860, made a strange tactical decision:

  Seward has abruptly left for a tour of Europe, and shall be gone these next six months at least. What can it mean on the eve of so crucial an election? How can such an absence be to his advantage? There
are many who have criticized [the trip] as proof of his arrogance; his aloofness. I, however, am reluctant to levy such condemnation—for I suspect that he has been sent at the Union’s behest.

  Abe’s suspicion was confirmed by Henry’s next letter.

  Abraham,

  Our friend S has been sent on an errand—one which we hope will shore up support for our cause in the coming months and years. We now ask that you turn your whole heart toward that greatest of political contests.

  —H

  In Seward’s absence, Abe’s political allies worked to shore up support for a presidential run, while Abe worked on raising his national awareness. On the evening of February 27th, 1860, at New York’s Cooper Institute, he delivered what some historians consider to be the greatest political speech of all time to an audience of more than a thousand.

  “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us,” Abe shouted, “nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

  The full text ran in every major New York newspaper the next day, and within a couple of weeks, pamphlets containing “Lincoln’s Cooper Speech” were available throughout the North. Abe was emerging as the intellectual leader of the Republican Party, and its most gifted speaker.

  The Democratic Party, meanwhile, had been split in two.

  Northern Democrats nominated Abe’s old rival Stephen Douglas for president, while Southerners picked the incumbent vice president, John C. Breckenridge. The fracture was no accident. Rather, it was the result of a decades-long effort by the Union. Since the early nineteenth century, Henry and his allies had worked to undermine their enemies at every turn: ferrying slaves to the North on the Underground Railroad, dispatching spies across the South, and more recently, discouraging secessionist talk in state legislatures. But their greatest achievement came on May 18th, 1860, on the third ballot of the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

  Abe was in Springfield when he learned that he, not Seward, had been nominated for president.

  I can scarcely comprehend that such an honor has been bestowed upon me, and yet (and there is no hope of putting this modestly, so I shall not attempt to) it comes as no surprise. There is a war coming. It shall not be a war of man—but it is man who shall spill his blood fighting it—for it concerns his very right to be free. And I, of all men, must win it.

  III

  In 1860, presidential candidates weren’t expected to campaign on their own behalf. The speechmaking and handshaking were traditionally left to political allies and subordinates, while the candidates themselves remained behind the scenes, quietly writing letters and greeting well-wishers. Abe saw no reason to break with tradition. While his supporters (including Seward who, despite losing the nomination, threw his full weight behind Abe) tirelessly traveled the country on his behalf, candidate Lincoln remained with his family in Springfield. From an entry dated April 16th:

  I walk to and from my office each morning, greeting friends as I pass; thanking strangers for their good wishes. When my business is concluded, I gambol about with my two youngest at home before seeing them off to bed, and when the weather is suitable, I join Mary for a [walk]. Life is much as it ever was, with three exceptions—those being the three vampires who have come to keep watch over us.

  FIG. 13.2. - ABE POSES IN FRONT OF HIS FAMILY’S ABANDONED CABIN AT LITTLE PIGEON CREEK IN 1860 -- LEANING ON HIS TRUSTY OLD AXE. THE IMAGE WAS MEANT TO BOLSTER HIS REPUTATION AS A CANDIDATE WITH HUMBLE ROOTS, AND WAS CONCEIVED BY HENDRY STURGES HIMSELF.

  Abe’s swift-footed assailants had been reassigned by Henry and the Union. They were now his personal bodyguards, sworn to protect him at all costs.

  I suspect they are somewhat embittered for being thus assigned (though it is impossible to know, for they rarely speak). I have several times referred to them as my “unholy trinity” in jest, but this has yet to produce in them a single smile. They are a deadly serious lot. Which, I suppose, makes them well suited to the task of keeping me alive.

  Mary and the children were told that the men were “campaign volunteers” who’d come to ward off “overeager supporters.” It was a plausible explanation. Abe had become quite famous, and the Lincolns’ home was beset by well-wishers and favor seekers at all hours. But vampire bodyguards were only one of the secrets “Honest Old Abe” kept from his wife and adoring public that summer.

  He’d also scraped the rust off his ax.

  And for the first time, his target was a living man.

  Abraham,

  I must ask one more errand of you. He is one of your kind—but is looked after by two of mine at all times. Take every caution.

  Abe nearly gasped when he saw the name below…

  Jefferson Davis.

  There was hardly a more accomplished Southern politician in America. Davis had graduated from West Point, fought valiantly in the Mexican-American War, served as governor of Mississippi, served in Franklin Pierce’s cabinet, and been twice elected to the Senate. He was an outspoken proslavery advocate, and, as a former Secretary of War, the man best suited to lead the South against the better-armed, more populous North.

  This time, Abe refused to go.

  Henry,

  I am an old man with three sons and a wife who has wept over too many graves already. I will cause her no further grief by getting myself killed. Surely there are a hundred, or a thousand among your kind better suited to the task. Why must you prevail upon me when I am years removed from my best?

  Send someone else.

  Yours,

  —Abraham

  Henry’s reply came by express a mere four days after Abe sent his refusal off to New York.

  Abraham,

  It is a difficult thing to know the future. We see it reflected as in ripples of water—distorted and ever moving. There are moments, however, when the ripples subside and the reflection becomes clear. The Union saw one of those moments in your future that night in New York: you are destined to defeat Jefferson Davis, Abraham. You alone. Further, I do not believe that it is your destiny to die on this errand. I feel this with my whole self. I would not send you otherwise. It must be you, Abraham. I beg you reconsider.

  Ever,

  —H

  Abe was fifty-two years old. And while he remained remarkably agile for his age, he was a far cry from the young hunter who could split a log from fifty yards. He needed backup.

  I have sent word to Speed to meet me in Springfield at once, and—after a great deal of consideration—I have brought Lamon to the truth, as well. He thought me either “round the bend or a damned, lying fool” when first I revealed the story of vampires and their evil designs on man, and very nearly lost his temper—until I prevailed upon one of the trinity to confirm my story—which he did in dramatic fashion. There are few men who can be trusted in this war, and though [Lamon] and I disagree on a great many things (slavery being not the least of them), he has proven himself a loyal friend. With Jack gone, enlisting a man of his size seems prudent—particularly when Speed is so slight, and I am getting on in years.

  My God… I feel rather like [King] Henry at Harfleur. *

  In July, the three hunters traveled by train to Bolivar County, Mississippi, where, Abe had been told, Jefferson Davis was recovering after undergoing eye surgery. Concealed in their luggage was a traveling armory of revolvers, knives, crossbows, and Abe’s ax—newly sharpened, glistening once again. Candidate Lincoln had spent days secretly whittling new stakes for his quiver and fashioning a new chest plate to wear beneath his coat. He’d retreated to the woods with his ax and practiced throwing it into tree trunks ten, then twenty yards distant. He’d even dusted off his old martyr recipe and prepared a new batch.

  I insisted that the trinity remain in Springfield to look after my family. It was a simple errand, I told them. Our target was merely a living ma
n, after all—one rendered infirm and half-blind by surgery. Speed, Lamon, and I were more than capable of dispensing with Davis and his vampire minders.

  The hunters tied up their horses on the edge of Davis’s property just after one o’clock in the morning on Monday, July 30th. They kept their distance from the main house, lying in the surrounding woods for a watchful half hour, whispering occasionally, waiting in the faint light of a cloud-covered moon.