A Night of Horrors: A Historical Thriller about the 24 Hours of Lincoln's Assassination (12 page)

“I s’pose you know we’re headin’ over to the Harris’ home?”

“Yes, sir.” Once Lincoln and Mary were settled into the back of the carriage, Burke set the horses in motion. Clara Harris lived with her father, Senator Harris, near Lafayette Park at 15
^th
and H Streets. Lafayette Park was just a block north of the Executive Mansion. Secretary Seward lived in Lafayette Park, while Gideon Welles, the Navy Secretary, was just across H Street from the park. Senator Harris and his family lived just off the park in their elegant home. Major Henry Rathbone had served as an officer in the Union army with valor. He was the stepson to Senator Harris and was engaged to his stepsister, Clara Harris, the Senator’s daughter. Clara Harris and Mary Lincoln had become friends, and as a result the two couples had spent time together during Lincoln’s tenure in the Executive Mansion.

The carriage pulled into the drive in front of the Harris mansion right at 8:00 PM, so the party was going to be late for the play. Major Rathbone had been looking at the window for the arrival of the President and the couple descended the front steps as the carriage was pulling up in front of the house. Major Rathbone was wearing his dress uniform. The crown of his head was nearly bald from a severely receding hairline. He sported a rather large mustache that was connected to bushy sideburns that came so low on his cheek they gave the appearance of a beard. Rathbone had kind eyes and a rather small head that belied his courage and strength. His fiancé was a beauty. She had her hair braided and rolled into a fashionable and elegant bun. She, like the First Lady, was wearing a bonnet and a silk spring dress. Their dresses bloomed out from around them, lifted by the full crinoline hidden beneath. They were fully and formally dressed for their night at the theater. Clara descended the steps with her arm in Major Rathbone’s. The foggy night had grown chilly and she had made sure that she wore a warm cape as Ford’s Theater had no central heat and could be rather cold by the third act of the play.

Lincoln hopped out of the carriage and handed Clara up the steps. “Good evenin’, Miss Harris. You look lovely this evenin’. Major.” He nodded at the Major and Rathbone waited for the President to climb back into the carriage and fold his long legs into a sitting position. As Rathbone sat down and pulled the door closed, Lincoln called to Burke to head for the theater.

“Oh, Mrs. Lincoln, did you go to the grand Illumination last evening?” Clara asked Mary.

“No, Clara, dear, we stayed home. Was it wonderful?” The First Lady asked.

“All of the buildings were lit up with candles and gas jets and festooned with flags. There were immense bonfires throughout the city and the streets flowed with people like a river with water.”

“My dear Clara, what a poetess you are!” Exclaimed Lincoln, flashing a smile at her through the dark.

“Yes, flowing with whiskey and ale, too, I might add,” remarked the Major. “There were a few times that I had to pull her to me in order to keep a drunken sot from tripping into her.”

“I am sure that you are not complaining about
that
work,” the President laughed and Clara blushed so deeply he could see her glowing through the dark.

“Henry, do you recall which building it was that had configured their gas jets to look like stars? It was so beautiful I thought I would weep,” she said looking to the Major.

“I cannot recall. We saw so many, but it was a sight to see. It was the Willard Hotel that used them to spell out the word ‘Union,’ wasn’t it?”

“Now that is a word that we can see and speak more often than not in the coming years,” Lincoln remarked.

“We went down to the Navy Yard today and walked around on the
USS Montauk
. It’s an ironclad monitor ship in for repairs,” Mary said to her friend.

“It’d seen some good hittin’ in her time. Bombarded Charleston Harbor to help liberate Fort Sumter,” Lincoln added. The party grew quiet for a moment. Lincoln looked out at the foggy night and the gaslights glowing. They had turned from the cobblestone of Pennsylvania Avenue and were now clopping down E Street, which was a dirt street. The carriage wheels were quieter now that they were off the cobblestones, but the carriage bounced along as the spring rains had rutted the dirt street and left potholes. From time to time a hotel would loom out of the fog as they went by. The President’s mind fell into the permutations and combinations of bringing the southern states back into the Union. As they turned onto 10
^th
Street, they could hear the barkers standing outside of Ford’s guiding them: “Ford’s Theatre this way! Ford’s this way!” They stood by fires burning in barrels and hallooed through the fog so patrons could find their way safely to the theater.

Burke pulled the carriage up to the carriage stone. The President hopped out and handed each of the ladies down; the Major joined them on the sidewalk. A handful of people had been waiting outside of the theater to see the President as he went inside. They stood and stared through the fog whispering and then broke into quiet applause and hurrahs. He turned to them and bowed his head as Mary took his arm and they walked into the theater. Once inside the lobby, Lincoln removed his stovepipe hat, white gloves, and overcoat and folded it over his left arm. Mary was wearing a light gray spring silk dress with black pinhead check and an old fashioned black coal scuttle bonnet trimmed with white satin. Over her dress, she was wearing a black velvet cloak edged with ermine, which she decided to leave on.

The party walked up the staircase that led to the dressing circle. As they quietly passed by the crowded house to the back of the dressing circle, members of the audience turned to see the President. A few in the audience were disappointed when they did not see General Grant, but a Major in his place. Most were pleased that the President had come to the show after all. Some in the audience began to stand and turn to face the President. On the stage, the actors realizing, that the President had arrived, adlibbed a few lines in honor of his arrival. “No they don’t see you … but they do see him!” The audience laughed and then wild applause broke out throughout the house. The entire audience now stood and turned to face the President and his party. Halfway across the back wall of the dressing circle, he stopped and took in the rounds of applause and cheers on his behalf. He bowed to them in recognition and then continued his progress across the back of the theater.

A young Army Surgeon named Charles Leale was sitting in the dressing circle and was struck by how sad and drawn the President appeared. His concern was brief, however, as he clapped as loudly as anyone in the theater as he was a strong supporter of the President and his policies. Leale was a young officer, just twenty-three years old, but the grinding machine of civil war had brought him more patients in a few short years than many would tend to in a lifetime. Though he was young, Leale’s hair was thin and receded well back from his forehead. He sported a thin moustache and sideburns that went down to his jaw line. He was devoted to his patients and would often work late into the evening. This past Tuesday, just three days before, Leale had left the hospital late in the evening and breathed in the fresh spring air. There was a quality to the breeze that only came in the springtime in Washington City and he relished the slight balminess of the breeze. He had decided to take a walk and refresh himself in the evening air. As he walked, he realized there were scores of people walking down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Executive Mansion. Leale had fallen into step with the growing crowds and as he had walked along, he had gathered that Abraham Lincoln was to make his first speech since Robert E. Lee had surrendered. This was an opportunity that he did not want to pass up. Leale had walked with the crowd onto the grounds of the Executive Mansion and had found himself standing very near the window from which Lincoln addressed the crowd. He had been close enough to distinctly hear the President describe what a reconstructed Union should look like, what steps the country should take to bring individual states in rebellion back into the fold, and the surprise announcement that he supported suffrage for Negroes who had fought for the Union and were intelligent. As Lincoln spoke, the lamplight from the room had created a halo around his head and shoulders. The President’s face had seemed to glow from the candle held over his speech so he could read it. As he had read from his prepared message, he had let each leaf of paper drop to the ground.

In the same crowd, John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell, and David Herold grew restless and angry as Lincoln made the case for Negro suffrage. But Charles Leale had walked slowly back to his room after that speech and reflected on the experience of listening to Lincoln. He was profoundly impressed with his appearance at the window bathed in rays of light that penetrated from the windows of the Executive Mansion.

Listening to the President was almost a religious experience for Doctor Leale and he committed to himself that he would take advantage of the next opportunity that presented itself for him to see or listen to Lincoln again. He had an intense desire to further study the characteristics of this man who was saving a nation. So when he learned earlier that day that Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses Grant, and possibly members of the Cabinet would be attending
Our American Cousin
at Ford’s Theatre that very night, Leale had gone directly to his Ward Master and let him know that he would be excusing himself for a few hours that evening. His rounds ran later than he’d planned, but some of his patients had pressing needs that he had to tend to.

Once Leale had finished, he rushed home to change into civilian clothes as he did not want to be detained by the provost marshals who invariably challenged men in uniform in Washington City to see their special pass that allowed them to be in the city. Leale arrived at the theater fifteen minutes after 8:00 and worried that he’d missed Lincoln’s entrance. He purchased a seat and planned to go to the orchestra section so that he could have a better view into the private box where the President would be sitting. As he entered the auditorium from the lobby, he quickly looked up to the President’s Box and saw that it had been decorated with flags and a portrait of George Washington. He also realized that it was empty and he had not missed the grand entrance of the man whom he had made special plans to study that night. To his disappointment, he saw that he would have to sit in the dressing circle because the orchestra was full. His spirits brightened when he found a single empty seat towards the front of the dress circle and just 40 feet from the President’s Box. As Leale was becoming engrossed in the play, a wild cheer broke out in the auditorium. He stood and turned to see President Lincoln making his way across the back of the dressing circle. He was walking with a young lady on his arm and a major was escorting Mrs. Lincoln behind them. So it wasn’t going to be General Grant and the Cabinet after all.

Dr. Leale was immediately struck by the President’s stoical face. His deep-set eyes gave him a pathetically sad appearance. He was surprised that the enthusiastically cheering audience did not seem to make him happier. Rather, he alone of all the members in the theater looked peculiarly sorrowful as he slowly walked with bowed head and drooping shoulders towards their box. He stopped and gave the audience a smile and bowed, but the happy expression was fleeting. The doctor thought it odd that at a moment such as this, a moment of victory and redemption for a nation, should create such sorrow in the man who had applied a firm and guiding hand to ensure a victorious outcome. He watched as Lincoln made his way to the box. The man in front guiding the party opened the door to four members of the Presidential party, closed it, and then took a seat outside the door. As he returned to his seat, Leale constantly looked over to the box to see if he could catch a glimpse of the President as the play proceeded. He could not see Lincoln too well, but he had been pleased with the clear view he had of him as he walked by to his box. Leale’s heart lifted and he felt like a boy gazing on his hero. As Lincoln and his party stepped down to the door that led to their private box, the actors returned to their play and the theatergoers all took their seats.

No one in the Presidential party noticed the plank of wood lying on the ground against the wall as they entered the small vestibule outside of their private box. Major Rathbone did not see the odd small hole that had been drilled into the door just above the doorknob. Lincoln took off his woolen overcoat and hung it on the door and slipped his white gloves into the pockets. He took his seat in the rocking chair that was farthest from the stage. Mary took the seat next to her husband. Rathbone escorted Clara to one of the chairs at the opposite end of the box and then he sat on the end of the sofa closest to his fiancé. Lincoln was pleased to see that the flags that draped the box sheltered him from prying eyes, but it also made it hard for him to see who was at the theater tonight. That was one of his favorite pastimes. He settled in and turned his attention to the stage and reached over to grab his wife’s hand.

“What will Miss Harris say, Husband?” She asked Lincoln in mock embarrassment.

“That I love my wife, I reckon,” was his response and he smiled at her. The glow of the footlights caught his brown eyes and they lit up just as they did back home in Springfield when he would talk of the future they would have together. She squeezed his hand and smiled warmly then turned her attention to the play already in progress on the stage below them.

The box the President sat in was actually designed by the Ford brothers more to allow the audience members to see the dignitaries who had secured the box than for the occupants to have a good view of the stage. It was just off the dressing circle that was the first level above the orchestra section in the theater. The dressing circle curved around the back of the theater and led to boxes at each end. The President’s box was stage left and literally was above the left side of the stage, so while prying eyes had just as good a vantage into the box as they did to the stage, those inside the box were virtually on the side of the stage and looking across the length of the stage. That was Ford’s genius, as the residents of Washington City were often more interested in watching statesmen and their wives out in public than they were the playacting on the stage.