Andrew Johnson loved the earthy smell of a tavern. Cheap whiskey. Cheap cigars. Sweat of ordinary people who work hard for a living. Nothing and nobody fancy. Those were his people. Not those people in the president’s cabinet who looked down on him.
On his third or fourth cheap whiskey at Kirkwood’s—he couldn’t remember–Johnson was trying to forget how he had acted at the cabinet meeting that Good Friday afternoon. In fact, he wanted to forget how he had acted from the day he was sworn in as vice-president less than a month earlier. His inaugural speech was incoherent at best. Johnson thought he held his liquor better than that. Some friends tried to tell him an enemy probably slipped something into his drink before the ceremonies. He was not much of one for conspiracy theories, but he also did not want to think he was that irresponsible.
However, if there had been a conspiracy to make him look bad at the inauguration, Johnson would not have put it past Stanton to do it. Stanton, in fact, had been the object of his drunken outburst at the cabinet meeting. At one point, Johnson could no longer stand the way the Secretary of War was monopolizing the debate about the nation’s problems.
“One of those problems is why you insist on running this meeting,” he said, his voice barely below a bellow.
“That’s enough,” the president had said.
“Yes, sir. I know I don’t belong here.” He remembered stopping to point at Stanton. “But I can still smell a skunk.”
Johnson had only met Lincoln a few times before they became running mates. He had always liked him, but came to admire him since the election. There was something humble yet courageous that he found endearing. After the meeting, Johnson swung the president around and gave him a big bear hug.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you, Mr. President,” he blubbered. “I’m on your side, you know. It’s just I hate Stanton so much.”
“I know, I know.” The president pulled away. “Go home and drink some coffee. You’ll feel better.”
Johnson had not taken his advice. Instead, he went back to the Kirkwood and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking in the bar. At one point he decided to go back to the White and talk man to man with Lincoln about Stanton, but he overheard someone talk about how the president and his wife were going to Ford’s Theater.
“Yeah, I saw the carriage. Miz Lincoln was all decked out. Nothing new about that,” the man said loudly. “She’s gone got that purty dress all mussed up ‘cause it’s about to bust out rainin’.
Everyone else laughed and went back to their drinks. Johnson decided to do the same. After supper at the Kirkwood dining room, Johnson continued his tavern travels along Washington’s streets, made dark early because of the gathering storm clouds. The anonymity of darkness helped him forget what a miserable failure he was.
“Hey, buddy, you look like you need another drink,” a young man with dirty clothes and long straggly hair said as he leaned into Johnson. “Why don’t you buy yourself another one? And while you’re at it, buy one for me.”
Johnson looked at the man and chuckled. “Sure, why not?” He motioned to the bartender.
“Hey, buddy, you look familiar,” the young man said as he upended his glass quickly, part of the whiskey dripping down his chin. “Ain’t you famous or somethin’?”
“Me? Famous? Naw. I’m just an old drunk,” Johnson replied with a guffaw.
“That means you’re just like me,” the man said, his eyes twinkling through an alcoholic haze. “From one drunk to another, how about another drink?”
“Sure, why not?”
Finally, Johnson decided he had drunk enough to put him to sleep for the next twelve hours so he went back to the hotel. By then rain was beginning to fall. At the front desk, the clerk gave him a message. Johnson focused his eyes on the handwriting.
“Sorry I missed you, J.W. Booth,” he mumbled aloud. After a moment to think, he turned to the clerk. “Who the hell is that?”
“I think it’s the actor,” the man said softly.
Johnson knew the clerk was trying to ignore his condition and appreciated the effort. He smiled and shook his head.
“I’m not much for theater goin’. Maybe you can help me figure out who this fellow is.”
“Oh, he’s quite well known, Mr. Vice-President,” the clerk continued in a friendly manner. “Mostly does Shakespeare. From an acting family. Many people think he’s not as good as his father and brothers, but the ladies worship him.”
“Thank you very much,” Johnson replied. “But I don’t see why an actor would want to see me.”
“Well, after all, you are the Vice-President,” the clerk offered graciously.
“You’re much too kind,” he mumbled as his hand searched his pocket for some change. He carefully put a coin in the clerk’s hand. “Thank you for your consideration.”
“Any time, Mr. Vice-President.”
Johnson staggered toward the stairs and up to his room where he lit the oil lamp and proceeded to take off his wet coat, vest and tie. Collapsing in the bed, he lay there with his beefy arm over his eyes, trying to keep the room from swirling. Once his head settled a bit he reached over to pick up the photograph of his wife, who was still at home in Greeneville, Tennessee.
Johnson would never forget the day he met her. He was seventeen years old. Riding into town in a ramshackle old wagon with his mother and stepfather, he saw a group of girls standing by the side of the road snickering at them. He decided to ignore them. Girls made fun of him all the time because he was a big clumsy boy in tattered clothes and a member of the great unwashed. When his eyes darted back briefly at them Johnson noticed one of them was sniggering not at him but giggling because—dare he think it—because she liked him. He brushed the thought from his head. He was not going to stay in Greeneville anyway. He had better places to go.
However, within the year the girl sought him out and wore him down. She was Eliza McCardle and the daughter of a local shoemaker. They were married when they were both eighteen years old. He rented a house on Main Street and began a business as a tailor, the trade he had learned as a boy. In the evenings, Eliza began the arduous task of teaching him to read, write and do arithmetic. It took years before her lessons sunk into his thick skull.
As the years went by Johnson’s tailor shop became a gathering spot for local men to talk politics, particularly the success of fellow Tennessean Andrew Jackson. After the local college was organized, Johnson joined the debate team, for which he found he had a particular knack. Students from the college came to his tailor shop to engage in the political discussions. After a while, Johnson had enough self-confidence to run for town alderman. Surprising himself, he won.
Eliza decided he did not need her as his tutor any longer, and so she began having children, Charles, Mary and Robert. In the meantime, Johnson won seven terms in the state legislature. Then in 1843, he won election to Congress. Because of his roots in poverty, he always fought for the common man. Tennessee elected him governor for two terms. In 1857, the state legislature elected him a United States Senator.
And all this came about because a pretty girl giggled at him on the side of the road one day. How did he repay his dear, sweet Eliza? By maintaining his self-loathing and doubts, drowning them in alcohol. As a tireless defender of the underdog, Johnson won the love of his constituents, but that love never seemed enough. Now he found himself Vice-President of the United States, and what was he going to do? One of these days the people in Washington would find out he was nothing but an ignorant boy, dirty and in tattered clothes. What would he do then?
Johnson decided he was beginning to feel too sober and reached to open the drawer of the nightstand where he had stashed a pint of whiskey. He had to eradicate his fears, even if it meant drinking himself into a stupor. He uncorked the bottle but after only a couple of sips Johnson heard a knock at the door.
Struggling to his feet, Johnson absently carried the liquor bottle to the door, and when he opened it, he saw a middle-aged man with an uneven beard staring back at him. In one hand was a pistol, and in the other was a bottle. Johnson squinted as he tried to figure out what was going on.
“Verdammt, er ist grob,” the man muttered as he raised the bottle to his lips.
“What the hell does that mean?” Johnson asked as he took his bottle to his lips as well. “Speak English!”
“Dey said…you is bigger dan I dought,” the man replied as he stepped back.
“Fella, you ain’t makin’ no sense at all,” Johnson said, shaking his head. He could tell by the man’s eyes that he was scared. Scared and drunk.
“I can’t—I can’t do dis.”
“Do what? What the hell’s goin’ on here?”
Lightning lit the hallway briefly followed by an unusually loud clap of thunder. The man flinched, looked about, and continued to back away down the dark hall until he disappeared in the shadows. A few moments passed before Johnson’s mouth fell open. The man was there to shoot him. And I just stood there like a lump on a log, he said to himself. And who sent him? Someone else told him to shoot me, Johnson decided. If they were waiting for him outside, they might come up in a few minutes to finish the job. He shut the door and jammed a chair under the handle.
Johnson lurched to the bed and sipped from the bottle, trying to make sense of what had just happened. A thought crystallized in his alcohol-numbed brain. He held a liquor bottle as he faced his would-be assassin who held a liquor bottle. The man was too drunk to complete his mission. If Johnson continued to drink, he would not be able to complete his mission to help the common man. He could loathe himself for being the same as a failed assassin or he could change his life. After staring at the bottle for an interminable amount of time, Johnson stood and strode to the hotel window where he threw the bottle out into the dark. He stood at the window, listening for the sound of glass shattering against the cobblestones.
Sticking his head into the cool moist night air, he breathed in deeply to clear his mind. Never before in his life had he ever thrown away a perfectly good bottle of liquor. The thought had flitted through his brain a few times to do so, but he had never actually done it. Johnson wished his wife were there so he could hug her. How he had made her suffer silently through the years because of his drunken bouts. He went to the nightstand where he poured water into a basin and splashed it on his face, hoping to awaken and refocus his mind.
Mentally, he prepared a list of things to do the next morning. Go to the telegraph office and send a message to his wife about what happened to make him finally stop drinking. That was at the top of the list. Then go to the White House and apologize again to the President. No, Johnson decided, that was what a drunk would do, apologize over and over again and not meaning a damn word of it. He would show Lincoln through his actions that he was not a drunk anymore. He would go to his office and begin reading all the legislation he had pushed to the side for the last three weeks. Johnson vowed to himself to become intimately acquainted with each bill so he could properly defend the President’s agenda. Most vice-presidents had regarded their role as president of the Senate as a thankless, meaningless job. Johnson resolved he would think and act differently.
Another knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Turning, he wondered if “they”—the ones who had told the drunk to shoot him—had come to finish the job. In his younger years, Johnson would have flung open the door, grabbed the gun from the hand of the assailant, and beaten him with it, but he acknowledged he was an old man now who had a responsibility to stay alive for his family and his country.
“Who is it?” he called out in a strong voice.
“Mr. Vice-President!” a young voice replied loudly. “Major Eckert sent me!”
The name was not familiar to Johnson, but he could tell by the young man’s tone he was in earnest. “What’s this all about?” he asked as he removed the chair from the door.
“The president has been shot!”
“What the hell?” Johnson opened the door to see a private, still panting and his eyes wide with excitement. He was drenched by the rain.
“He and his wife were at Ford’s Theater watching this play and while everybody was laughing—I don’t know what the joke was but it must have been awful funny because everybody was laughing and this guy shot the President in the back of the head, and everybody stopped laughing because the President’s wife Mrs. Lincoln started screaming and this man jumped to the stage and…”
“Please, private,” Johnson interrupted in a mellow voice, “please take a moment to compose your thoughts. I know this must be very frightening for you. I’m kind of scared myself.”
“But—“
“Sshh.” Johnson gently put his hand on the private’s shoulder. “You and I ain’t going to catch the attacker any time soon by ourselves. Take a deep breath.” He smiled. “You remind me of my son back in Tennessee. Mighty fine young man he is.”
The young man smiled timorously and looked into Johnson’s eyes. “Thank you, sir. Mighty kind of you, sir.”
After a moment, Johnson asked softly, “How badly hurt was the President?”
“I don’t know for sure. The doctors are tending to him now. Across the street from the theater. A boardinghouse. Peterson’s, I think. The way the folks were acting in the hallway there, it don’t look good.”
“Did they capture the man?”
“No, he jumped from the president’s box to the stage and ran out the back. I don’t think anyone knew what was going on until he was gone and Mrs. Lincoln started screaming. I don’t know for sure, sir. I wasn’t there. Major Eckert ordered me to the boardinghouse only about an hour ago. I work for him at the Military Telegraph Bureau.”
“Do they know who it was?”
“I heard on the street that it was the actor, John Wilkes Booth,” the private replied. “But I don’t take much stock in what—“
“Did you say John Wilkes Booth?” Johnson said, remembering the note. He pulled it from his pants pocket to read it again.
Sorry I missed you. J.W. Booth.
“You ever see him on stage?” the soldier asked. “I don’t go to the theater myself but I understand all the young ladies have a soft spot for him.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Johnson mumbled. Was Booth the same man who had knocked on his door, he wondered. Johnson dismissed the thought. The man he saw was not an actor.
“I also heard Secretary of State Seward has been stabbed,” the private added.
“What? Seward too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, sir,” the private replied. “But he’s hurt real bad.”
“A man just knocked at my door within the last hour,” Johnson said, almost to himself. “He had a pistol. I think he intended to kill me.”
“They’re out to bring down the whole government,” the soldier said, shaking his head.
“They?” Johnson thought about what the drunk had said at the door.
They told me….
“Does anyone have any idea who they are?”
“No, sir.” The private hung his head.
“Well,” Johnson said patting him on the shoulder, “we won’t let anybody bring the government down, will we, boy?”
He smiled. “No, sir. We won’t.”
“I suppose you just ran over from the boardinghouse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m too old to do any running tonight. Will you please flag down a carriage for us while I get my coat?”
“Yes sir.”
After he put on his coat and tie, Johnson considered asking the hotel for coffee. No, he did not have time for that. He had to force his mind to focus on the task in front of him. Knowing Stanton as well as he did, Johnson expected to see him at the boarding house set up as commander-in-chief. He had to brace himself for a confrontation with the secretary of war.
Downstairs he dashed from the hotel to the open carriage door. He waved to the private to join him.
“No, no, sir. I’ll walk back.”
“Nonsense. Get in. It’s pouring!”
As they rode to the Peterson House, Johnson amiably asked the soldier questions. Where was he from? Did he see much action during the war? When was the last time he saw his family? The private answered every one of them with a smile, though Johnson did not hear any of it. He just nodded and smiled, his mind trying to figure out why John Wilkes Booth would have called on him at his hotel just hours before shooting the president.
Johnson’s head was swirling with questions. Who were the mysterious “they” mentioned by his own would-be assassin? If the president, secretary of state and vice-president had been marked for murder, Johnson thought, why had no one tried to kill Stanton?
The carriage stopped at the boardinghouse, and the private pushed through the crowd, making way for the vice-president. Dozens of hands reached out to touch him. Johnson tried to make contact with as many of them as possible. These were the common people. His people and they needed to know their government was going to be all right. Inside, Johnson stopped for a brief moment as he surveyed the crowded halls and staircase.
“This way, Mr. Vice-President,” the soldier said, leading him down the hall.
Johnson saw other Cabinet members milling about. Military officers shouted orders to privates who scurried from place to place. He paused by the back room where the President lay at an angle on a bed. Lincoln’s face was ashen. Doctors conferred over him and shook their heads.
“Mr. Stanton is across the hall,” the private whispered.
Johnson stepped into the parlor where, as he suspected, Stanton was in his natural environment, writing telegrams and giving orders. Officers brushed past the Vice-President, barely acknowledging he was there. When Stanton failed to look up, Johnson cleared his throat.
“Mr. Stanton,” he said in a firm loud voice, “what are the President’s chances of survival?”
Stanton stopped making notes long enough to glance up. When his eyes focused through his small glasses, he dropped his pencil and his mouth fell open. Johnson always prided himself on his ability to read the expressions on men’s faces, and what he saw on Stanton’s face was shock and fear.
“My God,” Stanton finally said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the vice-president. I’m supposed to be here.”
“I mean,” Stanton fumbled with his words. “Thank God they didn’t shoot you too.”
Once again, Johnson observed, the mysterious “they”.