Lifting his Remington revolver, its deep blue finish catching the late afternoon sun over the Potomac River, the young man smiled confidently as he looked down the wide sight groove at the coarse, unruly black hair of Abraham Lincoln, convinced his actions would save his country.
“Mr. Lincoln,” said Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, causing the president to glance up from a file of Justice Department papers.
A quick smile flickered across Lincoln’s broad lips when he first focused on the short, thickset man with the pharaoh-like beard, but it faded when his shadowed, hollowed eyes noticed the slender, rusty-haired army private holding his .44 caliber cap-and-ball pistol.
“Mr. Stanton, I see you brought company with you today,” Lincoln said.
“Please come with us, Mr. President,” Stanton said.
“It’s for the best, sir. You’ll thank us eventually. Trust me.” The young man grinned broadly.
“Please come with us, Mr. President.” Stanton turned sharply. “Private Christy, shut up.”
“Yes, sir.” He quickly looked down at the worn carpet and shuffled his shiny new boots, which were partially covered by baggy dark trousers.
Putting a long, bony finger to his forehead, Lincoln surveyed the secretary of war. “For what will I thank you, eventually?”
“The boy spoke out of turn, sir.”
“Well, then, Mr. Stanton, may I inquire as to where you are taking me?”
Stanton removed his glasses, squinted, and took a deep breath, but before he could speak, Mary Todd Lincoln, wearing a flowing black brocaded silk dress over a rustling crinoline, swept into the room, waving a swatch of blue flowered-print cotton. The private concealed his revolver in his tunic.
“Father, Mrs. Keckley says I should move to a blue print from black but—” She stopped abruptly when she saw Stanton. Her eyebrows arched, and her lips pursed. “Oh. Excuse me. I didn’t know you were here.”
Stanton bowed.
“I suppose we can make Mrs. Keckley wait.” Mrs. Lincoln focused strictly on her husband, who was putting his personal effects aside, ready to rise.
“Please inform your dressmaker, Mrs. Lincoln, that she must return tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I go to Anderson Cottage tomorrow,” Mrs. Lincoln said, slapping the billowing folds of her dress with the blue cotton swatch. “This is totally unacceptable!”
“Now, Molly,” Lincoln said, finally making it to his feet and going to his wife’s side, his long, gangling arms around her soft shoulders. “I think it’d be best if you kindly suggest to Mrs. Keckley that it’d be more convenient for us if she visited you at the Soldiers’ Home tomorrow.”
“But, Mr. Lincoln—”
“Blame it on me, if you wish, Molly.”
“I certainly will!”
“Tell her it’s a matter of state, dear.”
“It’s a matter of foolishness.” Mrs. Lincoln sniffed and nodded curtly.
After his wife swirled from the room and down the private hallway to the oval family room, Lincoln returned his gaze to Stanton. “As you were saying?”
“Oh yes.” The secretary of war put his small pebble glasses back on his pocked nose. “The basement.”
“Not to review the kitchen staff, I presume.”
Stanton smiled and shook his head. “The billiards room.”
“These are desperate measures to round up competition for a game of billiards,” Lincoln said laconically.
Their eyes were drawn to the door as the sound of stomping female feet echoed through the hallway. Eventually Mrs. Lincoln emerged and placed her hands on her ample hips.
“Now Mr. Stanton,” Mrs. Lincoln said, “will you explain yourself?”
Private Adam Christy noticed Lincoln stepping back, glancing up at two cords over his desk, and slowly moving his hand up to the cord on the left.
Lincoln asked Stanton, “What are those cords?”
Stanton turned. “Don’t involve Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay.”
“Well,” Lincoln replied with a shrug, “I thought they’d enjoy a nice game of billiards.”
“Billiards!” Mrs. Lincoln shook her head and moaned in exasperation. “What depths of insanity is this?”
This is not insanity, Adam thought. Ending the war is not insanity. The good of the nation called for Lincoln’s temporary removal, Stanton had told him, so the correct decisions could be made to win the war.
“It’s time to go,” Stanton announced.
“Go where?” Mrs. Lincoln asked, edging toward hysteria. “Will someone please explain what’s happening?”
“To the basement, Molly.” Lincoln put his arm around her shoulder again and whispered, “Mr. Stanton wants to talk to us in the billiards room.”
“Why?” Mrs. Lincoln looked at the secretary with bemusement.
“Lack of interruptions, I assume,” her husband said. “The office is hectic.”
No talk, Adam thought, just sit down there until Stanton wins the war. He would have informed the president of that, but he did not want another withering rebuke.
“Mr. President, we must go,” the war secretary said.
Lincoln nodded as he eyed Stanton, then guided his wife through the door into the office waiting room. When they entered the president’s office vestibule, Stanton raised his hand.
“Wait.” He motioned to Adam. “Check the hallway and grand staircase landing.”
Adam hurried down the hall, noting every door was shut on each side of the board corridor. He stopped in his tracks as a tall, dignified black woman, modestly well-dressed, came from a door on the left, carrying a large carpetbag. Making eye contact with the woman, Adam dropped his jaw before composing himself and nodding to her. She examined the young man and crossed the hall to the door leading to the service stairs. Continuing to the end of the hall, Adam looked down on the landing covered with Brussels carpeting. He saw no one and hurried back through the ground-glass doors to the office vestibule.
“The way is clear,” he said, huffing with excitement.