Author’s note: This is the sequel to my novel Lincoln in the Basement which I just serialized on this blog.
Lifting his small brass derringer, its sheen catching light from the flickering oil lamps in Ford’s Theater, John Wilkes Booth smiled with confidence as he looked down the narrow sight groove at the coarse, unruly black hair of Abraham Lincoln, convinced his actions would avenge the devastation wrought upon his country.
Booth considered the South to be his motherland even though he was born in Maryland and traveled the northern states as well as southern states performing to packed theaters. On October 16, 1859, John Brown and his band attacked Harper’s Ferry. Federal troops with quickness and ease captured him and took him to Charlestown, Md., for trial that took place in November. The judge sentenced Brown to hang on December 2. Two weeks before the execution, Booth heard rumors while he was performing at Marshall Theater in Richmond that abolitionists planned to rescue Brown. Booth bought a Union uniform from some solder friends, joined the Richmond Grays Company F, and got on the train to stop the abolitionists in their mission. The raid never occurred, but Booth and his comrades in arms stood guard at the gallows during the execution. Brown’s demeanor impressed Booth that he wrote in a letter to his sister Asia that Brown “was a brave old man.” After war was declared he decided against going South to wear a real uniform in a real army because he feared his face would be scarred in battle. Conflicts of conscience last only a few years at most, but a marred face would ruin his career on stage forever, and Booth could not risk that.
In the last year of the war, when he realized the cause was in jeopardy, Booth began to concoct a way he could save his adopted nation. He decided to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and hold him for ransom, demanding the release of thousands of rebel troops held in northern prisons. Booth gathered a group of old friends and new followers. They waited for Lincoln on the road to the Soldiers Home north of the Capital. After a few hours, they realized the president was not going to show up.
Before Booth could devise another scheme, the Chief Justice swore Lincoln into a second term as President on March 4 in the Senate chamber. Lincoln then walked out to the platform built on the Capitol steps to deliver his inaugural address. Booth and his comrades stood on the steps only a few feet from the President when he stated citizenship was coming for former slaves.
“That’s colored suffrage,” Booth muttered that night as he shared a whiskey with his friends at the bar next to Ford’s Theater. “He has signed his own death warrant.”
His indignation only grew only the next few weeks as the Confederate forces continued to suffer one setback after another until the Gray army evacuated Richmond on April 3, and the Blue army marched in the next day. Booth toured several cities in the North, including Boston and New York, visiting his brother Edwin and several friends, dropping obscure hints that they might never see him again. On April 9, he returned to Washington City and gathered around him his old conspirators, the ones who took part in his failed attempts to kidnap the President.
His chance to avenge the South and stop the encroachment of colored people into proper society accidentally fell into place only one week ago. Booth was visiting Mary Surratt at her boarding house. Her son John had been with Booth the night they planned to kidnap Lincoln. Surratt had not shown proper outraged by Lincoln’s inaugural address, Booth thought. Besides, he had seen this behavior before in his childhood friends Michael O’Laughlen and Samuel Arnold. They seemed interested in the kidnapping plot at first but lost interest when they considered the risks of in reality killing the president. Mrs. Surratt, on the other hand, had the proper outrage and gumption to follow through on any plot to help the Old South. That was why he visited her boarding house. It was a viper’s nest of discontented southern sympathizers.
Once inside, he saw a young man in a Union uniform standing in the parlor. Booth noticed by how much they looked alike, almost the same age, the same lithe physique but different hair color. This young man had bright red hair. Moreover, pockmarks covered his face. Booth decided the private was not as handsome as he was. Booth started an innocent conversation with the soldier.
The young man’s name was Adam Christy and said he worked at the Executive Mansion but demurred to elaborate on his duties. The exchange was provocative but subtle. Booth sensed great distress in Christy. He was innately kind, Booth could tell, but he had a great hidden dark passion. Booth felt Christy could help him get close to President Lincoln.
He was right. The next day Christy returned to Mrs. Surratt’s boardinghouse and told Booth he knew someone who could help him kill the president.
“Bring your cohorts to the Aqueduct Bridge at midnight,” Christy instructed, “and you will learn how to avenge your dead Confederacy.”
At midnight, Booth arrived with his men. As he suspected, John Surratt had no stomach for assassination and fled to Canada. Those remaining loyal were John Atzerodt, Lewis Payne and David Herold. Booth felt reassured when he saw Christy, with whom he was beginning to feel like a big brother. His brow furrowed as he noticed how nervous Christy was. Booth decided the private was scared of the man who was waiting for them, a short, bull of a man, puffing on a cigar and patting his foot impatiently in the ripples of the Potomac River hitting the shore.
Shadows hid the man’s face. He seized control of the conversation, telling them to forget the Confederacy. The Confederacy was dead. Get revenge, the man said. He ridiculed Atzerodt’s German accent and the trace of alcohol on his breath. He scoffed at the lack of intelligence in Payne and Herold.
“You, sir, are no gentleman,” Booth, with his nose upturned, accused him.
The short man snorted in derision, dismissing Booth’s Southern sensibilities. He began assigning assassination duties. Atzerodt would kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at his Kirkwood Hotel room. Payne and Herold would kill Secretary of State William Seward at his home. Seward was near death anyway after a recent carriage accident had left him bedridden. Finally, Booth would kill President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater during a performance of Our American Cousin. All this would take place on Good Friday.
“And what are you going to do?” Booth demanded.
“I’m going to kill Secretary of War Edwin Stanton,” the man replied.
“And why do you want to kill him?”
“I have my reasons to hate him.”
Booth sensed something wrong as they stood under Aqueduct Bridge at midnight. Adam Christy seemed uneasy. The mysterious man was gruff and secretive. During all his years on stage, Booth had developed his instincts, and his instincts told him to walk away. His intense hatred of Lincoln and the president’s advocacy of Negro suffrage made Booth ignore his gut feelings and agree to the assassination details.