Booth’s Revenge Chapter Twelve

Previously: Just before shooting Lincoln, Booth thinks of the events leading to this moment.Stanton goes to Seward’s house when he hears of the stabbing. Someone tries to shoot Andrew Johnson. Gabby runs away from the basement in the rain.
Ward Lamon tapped the window of the train car as the engine chugged its way from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. Rain streamed down the pane blurring the passing dark landscape. Lamon did not notice. He was anxious to see his friend Abraham Lincoln after an absence of two and a half years.
They had been friends in Springfield, Il. Part of that time Lamon was Lincoln’s law partner. When Lincoln became president, he asked Lamon to be his bodyguard on the trip to the capital. Later Lamon served officially as Federal District Marshal and unofficially as the president’s protector. Many nights he slept on the floor outside Lincoln’s bedroom door to ward off assassins. Then one day in September of 1862, Lamon rode to a meeting on Capitol Hill in the carriage of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton told him the president had gone into hiding because of threats on his life. Doubles replaced both Lincoln and his wife. To insure the protection of the president, Stanton told him, Lamon had to pretend Lincoln was still living in the Executive Mansion.
Lamon never trusted Stanton, nor his personal bodyguard Lafayette Baker. Both of them were short men who bullied people to make themselves feel bigger. Since he himself was well over six feet in stature and burly in appearance, he had no need to bully people for respect.
Stanton told him that night to mind his own business and leave well enough alone. Baker smirked, which irritated Lamon to no end. He hated the man. Rumors circulated throughout Washington City about Baker’s nefarious history in California. The little man worked for companies that paid him to beat men to death who did not fall in line and accept low wages and stinking living conditions. Lamon believed every story.
He had pressed the Lincoln impersonator to tell him the truth during those two and a half years, but the impersonator had revealed little. Sitting in the railroad car staring out at the dark, Lamon remembered another train trip. He and the imposter were coming back from Gettysburg after the cemetery dedication. They looked out of the window as the train pulled into Washington City station.
Placing his hand over the double’s fist he whispered, “Say nothing but continue to wave. I’ll ask you questions, and you’ll respond by making a fist under my palm for yes. If the answer is no, flatten it. Is this plan really the plan of Mr. Stanton?”
The hand shook but did not change configuration.
“Is Mr. Stanton acting on the orders of Mr. Lincoln?”
He again made a quick fist, but his hand trembled.
“So Mr. Lincoln is not being held against his will?”
The hand went flat.
“Are you afraid?”
The hand stayed flat, but Lamon could sense beads of sweat popping up on the knuckles. Lamon wanted to jerk the man up by his shoulders and shake him. Be a man and tell the truth, he wanted to scream at him. You are not worthy even to pretend you are Abraham Lincoln, he wanted to yell. But, Lamon reminded himself, they were surrounded by people who did not need to know this man was not their commander-in-chief. Instead he patted the man’s hand. “Wave to the people, Mr. President.”
Cowardice was another personality trait the federal marshal did not understand. Lamon had never been afraid of anything, at least until this day as he rode the train to Baltimore. Now he feared he would not find President Lincoln in time to save his life. Shifting uncomfortably in the wooden bench seat on the train, he thought back to going to the Executive Mansion earlier that day. It was Good Friday morning, and he had implored the double to tell him where the real Lincoln was being held.
“Mr. Lincoln is going to die despite what I can do. I’m already dead.” After a pause the imposter added, “But we all don’t have to die.”
“That’s right,” Lamon told him. “Nobody has to die. Where is Mr. Lincoln?”
“Baltimore. Fort McHenry.”
“I’ll leave right now.”
The man grabbed Lamon’s arm. “Take the woman with you. I want her out of here tonight. I don’t trust Mr. Stanton.” Lamon offered to take him, but the man replied, “No, I have meetings to attend. People still have need to see their president.”
Lamon frowned as he recalled walking into Mrs. Lincoln’s bedroom where the woman sat by the window. “I’m leaving for Baltimore tonight. There’s no reason for you to stay.”
“I don’t want Tad to be alone. He’s been through so much, and he’s come to depend on me. I can’t let him down.”
As Lincoln’s friend continued to stare out of the rain-stained window, he decided he had been wrong about the imposters. At first, he thought they were despicable for participating in such a deception, but now he realized they were in the final analysis ordinary people forced into a terrible situation. And when the end was near, only thought of the good of others. Lamon hoped he would return from Baltimore with the president in time to save the couple. He realized their lives were in danger also. If Stanton were capable of kidnapping, he was capable of murder. Shaking his head to clear his mind, Lamon decided he would feel better once he had rescued Lincoln from Fort McHenry. The world would be set aright once he could look into the president’s eyes.
But what about looking into the eyes of his own wife back in Springfield? Lamon felt the back of his neck burn with guilt as he acknowledged he had set aside the needs of his own family when Lincoln became president. His first wife Angeline died in 1859. Two daughters, Kate and Julia, died in 1853 and 1854 respectively. Lamon asked his sister to raise his surviving daughter Dorothy. Right at the same time as the election in 1860, he married Sally Logan and immediately left his daughter and new wife to serve Lincoln in Washington City.
Sally and Dorothy saw him only occasionally in the first two years. After all, the nation and the president needed him. When Fort Sumter was under siege, the president sent him to Charleston as his special representative. Republicans criticized him for his failure to save the fort from falling. His wife and daughter never mentioned the war in their letters. They only said they wanted to see him again.
After September of 1862 when Lincoln allegedly went into hiding and an imposter took his place in the Executive Mansion, however, Lamon rarely made the train trip home to see his wife and daughter. He had to be in the White House constantly, looking for clues about the location of the real Lincoln and pushing the imposter for information. He even cancelled plans for his wedding anniversary with his wife to go with the imposter to Gettysburg. Her letters did not speak of her disappointment, but he could tell by her stiff penmanship she was in emotional pain.
Once the president was safe, Lamon told himself, once the crisis was officially over, he would return to his law practice in Springfield and be the proper husband to his wife and father to his dutiful daughters.

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