Booth’s Revenge Chapter Forty-Three

Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Baker saves Booth’s life at Garrett’s farm. Lincoln’s friend Lamon interviews Mrs. Surratt and others in prison.The doctor who attended Lincoln on his deathbed, attends the trial with a man who claims to be Lincoln’s stepbrother.
Andrew Johnson shifted in his bed, first to one side and then to the other. His thick shoulders shuddered and his eyes twitched. A general physical malaise settled throughout his body for almost a week during the closing arguments and deliberations in the assassination conspiracy trial. Rumors on the street had it that the newly installed president had drifted into old, bad habits of alcohol abuse and suffered from an extreme case of delirium tremens. His hair stuck to his forehead from perspiration while his face contorted in emotional pain. In his dreams, Johnson was back in the pigsty in Greeneville, Tenn., slowly sinking into the muck as toothless old men and sassy young ladies dressed in their Sunday finest pointed at him and laughed.
“President of the United States? Why he wouldn’t even make a good town drunk!”
“Poor as snot! What Eliza McCardle ever saw in him I’ll never know!”
Johnson flailed about to avoid being sucked under the pigsty sludge. Screaming, he sat up in bed, opened his eyes and looked about the room, panting in fear that some political enemy had heard him. Seeing his wife Eliza by his side calmed him, and Johnson fell back against the pillow. She and their daughter Martha had joined him in Washington City from their home in Tennessee at the end of May. It was comforting to have them with him at last. Forcing a wan smile, he reached out to pat Eliza’s pale cheek.
His wife suffered from tuberculosis, which sapped her energy and relegated her to a wheelchair. Johnson knew the trip from Tennessee and her subsequent activities at the Executive Mansion weakened her further, even though Martha had assumed most of the duties of running the house. Her husband David Patterson would join them soon. The Tennessee legislature had just elected him U.S. senator.
Johnson longed to have the rest of his family around him. They always sustained him in times of anxiety. His oldest son Robert was a colonel during the war, and his presence soothed Johnson more as a trusted longtime friend than as an obedient son, such as Andrew Junior, who was only thirteen.
Johnson had another married daughter Mary Stover. The two daughters had five grandchildren whose laughter and games entertained their grandfather. However, three were still in Tennessee, and Johnson had to rely on his infirmed wife and his daughter Martha’s two children for comfort.
“What day is it? Has the commission made its decision?” he asked.
“It’s Wednesday, July 5,” she replied in a soft voice, the corners of her thin mouth turned up in a patient smile. “They made their decision June 30 and sealed it. They were waiting for you to recover before sending it over to you.”
Johnson clinched his jaw. “They all think I’ve been out on a drunk. I can just hear those damned Republicans spreading lies about me.” He glanced at his wife. “You know I ain’t been drinking. It’s a three-day bellyache gone bad, that’s all.”
“Of course it is, dear. All you needed is bed rest and quiet. That’s what the doctor said. I can tell you are feeling better.” She smiled again. “You’re complaining again. Up to now you’ve been too sick to grumble about anything.”
“It’s the damned trial.” His watery eyes went to the ceiling. “It’s a huge damned mess, and I can’t do anything about it.”
“You fret too much. You’ve always been like that. You fret yourself into a three-day bellyache, and I can’t keep you from it. You just have to work it out yourself, like you always do.”
“How about you?” Johnson turned his head and furrowed his brow. “How do you feel? Breathing all right?”
Eliza chuckled and looked away. “I’m as well as I’m supposed to, considering the circumstances.”
She focused on him and straightened her fragile jaw. “Are you up to a visit from the commission? You have to read the verdicts and approve the sentences. They said the review could take several hours. Think you can handle it?”
“Oh, hell. Tell them to come on over. I want this damn thing finished.”
By afternoon, commission chairman Joseph Holt arrived with the documents and by nightfall Johnson agreed to death by hanging for Mrs. Surratt, Herold, Atzerodt and Paine. All the others, including Dr. Mudd, received prison sentences on the Dry Tortugas of the Florida Keys.
They scheduled the hangings for 1 p.m. Friday, July 7.
As Holt left, Johnson felt a sense of relief that the national nightmare was almost over, and his tortured stomach began to heal. On the other hand, doubts crept into his mind. How could a callow, vainglorious actor such as Booth organize a group of simple-minded misfits into a murderous cabal attempting to bring down the government of the United States?
***
Late Wednesday afternoon, Edwin Stanton strolled through the open-air market down by the iron bridge that crossed the Mall slough over to Smithsonian Museum and the veterans’ hospital. Shopping for apples and onions was about the only pleasure he took from life any more. Dining out was too much trouble, and strangers were always approaching him with little requests about family members. Usually they were matters that were beyond his authority to grant, or matters he cared not to consider. The theater was a silly waste of time, and dinner parties at the homes of congressmen went beyond of the pall of boredom.
On this particular afternoon, his purpose was more than the purchase of fruits and vegetables. Stanton waited for Preston King and James Lane. He had never cared for either man, finding them mundane and egocentric, but they presented themselves to him on the night of the assassination as eager players in the convoluted games of Washington politics.
Initially, he asked them to go to Andrew Johnson’s room in the Kirkwood Hotel the morning Lincoln died. Ostensibly, they were to help prepare the Vice-President to assume the executive duties. In actuality, Stanton wanted King and Lane were to observe Johnson’s behavior and report their findings back to him. If possible, they were to encourage him to succumb to alcohol so that his swearing-in would be a repeat of the inauguration debacle. Now Stanton had another assignment for them.
“Mr. Secretary, what a surprise to find you here!” King bellowed as he slapped Stanton on the back with a bit too much enthusiasm.
“Dammit, you’re too loud,” Lane hissed as he maneuvered himself to the other side of Stanton.
The war secretary kept his eyes on the basket of onions. “The verdict has been rendered. The President set the executions for Friday, July 7 in the yard of the Old Capitol Prison. I want you there as my witnesses.”
“Yes, sir. Glad to be of service, sir.” King noticed Stanton arch his eyebrow. He coughed and looked down. “Forgive my enthusiasm. After all, it isn’t every day you see a woman hang.”

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