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. Anna Surratt pleads for her mother’s life. Johnson grants a reprieve.
As the carriage pulled up in front of the prison, Lamon frowned as he saw the large milling crowd. He and Anna lunged through the masses. Lamon waved the reprieve over his head. “Make way! Make way! The President has granted a stay of execution!”
Placing Anna behind him, Lamon elbowed and shoved through the human barricade. Just as he thought their cause was lost, he noticed a Union soldier step forward with his rifle. The screams were deafening but he thought he heard Anna gasped.
“You—it’s you!”
The soldier put a finger to his lips. “Shush, young lady. We have no time! We must save them!”
Furrowing his brow, Lamon wondered who this young man was. He had black unruly hair, muttonchops on his fair cheeks and an absurdly large handlebar moustache. The soldier stepped in front of them and began swinging his rifle. The mob melted away in front of him.
“Make way! Reprieves for the accused! By order of the President!”
The private’s commanding voice impressed Lamon with its deep, resounding authority. He also noticed the soldier walked with a limp, which did not stop him from making extraordinary progress to the prison yard gate. Stretching himself to his full height, Lamon could see over the heads of the witnesses. On the scaffold, guards placed hoods on the prisoners’ heads.
The soldier banged on the iron gate. “Let us in! On the orders of President Johnson!”
Nodding, the guard opened the entrance. However, they only took a few steps. Two men, dressed as befitted members of Congress, linked their arms to bar Lamon and his companions from taking another step.
“Make way! We have the President’s mandate!” the soldier boomed.
“The President?” one of the men replied with a sneering tone. “I know Mr. Johnson personally, and he is a man of measured judgments.” He shook his head. “He would not take such a precipitant action.”
Lamon pushed the soldier aside to make eye contact with the men. He recognized them. One was Representative Preston King of New York and the other Senator James Lane of Kansas. He knew them both to be of the radical wing of the Republican Party and men of a self-serving nature, quick to be bold when it was to their own benefit.
“What have you been paid?” Lamon asked with frank candor.
“I beg your pardon?” Lane was indignant.
“You know what I mean.” Lamon stepped closer so he was nose to nose with the senator. “Is it an appointment?” He jerked his head to stare at King. “An ambassadorship? Customs collector?”
King’s mouth flew open but only startled moans and grunts came out.
Lamon looked over King’s head, across the crowded yard to the top of the scaffold. He saw Gen. John Hartranft reading from a folder of documents. Lamon had to deliver the reprieves to Hartranft. “The general is reading the order of execution! We have no time to argue!” His voice grew intense.
“Stand aside, gentlemen!” The soldier held his rifle at a diagonal position and pushed against the two men.
Lane pressed back. “Don’t you ever take such liberties with me again, young man!”
“Mama! Mama!” Anna tried to angle her way between the congressmen. “I’m here, Mama!”
Lamon watched Mrs. Surratt as she stood still as the soldiers placed the noose around her neck. She didn’t react to Anna’s voice. They were too far away for anyone standing on the platform to hear them. Lamon knew they had to move closer to stop the executions.
“Here, Mama! We have a reprieve!”
“Don’t tell her that!” King put his hand over Anna’s mouth. “Don’t give your mother false hope. I don’t care what you have on that piece of paper. She is going to die today!”
“You cannot make that decision yourself!” Lamon forced himself to speak in a calmer voice, realizing the forceful approach was not working. “Gen. Hartranft is in charge here. Let him read the document and make the final decision.”
“We are willing to take the responsibility.” Lane lifted his chin in defiance.
“Yes, we are,” King echoed in a voice tinged with uncertainty.
“Oh, really?” the soldier asked.
His tone captured Lamon’s attention, and he turned to stare at the private.
“And what are your names?” the soldier asked. “Who are you to be so brave in taking a woman’s life?”
“We—we don’t have to tell you anything,” King replied in a whisper.
“They’re Senator James Lane of Kansas and Representative Preston King of New York,” Lamon interceded. “Get accustomed to hearing your names repeated, gentlemen, as the brave men who refused to save the life of the first woman ever executed in the United States of America.”
Lamon looked up at the platform again. The tall one, Paine, stepped forward, and Lamon could tell he was saying something but he could not make out what it was. They had to move closer. Lamon pushed against the congressmen.
“Your time is up, gentlemen. Let us through now!” He resumed his militant approach.
“You can’t threaten us! Leave!” King pushed the soldier’s rifle down.
The private delivered a mighty uppercut to the congressman’s chin with the butt of his rifle, throwing King off balance.
“Guards!” Lane screamed in an uncharacteristically high pitch. “We’re being attacked!”
Lamon felt hands on his shoulders, pulling him back and down to the ground. Landing on top of him was Anna. He twisted his head about to see if the private, in the split second of chaos, had made it past the congressmen and across the yard to Gen. Hartranft. Lamon watched as a guard grabbed the private’s rifle. The private disappeared in the crowd, but Lamon could not tell where he had gone.
“Oh my God, no!” Anna yelled.
Lamon looked up just as guards pulled the lever, releasing the trap door beneath the feet of Mrs. Surratt, Herold, Paine and Atzerodt. As the bodies fell with a thump, Anna turned her head to cry into Lamon’s shoulder. He became aware of the envelope still in his grasp. A hand reached down to snatch it away.
“And I’ll take that, thank you,” Representative King said in a clipped tone before he and Senator Lane melted into the mob.