Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer. Booth and Herold join across the river in Maryland.Booth remembers Dr. Mudd lives nearby.
Stanton stood and walked to the door and opened it. In the early morning hours of Saturday, April 15, noise subsided at Peterson’s boarding house across the street from Ford’s Theater. Soldiers sat on the stairs and leaned against the walls, waiting for the inevitable announcement that Abraham Lincoln was dead. Edwin Stanton was deep in thought when a commotion erupted outside the back parlor door.
“I demand to speak to the man in charge!” a voice called out urgently in a thick German accent.
“Secretary Stanton is very busy at this time,” Captain Eckert said in a muted tone.
“But this is mein house!”
Stanton barged through the bedroom door to glare at the man. “What’s going on here?”
“This is mein house!”
“So you are the proprietor of this boarding house. What’s the problem?” Stanton asked, staring without expression at the disheveled man.
“That boy did not have the right to let you come in here. This is mein house!”
“What boy is he talking about, Eckert?”
“Henry Stafford,” the captain replied. “He’s the one who waved us over from Ford’s Theater.”
“Now there is blood all over mein floors!”
“Exactly what is your name?” Stanton demanded. “You don’t sound like an American, if I may say so.”
“I am Wilhelm Pedersen, I mean, William Petersen, und I am an American citizen. I have owned this house since 1845, und I know the Constitution. You cannot billet a soldier in a private home without permission of the owner!”
“This is not a soldier but the President of the United States.”
“The President is commander-in-chief of all armed forces, und that makes him a soldier!” Petersen insisted.
“The President of the United States is in that bedroom,” Stanton stated, pointing across the hall, “fighting for his life. If you continue to make a commotion, it will further deteriorate his condition. If he dies you could be charged as an accessory to his assassination.”
Petersen’s mouth fell open. “But his blood is on mein floor.”
“And who did you vote for in the last election?” Stanton asked, stepping forward.
Cursing in German, Petersen turned away and stomped upstairs. Stanton heard him go up to the third floor and slam a door.
“Very well handled, Mr. Secretary.”
Stanton turned to see two men, one short and the other tall. He knew they were U.S. senators but at the moment could not recall their names.
“I’ve always admired your way of handling people,” the short man continued. “My friend, Sen. James Lane, and I felt we must pay our condolences as it were.”
Is the president still among us, to phrase it delicately?” Sen. Lane leaned in and smiled.
“The president is not expected to survive the night, Sen. Lane,” Stanton said, taking a step back to avoid the stench of onions and beer on the senator’s breath.
The short man extended his hand. “I am Sen. Preston King of New York. Surely you remember me. I have been one of the president’s biggest supporters.”
“You’re no bigger a supporter of the president than any other Republican,” Lane replied in a raspy voice. “If you’re a Republican, you support Abraham Lincoln. That’s all there is to it.”
Stanton began to tap his foot. “We appreciate your support, gentlemen. I do not want to risk the health of two of our most important senators so I would understand if you wished to return to your quarters–”
“Oh, I am not a senator anymore as of last fall,” King said. “Since then I have been available to serve my country in any capacity. In fact, the president had considered me as collector of customs in New York. I do not know if Mr. Lincoln had mentioned his intentions in this matter…”
“For God’s sake, King, this is not the time to hunt for a job,” Lane interrupted. “Mr. Secretary, do you happen to know if Vice-President Johnson is here?”
“Mr. Johnson visited earlier but returned to the Kirkwood to rest,” Stanton replied. He removed his glasses, rubbed his hand across his face and sighed. “I think it would be best if you two gentlemen did the same…”
“Vice-President Johnson and I are very close friends,” Lane said pushing his point.
“I’m sure you are.” Stanton put his glasses back on and looked around for Captain Eckert.
“May we see the President?” King asked, taking another step closer to Stanton. “Perhaps if he knew his friends were nearby it would give him strength to rally.”
“The room is too small for visitors. Gentlemen, I must insist…”
The front door opened, and Lincoln’s 20-year-old son Robert entered. Stanton observed his stooped shoulders. His large brown eyes were red and puffy.
King turned and extended his arms. “My poor young man…”
“He’s here to see his mother.” Stanton took Robert’s arm and led him to the front parlor door. “She’s in here,” he whispered to him.
Robert tapped on the door and opened it.
“Mother?”
“What is he doing here?” Mrs. Lincoln screeched.
“They said you wanted to see me,” Robert whispered, transfixed in the doorway.
“I want to see my baby boy! I want Taddie!”
Robert backed out and shut the door. Stanton put his arm around his shoulder and felt his body shaking. He guided him down the hall. “Your father is in the bedroom on the right. I’m sorry about your mother’s outburst. I’m afraid this tragedy has been too much for her.”
After Robert walked away, Stanton covered his mouth with his hand to hide a small smile. Mrs. Lincoln’s erratic behavior would prove to anyone who talked to her that she was insane and her accusations of imprisonment in the White House basement were groundless delusions.
“Oh my dear,” King said, “no one should ever know of Mrs. Lincoln’s madness. How terrible if the public knew…”
“I don’t see how we can keep it a secret,” Lane interrupted. “She’s crazy as a loon.”
“I suppose we should leave,” King said to Stanton. “But remember that if there is anything we can do to help our country at this time of dire tragedy, please remember us.”
“Yes, we are the friends of the new administration—I mean, Mr. Johnson when he becomes president. And you too, of course, Mr. Secretary,” Lane added.
Stanton removed his hand to show his smile. “Yes, gentlemen, I think the two of you will become invaluable in the coming months to save our nation.”

Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer. Booth and Herold join across the river in Maryland.
Through the trees, Booth saw the two-story frame house with a wide porch. He could not bear the pain to get down off the horse.
John Lloyd, the Surratt tavern keeper, walked out with an unsteady gait to greet them.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Lloyd shouted.
“He’s drunk,” Booth whispered as he leaned over to Herold. “Go inside and get the guns Mrs. Surratt has left for us. Get the things as quickly as possible.”
“Would you like a shot of whiskey?” Lloyd asked.
“Oh yes,” Herold replied.
“No,” Booth corrected his partner. He winced at the throbbing and changed his mind. “Get a bottle to take with us. But hurry.”
In a few minutes, Herold and Lloyd came out of the tavern. Herold strapped the carbines, ammunition and field glasses, wrapped in brown paper, on the back of the roan. He then put the bottle of whiskey in the saddlebag. Finally he mounted the bay mare.
“He’ll tell you some news if you want to hear it,” Herold said as he tried to steady his horse.
“I’m not particular. You can tell me if you think it proper,” Lloyd replied.
“I assassinated the president,” Booth said.
“And we may have killed Secretary Seward too,” Herold bragged.
“May have?” Lloyd asked with a snort. After a pause, he slapped his beefy hand against his head. “You mean this is what all these shenanigans are about?”
“We stabbed him a lot,” Herold replied. “We don’t know for sure if he died. We didn’t stay around that long to find out.”
“You got me roped into a murder plot? Dammit! Well, keep my name out of it. And you better pay me for the whiskey too!”
Herold pulled out a coin and tossed it to the tavern keeper.
“Now get the hell out of here. And remember, you don’t even know my name. Get it?” Lloyd hissed as he caught the coin in mid-air. He turned back to the tavern.
Another hot spasm shot up Booth’s leg. “We must get to a doctor somewhere.”
“I don’t know of any around here. Last doctor I knew died last winter.” Lloyd shouted over his shoulder before he entered the house and slammed the door.
“You said all these people were going to treat us like heroes,” Herold said.
“He’s a drunk. Drunks don’t count. We’ve got to find a doctor.”
As they turned their horses south on the road through Charles County, Booth found the pain to be unbearable. The exhilaration of the evening had ebbed away. He prided himself on his ability to endure pain. Once he took a pocketknife and cut a cyst out of his neck in the dressing room right before a performance. He ignored the anguish and went on stage, remembering all his lines and performing all his acrobatic stunts. But this time he could not disregard the suffering. He needed medical help.
After a few more miles, Booth began to recognize the landscape. They passed through Bryantown and a mile down was St. Mary’s Catholic Church. He attended mass there back in December while on a search for some real estate. Someone told him Dr. Samuel Mudd had several acres that he might be willing to sell. After mass, Booth introduced himself on the church lawn. He could tell by the doctor’s manner that Mudd found him charismatic.
“So what do you say?” Booth remembered saying with a smile. “How much for a few acres?”
“Oh, land’s way too cheap now that the damn Yankees ended slavery,” Mudd told him, “so I’m not selling to anybody right now.”
“Well, I’m also looking for a horse.”
“Don’t have any,” Mudd replied. He motioned to a large burly man who was just walking down the church steps. “There’s my neighbor. He’s always looking to sell a horse.”
The doctor introduced them and told his neighbor Booth wanted to buy a horse.
“Oh yeah, I got a nice little brown saddle horse that would be perfect for you. Good price too.” The big man paused to look Booth over. “You ain’t a damned Yankee, are you? You talk like a damn Yankee.”
“Hell, no. I’m a Confederate through and through,” Booth replied. “I’m an actor. That’s why I talk the way I do.”
“That’s good, ‘cause I hate those damn Yankees.”
“Who with any common sense doesn’t hate Yankees?” Booth practiced his charm with a light laugh.
The man looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I send stuff across the Potomac all the time. You know, contraband.”
“God bless you, sir.”
“If you don’t mind,” Mudd interrupted, “my wife is waiting in the carriage. I’m sure you two gentlemen can conclude your business without me.”
After Mudd walked away, the man leaned into Booth and whispered, “Sam’s a good man but he ain’t got the guts to be a good rebel.”
“I see,” Booth replied, nodding. “But, evidently, you do.”
“Damn right. I wait until dark of the moon, then I row my boat down at Nanjemoy Creek, across the Potomac and land at Matthias Point in Virginia.”
“Very interesting,” Booth said, stroking his square jaw. “Very valuable information.”
Later in December, Booth walked down a Washington street when he saw Mudd staring into a shop window. He called out to him. As he approached the doctor, Booth noticed a slight frown cross the doctor’s face before he smiled and extended his hand.
“What a pleasant surprise, Dr. Mudd,” Booth said, unctuously.
“Yes, I’m in town for some Christmas shopping for my wife. Well, it was a pleasure meeting you again, but I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time—“
“Do you know John Surratt?” he interrupted.
“Yes, I do. Why do you ask?
‘I’m still interested in buying some land, and the Surratts are known for being major landholders.” Booth failed to mention that Surratt was part of the Confederate underground.
“His mother’s boardinghouse is just a few blocks over from here,” Mudd said. “Let me give you directions so I can be on my way, if you don’t mind.”
“That would be kind of you, sir.” Booth looked over Mudd’s shoulder down the street and saw two well-dressed young men walking toward them. “If I’m not mistaken, isn’t that Mr. Surratt behind you?”
Mudd turned to look, blanched a moment then smiled wanly. “Yes, it is. He looks as though he is on his way to an appointment. Perhaps we shouldn’t interrupt.”
“I think you overstate his demeanor,” Booth replied with an insistence in his tone. “Please introduce us.”
As the two young men came closer, Mudd called out to Surratt who smiled and approached them with his hand outstretched. “Dr. Mudd, what a pleasant surprise.” He glanced at Booth. “And who is this? Please introduce us.” Upon hearing Booth’s name, Surratt beamed. “This is also a pleasure. I think we share many friends.”
Booth detected an emphasis on the word friends and nodded in agreement. Surratt was known among Southern sympathizers in Washington as a man well acquainted with the Richmond countryside, valuable knowledge for anyone who considered kidnapping the president and holding him in the rebel capital.
“And let me introduce my long-time friend Louis Weichmann. We went to school together and now he lives at my mother’s boarding house.”
As Booth shook Weichmann’s hand he noticed the unusual stripes on his blue trousers. “Those pants you wear, Mr. Weichmann, look like a uniform.”
“As they should,” Weichmann replied with a smile. “I work at the war department for William Hoffman, the Commissary General of Prisoners.”
Booth stiffened. “Oh, I didn’t realize we were in the presence of one of President Lincoln’s minions.”
“Hardly a minion, sir,” Weichmann said with a laugh. “I take my salary from the Union government but my sympathies are entirely with the South. I have no doubt the Confederacy will flourish—“
“You might want to be careful with your words, young man,” Mudd warned, his eyes darting about the street. “You don’t know who might be passing by, picking up words here and there.”
“Then we must continue our conversation at my hotel,” Booth offered. “I serve only the best whisky.”
“That sounds grand, don’t you think, Louis?” Surratt asked.
“Mighty grand,” Weichmann replied.
“Then I suggest you young people enjoy each other’s company,” Mudd interjected. “I must be on my way.”
As the rain slackened on the Bryantown road Booth looked for the sign to Mudd’s house. Within a few moments, he saw it: “Samuel Mudd, M.D.” After they reached the house, Booth hesitated, remembering Mudd’s eagerness to distance himself from Booth, Surratt and Weichmann on the Washington street at Christmas. Perhaps he would not be so pleased to see him again. Booth tapped Herold on the shoulder.
“I’ll wait here while you go to the door. Don’t tell him who I am.” Booth paused. “Tell him I fell off my horse and hurt my leg.”
He watched as Herold banged on the door until the doctor opened it, hurriedly pulling a coat over his shoulders. Herold pointed at him, and Mudd motioned to him to come in. As Booth hobbled toward the door, he kept his head down. As much as he thought he would be welcomed as the hero who shot and killed the tyrant Abraham Lincoln, Booth was not entirely certain, not even with Dr. Mudd.

Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape.Stanton goes to Seward’s house when he hears of the stabbing. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer.
Holmes squinted at Lafayette Baker. “You look familiar, come to think of it. Have we met before? I remember. The senator’s son. I can’t recall who sent you. Was it the president?
“Yes, it was the president,” Baker replied in haste, moving toward the table. “That’s why I want this to be hush hush. I don’t think I could take the scandal. I don’t think his mother could take it. You must understand.”
“And your name wasn’t Christy either,” Holmes continued. “There have been so many during the war I can’t keep up with them all.”
Baker absently stared at his shoes wondering where the conversation was going.
“Of course, you can call yourself anything you wish,” Holmes continued. “It makes no difference to me.”
That was the opening Baker sought. “I’ll pay cash. For God’s sake, can’t you see how terrible this is for me?”
Holmes patted his shoulder. “Of course. Don’t worry. I understand. I’ll start work right away.” He paused. “You will have the cash here first thing in the morning, however, won’t you? Bring $59. Nine for the fluids and fifty for the evisceration.”
“But you start tonight. Right now. You will have your money. I swear.”
“Calm down.” The doctor lightly touched his elbow to guide him to the door, nodding his head at Jeffrey. “My assistant will see you out. Go home and rest. All will be taken care of.”
Before Baker could say anything else Jeffrey handed him his overcoat and forced him out into the rain. He looked around in confusion. Baker decided going to his hotel bed was out of the question because his mind was racing and he could not sleep. His world was all a tumble. Maybe it was not too late to stop Booth, he thought as his hand went to his mouth, remembering the performance must still be going. Baker jumped into his carriage and turned the team towards Ford’s Theater. His heart sank as he saw the crowds milling around outside the building.
“It’s all Jeff Davis’s doing!” an angry male voice called out.
“That’s right! Hang the damned traitors! All of them!”
What would the crowd do if it knew that Edwin Stanton and not Jeff Davis were responsible? Would they want to hang the secretary of war? And the people standing next to his carriage, if they knew Baker had contacted the assassins and gave out the orders, would these good citizens drag him from his seat and beat him to death right there on the street? He clenched his jaw to control his emotions.
Leaning over, Baker tapped a man on the shoulder. “Where have they taken the president?”
“Over there.” He pointed to a three-story apartment house across the street.
Baker tethered his team to a hand railing, then pushed his way through the crowd and up the steps. Throwing open the door he entered the foyer where Major Eckert rushed him and grabbed his arm.
“Thank God you’re here,” Eckert said as he directed Baker down the crowded hallway to the back parlor across the way from the small bedroom with the president lay. “Mr. Stanton has been asking for you all night.”
“The president,” he blurted, “is he still alive?”
“Just barely. Mr. Lincoln won’t live through the night. It’s a bloody mess. Mr. Seward was stabbed at his residence. They expect him to recover, though…”
“Were there others?” Baker’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yes. Mr. Johnson said someone came to shoot him but ran away.” Eckert opened the parlor door. “Mr. Stanton is in here.”
Baker watched Stanton scribble notes and pass them off to soldiers waiting at his shoulder. One messenger entered as another left. Constant chattering throughout the house made Baker uneasy. He covered his ears with his hands; murmuring sounded like a drone of angry bees.
“Oh, so you finally arrived,” Stanton said. “How long have you been standing there? Never mind. We have to talk.” He stood and put on his coat. “Not here. Too many people.”
As they stepped out of the room, Eckert came up. “Mr. Secretary, they want to know what to do with all the actors.”
“What actors?”
“The ones across the street at Ford’s,” Eckert replied. “We can’t hold them there all night, can we?”
“The hell we can’t!” Stanton took the major by the shoulders and turned him around. “Go back and tell them to keep asking questions until the damned traitors give in! I want a confession by dawn!”
“But, sir—“
“I have to talk to Mr. Baker now,” he interrupted. “Leave us alone.”
Stanton took his arm and tried to guide him away. Baker stood staring into the small bedroom where he saw Lincoln lying naked diagonally on a short bed.
“We don’t have time for that now,” Stanton whispered as he pushed toward a door to a porch on the backside of the building. When they shut the door behind them, the rain dripping from the eaves muffled the voices inside. They both shivered as they avoided the spray from the storm.
“We’re in trouble,” he said, leaning into Baker. “Johnson is alive.”
“I know.”
“What kind of stupid bastards did you get? And Seward’s still alive too. They said the man who stabbed him was a stark raving lunatic. Why did you recruit bastards that stupid?”
“Only stupid bastards and stark raving lunatics would attempt to kill so many people in one night,” Baker replied. His voice was drained of energy. He had no strength left for niceties.
“Johnson was here. Right in my face, dammit. The bastard acted as if he thought I did it. What are they saying on the street? Who do they think did it?”
“Jeff Davis.”
“Good. That’s what I want the stupid bastards to think. It won’t make any difference what Johnson thinks.” Stanton paused. “Where does Johnson live?”
“The Kirkwood.”
“We told him to go back and get some sleep. He looked like he had been on a bender anyway. He’s probably passed out by now. If only he wouldn’t wake up. That would be good.” He looked at Baker. “Do you think you could get into the Kirkwood and suffocate the bastard? Make it look like he died in his sleep.”
Baker had never seen Stanton so out of control. The secretary was usually very cold and calculating, but not tonight. He was talking like a hooligan. The more Baker watched and listened to Stanton, the more he knew he was right to defy him.
“I’m sure the military has guards posted all around the hotel by now,” Baker countered. “No one could get close to him.”
“Dammit.” Stanton stroked his beard. “It doesn’t make any difference. He’s nothing more than an old drunk. He’ll discredit himself. Anything he says will be dismissed as the ravings of a drunken madman.”
“Adam Christy shot himself.”
“Who? Oh, the boy. That’s good. One less problem. The goal is to keep everything under control.”
“Lying there, in his own blood, he looked like me when I was his age.”
“What? What difference does that make? What about that janitor? I don’t care if he’s deranged. He must die too.” Stanton pounded his right fist into his palm for emphasis. “Everyone who knows anything about this must die.”
“No. No more killing.”
“Oh yes there will be. You will do what I say or I’ll produce documents saying you were in on the plot. Hell, I’ll say you planned the whole damn thing. You’ll hang!”
“Go ahead. I’m already dead. I’m deader than that boy on the floor, staring at nothing.” He looked Stanton in the eyes. “We were both wrong. It isn’t about the power and it isn’t about the money. We’re both wrong, and we’re both going to burn in hell.”
Stanton slapped Baker. The open-handed strike was fast, hard and practiced. He had struck before. “You damn fool! Of course, we’re going to hell. But not right now. Not anytime soon.” His face turned red as he began coughing and gasping for breath.
“I’ll go first and prepare a place for you.” Baker did not recognize his own voice. He had never spoken in a tone so soft yet resolute before.
Baker thought he had won the battle by taking the higher ground until he watched Stanton’s eyes narrow in concentration. When Stanton brought a finger to his pursed lips, Baker took a step back. He knew his boss had one last frontal assault.
“You never talk about your wife—what is her name? Jenny.”
“She’s a good woman.” Baker found himself blinking and trying to control his dry mouth. “She doesn’t have to know about the things I do for my government.”
“I agree. No woman should know what her husband has to do for the good of the country. Women must be protected from the dark realities of life. She lives in Philadelphia, doesn’t she?”
“No, we’re from California.” Baker’s eyes went toward the menacing thunderstorms.
“You may have been from California but your wife lives in Philadelphia now. I keep up with private information about my inferiors,” Stanton spat derisively.
“I’ll kill you right here, right now, before I’d let anything happen to Jenny,” Baker blurted with passion that surprised even himself.
“Come now, my friend,” Stanton hissed like the snake in the Garden of Eden to the gullible Eve. “You must know I always have a contingency plan, for I trust no one. Not even you, my old friend Baker. I know the exact location of your wife, and I have instructed an emissary to kill her if you harm me in anyway.”
Stanton’s cupid bow lips turned up into a slight weary smile. “You must concede that I have power of life and death over you and your family. So resign yourself to the fact you must pursue these assassins and make sure they are all arrested and killed. Then you can go to hell.”

Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape.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. Lincoln friend Ward Lamon tries to find him.

His eyes wide and vacant, Lafayette Baker stumbled through the basement billiards room one last time, looking for any telltale signs that three people had spent the last two and a half years in the room. He walked behind large wooden crates in the corner and saw a couple of rumpled blankets. This is where the crazy man must have slept, Baker told himself. No one should see the blankets on the floor. He picked them up and walked over to the middle of the room where the butler Cleotis knelt to scrub the bloodstains.
“These need to be laundered and put away.” Baker stuck the blankets in the butler’s face.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” Cleotis took them and laid them aside. “Don’t worry, sir. By morning, all will be back the way it should be.”
“No,” Baker replied, a numbness in his voice. “Nothing will be the way it should be ever again.” He flinched as he saw Cleotis smiling. He wondered how the butler could find it within himself to smile at him, knowing what he really was deep in his dark, cankered heart.
“Now, you go do what you have to do with the soldier boy’s body, and then I recommend you get a good night’s sleep. A heap of sleep does the soul good.”
“Thank you, Cleotis.” Walking into the hall, he stopped to avoid bumping into the pregnant woman who was wiping his puke from the floor.
“Thank you for cleaning up this,” Baker mumbled. “What was your name?”
Phebe stood and began to walk away. “Don’t thank me. It’s my job.”
“And your name?”
“And why would a fine white man like you want to know my name?” Phebe asked in a tired voice.
“I—I just want to thank you,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. Baker realized he had never bothered to ask anyone’s name before so he could thank them personally, but this night he found thanking people important.
“I already told you,” she said as she walked into the kitchen. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.”
As Baker walked outside, he put on his hat and turned up his collar as he headed for the carriage. Squinting, he thought he saw President Lincoln looking into the back of the carriage at the body. He retreated a few steps. By now, the president ought to be dead, he told himself. The man in the long coat and top hat scurried down the driveway, disappearing in the dark rain. It was not Lincoln after all, Baker realized, but the crazy man from the basement. Why did he come back? Now he knew Adam Christy was dead. The crazy man was someone else Stanton would want him to kill, and he did not want to kill anyone again in his life. Too many people had died already.
Mounting the carriage, Baker took the reins and commanded the horses to move. His mind was blank as the carriage clacked down the street. He did not know if he was going to dump the body in the Potomac, as he had done with the two imposters, or bury it out in the countryside. Baker shook his head. That would be like burying himself. With all this blood on his hands, he was not ready for Judgment Day.
Death. How do people deal with death? Baker had never given it any thought at all throughout his life. Most of the time he just walked away and let someone else deal with the body. After riding through the rain another couple of blocks, Baker’s mind wandered to all the thousands of soldiers on the battlefields. Most of them disappeared into graves dug exactly at the spot where they had died, but a few somehow found their way into wagons and then onto trains where they made the long journey home for burial.
How could the families stand to see the decaying corpses in their wooden coffins? They were not decaying, Baker reminded himself. A new process kept the bodies from rotting. They called it embalming. President Lincoln’s personal guard Elmer Ellsworth underwent the new procedure after he was shot and killed in Alexandria, Virginia, earlier in 1862. Then Lincoln’s son Willie endured the same process. Rumors had it Lincoln went to the tomb often, had the coffin opened so he could run his fingers through Willie’s hair. Even the imposter, Baker heard gossips say, had gone to the tomb to look at the boy’s body. But that report was just gossip.
If those bodies could be preserved, then Adam Christy could be kept looking life-like, at least until Baker resolved his feelings about this tragic situation. What was the name of the doctor? Baker wrinkled his brow. He had to remember him. After all, he was the father of modern embalming. An etching of his face had been in the newspaper. He was from New York and became rich in the 1850s perfecting his techniques. The doctor came to Washington after the beginning of the war. The Lincolns requested his services for Ellsworth and Willie. His reputation was made.
“Holmes,” Baker muttered. “Dr. Thomas Holmes.” He clicked the reins, hastening the horses to turn on another street at the next corner. Memories began to flood back. Baker had actually been to his office before. Stanton wanted to make sure the son of an important Republican senator was properly preserved before the body went home. In a few minutes, Baker pulled the carriage up to the portico of Dr. Holmes’ office. Kerosene lamps still flickered in the windows.
A servant answered the door when Baker knocked.
“I need to see the doctor. It’s an emergency.”
“The doctor is terribly busy right now.”
A voice called out from the back. “Who is it, Jeffrey?”
“The man says it’s an emergency.”
“Then show him in.”
Baker followed Jeffrey into the doctor’s office. His eyes fixed on a table where a thin young man lay with a thick tube inserted in his chest. More death. His nostrils flared from the unpleasantly acrid odor of the embalming fluid. Dr. Holmes, wearing a white stained operating robe, walked toward him.
“It must be an emergency to come out in a storm like this.” He wiped his hands on a towel.
“It—it’s my son,” Baker lied. He became acutely aware of rain copiously dripping from his nose. He wiped his face with his coat sleeve.
“Where is he?”
Baker turned to point toward the door. “He’s in the back of my carriage. Out there.”
“My goodness, we can’t allow that,” Holmes replied. “Jeffrey, get some help and bring the boy in.” He reached for two tea towels on a washstand and handed them to Baker. “You look terrible, sir. Please take off your overcoat and dry yourself.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How long has your son been dead, Mr.—I’m sorry, what is your name?”
Baker blinked. He did not want the doctor to know who he really was. “Christy,” he blurted out.
He patted his hair with the towel over his face to give himself more time. “Abraham Christy. My son, Adam shot himself in the face less than an hour ago.” Baker shook his head. “I knew right off he was dead. No need to go to a hospital. And I don’t want the authorities involved. No damn government.”
“Sir?”
“He’s—he was a soldier. A deserter.” Baker’s minds raced as his eyes wandered around the room. “He couldn’t take it anymore. He had seen too much. He killed too many other young men. He didn’t see any other way out.”
Jeffrey and another assistant carried the body in and placed it on a table next to the other corpse. They removed the cover. Baker winced again as he saw the gunshot wound to the mouth.
Holmes walked to the table to take a closer look, lightly touching Christy’s lips. “I’ve seen worse.” He looked at Baker. “We don’t want his mother to see him like this, though, do we, Mr. Christy?”
“No, sir.” Baker shuffled his feet. “His mother is in California. That’s why I got him to you as fast as I could. I figure the sooner you can start on him the less—less bad he will look when he finally gets home.”
“He’ll look just like he’s sleeping.” Holmes bent over more closely. He left the table and came to Baker. “California, you said. That’s going to require quite a bit of the fluid. It’s my own concoction, part arsenic, mercury and zinc salts. Three dollars a gallon. Then there’s the evisceration of the organs. That has to be done tonight to keep the body from decaying. I’ve had a long day. This has to be worth my time.”
“Any price. I’ll pay it. I know you’re the best. Everyone knows you did a good job on the Lincolns’ little boy.” Baker stopped abruptly when he realized he mentioned the president’s name. Considering what was happening across town at Ford’s Theater, he did not want any connection between himself and President Lincoln.

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.