Fates and Traitors (50 page)

Lucy went numb with horror when she thought of the vast, immeasurable grief that one man, the man she loved, had inflicted upon an entire nation.

She wondered where he was. Although her parents urged her to ignore news and rumors, a strange compulsion forced her to try to trace his path from Washington, but the reports of sightings were so scattered and contradictory that it was no use. She suspected John was trying to make his way to Mexico, where the Austrian-born Emperor Maximilian had promised sanctuary and large bounties to fugitive Confederates, but it was difficult to imagine him starting a new life in a foreign country when he had made himself irredeemably despised in his homeland.

It was difficult to imagine that he would even complete the journey safely. Lucy doubted he would ever find more than a temporary refuge
in his beloved Virginia, or in any other Southern state, for that matter. If John were in a place where he could read the newspapers, he would probably be shocked to discover what enormous outrage and worry his terrible act had provoked in the South, at least according to the Southern press, as reprinted in the Washington papers. The
Richmond Whig
declared, “The heaviest blow which has ever fallen upon the people of the south has descended,” noting that Mr. Lincoln had toured the smoldering city in the aftermath of the Confederate evacuation and had not been accosted, proof that citizens of the erstwhile Southern capital had not wished any harm to befall him. Surely many ardent Confederates had cheered the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's death, but most people seemed appalled and dismayed, and many suggested that shooting an unarmed man in the back of the head while he watched a play was an act of profound cowardice. That sentiment, Lucy knew, would offend John most of all.

Even if rebel sympathizers were helping John in his flight, he would know no rest until he surrendered or was captured. Eventually a loyal Unionist would spot him, or an erstwhile rebel would be tempted by the promise of reward to betray him. Two days before, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had issued a proclamation offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for John's capture, as well as twenty-five thousand apiece for his accomplices David Herold and John Surratt. Other bounties would be awarded for information that led to the arrest of any of the conspirators. But Secretary Stanton promised punishment as well. Anyone found to be harboring or concealing the fugitives would be considered an accomplice and would be subject to a trial by military commission.

Eventually, if it had not happened already, her once-adored John would find himself without friends. Even his own brother Edwin had inadvertently denounced him before the public when Henry Jarrett, the manager of the Boston Theatre, divulged to the press a private letter Edwin had sent him in the aftermath of the assassination. “The news of the morning has made me wretched indeed,” Edwin had written, “not only because I have received the unhappy tidings of the suspicions of a brother's crime, but because a good man and a most justly honored and patriotic ruler has fallen in an hour of national joy by the hand of an assassin. The memory of the thousands who have fallen on the field in our country's defense during this struggle cannot be
forgotten by me even in this, the most distressing day of my life. While mourning in common with all other loyal hearts the death of the President, I am oppressed by a private woe not to be expressed in words.” Mr. Jarrett declared that his purpose in disclosing the letter was to prove Edwin Booth's steadfast loyalty to the Union and his absolute innocence of complicity in the crime, but when Lucy imagined John's reaction to the letter, her heart broke for him anew.

With a sigh, she returned her attention to the
New York Tribune
spread open on her lap, her gaze falling upon a column titled “A Chapter of Recent History,” which promised news of Virginia rebels, Secretary Seward's condition, and the conspirators' plot. Yes, Lucy thought grimly, she ought to study that last report, so she could better understand how she had missed the signs of her beloved John's abhorrent intentions.

She scanned the column for the most pertinent piece, her brow furrowing when she read that unspecified evidence proved that there were ten conspirators involved in the plot, and that they had met in Memphis to draw lots to select the one who would kill the president—which seemed terribly farfetched to her, contradicting nearly everything else already confirmed about the plot—

But she froze, unable to blink or draw breath, when she read, “The unhappy lady—the daughter of a New-England Senator—to whom Booth was affianced, is plunged into profoundest grief, but with womanly fidelity, is slow to believe him guilty of this appalling crime, and asks, with touching pathos, for evidence of his innocence.”

She trembled violently, unable to tear her gaze away. She heard a low moan of anguish that rose in pitch and intensity, and only when her mother and sister came running and seized her by the shoulders and shook her did she realize the tormented wail came from her own throat.

Her sister brought her water. Her mother pried the paper from her grasp and found the article that had so distressed her. They urged her to lie down, but anger and distress filled her with a strange surge of energy and she paced the room instead. Who would have divulged her secrets to the press? Not her family. Someone on the hotel staff? Someone in her father's employ? Some vindictive, spiteful, gossipy creature listening at doors?

Her father was summoned, and after he read the article, his gaze turned stony and furious, and yet when he placed his hand on Lucy's, his voice was gentle. “The article does not mention you by name,” he said. “A handful of people who have seen you together may identify you as that unhappy lady, but this brief paragraph is buried on the fifth page, and hardly anyone will see it.”

“But it will provoke curiosity and spark gossip,” said Lucy shakily. “You know how these things happen. That brief paragraph will be reprinted in papers all across the North, and the South too perhaps, and before long some enterprising reporter hungry for notoriety will nose about until he has a name to print. ‘The daughter of a New England senator'—it will be an easy mystery to solve.”

“Lucy, I'm so sorry,” said Lizzie, wringing her hands. “Papa, Mama, I meant to spare you distress, but—”

“What is it, Lizzie, dear?” asked Mama.

Without a word, Lizzie hurried off to the bedchamber she and Lucy shared and returned moments later with a newspaper folded open to the second page. “This is yesterday's
Springfield Republican
,” she said tremulously, handing the paper to her mother and indicating an article near the top.

As their mother read, their father came and peered over her shoulder. “Well, there it is,” he said flatly.

Steeling herself, Lucy held out her hand, and after a moment's hesitation, her mother gave her the paper. Familiar names leapt off the page: “It is stated and not yet authoritatively contradicted, though we are confident it ought to be, that J. Wilkes Booth was to have been married soon to a daughter of John P. Hale of New Hampshire. Aside from his recent heinous crime Booth wasn't the kind of man that any young lady of character would have noticed, much less married.”

Her father strode over to the table beside Lucy's chair, leafed through the stack of newspapers she had not yet read, and took out one. He scanned each page, and Lucy's heart plummeted when he scowled and shook his head. “‘It cannot be denied,'” he read aloud, “‘we are afraid, that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was engaged to be married to a daughter of Senator Hale. He has been very much of a beau among the ladies of the National Hotel at Washington the past winter.'”

“It was not enough to report this ugly gossip once, that they had to do it again the next day?” said her mother, incredulous.

“We'll publicly disavow this,” her father declared. “I'll compel the
Springfield Republican
to print a retraction. I'll contact my friends in the press and have them denounce this claim as lies and slander.”

“How can we hope that anyone will believe it?” Lucy asked. “John and I have been seen together by too many. We've dined here at the hotel, we attended the theatre, and I cannot forget my shameful behavior at that New Year's Dance—”

Her father took her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length. “We will deny it,” he said emphatically, holding her gaze. “If we say it clearly enough and often enough, people will accept that.”

She shook her head, distressed. “It isn't right.” It was a lie. She not only knew John, she loved him.

After all he had done, to her great remorse, she still loved him.

“It is right, and it is necessary,” said her mother. Turning to her husband, she added, “Tell her what else happened.”

“What?” she asked when their father hesitated. “What else has happened?”

Their father inhaled deeply. “The other day, two Confederate officers were being escorted through the streets from the train station to the office of the provost marshal, where I happened to be on business, and some fool shouted that they were Booth and this Surratt fellow. Never mind that Booth's face ought to be recognizable to all and sundry by now and that neither he nor Surratt served in the rebel army. The shout was taken up by others—‘Booth! Booth!'—and a mob quickly formed and threatened to tear the men to pieces. The guards barely got their prisoners to the provost marshal's office in time, and a general and I were obliged to go out and convince the crowd that neither man was the president's assassin. If we had been unable to persuade them—” He shook his head. “I think they would have broken down the door and killed them both.”

“Oh, how dreadful,” said Lucy faintly, sinking into a chair.

Her father stooped beside her and reached for her hand. “So you see, dear Lucy, why it is dangerous for you to be associated with that man. Your friendship will not redeem him in the eyes of the public, but it can and will endanger you.”

“And Papa too,” said Lizzie, pale with dread. “And all of us.”

Blinking away tears, Lucy looked from one beloved, stricken face to another, overwhelmed with remorse for the pain she had unwittingly inflicted upon them. She felt ashamed too, and unworthy of their steadfast love, for not one of them had confronted her with the report's most damaging revelation—that she and John were affianced, that she had become engaged to him without her parents' blessing or even their knowledge.

For a fleeting moment, her remorse and shame expanded to embrace John too, as she imagined him reading in the papers that she had denied knowing him; she imagined his bewilderment, his sorrow—but then she remembered his suicidal prostitute mistress, and she felt the tender region of her heart reserved for only him slowly ossifying.

“We shall do as you say,” she said steadily, though every word tore at her soul. “It is no lie. I never truly knew John Wilkes Booth.”

•   •   •

T
he Old Capitol Prison had once been a boardinghouse, significantly larger than Mary's on H Street, but the Yankee government had purchased it in the early months of the war to hold criminals and political prisoners when the other prisons became overfilled with captured Confederates. When it too had become dangerously overcrowded a little more than a year into the war, the Carroll Annex had been constructed to hold female criminals, Confederate spies both male and female, and Yankee deserters. It had been designed to accommodate one thousand prisoners, but by the time Mary, Anna, Nora, and Olivia were locked up inside, it contained more than twenty-seven hundred.

Each cell in the Carroll Annex housed two women, and to Mary's great relief, after a few days of anguish and calling out to each other through the walls, she and Anna were permitted to share a cell. Anna's fragile, desperate state alarmed Mary, for although her daughter had always had a nervous temperament, under the strain of incarceration and questioning she had become so anxious and fearful that Mary worried she might have a breakdown if she were not released soon.

Mary summoned up reserves of courage and fortitude for her daughter's sake, determined to make the best of their situation until the detectives finally concluded that Junior had not attempted to murder Secretary Seward or anyone else, and that he had been hundreds of
miles from Ford's Theatre on the night of the assassination. “It's only a matter of time until the truth comes out and we will be released,” she assured Anna, but with each passing day her words lost more of their power to comfort.

It did not help that their living conditions were utterly deplorable. Their cell had two barred windows that looked out upon the prison yard, where the inmates were permitted to take their daily exercise, but since they let in very little light and air, they did little to relieve the stifling darkness. Beneath the windows stood several barrels the warden had provided for their use, one to hold food, a second to store their few personal belongings, and a third to contain their own waste—hence the barrel's position by the window, though there was insufficient breeze to carry away the stench. The walls, floors, and even the ceiling were covered in dirt, soot, mildew, and grease, with spiderwebs in every corner dangling insect carcasses. Long ago, perhaps when the building had first opened, two of the walls had been papered in a large floral pattern, but the damp air had spoiled the adhesive, and the paper bulged away from the walls in some places and hung in grimy, tattered strips from others. Mary and Anna were each assigned to an iron bed with a straw mattress and were issued a pillow, sheets, and a coarse brown blanket, but although the sheets, though worn, appeared clean, the pillowcases were bloodstained, and the mattresses and blankets were infested with vermin.

It was impossible to keep themselves clean, and Mary lived in terror that Anna would contract dysentery or typhoid.