Navy Secretary Welles felt that he understood Lincoln’s desire to keep both Seward and Chase at his side. The president deemed Chase a necessity for the marvels he was working at the Treasury. As for the secretary of state’s role with Lincoln, Welles said simply, “Seward comforts him.”
• • •
As the war ground on, however, dissension persisted in the cabinet. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton aligned himself with the Radical Republicans, who had become ever more hostile to Seward. Charles Sumner declined a dinner invitation rather than share a table with him, and Chase rebuffed Seward’s overtures when, for the president’s sake, he tried to heal their breach.
In his dealings with Europe, Seward had succeeded in reinforcing Britain’s decision to stay out of the American war, and he had steered a course that kept France from acting on her sympathy with the South.
Seward had also adroitly resolved the Trent affair—a diplomatic flap that arose when a rash U.S. commander seized two Confederate commissioners headed for London. As secretary of state, Seward persuaded Lincoln to take the unpopular step of releasing the captives.
Whatever his opponents might think, Seward had suffered his own misgivings during the military defeats of the Army of the Potomac. But the battle at Gettysburg gave him heart, and when Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863, Seward could believe that the end of the Confederacy was in sight.
Through the darkest months, his relations with the president had remained fraternal. Seward wrote the resolution with which Lincoln proclaimed the first national day of Thanksgiving, and he read and admired a draft of brief remarks that Lincoln intended to make at Gettysburg.
• • •
As victory for the North began to look inevitable, the mood in Washington relaxed, and a search resumed for pleasure and diversion. Seward was now spending twice his annual salary of eight thousand dollars on sumptuous dinner parties, and he joined the Lincolns at the theater for a sold-out performance of Edmund Booth as Richard III.
With the presidential election of 1864 approaching, Salmon Chase and other Radicals had been intriguing with no success to replace Lincoln as the Republican nominee. In New York, Seward worked to reconcile Thurlow Weed to Lincoln’s second term despite Weed’s dismay that the president these days was emphasizing the purpose of the war as ending slavery rather than preserving the Union.
As it became clear that strengthening the ticket meant replacing Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as Lincoln’s vice president, Weed assisted in securing the nomination for Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Johnson had been the only senator from a Confederate state to resist the call for secession.
Democrats who had stayed with the Union were denouncing the war as Lincoln’s failure, and they nominated General McClellan to run against him. With four million men voting, the president won nationally by four hundred thousand, an electoral victory of 212 to 21.
When a celebration in Washington erupted in front of Seward’s house, he stepped outside and compared Lincoln with the nation’s heroes, from George Washington to Andrew Jackson. Seward assured the crowd that Lincoln’s re-election had placed him “beyond the pale of human envy and human harm.”
Just before his second inaugural, the president named Salmon Chase as U.S. Chief Justice. At his own swearing-in, Lincoln delivered what he considered to be his finest speech. He called on the citizens of the Union to finish the work ahead “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”
It was only weeks later that Seward’s carriage overturned. Then, on the evening of April 14, 1865, a few nights after Lincoln’s visit to his bedside, a hulking young man dismounted at Seward’s three-story brick house in Lafayette Park. He was calling himself Lewis Payne, an alias he had adopted earlier that year when he deserted the Confederate army and slipped into the North as a civilian.
Born Lewis Thornton Powell, he had achieved a military reputation as an expert horseman with a foul temper, and he had not changed in either regard. Staying at a boardinghouse in Baltimore, he insulted a black maid, who retaliated by refusing to clean his room. Powell knocked her to the floor, stamped on her body, and vowed to kill her. In his rage, he had forgotten that Maryland’s slaves had been freed. As an aggrieved citizen, the maid could bring charges.
Powell was arrested, taken before a military court, and released only after he produced his written oath of allegiance to the Union.
Lewis Powell
Given the myths and confusion that would soon surround Powell, his meeting in Baltimore with John Wilkes Booth prompted differing later accounts. One report had a desperate and out-of-work Powell spotting a familiar face passing on the street.
Powell had attended the first stage play of his life in Richmond four years earlier and had been mesmerized by its star. As the curtain came down, Powell had pushed his way backstage and introduced himself to John Wilkes Booth.
The actor had been flattered by his adulation. Now in Baltimore he remembered Powell when the young man accosted him. “Booth,” Powell said, “I want bread. I am starving.”
At that moment, Booth was consumed by a daring plan he had been hatching. He immediately promised Powell money if the young man first swore allegiance to him and to Booth’s new project. Powell readily agreed, then asked what they would be doing. Booth replied curtly that it would be in the “oil business.”
• • •
During meetings over the next days, Booth reminded Powell of the many indignities being inflicted on the South and passed along rumors of rampaging Negroes and violated Southern maidens. In Booth’s view, “the country was formed for the white man and not for the black.” Nevertheless, he insisted that the South was not fighting to protect slavery but rather for the noble cause of freedom. Certainly, Booth saw no basis for denying any state the right to secede.
When Booth judged Powell primed, he confided that together they would avenge the North’s crimes by kidnapping Abraham Lincoln. During a public appearance by the president in Washington, they would spirit him into Confederate territory and hold him there until the Yankee government agreed to release its prisoners.
To prepare for that bold action, Powell was directed to go to a boardinghouse at 541 H Street, run by a woman named Mary Surratt. Powell was to introduce himself as Mr. Wood. Booth explained that he had already recruited Mrs. Surratt’s twenty-year-old son, John Harrison Surratt, for his plan.
At that address, Powell found a three-story brick building with its kitchen and dining room at street level. Greeting Powell amiably, Mrs. Surratt reported that her son was away, but she saw that Powell was ravenously hungry and prepared a meal for him. Powell returned a few days later, wearing a new suit, calling himself Mr. Payne and claiming to be a Baptist preacher.
When John Harrison Surratt appeared, he turned out to be a weedy youth with tentative chin whiskers. Powell learned that Surratt had been carrying messages about Northern troop movements to Confederate boats on the Potomac.
During his forays, Surratt had developed contempt for the Union detectives assigned to foil his spying. He had never come across a more stupid set of men, he said, and he simply hid the incriminating papers in his boots or between planks in his buggy.
Surratt said that a friend, Dr. Samuel Mudd, had introduced him to John Wilkes Booth. The two conspirators were a striking contrast—Booth, his pallor set off by glossy black curls and a thick mustache; Mudd, somewhat taller, fair-skinned, and balding. Surratt had been quickly won over to Booth’s plot and brought the actor home to meet his mother.
Mary Surratt proved to be the better recruit. Past forty, with a straight back and ruddy cheeks, she was a Catholic convert and fierce secessionist. Damning every victory by the Northern forces, she swore that Abraham Lincoln should be sent straight to hell.
• • •
Most of Mrs. Surratt’s boarders were family friends, but even they were disconcerted when they happened upon Lewis Powell and John Surratt inspecting a cache of revolvers and bowie knives. They complained to Mrs. Surratt abo
ut the weapons, but she said they should think nothing of it. Her son often rode far into the countryside at night and needed the protection.
When Booth began to call regularly at the house, the boarders found it inexplicable that a celebrated actor should befriend a youth as callow as John Surratt. But Booth fluttered pulses among the women of the house, treating them with extravagant courtesy while he let it be known that he was courting the daughter of a Republican senator.
Besides Powell and Surratt, the group of Booth’s young male admirers who gathered at the boardinghouse now included George Atzerodt, who spoke broken English with an accent from his native Germany. Booth had promised him a large sum to supply a boat to ferry the captive Lincoln across the Potomac. Also meeting regularly were Samuel Arnold and twenty-four-year-old Michael O’Laughlen, who had served briefly in the Confederate army before returning to Baltimore. At thirty-five, Dr. Mudd was the oldest of the group.
• • •
On the afternoon of March 16, 1865, the seven conspirators set out for the Seventh Street Hospital, determined to kidnap Lincoln while he attended a show being staged for wounded soldiers. To their chagrin, the president did not show up.
• • •
A month later, when Lewis Powell knocked on Secretary Seward’s door, Booth’s cabal had become murderous. Powell pushed aside Seward’s black servant, William Bell, and strode toward the staircase to the secretary’s bedroom. Told that Seward was sleeping, Powell claimed to be bringing him medicine prescribed by Seward’s doctor. “I must go up, must see him,” Powell kept repeating. “Must see him.”
At the top of the stairs, Powell was intercepted by Fred Seward, who said he would take the medicine to his father when he awoke. Repeating his mantra—“must see him, must see him”—Powell turned as though to go back downstairs, then wheeled abruptly, swore at Fred, and knocked him to the floor with the butt of his revolver.
Terrified, William Bell ran out the front door, shouting, “Murder! Murder!”
Hearing the uproar, Seward’s male nurse came out of the bedroom. Powell struck him down with a bowie knife. The gas lights in Seward’s room had been turned down, but Powell groped his way to Seward’s side and began stabbing, opening a large gash on Seward’s right cheek and a cut under his left ear. Another slash to Seward’s throat bounced off the steel frame fitted to his jaw.
Awakened by the assault, Seward had the presence of mind to wrap himself in his blankets and roll off his bed to the floor.
Seward’s daughter Fanny had been keeping a vigil in the shadows. Her scream awoke her brother, Augustus, who rushed in from the next room. But in the dim light, he thought the struggle by the bed was between his delirious father and the nurse trying to subdue him. When he grabbed at a figure, he found himself holding Powell, who broke free and ran down the stairs muttering, “I’m mad! I’m mad!”
Passing a State Department official who had come to call, Powell slashed him deeply down the right side of his body.
Frederick was left behind with a fractured skull, which required that a silver plate be embedded. His father lay on the floor, bleeding badly, as their assailant escaped on his horse.
Galloping away, Powell had no better plan than to stay out of sight until he could return to Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse.
Jefferson Davis
CHAPTER 3
JEFFERSON DAVIS (1865)
ALTHOUGH HE SOON LEARNED OF General Lee’s surrender, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, was not reconciled to defeat. Throughout his life, he had found it all but impossible to admit that he was wrong. On April 19, 1865, Davis was still developing plans for continued resistance as he rode into Charlotte, the North Carolina town he intended to make his temporary capital.
To find a house for Davis in Charlotte, his advisers had to win over even friendly citizens, who were afraid of the Yankee reprisals to come. But as Davis approached, several residents cheered loudly and clamored for a speech.
Pausing outside his new lodgings, Davis thanked them and promised to remain faithful to the Southern cause. While acknowledging that General Lee had surrendered, Davis added, “But we may still hope for success.”
He was about to go inside when a telegraph operator raced up with a wire from a Davis ally, John Breckinridge: “President Lincoln assassinated in the theater in Washington.” Breckinridge added that Henry Seward, who had been Davis’s friend before the war, had been stabbed, probably fatally.
Davis read the wire without comment. When someone shouted for him to tell them what it said, Davis responded, “Here is a very extraordinary communication” and handed it to an aide to read aloud.
Hearing the news, a few men cheered. Most remained somber as they drifted away.
Alone with his aides inside the house, Davis said, “I certainly have no special regard for Mr. Lincoln. But there are a great many men of whose end I would much rather have heard than his.”
The aides understood that if Davis mourned, it would be less for Lincoln himself than for the end to Lincoln’s policy of reconciliation. They remembered the bitterness toward the South among Radical Republicans like Charles Sumner. In life, Lincoln had barely restrained those men. Now they would be free to demand from Andrew Johnson the harshest penalties for joining the Confederacy.
• • •
Long before secession, war had marked Jefferson Davis’s life. Growing up in Kentucky, “Little Jeff” knew only that he had been born on the third of June but not which year. Only later did he calculate that he had been four years old when his three brothers went off to fight the British in 1812. What was never in doubt, however, was the depth of his family’s devotion to the Union.
Davis’s father, Samuel, an ambitious farmer on the Kentucky frontier, purchased slaves to raise his crops of tobacco, corn, and wheat. He took the family briefly to Louisiana, but when his property proved to be a mosquito-ridden swamp, he settled permanently in the territory that would become the state of Mississippi.
The Davis family flourished on the fertile land, and Jane Davis gave birth to four more of her ten children. She and her husband indicated their determination to make Jefferson their last child by giving him “Finis” as his middle name.
At age eight, Little Jeff was sent off to the St. Thomas Catholic school in Kentucky. On the way, he and his companions stopped at the Hermitage in Nashville, where Jeff played for a time with Andrew Jackson’s adopted son.
Back home as a teenager, he tried to rebel against any further studies until his father put him to work picking cotton. After the boy spent two days stooping under the Mississippi sun, the classroom became more appealing.
Upon the death of their father, Jefferson’s oldest brother arranged an appointment for him to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His commission was signed by John C. Calhoun, President James Monroe’s secretary of war.
At West Point, the seventeen-year-old cadet was messy, forgetful, and rebellious. Three close friends were expelled for drinking, and Jefferson was arrested by his commanding officer after being caught at the raucous Benny Havens tavern. Edgar Allan Poe, who arrived at West Point a few years later as another reluctant cadet, described Benny Havens as the only sanctuary from the “Godforsaken” academy.
Poe lasted less than a year. Davis managed to scrape by and graduate but without distinction. His low standing relegated him to a commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry. He was sent off to the Michigan Territory, where he spent seven uneventful years.
Davis was accompanied by his father’s slave, James Pemberton, who had been attending to him since Davis was fifteen. He explained that he always called Pemberton simply “James” because it would have shown “disrespect to give a nickname.”
• • •
The tedium of army life was relieved when Colonel Zachary Taylor arrived in Wisconsin with his family to take command of Fort Crawford. Davis fell in love with one of the colonel’s three daughters, eighteen-year-old Sarah. Bec
ause she had been born at Fort Knox in the Indiana Territory, the family called her “Knoxie.”
Davis soon clashed with the girl’s father. It was over a trivial matter, but when Davis’s pride was wounded, any slight became epochal. He was talked out of challenging Taylor to a duel only after a fellow officer pointed out that dueling was hardly the way to ingratiate himself with a future father-in-law.
As their antagonism faded, Davis had to overcome Zachary Taylor’s less personal objection to the match. The colonel did not want the life of an army wife for his daughters—too much traveling, too much separation. To a friend, Taylor lamented, “I scarcely knew my own children or they me.”
Davis cleared that hurdle by resigning his commission in favor of a life raising cotton. He brought his new bride to acreage in Mississippi near his family’s holdings at a curve in the river already called Davis Bend. Knoxie wrote to reassure her parents that “the country is quite healthy.”
Very soon, however, both she and Davis were stricken with the malaria that swept over the region every summer. Knoxie Davis died on September 15, 1835, three months after her wedding.
With her died the spirit of the rollicking cadet from West Point. Davis developed a new rigidity and a readiness to find fault in others. Men meeting the twenty-seven-year-old widower often thought him older than his years, and cold.
• • •
Davis’s choice of career seemed to foreclose ambition, and for eight years he withdrew to his plantation. During the leisurely days, he read widely in history and political theory. But by 1844, he had cast off his despondency and begun to court the granddaughter of a New Jersey governor.
His new romance sparked an interest in political service. In 1845, Davis married Varina Howell and took office as a Mississippi congressman. In time, the couple had six children, although only one would reach adulthood and marry.
With the outbreak of war with Mexico, Davis left Congress, recruited volunteers, and set himself up as commander of the Mississippi Rifles, making no secret of his intention to seek glory on the battlefield. Colonel Davis seldom won the affection of his men, but he gained their respect, and his regiment won praise for its military prowess.
After Lincoln Page 6
