The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  Chase managed, with difficulty, to restore order. The fury was written on his round, soft face: although which upset him more, Bingham’s proffer or the noisy affront to the dignity of the proceeding, was difficult to say. “Mr. Dennard,” he said.

  Dennard was sharp. “Your Honor, the distinguished Manager could no doubt conjure any number of impressive legal arguments for the admissibility of the testimony. Nevertheless, the true motive is clear. Having failed utterly in their effort to establish that the President has committed any high crimes or misdemeanors, they now seek to blacken his reputation, in the hope of damaging him politically, and perhaps swaying the public, which is hostile to this proceeding, in their direction.”

  Bingham flared. “I resent any implication that any of the Managers on the part of the House are motivated by any but the highest and—”

  Chase waved him silent. “Counsel will have the opportunity for closing argument at the appropriate time. I am certain that the distinguished Manager does not intend what you have suggested, and I can assure you that the Court would never countenance such a thing. Unless there is objection from a Senator, it is the Court’s intention to allow the testimony of this witness.” He adjusted his glasses, glared down at Bingham. “Nevertheless, I must warn you, sir. The Court will require you to stay within the bounds of your own argument for the admissibility of the evidence.”

  “I understand, Your Honor.”

  Bingham quickly established who Miss Caffey was, and by whom she was employed. He then asked her whether she had ever met the President.

  The room waited. Everybody knew something important was happening, but nobody was sure quite what.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, voice small and frightened. Her face was deathly pale. Her expression was that of a mouse toyed with by hunting cats.

  “Please tell us how that came about.”

  “Yes, sir.” Miss Caffey began to slump. She was so slight that if she slipped too far she might vanish from sight. “I met him when he came to the reverend. For counseling it was, sir, the way all of them do.”

  “All of who?”

  “The ones who come at night, sir. They come at night so nobody will know they needs counseling.”

  “And when was this, that you met the President?”

  October, she told them: this October just past. Late at night, after the master and the missus had retired. The bell rang, and Miss Caffey rose from her bed to answer. She opened the door, she said, and there was Mr. Lincoln, standing in the cold rain, wearing a black coat and a tall black hat.

  “And there was a rig, like, sir, with a driver, waiting for him. Beautiful black horses they were, sir.”

  “And when was this again?”

  “This past October.”

  Bingham consulted his note cards. “October of 1866.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Three months after Mr. Lincoln’s wife died.”

  “After that. Yes, sir.”

  “And do you happen to remember, Miss Caffey, exactly how Mrs. Lincoln died?”

  Dennard bellowed his objection, and Chase at once admonished Bingham to limit himself to relevant testimony. Abigail paled nevertheless; the damage had been done by the reminder to the chamber, so that everyone now recalled the rumors that Mary Todd Lincoln had been a suicide.

  Bingham, meanwhile, continued in a gentle tone. “Very well, Miss Caffey. Let me be very sure that I am understanding you correctly. In October of 1866—this October just past—you saw the President at the door of Reverend Beecher’s house in Brooklyn.”

  Again Dennard objected: the witness had testified only that she saw a man she thought was the President. Jonathan found the objection confusing. Chase was bound to overrule it, as he did: Dennard was free to challenge the identification on cross-examination.

  But as the witness answered—yes, it was the President, she would know the face anywhere—Jonathan began to see the deeper wisdom of Dennard’s interruption. The mood had been broken. No longer was the audience sitting in the dreary wet darkness of an autumn night in Brooklyn, peering over the shoulder of the nervous housemaid as she opened the door on an eerie late-night visitor. Now everyone was in the Senate Chamber once more, reminded that this was only testimony, a tale told by a witness who was every bit as mortal and fallible as the lawyers arguing over her words.

  Bingham, meanwhile, was asking whether Lincoln had ever been to visit Reverend Beecher before.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Twice that I know of.”

  “And of course he had attended Reverend Beecher’s church before his speech at the Cooper Institute in 1860.”

  Dennard was on his feet. “Your Honor, may it please the court, counsel is testifying for the witness.”

  The silky smile again. “I was about to ask my question, Your Honor.”

  “Proceed, counsel.” Chase was frosty. He hated affronts to his dignity, and he had taken pains to ensure that his dignity was entirely bound up in the conduct of this trial.

  Bingham turned to Miss Caffey. “Were you aware of the President’s visit to Reverend Beecher’s church?”

  The young woman looked down at her shapeless dress. “Sir, that was before my time. I have heard talk of it—”

  “Objection. Hearsay.”

  “Sustained,” snapped Chase, his anger growing.

  Bingham strolled back to the table. Another Manager handed him a card. Looking out at the chamber rather than at the witness, he said, casually, “Would you please tell us once more the date of the President’s visit to Reverend Beecher’s residence?”

  “In October.”

  “Do you happen to recall when in October?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Perhaps we can sharpen your recollection.” Not looking up from his card; voice casual. “Was the visit, say, before or after the incident involving Mrs. Tilton?”

  For a moment, nobody reacted. An instant later came bedlam: shouts in the chamber, cries from the gallery. Chase banged his gavel, but in vain. Sickles, lurching around on his one good leg, looked every inch a man ready to pull out a derringer and slay his wife’s lover. Senators were shaking their fists, several at each other.

  Jonathan was astounded; and appalled.

  The Managers, it turned out, had not invited Beecher’s housekeeper for anything as mundane as attempting to imply that a distraught President might have lost his mind after the death of his wife. No. They were trying to suggest that somehow the President had been involved with sexual scandal.

  They would never say so directly. They could not prove it, nobody would believe it, and, in any event, direct association was not necessary. The goal was to shock the public out of its Lincoln-worship. To accomplish that goal, the Managers needed only to create an atmosphere in which citizens across the country, when they thought of the man in the White House, would be reminded, if involuntarily, that he had somehow been “involved”—there was the word—“involved” in perhaps the most embarrassing ménage-à-trois of the age. Mrs. Tilton was a lady of means, a freethinker, and an advocate of intimate relations outside of marriage. She had gone to Beecher for counseling because of difficulties she was having with her husband. Her husband arranged for the publication of newspaper articles accusing Beecher of taking intimate advantage of his wife.

  No wonder everyone was shouting at once, ignoring the repeated pounding of the Chief Justice’s gavel.

  Somehow Dennard managed to make his objection heard amidst the tumult. The sordid tale of Mrs. Tilton was irrelevant to these proceedings, and prejudicial as well—

  Bingham insisted that he was only trying to fix the date more firmly in the witness’s mind. He was fixing a good deal more than the date, and the mind of the witness was not the mind he sought to affect. Nevertheless, Chase said that the witness would be allowed to answer.

  Again Bingham addressed the witness. “Was the President’s visit before or after the Tilton business?”

  “Before, sir. That terrible newspaper article was late
r. November.”

  Bingham turned toward the bench. “Your Honor, the Managers would like to introduce the article itself.”

  Dennard bounded to his feet. “Your Honor, the article in question is the subject of judicial proceedings in New York City, to determine whether it was obscene, and whether Mrs. Woodhull should be jailed for distributing it. Nothing so tawdry should be made a part of the record of these proceedings.” He glanced at Bingham. “In addition, Your Honor, counsel for the respondent believe that the material is highly prejudicial, and would be admitted for no purpose other than to embarrass the respondent.”

  Bingham opened his mouth, but Chase shook his head. His round face seemed to have aged five years in the past hour. “Objection sustained. The article will not be admitted. Nor will any further testimony regarding it.”

  The witness seemed to think she was through, but before she could quite rise, Bingham turned her way once more. “Now, Miss Caffey. After you saw Mr. Lincoln at the door that night, what did you do?”

  “Sir, I asked him his business. He said he was there to see the reverend.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Sir, I invited him in. I would not ordinarily have done that in the middle of the night, but for the President …”

  Bingham smiled. “We understand. Pray continue.”

  “Sir, I invited him to wait in the parlor. I went and woke Mrs. Beecher, and she went and woke the reverend. Mrs. Beecher told me to make our guest some tea, and that the reverend would be down in a moment.”

  “Did you tell Mrs. Beecher who the visitor was?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did the reverend come downstairs?”

  “Yes, sir. He came downstairs, and he and Mr. Lincoln went into the reverend’s study and closed the door.”

  “How long was Mr. Lincoln in the house?”

  “Sir, I would say about two hours.”

  “Do you know what they talked about?”

  “Objection. Hearsay.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Your Honor,” said Bingham, “we tender the witness.”

  Chase declared a thirty-minute recess before the cross.

  IV

  Abigail was troubled. She enjoyed Kate’s company, but was secretly a little frightened of her as well. The constant warnings about Mrs. Sprague’s motives from Sickles and Jonathan had left her on edge. Now Kate had raised once more the specter of Bessie Hale. What was she trying to say? That Bessie, before fleeing to Europe, had been involved with the prim, disapproving, and very married Blaine? Or was she hinting at something else? Because, if Kate meant to imply that Bessie had carried messages to Blaine, then she had knowledge of the conspiracy; and assumed that Abigail had knowledge, too; or perhaps Kate was trying to impart knowledge, hoping that Abigail would look into the possibility of involvement and discover the conspiracy in its stead.

  But if Kate knew about the conspiracy, why not take the knowledge to someone in authority? If she wanted to keep it all secret, then why tell Abigail?

  It occurred to her that she would never be able to follow the convoluted paths of the experienced political mind of Katherine Sprague as she maneuvered to make her father President. She was the only person Abigail had met in Washington City she felt sure could outthink her.

  “Let us dine together again soon, dear,” said Kate. “We were so rudely interrupted last time.”

  “By all means.”

  “We have so much to discuss.”

  “Indeed,” said Abigail, wondering.

  V

  Again it was the turn of Dennard. He stood at a distance from Miss Caffey, arms folded over his barrel chest, the look on his aged, plump face that of an affectionate but disapproving grandparent.

  “Just a few questions,” he said. “I want you to know how much all of us in Washington appreciate that you made the trip down.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t no trouble,” said Miss Caffey, fingers still twisting in her scarf.

  “He’s a very wise man, Reverend Beecher, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  “I would suppose that lots of people come to him for counseling.”

  Miss Caffey’s face darkened. “If this is about that Tilton woman and her mad husband—”

  Dennard was already waving both hands for peace. “No, no, of course not. No sensible person believes a word they say.”

  Bingham objected at once, and Chase sustained it, as he had to, but Dennard had slipped in the main point of the cross: whether or not Lincoln was in New York seeking Beecher’s counsel, the scandal made no difference if, as Beecher’s admirers believed, the entire Tilton affair had been invented by an angry husband. A murmur passed through the chamber, quelled by the Chief Justice’s gavel.

  “Let me ask you this,” said Dennard. “You said that many people come to Reverend Beecher for counsel. I assume they come because of his wisdom.”

  Chase glanced at the Managers, perhaps expecting an objection—Miss Caffey could not possibly know why the troubled sought out her employer—but Bingham remained in his seat.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “And his discretion.”

  “Sir?”

  “They come to Reverend Beecher because he is discreet. He would never disclose a confidence.”

  “Oh, no, sir, absolutely not.”

  “Even during the scandal, when he could have told the world what happened during his meetings with Mrs. Tilton, he kept her confidences, did he not?”

  “He did,” said Miss Caffey, proudly.

  “And, indeed, he is the sort of man who would not even admit to others that a particular person had been in for counseling. Isn’t that true?”

  Chase was growing irritated. He kept waiting for Bingham’s objection. The fact that the prosecutor continued to listen calmly, Jonathan realized, could mean one of two things: either Bingham was a fool, or the Managers had laid a trap somewhere.

  And Bingham was no fool.

  Meanwhile, Miss Caffey, led gently by Dennard, was telling all the world that her employer would never disclose a confidence or betray a trust. He was known throughout the country, she said, for his discretion.

  Dennard nodded, arms crossed once again. “So, when the man who resembled the President arrived at the door, you had no way of knowing, did you, exactly why he was there?”

  For a moment Miss Caffey seemed confused. “He was there for counseling,” she said after a moment.

  “Did the visitor tell you that he sought counsel?”

  “Well, no—”

  “And Reverend Beecher didn’t tell you, did he? He would never disclose a confidence, correct?”

  “The reverend didn’t tell me. No.”

  “Nobody told you that the visitor sought counseling, isn’t that correct?”

  “I assumed, when a man of that importance arrived so late at night in the middle of the rain—”

  Again Dennard interrupted. His show of warmth had vanished. “So your earlier testimony that the visitor sought counseling was really just an assumption?”

  Miss Caffey looked wounded. The friendly round-faced lawyer, her protector among all these great gentlemen, had abandoned her. “I guess it was,” she whispered.

  “Louder, please.”

  “Yes, sir. I guess it was. Just an assumption, I mean. Sorry, sir.”

  Dennard stepped closer still. “Now, this visitor. The one you took to be Mr. Lincoln. Was he alone?”

  “He had two other men with him.”

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were they introduced to you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And the visitor himself. Did he tell you he was the President?”

  A moment’s hesitation. “No.”

  “Did anybody tell you that he was the President?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I see.” He turned toward the table. Jonathan had the note card ready and thrust it into hi
s hand. Dennard adjusted his spectacles. “So, Miss Caffey, I take this to be your testimony. On the date mentioned, late at night, when it was dark, you arose sleepily from your bed to find at the door a man who resembled the President, accompanied by two other men, who wished to visit Reverend Beecher. Nobody told you who they were. Nobody told you why they were there. Is this a fair summary?”

  Her voice had grown very small in a vast quiet. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  And Dennard found another smile for her, beaming as if she were after all his favorite daughter. “Thank you, Miss Caffey. Thank you so much for coming all this way and telling us the truth. You’ve been enormously helpful to us all in a very difficult time.”

  She could hardly conceal her pride as she stepped down. Dennard could hardly conceal his relief. He asked whether the Managers planned to call either of the two men the witness had seen outside the house with the man “who she thinks might or might not have been the respondent.”

  Bingham assured the body that the Managers had no such plans.

  Dennard asked that the court strike the witness’s entire testimony, as she had never clearly identified the respondent.

  Chase said he would decide that motion at the close of the evidence.

  Sweating from exertion but obviously happy with the outcome, Dennard returned to his seat. The Chanticleer letters had contained little information about Miss Caffey, and the coterie had been forced to guess at her testimony. But Dennard had done well. Even though Bingham had dragged a whiff of scandal into the chamber, the President’s lawyer had carefully dissipated it. The strategy had failed completely. And yet the Managers still looked confident.

  Too confident.

  Something big was coming; and everybody knew it.

  CHAPTER 41

  Rescue

  I

  “THEY PLAN TO call Reverend Beecher as a witness,” said the President. “That is their surprise.”