Hanging Mary

by Susan Higginbotham

  I slipped out of the hospital and into a city that was going wild. Men were embracing each other in the street; men in uniform were being hoisted up and carried by cheering crowds. Clerks were abandoning their offices; shops were shutting. Who could sit at a desk or stand behind a counter on a day like this? The only people who seemed to be working were the newsboys, and all they had to do was stand still and pocket the money as the extras they held were snatched from their hands. Even if they had tried to shout, they wouldn’t have been heard through the salutes of guns, the ringing of church bells, and the bands that appeared as if out of nowhere to strike up “Yankee Doodle.” Without quite knowing how, I found myself marching in perfect time.

  Throngs of men and women were streaming into churches, while others were streaming into taverns, which already were beginning to overflow into the street. As I walked past one, a man grabbed me by the hand and waltzed me about for a round or two before releasing me and turning his sights upon another lady.

  I could not go home and sit with my embroidery on such a grand day. Instead, I joined the stream of people heading in the direction of the War Department, where an owlish-looking man—Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war—was attempting to speak to the crowd. I say attempting, because between his pauses, when he became choked up with emotion, and the applause every time he took half a breath, he could scarcely say five words at a time. It was a moving speech, giving thanks for our great victory and advising humility and graciousness in our triumph, but the truth was, on this afternoon, the secretary—the most important man in town today, as the president had gone to Virginia to follow the progress of the war—could have been reading from the city directory and still received the same rapturous applause.

  In a stronger voice, Stanton read the telegram announcing Richmond had been taken—and was in flames. “Let her burn!” someone yelled happily, and others took up the cry until Stanton waved forward a gangly boy of fifteen or so. “Willie Kettles, the lad who took the telegram!” he called, and the crowd started yelling, “Speech! Speech!”

  Willie Kettles blushed and bowed and was about to scurry away when a pretty young woman rushed up and kissed him.

  A tall, thin man—William Seward, the secretary of state—came into view and, recognized by the crowd, was promptly dragged over to stand by Mr. Stanton. “All I can tell you is that I have long been in favor of a change in the secretary of war,” he said, shaking his finger at Stanton. “Why, I started to go to the front the other day, and when I got to City Point, they told me it was at Hatcher’s Run, and when I got there, I was told it was not there but somewhere else, and when I get back, I am told by the secretary that it is at Petersburg, and now I am told that it is at Richmond, and west of that. Now I leave you to judge what I ought to think of such a secretary of war as this!”

  The crowd laughed, and Stanton gave Seward a mock punch.

  I resumed my wandering in a city that was increasingly turning red, white, and blue as businesses and householders rushed to drape their buildings in bunting. Even the slum of Murder Bay—which I could glimpse from Pennsylvania Avenue but of course would never dare to venture into—was awash with the colors of the flag. I was watching one of the impromptu parades that formed when a dignified figure came into view. “Father!” I ran and tugged on his arm. “Is this not the most wonderful day?”

  My father turned and embraced me. “The end is in sight at last, and it has been a long time coming,” he said when he released me. He wiped what looked suspiciously like a tear from his eye. “Too, too long! But, child, you should get off these streets. Soon they will be full of drunkards.”

  “Oh, I’ve met one already. He danced with me.”

  My father shook his head and gave me his arm. Our progress to H Street was a slow one, for in his own way, he was as caught up in the joy of that afternoon as I was, but at last he landed me safely at Mrs. Surratt’s, having promised to take me to dinner the next day when things were calmer.

  As he left, Susan, Mrs. Surratt’s new servant girl, poked her head out the kitchen door. “I thought that might be the man come back again who was looking for Mr. Surratt,” she explained.

  “Man?”

  “Yes, miss. A man came by and asked for Mr. Surratt.”

  “Mr. Booth?”

  “No, miss. Not him at all. He didn’t leave a name. Just hurried off.”

  Probably one of Mr. Surratt’s blockade-running acquaintances, I surmised. Perhaps we were in for another strange visitor. “Well, be sure and tell Mrs. Surratt.”

  “Oh, I will, miss.”

  I walked into the parlor, where Anna and Olivia sat knitting as if this were an ordinary day. “Did you hear? Richmond has fallen.”

  “Yes, well, you needn’t be so smug about it. What if Johnny is there? So please keep your crowing to yourself.”

  “I wasn’t crowing, and I hope Mr. Surratt is safe.” I grimaced, for I had indeed forgotten that Mr. Weichmann had mentioned Mr. Surratt’s escorting Mrs. Slater there. I crossed myself. “God protect him.”

  The door banged, and I heard Mr. Weichmann’s step, followed by his appearance in the parlor. “I thought I would never get through the crowds. You have heard the news?”

  “Yes, we have. And if I could get hold of those blue pants of yours, Mr. Weichmann, I would burn them.” Anna rose and threw her knitting aside. “Let us go upstairs, Olivia. The atmosphere is too oppressive.”

  Miss Jenkins shot the offending Mr. Weichmann and me a sympathetic look before following her cousin to the stairs.

  • • •

  After supper, we had settled into our accustomed places in the parlor and I was threading Mrs. Surratt’s needle for her when a weary voice called, “It’s John, Ma,” and Mr. Surratt walked slowly into the room, looking tired and worn. “Is it true? Has Richmond fallen?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Surratt said.

  “I can’t believe it! I saw Judah Benjamin himself while I was there, and he told me it would not be evacuated.”

  “The secretary of state?” Anna asked. “You saw him in person? Really? What did he look like?”

  “What sort of man is he?” I asked.

  “What on earth do I care what he looked like or what sort of man he is? I’m not proposing to him.”

  “Son—”

  “Yes, Ma. I’m sorry, ladies. I’ve a pounding headache, and I’m upset by Richmond falling—”

  “As we all are.” Anna glanced at me. “Except for Nora, who can’t stop chortling.”

  “I am not—”

  “Nora, be a dear and tell the girl to warm up some supper for Johnny. Johnny, come here.” He obeyed, and Mrs. Surratt embraced him. “Thank the Lord you are safe. That is all that matters to me at the moment.”

  I went downstairs and gave the orders. Having set a place for Mr. Surratt and brought some bread and ham while Susan made a pot of tea, I was getting ready to go back upstairs when Mrs. Surratt and her son came down. Mr. Surratt gave me a faint smile. “I’m sorry I was such a bear up there. It’s such a grand city, and they say it was put to the torch. Parts of it, anyway.”

  “I was truly sorry to hear that, whatever your sister thinks. I do not rejoice in anyone’s suffering.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  I went upstairs and was reading in the parlor, Mr. Rochester purring in my lap, when Mrs. Surratt and her son went into her bedroom. Presently, Mrs. Surratt emerged. “Nora, dear, do you have some cologne I can use for Johnny? His head is still pounding.”

  I nodded and went into the bedroom, where Mr. Surratt was sprawled out on a sofa, looking rather Byronic. My cologne, straight from Paris, had been a Christmas gift from my father. I wore it on special occasions, such as to the theater—and, I confess, on my last few hospital visits to poor Private Flanagan. Once or twice, I had seen him sniff appreciatively.

  After I pulled the cologne from my trunk, Mrs. Surratt dabbed some on Mr. Surratt’s temples with her handkerchief. “Try to rest a little, Son,” s
he said tenderly. “You have been wearing yourself to rags with your travels.”

  We left Mr. Surratt alone on the sofa. An hour or so later, he emerged looking much refreshed and bounded upstairs. When he returned, he had Mr. Weichmann, still wearing the blue pants that had so offended Anna, in tow. “Weichmann and I are going for oysters.”

  “Why, you just ate,” Anna said.

  “Yes, but there’s nothing like destruction and doom to whet a man’s appetite for oysters. Don’t wait up for us, Ma.”

  Mrs. Surratt nodded, and we ladies went back to our respective occupations—Mrs. Surratt knitting, me reading, Miss Jenkins putting pictures in her album, and Anna embroidering and throwing out the occasional snide remark about me. The men were not yet back when we retired, but not long afterward, I heard the sound of someone letting himself in. By now, I knew every person’s tread in the house fairly well. This was Mr. Weichmann’s. I listened again.

  No second tread. Mr. Weichmann had come home alone.

  21

  MARY

  APRIL 3, 1865

  Richmond had fallen, and I had envisioned just about every horrid fate for Johnny imaginable, when my boy walked into the parlor, weary and dispirited but alive. The sight of him made me forget, for the moment, the news about Richmond.

  He was hungry as well as tired from his journey, and I took him downstairs where my servant girl served him the remnants from our supper. “Johnny, the girl says that a man came by today asking for you,” I told him in a low voice. “He would not give his name. He could be one of your friends, but—”

  “I doubt that, Ma. I heard in Maryland that the feds who captured Howell are looking for me too. I think it’s best I disappear for a while. I can’t stay here long anyway. Judah Benjamin gave me some papers to take to our men in Montreal. I’ve got them tucked in The Life of John Brown, of all things.” He sighed and speared a bit of ham. “Perhaps my last mission for the poor Confederacy.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I’ll go to a hotel tonight. If there’s to be trouble, I’ll not drag you and Anna into it.”

  “Much as I would like to beg you to stay, Canada is probably the best place for you now. Do you need money?”

  “No. Benjamin gave me two hundred dollars in gold. I’ll see if I can get Holohan to change it before I leave. If I run out of money, I can always work as a clerk, I suppose.”

  “Promise me you will write.”

  Johnny nodded. “I’ll write to you. Is Booth in town?”

  “No. He stopped by the other day and said that he was going north for a while.”

  “At this rate we’ll all be up north.” Johnny downed his tea and rose. “Our plan’s dead in the water, I suppose. I’ll look him up in New York. I’m going to lie down a while. I feel wretched. Then I’ll go to dinner with Weichmann, if he’s willing. Maybe those blue pants of his will confuse the feds. I’ll check into a hotel afterward. So this will be our good-bye, if you want a long one.”

  “Of course I do,” I said and embraced my son’s bony frame.

  There were tears in his eyes when he drew back. “Ma, I know we’ve had our words now and then, and I haven’t been much of a support lately. I want to be better when I come back. I promise I will.”

  “Just protect yourself and come back safely. That is all I ask.”

  We went upstairs, where Johnny dozed on my bedroom sofa for a while before returning to his room. All too soon, he and Mr. Weichmann came downstairs on their way to dine together. It was like old times: they were laughing together like the school friends they were. As they headed toward the door, I longed to give Johnny yet another farewell embrace, but no one but I knew he would not be coming back to this house tonight. So I had to smile and say, “Good-bye, Johnny,” as if he would be crossing the threshold again this very evening.

  The door shut, and my son disappeared into the Washington night.

  22

  NORA

  APRIL 1865

  With the fall of Richmond and Anna’s continuing coolness, I started to think about my future. Despite Mr. Booth’s kind words, I held out little hope of marrying, especially since the war had left so many prettier young women bereft of husbands and fiancés. I would be provided for as long as Father and Peter lived, of course, but what would become of me after their deaths? Father had lived frugally, I knew, and had some property to leave me, but I did not know how much. Probably not enough to keep me for more than a few years. I was best off finding something to do, but what?

  The most obvious means of supporting myself was to become a teacher. I was certainly well enough qualified in those days. But the possibility filled me with gloom, for I could see myself only too vividly, standing at a chalkboard and getting grayer with each passing year as pert young ladies giggled behind my back at my various peculiarities.

  But there was another possibility, one that appealed to me the more I thought about it. Since the war had started, young women had been employed at the Treasury and at the Department of Engraving. Why couldn’t I get such a job?

  I broached the subject when my father took me to supper the night of April 4 at an establishment that catered to families. “I don’t know, child. You have heard of the scandal at the Treasury Department.”

  Last year, all of Washington had thrilled to the gossip that some of the young women hired as Treasury clerks had become the concubines of their male supervisors. “But they found that was all nonsense, Father. Well, mostly nonsense.”

  “Still, my dear, it shows the sort of things that can happen when a woman works closely with men.”

  “Father, there are men coming and going at Mrs. Surratt’s all of the time. I have never acted improperly with any of them, or them with me.” Except for Mr. Booth, I silently added.

  Father frowned. “Men coming and going?”

  “I just mean her boarders, Father. Some stay only for short periods. And of course, Mr. Surratt has friends who visit him there. It’s not a house of ill repute, Father.”

  “Well, I should hope not,” Father said dryly.

  “Please, Father, can’t I try to get an office job? You don’t want me on your hands forever.”

  “Nora, you are not on my hands. You are my dearly beloved daughter.”

  “I know, Father. But if I am going to be unmarried, I want to at least be able to take care of myself. Why, I could make as much as six hundred dollars per year!”

  “At a maximum.”

  “But that’s better than nothing at all.”

  My father sighed. “Things have changed so much since the war began,” he said. “But I suppose I must change with the times. If you can find a respectable office to work in, you may work in one.”

  “Oh, thank you!” I hugged my father. “I promise, I’ll do nothing to disgrace you.”

  “I know you shall not. Now may I take my daughter to the illumination?”

  I smiled. “You certainly can.”

  What a brilliant night it was! The day before, someone at the State Department had gone back to his desk long enough to issue a proclamation that to celebrate the fall of Richmond, the various government agencies might like to illuminate their buildings. No one wanted his building to be outdone, of course, so in consequence, every workman who was still able to stand after the drinking of the previous day had been enlisted in this great cause. Where the public buildings had led, the private buildings had followed, so all of Washington glowed.

  With almost everyone else in the city, it seemed, Father and I strolled about, pointing like children at the splendor around us as the bands struck up one tune after another. The Capitol shone from top to bottom, its newish dome never appearing to such good effect as it did that night. On its western portico was a huge transparency, lit by gas, on which blazed the motto THIS IS THE LORD’S DOING; IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES. The president was not home, but the White House shimmered. The Patent Office glittered on the city block it had all to itself. The Treasury D
epartment had what I considered the most clever illumination: gas jets arranged in the shape of a ten-dollar note. Grover’s Theatre had festooned itself with Chinese lamps, surrounding the single word VICTORY. City Hall, the banks, the newspaper offices, were all aglow. My favorite bookstore, Philp and Solomon’s, was so brightly lit one could have read outside of it, while the lights at Dr. Holmes’s funeral parlor could have awakened the dead. The dingy prisons on First Street were transformed. Even the lunatic asylum, high on its hill, was a bedazzling sight, and I hoped the poor creatures who were shut up there were able to appreciate it.

  Thanks to the brightness, everyone kept spotting acquaintances in the street. I saw a few of my old classmates, my father shook hands with the president of his bank (which was, of course, splendidly illuminated), and Mr. Weichmann ambled toward us with little Miss Dean in tow. She, of course, was agape, and I scolded myself silently for not thinking to take her out. “Are Mrs. Surratt and Anna here somewhere?”

  “No. Mrs. Surratt was feeling poorly, and Miss Surratt said that she did not care for such gloating. The Holohans were going, but when I left, they were still fighting about which direction to walk in first.”

  I laughed, and Miss Dean tugged on Mr. Weichmann’s sleeve. “If we stand here talking, they’ll shut the lights off!” she wailed.

  “A respectable, well-mannered man,” Father commented as Mr. Weichmann dutifully allowed Miss Dean to drag him off. “And kind to children, it seems.”

  Once again, I laughed. “Don’t consider him as a husband for me, Father. He has eyes only for Miss Surratt, and she won’t give him the time of day.”

  “Pity.”

  Mrs. Surratt was waiting up for me when Father brought me home. As they chatted pleasantly, I found myself wondering: What if they married? Odder things had happened. It was true that my father had two decades over Mrs. Surratt, but he had aged well, and they would be excellent company for each other. Both were regular churchgoers, neither were drinkers, and both liked to live quietly. It would be awkward having Anna as a stepsister, as things stood now, but Mr. Booth was bound to marry Miss Hale sooner or later, and Anna would see how foolish she had been.