The Drowned Man

by David Whellams

  The fog might have stood for young Booth’s single-minded lack of interest in the Canadas, and in both the river and the anticipated city on the coming shore. He listened to the crew cursing in French but understood none of it. Montreal was a mystery to him, except that the Virginia papers called it Little Richmond for all the Confederate agents and escaped prisoners who had taken up residence there. But he had his own special mission in the City of Saints. He cautioned himself to display his usual charm, if only to remain anonymous and unchallenged while in the town.

  The fog dissipated like a rising proscenium curtain to reveal the bustling harbour a hundred yards ahead and the giant mountain beyond. Booth believed in icons of good luck and he marked the spire of an old church poking above the retreating mist.

  It was the 18th day of October in the year 1864 and it seemed to John Wilkes Booth that all of the city was descending on his hotel, the St. Lawrence Hall. Men in Richmond had called the hostelry “Confederate Headquarters” and by far the best place to stay in the city. His wagon driver had to wait in a long line of similar wagons and stylish carriages. The actor instructed him to leave the trunk inside and meanwhile made his way through the traffic to the front door, only to be swept inwards by a crowd of soldiers, deliverymen, and merchants and their wives, all gathering for grand festivities. British regulars in scarlet and blue uniforms clustered in the lobby and for a moment Booth worried that his presence would be challenged; Union spies regularly reported the arrival of their Confederate opposites to the authorities. But he realized that the crowd gave him the invisibility he wanted, and he proceeded towards the registration desk.

  Booth wearily crossed the expansive outer and inner foyers of the Hall while the raucous buzz of conversation flowed around him. Off to his left, through the rotunda, music and the clack of billiard balls emanated from the main bar. Farther on he noted a grand staircase leading up to a second-floor salon; on his right he marked a reading room with newspapers hanging on wooden racks.

  Booth was used to being recognized, so he wasn’t surprised when one man in the throng did. Henry Hogan, a thickset hotelier with Burnside whiskers and a friendly, all-knowing smile, had run the hotel since its opening in 1852. He often used a peephole in his office to monitor entrants to his place but this afternoon he remained at the front desk. His practised eye sized up the visitor as something more than the usual salesman. The arrival exuded a worldliness merged with youthful arrogance, while his long coat with the astrakhan collar and his high riding boots, now splattered with Montreal mud, set him apart. The jet-black hair was striking, too, and he was blessed with smooth, pale skin; Hogan found a resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe, the Baltimore poet and journalist. But the initials “JWB” tattooed on the man’s hand gave him away. Hogan now had a decision to make, whether to acknowledge the customer’s identity or let him be. As it turned out, the famous actor solved the dilemma for him.

  “I would like a room for the week,” the man said, in a pleasant, modulated voice. “I have a trunk.”

  “I will give you room 150, at the back of the hotel, away from the worst of the noise,” Hogan replied, and rotated the register towards him.

  Booth, without hesitation, signed “John Wilkes Booth.”

  Hogan smiled and, still uncertain as to Booth’s business in Montreal, kept his voice low. “I saw your brother, Edwin, perform in New York, and your father some years ago in Philadelphia. Are you appearing on stage in the city, perhaps?”

  The dark young man looked up and his expression intensified. “I have given over my theatrical activities for more important drama.”

  It was an intemperate thing to say. Henry Hogan was a Union supporter and known to pass information on his guests to colonial officials. But Hogan remained star-struck and continued, “We have two grand theatres. The Crystal Palace, alas, is closed for repairs but the Theatre Royal boasts fifteen hundred seats, gas lighting, too. I am sure you might arrange one of your nights of readings, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘Beautiful Snow,’ perhaps.”

  Before either man could address Hogan’s question, a figure intervened at Booth’s left elbow, causing him to turn. The man was short, ruddy-faced, and earnest; had Hogan been asked to label his profession, he would have replied “Southern agitator,” and he would have been correct.

  “John Wilkes?” the intervenant said, keeping his voice low. Booth called up his actor’s smile.

  “If you would see to my traveller’s trunk, Mr. . . .”

  “Hogan. Of course I will.” Hogan turned to imagined business as Booth and the new man left the desk.

  They hustled towards the entrance to the hotel, and the man introduced himself in the same low tone. “I am Patrick Martin. From Baltimore. We share friends in Maryland and Virginia.”

  “I wish to be introduced to more of your friends,” Booth managed to say through the din of the crowd.

  They retreated to a tavern up the block near the Place d’Armes. Most of the patrons in the gloomy bar, Booth noted, spoke French but the barkeep was bilingual and Martin ordered rum for himself and brandy for the actor in English.

  “We’re both from Baltimore?” Martin began.

  “I’m from Bel Air, just to the north,” Booth said. “Our estate is called Tudor Hall. But, yes, consider me a Baltimore man. What is going on at the hotel? Is it wise for me to stay there with all that military about?”

  Martin grinned. Booth saw a man comfortable in himself. “You don’t want to stay at the Donegana Hotel,” Martin stated. “That’s where the escaped CSA soldiers who don’t have any money put up. Now don’t give me that look, Mr. Booth. You will meet plenty of our military men at the Hall. The Hall is where the important folks stay.”

  “And you know the important people?” Booth sneered, flaring at the insult to Southern prisoners-of-war.

  For his part, Patrick Martin took note of his companion’s volatile reaction and immediately wondered at his stability. He held back judgement.

  “You asked about the multitudes in the city. The Confederacy is not the only colony on the edge of independence, my friend. As we speak, the Canadians are in conference at Quebec, upriver, and reports say that they have reached consensus on the articles of nationhood. This Canadian movement is a juggernaut, I can attest. A celebration is being prepared for their arrival in Montreal after the conference.”

  “Will they keep the Queen as their ruler?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Martin amiably. “This will not be our republic nor the haven of states’ rights believers.”

  “Then I want no part of it. Kingship is to be reviled.”

  “Not so harshly, Mr. Booth. Victoria is well loved here. Within memory, the Prince of Wales came here on a Royal progress to open the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence, a mighty feat of engineering. My own sloop is christened the Marie Victoria. This is a country on the move.”

  “Are these men so fervent for a British dependency as their future?” Booth said, indicating the French-Canadians surrounding them.

  “Don’t be so sure they want independence from the British at this stage of their history. Don’t forget, if the damned North wins, they may turn their armies loose on the Canadas and the result for the French will be a greater threat of assimilation.”

  “It might be the moment for their own revolution,” Booth riposted.

  “Don’t talk drivel, Mr. Booth. There are eighteen thousand British regulars stationed in the five colonies.”

  “Yes, and they all seem to be staying at the Hall,” Booth replied.

  Martin laughed. “That is certain, and they include Sir Fenwick Williams, commander of all Her Majesty’s Forces in North America. You’ll see him. Look for the bald head; always sports a gold-hilted sword.”

  By then Booth was on his third brandy, although Martin had barely sipped his second tot. The cagey blockade-runner looked at the young actor and w
orried. Still, Southern manners won out.

  “I received your letter of introduction from our mutual friends. What can I do for you, sir?”

  Booth leaned forward. “You can give me space for my wardrobe trunk on your sloop. I understand that you will soon embark on a long sail to Portsmouth across the Atlantic?”

  Martin kept his voice low; their faces were inches apart. “I am indeed leaving in two weeks for England. You want your baggage transhipped? To where, Charleston?”

  “First to the Bahamas, then on to Charleston,” Booth said.

  “That isn’t a problem. The British tolerate our traffic to England. Beyond there, it will be someone else’s problem, and there has been little hazard running goods through to Nassau. But I believe you want something else from me, Mr. Booth.”

  “I understand that government commissioners are present in Montreal and that their leader, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, is resident at the St. Lawrence Hall. I would like to be introduced.”

  Martin shook his head. “You haven’t heard, then. There has been an incident, a provocation. Earlier today, a group of expatriate soldiers, Army of Northern Virginia men, carried out a raid across the border into Vermont. They robbed the bank in a town called St. Albans and killed a local citizen, then fled back to Canada. The Union’s provost marshal in Vermont has demanded their extradition and has already threatened to send his troopers onto Canadian soil, although what they would do here is unclear to me.”

  “And Thompson sponsored this enterprise?”

  “Indirectly. The organizer is the second of the commissioners, Mr. Clement Clay, an Alabama man, who tends to be behind most of the schemes these commissioners attempt. He’s about the most querulous fellow you will ever meet. But, yes, Thompson is now the focus of investigation by the colonial security people. The commissioners will not have time for you this week.”

  “That is disappointing.”

  “Why? What can they do for you?”

  “I have ideas,” Booth said.

  “The commissioners are overflowing with ideas. Corner the gold market. Send Lincoln foodstuffs infected with smallpox. Inflame the Northwest against Lincoln in the election next month.”

  Martin tried to estimate how much Booth knew about clandestine efforts against the Union. Most behind-the-lines plots had failed and managed merely to irritate the British. If Booth were to meet the governor general, Lord Monck, he might grasp that the British were not to be provoked into war with Lincoln and Seward. The St. Albans raid would test everyone’s patience but Martin knew the crisis would pass like the others. He hoped that Booth understood that this was a time for discretion.

  Patrick Martin escorted the slightly drunk John Wilkes Booth back to the hotel. The crowd had moved to the ballroom, which at present did duty as the dining room. Henry Hogan watched from his spy hole as Booth entered.

  Over the next seven days, Patrick Martin did his best to entertain Booth, who showed little gratitude or patience, the exception being his suppers with the Martin family in their rooms at a boarding house in Rue Saint François Xavier, where he turned on his charm with Mrs. Martin and played the heartthrob role with their daughter, Margaret. Otherwise, the sailor kept his guest busy with visits to several banks in the Square Mile. The transactions mystified Martin, for the actor proceeded to buy sixty pounds British sterling, using gold coins for the purchase, and then obtained bank drafts against his account balance at the Ontario Bank in a similar amount. Booth appeared to be clearing the decks for action. In the afternoons the actor drank heavily, mostly brandy, and he often grew argumentative, spewing bile at Lincoln in the presence of anyone who would listen. Some days, disgusted, Martin abandoned him at the St. Lawrence Hall bar, pleading family commitments.

  The actor settled into a routine that approached idleness. At the hotel, he took to examining the English papers, taking his drink across the foyer to the reading room, which was frowned upon. The Gazette, with its pro-South leanings, became his favourite of the dozens of papers published in Canada East, although he also read the pro-Union Toronto Globe for its tracking of the war. He learned of General Early’s defeat at Cedar Creek, the manoeuvring of Hood and Sherman in Alabama and the declaration by Lincoln of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

  Each afternoon, Henry Hogan posted news of the Quebec conference on Confederation and the planned celebrations at the Hall. October 28th had been declared a public holiday. The fancy ball would welcome eight hundred guests. “Tickets: $6 for a gentleman accompanied by two ladies, $4 for a gentleman alone,” the advertisement said. The next day, Hogan pinned the menu to the dining room door frame: “October 29 Gala Dinner: Oyster soup, viands and game, ice cream and fruit. Champagne, claret, lemonade, sherry, and ale.” On the following afternoon, Hogan displayed the itinerary of the Colonial delegates, who were scheduled to arrive in Montreal by boat and train. The governor general, Lord Monck, would review the Canadian Volunteer Force on the Champ de Mars, while the local fire brigade would put on a demonstration.

  In truth, Martin was bored with self-important patriots who talked big but lived in luxury in Montreal. On the fifth day, he asked Booth whether he could be of any additional help. It was his way of drawing out the younger man on his plans for Washington, where Booth intended to travel — “soon.” Over drinks in the same French tavern, Booth laid out his plot to kidnap the president and carry him overland to Richmond, where Lincoln’s release would be negotiated for that of thousands of Confederate prisoners-of-war held in Northern camps, the very inmates that the Confederate commissioners were unproductively scheming to liberate.

  Patrick Martin considered Booth’s project and quickly thought that it held as much promise as anything the commissioners had bruited about, publicly or privately.

  “How can I help?”

  “You can provide me with letters of introduction to anyone who lives in south Maryland who might assist. I know several good men in the Signal Service who have apprised me of clandestine mail routes to Richmond, but I need safe houses along the route, and I may need fresh horses once I cross the Navy Bridge and the Potomac southward.”

  “I know two men,” Martin immediately said. He gave the names of Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel Mudd, and promised letters of introduction.

  His ready agreement was in part diversionary. Let Booth essay a kidnapping. Martin would assist but he was not about to hook Booth up with professional Confederate spies in the Signal Service without Jeff Davis’s approval. Queen and Mudd fell into the category of useful sympathizers, amateurs.

  Patrick Martin was not there to experience Booth’s transition from kidnapper to assassin. Martin delivered the letters of introduction on October 26th but did not tarry at the Hall for drinks. Booth’s feelings on his own plan oscillated. Although Martin’s letters gave momentum to his kidnapping plot, at the same time the plan had seemed hollow, and possibly impractical, when he voiced it. For the first time, John Wilkes wondered if assassination might be simpler. That evening, he drank alone in the bar and to the clicking of billiard balls and drinking glasses, he sank into a depression. At that moment he felt adrift. The idea of an alliance with the commissioners had spun away from him with the Vermont raid, which occupied their every moment and which had been a failure. Martin had in any case told him that Thompson and the others were impractical men, and that in late 1864 the Confederacy was no closer to recognition by Britain than it ever had been. “Why would they send thin-skinned men from Alabama and Mississippi, men who have never seen snow?” he had said.

  Was there a better way to convince Britain of the hostile conspiracy of the Union against the emerging Canadian state?

  By his last day in Montreal, Booth’s thinking began to crystallize, aided by two unexpected incidents. While drinking at the Hall he caught Sir Fenwick Williams striding in from the rotunda, resplendent in his uniform. He seemed to Booth to move in stiff-backed slow motion, and
as he passed Booth’s table the two men made eye contact. The actor detected sympathy in the other’s look.

  A half hour later, while nodding off in the billiard room, Booth was awakened by a brazen voice over by the long mahogany bar.

  “To Lincoln and the end of the bloody war!”

  “To Lincoln!” seven men agreed, and the sound of bumping steins woke Booth fully.

  He bounded from his chair and struck a pose by the billiard table. He picked up the white ball and rapped it down on the felt, leaving a small indentation.

  “This Lincoln is a false president yearning for kingly succession! No good can come of his re-election. Tyrants like Napoleon and Caesar must fall before the rights of men and the honour of the democracies to which Athens and the British parliament gave life.”

  The oration went on like this for five more minutes. The room fell silent. Afterwards, Booth retreated from the lounge, sobered as much by the effort of declaiming as by the frosty response from the crowd. Booth climbed the staircase to his room, where he took out a leaf of paper from the desk and began to write. The letter seemed to compose itself but as soon as he read it through, a wave of drunken nausea struck him. Barely finishing the one-page missive, he let it slip to the floor. The next day he checked out of the hotel and bought a horse to carry him south.

  Henry Hogan came to work early — the Colonial delegates were about to arrive — but he was not early enough to catch Booth, who had already paid the night clerk for his stay. The maid sent to clean the room, Irish and energetic, changed the coverlet on the bed and supplied a basin and a pitcher with fresh water for the next tenant; she swept the floor and polished the one window. She picked up the page of hotel paper from the floor and read the salutation: “To Sir Fenwick Williams.” Reasoning that this must be important — and knowing that Sir Fenwick kept rooms at the far end of the hotel — she placed the sheet of paper in one of the envelopes supplied on the desk and dropped it in the in-hotel post.