Reveille in Washington

by Margaret Leech

  The distinguished counsel for the prisoner was General Dan Sickles. He was haled before the Judiciary Committee, and quarreled so hotly with his former associates that, according to the journalist, Ben: Perley Poore, he nearly landed in the Old Capitol along with Wikoff. The arrest of the tarnished courtier had been generally regarded as a joke, but the imprisonment of a prominent Democrat, wearing the uniform of his country, would have been a serious matter, and in the end the Judiciary Committee concluded to exercise self-restraint.

  After consulting his counsel, Wikoff made a surprising confession. He said that John Watt, the head gardener at the White House, had been his informant. Watt, appearing before the committee in his turn, told a tale of having peeped at the President’s message in the library. He explained that the extraordinary tenacity of his memory had enabled him to repeat portions of it verbatim to Wikoff on the following day.

  From this sensational story, the New York Herald extracted every drop of news value. In the face of all the evidence, it disowned any connection with Wikoff, held him up to ridicule, and blandly professed that its foreknowledge of the President’s message had been “a shrewd surmise.” The Herald also derided Hickman and “his kitchen committee,” and righteously declared that the abolitionists were resorting to “an infamous attempt to break up the domestic relations of the President, and sow misery in his family.” In another editorial, headed “The Satanic Element of the Abolitionists Assailing the President Through His Family,” it was stated that “they invade the sacred privacy of his home, and seek to infuse poison into his domestic relations by scandalous insinuations.” However dastardly the intentions of the House Judiciary Committee, in the invasion of privacy and the dissemination of scandal, they were amateurs in comparison with James Gordon Bennett. After receiving a letter from Wikoff, the Herald hinted that “a lady had called on him in prison.” The newspaper further asserted that Congressman Hickman, at the introduction of Watt’s name, had asked in disappointment, “Then it was not one of the President’s family, after all?”

  Years later, Ben: Perley Poore made a statement which must have reflected the information current among newspapermen at the time of the Hickman investigation. “. . . Mr. Lincoln had visited the Capitol, and urged the Republicans on the Committee to spare him disgrace, so Watt’s improbable story was received and Wikoff was liberated.”

  Events had combined to end Wikoff’s usefulness as the Herald’s spy at the White House, and he disappeared from Washington, though not from Bennett’s employment. A faint odor of intrigue with the Confederacy clung around the Chevalier. In the first summer of the war, he had besought Mrs. Greenhow to help him get to Richmond so that he might send back “a peace letter” from that city—a plan which he assured Mrs. Greenhow had met with Seward’s approval. Shortly after his encounter with the Judiciary Committee, Mrs. Morris wrote Colonel Thomas Jordan of the Confederate army, “Mrs. Lincoln gave Wycoff the message you saw when they arrested him to make him tell.”

  John Watt was a petty thief who had been making a profit for years by padding his expense accounts for the White House grounds. He had been appointed head gardener in the time of President Pierce, with whom he had much influence, perhaps because he had been a protégé of the horticulturist, Andrew J. Downing. When Major French, nearly seven years before the war, had caught Watt forging pay rolls, he had had to carry the matter, not only to the Secretary of the Interior, but to Pierce himself. It was concluded that Watt had made errors through inexperience in handling money. Later, French obtained indubitable proof that Watt was a cheat and a liar, and he laid it before Pierce, without succeeding in having the gardener discharged. Watt retained his place through the Buchanan administration, and became captain of a company of District militia. W. S. Wood, during his brief term as Commissioner of Public Buildings, discovered and reported his peculations, and gravely angered Mrs. Lincoln, who wrote Secretary Caleb B. Smith that the gardener was “rigidly exact” in all his accounts. She turned spitefully against Wood, informing Smith that he was the last man who ought to bring a charge against any one, that he was either deranged or drinking. At the time of French’s second appointment, he found Watt still basking in White House favor, and still signing pay rolls and bills for cart hire and other expenses.

  In the eyes of Washington unionists, Watt was under a cloud because of his reputation as a sympathizer with secession. Several witnesses, including the Washington postmaster, Lewis Clephane, had testified to his disloyal associations before the Potter Committee in the late summer of 1861. After First Bull Run, he was reported to have said that the South could never be conquered, that Jeff Davis was the best and bravest man in America and that the Federal army was composed of rubbish and cowards. Charges of disloyalty were also made to the Potter Committee in the cases of three White House attendants. One of them, old Edward, was a genial little Irishman, who had been on duty at the north entrance for many years. Though Edward was regarded as a Washington fixture and celebrity, there is confusion about his last name, for he was called McManus, and borne on French’s pay roll as Burke. He incurred Mrs. Lincoln’s displeasure early in 1865, and lost the post of doorkeeper, but French did not discharge him until June of that year.

  Thomas Burns and Thomas Stackpole, likewise accused before the Potter Committee, were doorkeepers at the main entrance and the President’s office respectively. Burns was dismissed in the last winter of the war. Stackpole was at that time apparently acting as steward, and in May, 1865, was formally appointed to the position by French. He was subsequently called to account by French for lending the White House punch bowl to a Baltimore saloon.

  None of the White House employees suffered because of the accusations of disloyalty, but the favors shown to Watt were astounding to Potter, who had hastened to communicate the evidence against the gardener to the President. Soon after, Watt was given a lieutenant’s commission in the regular Army. The historian, George Bancroft, heard that “Madame wished a rogue who had cheated the government made a lieutenant,” and that the President forced the reluctant Cabinet to approve, telling them, “Mrs. Lincoln has for three nights slept in a separate apartment.” The story is representative of the gossip of Washington, not of Lincoln’s habit of speech. It was also said the gardener had “been specially detached to do duty at the White House, where he superintends the cooking.” Mrs. Lincoln had discharged the steward, and Watt appears for some time to have held that position, in addition to his work in the grounds.

  In February, 1862, shortly before Watt publicly took the blame for giving Wikoff the President’s message, his Army commission was revoked. At the end of the month, his name disappeared from Major French’s pay roll; but he was still employed at the White House. “Hell is to pay about Watt’s affairs,” John Hay wrote Nicolay in the following November. “I think the Tycoon begins to suspect him. I wish he could be struck with lightning. He has got William and Carroll turned off, and has his eye peeled for a pop at me, because I won’t let Madame have our stationery fund. They have gone off to New York together.”

  In the summer of 1863, Watt was a corporal in the Thirteenth New York Artillery, although the Star mentioned him, months afterward, as in charge of the White House conservatories. The singularly close alliance between the President’s wife and the dishonest gardener probably came to an end when Watt tried his hand at blackmailing the President. The story was hushed up. John Hay heard it later from Isaac Newton, a rotund farmer whom Lincoln had placed at the head of the new Agricultural Bureau. Newton was a stupid old fellow. Ben: Perley Poore said that he once made requisition for two hydraulic rams, because he had been told that they were the best sheep in Europe. But he was honest and kind, and he befriended Mrs. Lincoln, preventing, he told John Hay, “dreadful disclosures.” When he learned that Watt was involved in a conspiracy to extort twenty thousand dollars from the President in return for three of his wife’s letters, Newton sent for Simeon Draper, a New York politician. Draper “went to Watt in his greenhou
se on 14th Street,” as Hay wrote down the story, “& told him he was come to take him to Fort Lafayette, with much bluster & great oaths as Simeon’s wont; . . . . Watt fell on his literal marrow bones & begged, & gave up the letters & the conspiracy got demoralized & came down, down, to 1500 dollars which was paid, and the whole thing settled.”

  Not the least curious aspect of Mary Lincoln’s character was her tolerance of a lack of protection. In the semi-public mansion, there was a want of security and privacy which would have been unthinkable in other residences of the crime-ridden capital. There was no watchman on duty in the parlors, and costly furnishings were stolen and defaced by the sight-seers who roamed at will on the first floor. The front door was open all day and late into evening. The attendant was often absent from his post, especially after office hours and on Sundays. On many occasions, people walked into the house at night and wandered about the rooms, and sometimes even went upstairs, without finding anyone to direct them.

  Politicians and army officers, alarmed by repeated threats against the President’s life, were agitated by these conditions. They urged Mr. Lincoln to have a guard of soldiers; but for a year and a half after the spring of 1861, when Stone had concealed a squad of District militia in the shrubbery every night, there were no armed men within hail of the Executive Mansion.

  The President was indifferent to his own protection, either at home or abroad. Washington citizens had always been cautious about walking in the dimly lighted streets after dark. In Springfield, it had been natural for Lincoln to step out after supper to do an errand or talk with a friend, and he did not change his habits in the capital. During the great military campaigns, it was his habit to pay late visits to the War Office. By night, as well as by day, he took the short cut which led through the turnstile in the White House grounds, heavily planted with trees and shrubbery. Often he went with a secretary or friend, uneasily mindful that the President’s attenuated figure, topped by a stovepipe hat, was an unmistakable target, even in the dark. Lincoln sometimes walked out alone at night on informal visits to the theatre, dropping in for a half-hour of diversion at Ford’s or Grover’s.

  In the summer of 1862, the Lincoln family had moved to the isolated cottage at the Soldiers’ Home over the protests of the President’s friends, advised of secret service reports of assassination plots. They were especially alarmed by Lincoln’s habit of riding unaccompanied, frequently after nightfall, along the three miles of lonely road which lay beyond the city limits. Stanton and Lamon both urged him to have a military escort, but the President laughed at the idea. One night in August, as he jogged along through the dark, he was startled by the report of a rifle and the whistle of a bullet. Next morning, in his office, Lincoln told Lamon the story as a great joke, describing the speed with which his horse had bounded home, and lamenting the loss of his eight-dollar plug hat.

  On another summer evening, when Mrs. Lincoln was in New York, a detective turned in a report which thoroughly frightened Lamon for the President’s safety. After searching for Lincoln everywhere in Washington, he went for his brother, Robert, who was serving as deputy marshal, and the two men drove rapidly out to the Soldiers’ Home. Near the entrance, they met and challenged a carriage, attended by a horseman. It proved to be Stanton, with one of his orderlies. He also had received a threatening report, and had hurried to the suburban cottage, to which Lincoln had not returned. The Lamon brothers had given Stanton the greatest scare of his life, for he took them for the assassins.

  On returning to Washington, the Lamons found Lincoln walking across the White House lawn. There was much laughter over Stanton’s false alarm. But Marshal Lamon insisted on the President’s sleeping at his house for the remainder of Mrs. Lincoln’s absence. Soon after, Lincoln was induced to accept military protection when he rode or drove around Washington.

  The President’s first cavalry escort consisted of random details made from day to day from Scott’s Nine Hundred, a New York regiment which had earned much derision in Washington because of its pretentious name and its raw and rowdy character. Later, a guard from one company was expressly assigned to the President, and remained in attendance on him for more than a year. Its place was taken by a squadron of Ohio cavalry, the Union Light Guard.

  The President was irked by the cavalry escort, thought military show unbecoming to the Chief Executive of a democracy, and was sensitive about appearing to be fearful of danger. He complained to General Halleck that he and Mrs. Lincoln “couldn’t hear themselves talk” when they took a drive, because of the clatter of sabers and spurs, and professed to be more afraid of being shot by one of the green troopers than by a lurking guerrilla. He repeatedly sent the escort away, and frequently at night still rode unattended between the White House and the Soldiers’ Home.

  At about the same time as the appointment of the first details of cavalry, the President also yielded to the importunities of his friends on the point of having an infantry guard at the Soldiers’ Home. For a short time, a detachment of regulars was placed on duty there, but they were soon succeeded by two companies of the 150th Pennsylvania Regiment, a newly organized addition to the famous Bucktail Brigade, so-called because the soldiers wore bucktails in their hats. Possibly because it was less ostentatious, the infantry guard was far more acceptable to the President than the cavalry escort. He grew to like the Bucktails, especially Company K, with whose captain he became so friendly that he invited him to share his bed on autumn nights when Mrs. Lincoln was away from home. When the question arose of a guard at the White House on the family’s return to town, the President especially requested that Company K continue on duty. The congenial captain was presently transferred to another command, but the soldiers remained with the President throughout the war.

  In the late autumn of 1862, the Bucktails were encamped on the lawn south of the White House, and two sentinels paced their beats on the east and west sides of the mansion. The sentinels, however, were in no sense doorkeepers, and the same casual system of admission to the house continued to prevail. Lincoln had no bodyguard, either on his walks or in the house. At one time during the third winter of the war, a cavalry guard was placed at the gates of the mansion, but the President “worried until he got rid of it.” There were continual muttering rumors that the President’s life was in danger, and a queer story of an abduction plot was twice reported in the New York Tribune in the spring. It was said that the President was to be carried down to the Maryland town of Port Tobacco, and thence across the Potomac into Virginia. Lincoln never listened seriously to any of these rumors. He spoke only once of fearing harm from any man—and that was the old Polish bear, Count Gurowski, who took out all his animosity in his snarling manners and badly written diary.

  Some of the alarming stories may have been concealed from Mrs. Lincoln, but she was not without apprehension about her husband’s nocturnal walks. One night, crossing to the War Department with Noah Brooks, the President carried a heavy walking stick, “in deference to his wife’s anxious appeal.” Mrs. Keckley heard her telling him that he should not go out alone because he was “surrounded with danger.”

  At least one warm friend of the President could not help thinking that Willie’s death had not been an unmitigated tragedy. Mourning had cut short Mrs. Lincoln’s pretentious social career, and removed occasion for publicity. During her two years’ mourning, she attracted public attention chiefly by her visits to the hospitals. She showed much kindness to sick and wounded soldiers, carrying them presents of fruit and wine. Southerners satirized her as “the Yankee nurse,” but Union people saw nothing to criticize in her benevolence. Mrs. Lincoln never was well liked, but the early hostility to her subsided. In her retirement, she was almost forgotten. Few people knew her. Among the ladies of official society, only Mrs. Gideon Welles was on pleasant terms with the President’s wife. Time, moreover, befriended her. Her extravagant dress and countrified airs became an old story, and people tired of repeating the rumor that she was a spy, sending informatio
n to the South.

  Behind the screen of an outwardly quiet life, Mary Lincoln raged, wept, intrigued and purchased expensive mourning. She selected new jewelry, demanded the finest straw and the sheerest crape veiling for her bonnets, and ordered dainty sets of collars and undersleeves for her rich black silk dresses. “I have your money ready for you,” she wrote significantly on one order. Her credit was already being questioned.

  In the summer of 1862, Washington grumbled because Mrs. Lincoln refused to allow the concerts of the Marine Band to be given at the White House during her absence at the Soldiers’ Home. Her strict observance of mourning interfered with one of the city’s pleasantest customs, and a year later, when permission was again withheld, there was so much discontent that Gideon Welles felt obliged to mention it to the President. Mrs. Lincoln was still adamant in her refusal, and a compromise was arranged by offering military concerts twice a week in Lafayette Square.

  Eleven months after Willie’s death, the public receptions began again at the White House, and the President’s wife in her heavy crape faced the ordeal of greeting crowds of strangers. She had one small private reception during the winter, to entertain General Tom Thumb and his bride. Attended by an agent, a private secretary, a valet and a French maid, the tiny couple made a short stay at Willard’s on their wedding tour. It was the occasion for a reunion with Mrs. Thumb’s brother, a soldier in the Fortieth Massachusetts, on duty in the Washington defenses. At a hop at Willard’s, General Thumb was dressed in a black suit, patent-leather boots, snow-white kid gloves and a faultless necktie with a breastpin of brilliants. Mrs. Thumb wore rich white satin, sprinkled with green leaves and looped with carnation buds, and diamonds sparkled on her wrists and bosom. Cabinet members and other notables went to the White House to meet the bride and groom. Mrs. Lincoln’s next levee was a “crusher,” wrote Major French, and the lady herself remarked, “I believe these people came expecting to see Tom Thumb and his wife.”