The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

Noah grinned and said, “I keep my eye peeled, sir.”

  III.

  Halsey Hutchinson could lie down to sleep and tell himself that he would awaken in two hours, or four, or five, and no matter how exhausted he might be, his eyes would pop open at the appointed moment. So he awoke precisely at noon in the narrow fifth-floor room overlooking the alley behind the hotel. His pistol was in his hand. Lincoln’s diary was under his pillow.

  He used the chamber pot. Then he pulled his room bell three times.

  A colored servant soon appeared with a pitcher of hot water, which he exchanged for the chamber pot, which was emptied down a pipe at the end of the hallway. Where it went, Halsey did not want to know.

  As he shaved, Halsey faced two decisions:

  Uniform or Brooks Brothers? Carry the diary or hide it in the room?

  Uniform. That was easy. Women liked uniforms, and while men in uniform were as common in Washington as men on the make, Halsey knew that he looked good in his.

  As for the diary, he would have left it under his pillow, but he suspected that McNealy might be visiting the room while he was out, so he’d keep it with him. It would spoil the line of the uniform, but better that than losing it to a man who sought spies everywhere.

  Instead of the diary, Halsey left a little note under the pillow for McNealy.

  Then he smoothed his uniform and took his kepi, which bore the “Bugle and 20th” insignia of his old regiment. Inside the crown was a carte de visite in a small tin frame, the image of the young lady of the day.

  Her name was Constance Wood, and she had been the prettiest girl at the United States Sanitary Commission levee, held in the Patent Office gallery a few weeks before.

  Along with just about every other young officer in attendance, Halsey had been drawn to her. However, he had not pursued her. He had not hovered. He had not hurried to the punch bowl to fetch her a drink. He had not stood waiting for a sign that he might approach and talk to her.

  Perhaps that was why she had been drawn to him.

  In truth, he had gone because of another girl.

  Samantha Simpson of Wellesley, Massachusetts, served in the Sanitary Commission volunteer office in Boston. She had sent Halsey a note:

  If you appreciate my correspondence, as you did my company when you were convalescing, you will make an appearance at the fund-raising levee in Washington, present yourself to the committee organizers, and speak a good word for the Boston volunteers.

  And so he had.

  And then Miss Wood had approached, saying that the heat of the reception had quite tired her out and she would be ever so thankful for an escort back to the Willard Hotel. He had considered this to be rather forward, especially for a young woman so generously gifted by nature with a long, graceful neck, strawberry blond hair, and a smile that was as much a challenge as an invitation. But he had offered his arm.

  And they had walked chastely back to the hotel and chastely bid good-bye.

  Since then, he had left his calling card twice at the Willard, and the second time, she had responded with a note:

  Lieut. Hutchinson, I should like to visit the exhibit of photographs of Red Indians at the Smithsonian on April 17. As the Smithsonian Park is an unsavory place for ladies, even in daylight, a gentlemanly escort would be most welcome. I hope that you will be so kind as to meet me in the ladies’ parlor at the Willard, at half past twelve. We might dine together and walk from there.

  And if Miss Samantha Simpson objected, well, she was in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Miss Wood was here, and a young man who had faced death on the battlefield came quickly to understand that life’s pleasures should be savored whenever the fates presented them.

  * * *

  If a man wanted to know what the world was thinking—about anything—in the uncertain spring of 1862, he could find out at the Willard Hotel … because the world went to Willard’s.

  It was a short walk for the clerks who worked in the Executive Branch, as it was for the office seekers who needed liquid sustenance after a day in the patronage line. It was an even shorter walk for the reporters who merely had to stroll across Fourteenth Street from Newspaper Row. And a quick carriage ride brought senators and congressmen down from the hill, secure in the knowledge that there would always be someone to buy them a meal.

  Halsey stopped at the entrance to let his eyes adjust after the noonday sunshine.

  His other senses adjusted as well … to the smell of cigar smoke, bay rum, and bodies … to the sound of raised voices and roaring laughter … to the feel of the machine-made carpet crunching with all the dried mud and cigar ash ground into it … to the sight of fifty faces, then a hundred, then a hundred more, all turning in his direction, to see if this young uniform was worthy of a business card or a beer or a bit of blather … and to the taste of ambition—metallic, acidic, burning—that flavored the very air.

  Several men approached immediately. They came from the right and the left. Flanking parties, followed by a frontal assault, lobbyists on the attack.

  That was the new word for them—lobbyists—because they spent so much time in the Willard lobby, lurking in the corners, lounging on the circular settee, leaning into conversations, looking for information or influence with any decision maker or power broker who might pass on his way to dinner, drinks, or assignation in an upstairs room.

  But they did not care about Halsey. They were not even looking at him.

  One of them said, “Congressman Wood! A word, sir. A word if you please.”

  Another said, “My card, Congressman. Please accept my card, sir!”

  “Congressman, did you read my proposal to outfit the New York regiments in the uniform of the Fire Zouaves? I can offer a deal on fabric for those baggy red trousers!”

  “Not interested. Not interested in any of you.”

  Halsey turned to see a tall, cadaverous man with long black hair and mustache moving straight toward him.

  “Are you Hutchinson?” asked the man.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’re the one I’ve come to dine with.”

  “But, sir—”

  “No man squires my niece about Washington who hasn’t passed muster with me.”

  And Halsey realized that he should have asked a few more questions about Miss Constance Wood. In Boston, a young man and woman of the same class were formally introduced. Backgrounds were known. Pedigrees were familiar. Families were friends. There was no opportunity for an unpleasant surprise like this because …

  … in addition to being a Democratic congressman from New York’s third district, Benjamin Wood owned the New York Daily News, the most rabidly anti-Lincoln paper in the North, so rabid that the postal service refused to accept it for mailing. So Wood had shipped his paper on express trains, but government detectives had boarded the trains and confiscated the paper. So Wood had put the paper on hiatus. But he had continued his Congressional attacks on an administration that he said was bent on Abolitionist rule and the destruction of the Constitution. And when he could no longer editorialize in his paper, he had written a melodramatic novel called Fort Lafayette, about Secession and Southern honor.

  In short, Halsey could not have chosen a worse congressman to dine with. But he did not have time to retreat. He was overwhelmed by a superior enemy, a man who knew how to take a room and hold it.

  Wood boomed out, “Are you armed, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then, unless these jackals give us a path, I authorize you to shoot your way to lunch.”

  Immediately, a sea of broadcloth and facial hair parted before them.

  * * *

  In the dining room, a harpist strummed tunes that added a bit of gentility to the din of conversation echoing off the high ceiling. Halsey noticed some heads turn, while many eyes simply shifted. Who was walking in behind the maître d’?

  Look and be seen, but look without seeming to. That was the rule of the Willard dining room … and eat all you could,
because tomorrow, Stonewall Jackson might arrive.

  Halsey followed Wood and the maître d’ to what must have been Wood’s usual table, given Wood’s proprietary attitude toward it and the maître d’ and the room in general. The table perched on a raised platform, overlooking both the room and the Avenue, so Wood had a fine view of the ladies and gentlemen already seated and those just arriving.

  A pitcher of ale appeared on the table.

  “We’ll take the buffet, Jester,” said Wood to the Negro waiter.

  “You come on a good day, sir,” said Jester. “We got fine fried Chesapeake oysters, and what we call George Washington beef, ’cause it grazed around the Washington Monument, so it’s tender and juicy.”

  Wood watched the waiter go off. Then he turned back to Halsey. “There’s a darkie who loves his job and does it well, no matter how many of his brethren are held in chains on the other side of the river. But if Lincoln gets his way, we’ll have free darkies swarming around us thicker than blackberries. And that is a thing I mean to stop.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve heard plenty about me in the War Department—”

  “How do you know that I work in the War Department?”

  “The Confederates may be fighting us, Lieutenant, but we Peace Democrats have plenty of enemies right here in Washington. So we have our spies, as well.” Wood raised his mug. “To my beautiful niece.”

  Halsey answered: “To Constance Wood. I should have known.”

  Wood leaned across the table. “Now, what are your intentions?”

  “Intentions?” Halsey knew where that question was aimed, but he would make the congressman clarify … and squirm a bit. “Intentions, sir?”

  “Toward my niece, of course. Are you a young man of honor or just lookin’ for a quick kiss behind some pillar in the Smithsonian?”

  In truth, Halsey was hoping for a kiss or two, but he placed his mug on the table with an indignant thunk and said, “I resent that question, sir.”

  To Halsey’s surprise and faint disappointment, Wood smiled, which gave his gaunt face the appearance of a skull. “The answer I was hoping for.”

  After a moment, Halsey picked up his mug again.

  Wood raised his. “I salute your bravery, sir, and your good sense.”

  “Good sense?”

  “Good sense to be here, courting my niece before returning to a desk in the War Department, a far better fate than what awaits your friends in the field.”

  “I believe I still have much to offer, sir, despite my wound.”

  “A noble sentiment.” Wood pulled a card from his vest pocket and wrote a note on the back, then called the waiter and told him to see that it was delivered to room 444.

  Meanwhile, another diner was returning from the buffet, his plate heaped high with fried oysters and steamed greens.

  Halsey watched the food go by, and his mouth began to water.

  Wood grinned at him. “Hungry, are you?”

  “I haven’t eaten since last night, so … yes, sir.”

  “Hungry for a lot of things, I’d bet … I just sent my niece a note. She’ll wait on you at one o’clock in the ladies’ parlor. So you have time to calm your hunger for food and your hunger for makin’ a difference, before you satisfy your … other … hungers.”

  “How do I make a difference in less than an hour, except to the fried oysters?”

  Wood took a swallow of beer. “Are you Abolitionist or Unionist?”

  “Unionist,” said Halsey, “I believe that the preservation of the Union is our primary goal. But if the abolition of slavery follows—”

  “What about reunion without abolition?”

  “If that would stop the bloodshed and preserve the Union, absolutely.”

  “Union without abolition would do just that, and save us from Niggerocracy.”

  “I have not heard that word before, sir.”

  “You wouldn’t among your Republican friends, but … have you heard our motto?”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “‘The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was.’” Wood took another sip. “They call us Copperheads in the Republican press. They mean to call us snakes in the grass. But look here—” He pulled out a penny and pointed to the liberty head. “—this is the copperhead we believe in. Liberty. And the sooner we get this war over with, the better for the Constitution, the Union, and liberty, too.”

  “That’s something we can all agree on, sir,” said Halsey, maintaining his neutrality.

  “You could help to achieve it, and save lives as well, should you offer information that you think pertinent.”

  “Pertinent?” Halsey looked around to see if anyone in the room was paying particular attention—War Department spies, perhaps. Halsey decided to say nothing more. He had learned in his law classes that sometimes, nothing was the best thing to say.

  “Come now, Lieutenant. You must hear things.”

  And for the second time that morning, Halsey said, “Things?”

  “Discussions between the president and Stanton. What are they planning? What provisions of the Constitution will they trample next? How far will Lincoln push for Niggerocracy?” Wood gave a disgusted laugh. “After the bill he signed yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planning to free every nigger in the country.”

  And for the third time that morning, Halsey thought, If you only knew.

  “General emancipation”—Wood shook his head—“the worst disaster that could befall us. If it happens, the South will fight even harder. There’ll be slave rebellions, waves of darkies pouring north, hungry, dirty, ignorant. We’ll have to start shooting them at some point. The bloodshed will never end.”

  With each sentence from Wood’s mouth, Halsey resolved more firmly to protect himself and the presidential thoughts in his pocket.

  Wood said, “If we knew beforehand that Lincoln was planning a general emancipation, we might head it off. Save the nation before it’s too late. And you, young man, you see the president almost nightly.”

  “I speak only when spoken to,” said Halsey.

  “All the better. Just listen. And should you hear that Lincoln is considering something that would make Abolitionists rejoice, tell your allies … political or personal.”

  “Personal?”

  Congressman Wood drilled his dark gaze into Halsey. “Such a service would put you in good with not one but two proud uncles of Miss Constance—myself and my brother, Fernando, formerly the mayor of New York. And certain female favors might follow.”

  So Benjamin Wood was not above using his niece. Halsey remembered his cousin’s words about dallying with Washington whores. Some wore dresses. Some were congressmen.

  And what would Halsey say to this … use … of a young lady’s charms?

  What he said was that he could not wait another moment for a plate of fried oysters. Then he got up and headed for the buffet table.

  * * *

  Once Halsey had been seen in public with the uncle, he might as well enjoy his time with the political streetwalker. So he escorted Miss Constance Wood to the Smithsonian. He was, however, the perfect gentleman. And she appeared the perfect lady.

  She admitted that she had sought him out at the levee because of his position in the War Department. But she added that she admired his bravery at Ball’s Bluff.

  Her honesty disarmed him … her flattery, too … not to mention the aroma of her dusting powder.

  And he told himself that if he had to be seen in public with a Peace Democrat’s niece, there was none in Washington he would choose over her.

  They walked down Tenth Street toward Smithsonian Park, stopped on the cast-iron footbridge across the City Canal and looked east, then west, first at the skeletal dome of the Capitol, then at the stub of the Washington Monument, half built and topped with an awning.

  Miss Wood called it, “A city as unfinished as the nation itself.”

  Halsey said, “And so it
will remain, until the question of Union is settled.”

  “Union,” she asked with a tease in her voice, “or slavery?”

  But they did not stay to debate. The stink from the canal was too strong.

  As they entered the circle of woods around the Smithsonian Castle, Halsey put his right hand on his holster and she clutched his left arm. Three thuggish-looking men lounging against a tree trunk gave them the once-over. But they were too lazy for trouble in broad daylight … or perhaps too intimidated when Halsey unsnapped the holster flap.

  Constance said how happy she was that such a resolute young man would squire her. And they passed from the bright sunshine into the cool shadows of the red sandstone castle, a towered fortress built, it would seem, to protect knowledge from the vandals of ignorance. And since Halsey had toured Europe and studied the great buildings, he could throw around architectural terms like “Gothic” and “crenellation” and “keystone” to impress her.

  They started in the Great Hall, where they saw the skeleton of the Megatherium, a giant sloth long extinct. Then they went into the West Range, the magnificent pillared passage connecting the central building with the library. There, hundreds of Plains Indians stared at them from walls and display cases, frozen forever in chemically rendered shadow and light, bronze-colored men and women who, said Constance, “will soon be pushed aside to accommodate the march of a great nation.”

  “Not so great,” Halsey said, “until our immediate issues are settled.”

  “Resolute,” she whispered, “and well spoken, too. A man to make a girl swoon.”

  He felt the excitement tighten his chest … and other parts. He was fit, firm jawed, and went with a seriousness of purpose that men seemed to admire. He also wore a mustache and chin strap that some said made him look like General McClellan himself. But no young woman, not even Miss Samantha Simpson of Wellesley, Massachusetts, had ever suggested that he made her swoon.

  He looked up the gallery and down, and it seemed that they were alone with the unblinking Indians. So he determined to extend her swoon. He took her hand and led her behind a pillar.

  She giggled and said, “Why, Lieutenant Hutchinson, whatever are you doing?”