The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  McClellan, ordered to pull out of Harrison’s Landing and bring his army north in support of Pope, had obeyed … but slowly.

  Meanwhile, Stonewall Jackson’s “foot cavalry,” the fastest-moving infantry on earth, had slipped around Pope and gotten into the Federal supplies at Manassas. They had eaten all they could gobble, taken as much as they could carry, and burned the rest.

  As the breeze carried the smoke of their fires thirty miles to Washington, the paper proclaimed with rare understatement that tension was building in the capital.

  Tension was building in Halsey, too, as he looked up and saw a cloud of dust. People on the street turned their heads. Somebody waved. And there, rounding Iowa Circle, came the tall man in the tall stovepipe hat.

  In an instant, Halsey’s hopes rose, then sank.

  Little Tad was not riding with the president. A detachment of cavalry was. Lincoln’s advisors had been urging him to accept protection on his commute, and with the rebel army so close, he had.

  Lincoln glanced at Halsey as he passed, but no recognition registered on the president’s face. He simply rode on and the cavalry thundered after, their huge mounts kicking up stones and causing the ground to shake.

  Halsey knew right then that he would never get closer than that to the president.

  But he wondered, as he watched Lincoln canter down the avenue, how much the president knew about the Copperheads and the Sons of Liberty and the Knights of the Golden Circle, all dreaming of Northern defeat, all hoping to put McClellan in the White House, all trying to fuel the “fire in the rear.”

  And what of his musings in the daybook? Could they still hurt Lincoln?

  There had been talk of the daybook in the barn, but still it had not surfaced.

  If the looming battle produced a victory that led to an emancipation decree, it would be better if the daybook was in the hands of a friend, no matter what it said.

  Halsey decided that he still had to find that daybook. With it, he might clear his name of the McDillon killings at least … or transform the shooting of three gambling-hell thugs into the act of political and personal loyalty it was, rather than the cold-blooded act of vengeance depicted in the press.

  Finding it would be his expiation.

  * * *

  But he still needed a friend, perhaps one more accessible than the president, perhaps Major Eckert, who walked from the National Hotel to the War Department at ten minutes to seven each morning. So the next day, Halsey leaned against a storefront on Pennsylvania Avenue, picked up another paper from the street, waited, and read:

  MOVEMENT TOWARD MANASSAS was the headline.

  Details were wanting, of course. Battlefield details were always wanting, even after the battles were over. And rebel cavalry units were good at cutting telegraph lines. But this much the city knew: General Pope and his army were preparing to engage.

  Meanwhile, “McClellan chafes in Alexandria. Of his five corps, roughly twenty thousand men in each, two remain on the Peninsula. Fifth Corps has gone to reinforce Pope. Sixth has been ordered to march. And Second, currently spread around the District forts, may also be summoned.”

  Halsey’s Twentieth was in Second Corps. That was where he truly wished to be, marching with friends against an enemy he could see. Instead, he waited till seven thirty. Then he wondered if Eckert would be coming at all. With a battle looming, Lincoln had probably spent the night at the War Department, so Eckert would have done the same.

  Halsey could imagine the tension in the telegraph office as the messages clattered back and forth, as the president paced, as the secretary scowled, as Homer Bates nervously decoded and the president read word by word over his shoulder.

  If Halsey could not be with the Twentieth, he wished that he were back in that office. But here he stood like a beggar, hoping to clear his name, and if he lacked powerful friends, he still needed observant friends. So he folded the paper and walked toward the National.

  * * *

  “Yes, sir, these is some dirty boots, mister. What you been doin’? Muckin’ a stable or somethin’?” Noah Bone pulled out two heavy-duty brushes and went to work.

  Halsey said, “I don’t have the money to pay you.”

  Noah’s hands stopped.

  Halsey waited. Did Noah recognize the voice or was he simply angry? If it was one, he would go right back to polishing. If the other, he might throw Halsey off the chair.

  Noah’s hands started moving again, and he whispered, “You got no right to come back here. That detective come and ask about you every day for two damn weeks.”

  “What did he ask?”

  “Who your friends are … all your friends … white and black.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I say I don’t know many Harvard-goin’ white men who needs colored friends—and I don’t—and that’s all I know.”

  Halsey looked out at Pennsylvania, at a jangle of wagons and barouches and horses. If there was tension in the air, he could not feel it in the street, but he could feel it in Noah Bone. He said, “You shine Major Eckert’s shoes, don’t you?”

  “I shine any man’s shoes who pay my price. I shine yours. I shine your boss’s.”

  “He’s not my boss. He’s my superior officer … and my friend.”

  “Well, maybe he’s your superior officer, but he ain’t your friend no more.”

  Halsey slumped a bit in the chair. “What has he said?”

  “The mornin’ after it all happen, whilst I’se shinin’ his shoes, he’s sighin’ over what he’s readin’ in the paper, and then he just come out with it, ’cause he know I shine your shoes, too. He come out with how bad he feel, how be … be … be-trayed.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothin’. ’Cause Mr. Booth come up and sit next to him and they start talkin’.”

  “What did Booth say?”

  “What he say in the paper, ’bout you wantin’ a map of Squeaker’s…’bout you and Miss Constance in the hotel the day ’fore you—” He caught himself. “—the day ’fore she was killed…’bout all kinds of things I don’t rightly want to hear ’bout, knowin’ that me and my boys has helped you.”

  Halsey said, “Noah … I didn’t kill her.”

  Noah looked up. “I don’t care. Do you know what they do to me if they think I’se talkin’ to you?”

  “I need time to make this right. If you can’t help me, don’t turn on me.”

  Noah spit on Halsey boots and said, “I ain’t a fool, but I ain’t a snitch, neither.”

  “Then … can I call on you or your sons if I need your help?”

  Noah said nothing. He just buffed until Halsey’s shit-shoveling boots were shiny and clean. Then he threw the buffing rag over his shoulder and stepped back.

  Halsey climbed down and pretended to put a coin into Noah’s hand. He said, “I won’t bother you again.”

  And Noah said, “Are you still for Mr. Lincoln and agin’ those agin’ him?”

  “More than ever.”

  “Then I’se for you, even if they’s a reward on you. My boys, too.”

  “Thank you.” Halsey turned and almost bumped into John Wilkes Booth, just coming out of the hotel.

  Booth jumped aside, then looked into Halsey’s face.

  Would the bushy beard and laborer’s rags deceive a man who made his living in disguise, playing other people? Halsey tugged at the brim of his hat and grunted.

  Booth pulled out a handkerchief, brought it to his nose, and stepped around Halsey.

  As Halsey took to the sidewalk, he heard Booth, say. “Which chair did that fellow sit in, boy? I’ll have the other. Wearin’ rags and spit-shined boots … takes all kinds, boy.”

  Noah said, “I shine any man’s shoes who pay my price, sir, Abolitionist, Union Democrat, or outright Secesh … no matter how bad they smell.”

  Booth said, “A wise philosophy, especially for a darkie.”

  * * *

  Now that the encounter with Booth ha
d proved how truly invisible he was, Halsey relaxed and just walked. He liked the steady step, the rhythm of movement, the awareness off the world around him as if he were, to quote Emerson, the transparent eye, looking, experiencing, absorbing.

  He visited all the places where he had met in plain sight with McNealy: the City Wharves, the Star Saloon, the Center Market. He even went along B Street, between the south edge of the President’s Park and the Washington Canal. Looking toward the White House, he saw the familiar black-frocked figure on the south lawn, peering through a brass telescope at the distant smoke of battle.

  But Halsey saw McNealy nowhere.

  And nowhere could the transparent eye find an answer to his hardest question: How had a young man so careful, so judicious, so responsible, ended up as a fugitive sneaking around a city by day and shoveling shit by night?

  Toward suppertime, he worked his way back to Ryan’s in the East Capitol neighborhood where congressmen and senators boarded in session, where office seekers, contractors, and confidence men stayed year-round. Here the privies filled fast, literally and figuratively.

  Halsey guessed that if McNealy came home, it would be around now, for a hot meal. So he waited two hours in the shadow of an old elm. The aroma of a boarding house stew wafted into the street and made Halsey’s mouth water.

  But McNealy never went in or came out. And in a way Halsey was glad, because like a dog that stalked a bull, he did not know what he would do if he caught his quarry.

  Instead he made mental notes of everything about the house and grounds. The privies stood next to the stable, opposite the chicken coop. They had windows on the sides for ventilation and exterior latches. And Halsey remembered something McNealy had said, about getting up every morning at four. He also remembered that the Freedoms would be working three blocks away that very night.

  II.

  By 3:30 A.M., they had emptied two privies on Seventh near East Capitol. The wagon was so full, said Hallelujah, they’d have to dump it before the last job.

  Halsey asked how long that would take.

  “Home and back,” said Hallelujah, “’bout a hour.”

  That was what Halsey was hoping to hear. He told them that he would see them at four thirty at the last job, another address on East Capitol.

  “Y’all stay out of trouble,” said Zion, “or you be gettin’ us in it.”

  Halsey watched the wagon roll north and wondered again if he could trust Zion. He kept looking for signs of treachery from the youngest brother.

  How easy it would be to catch Halsey in an outhouse hole with nowhere to run. And why not? The Freedoms owed him nothing. He owed them everything. But they must have known that harboring a fugitive was a crime, so perhaps he was safe.

  He followed East Capitol until he came to the little alley beside Ryan’s boardinghouse. He carried his shovel over his shoulder and his Adams .31 in his belt.

  He held a slip of paper to the streetlamp so that if someone happened to peer out, they would think he was simply checking the address of his next job. Then he went up the alley and around to the back. There came a flutter of clucking in the henhouse, which meant that the rooster would start making a racket soon. A horse snorted in the stable.

  Halsey noticed a lantern flickering to life in a room at the rear of the house. Then the back door opened. He ducked behind the privies as a slender woman with a single long braid of hair came out. She wore a white robe and carried a chamberpot. She opened the door of the privy, splashed something down the hole, and went back inside.

  The hens fussed a bit more. He knew he could not stay long, because once the rooster began crowing, people would be awake in the houses all around.

  Then the back door of the boardinghouse opened again.

  Halsey saw the silhouette he had been waiting for: McNealy, almost true to his word, rising at ten past four, visiting the privy.

  Halsey came around to the side, peered in, saw McNealy, sitting in his shirtsleeves, head down, chin on hands. He pushed his pistol through the window and pressed it to the side of McNealy’s neck. “Don’t move a muscle, not even your asshole.”

  McNealy said, “Hutchinson?”

  Halsey stayed back so that McNealy could not see his face. “If you raise your voice, I’ll blow your brains out. And you know that this gun doesn’t make much noise in a closed space.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “You heard it at Squeaker’s, when you followed me and found the daybook.”

  “I didn’t find it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Then who does?”

  Something scurried along the path in front of the outhouse: a rat. It glanced up at Halsey, then shot across the yard toward the chicken coop.

  Halsey said to McNealy. “Who has it?”

  “Harriet Dunbar, or Doc Wiggins, or Eye Patch Hunter and that weasel Skeeter.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Halsey.

  “I don’t care. And I’ve been wondering … how did you ever find us that night?”

  Halsey pressed the gun harder. “I ask the questions, Detective. I ask and you answer. You follow?”

  McNealy laughed but said nothing.

  Halsey repeated, “You follow?”

  “I follow.”

  There was a small victory, but Halsey told himself not to relax. His hand and the gun were inside the little window, and he was outside. He was holding the pistol tight around the grip, finger twitching on the trigger. It was no way to win a shooting contest. But he couldn’t miss, even if he jerked the trigger like a woman. So he gripped tight and said, “That night … you set me up.”

  “When I told you to meet me at the C&O Canal?”

  “You told the Provost Guard to go there, too.”

  “They went to break up an underground railway, but not for darkies. For deserters. Wiggins owns a string of canal boats. Puts the deserters on them at night, sends them off. Nobody ever sees them again. I learned about it at their meetings. I ordered the raid on a night when we were meeting, so they wouldn’t suspect me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I just told you, Lieutenant. I don’t care.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “It’s your face on the wanted posters.”

  Halsey jammed the gun harder against McNealy’s neck.

  “Whoever killed her didn’t want her spreading what she knew about McClellan’s deepest thoughts, I’d bet.”

  “You’d bet? You don’t know?”

  McNealy said, “It could have been her uncles. It could have been Doc Wiggins.”

  “What about these Knights of the Golden Circle? What’s their game?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “Do they know you work for the War Department?”

  “They think I’m a double agent.”

  “How did you convince them of that?”

  “I didn’t. You did.”

  “Me?” Halsey almost lowered the gun.

  “Why do you think we always met in plain sight?”

  Halsey answered, “Because people don’t see what’s right in front of them.”

  “Because it was easier for them to see us. I told them you were my source in the War Department. But you damn near blew it, sneakin’ around outside, peepin’ in the window like some slave catcher lookin’ for runaways.”

  Halsey had been taught in law school never to ask a question to which he did not already know the answer. But this witness kept shocking him. He said, “Why was Mrs. Dunbar in the ladies’ parlor at the Willard the night that Constance was murdered? And why was that Skeeter on the stairs?”

  “Skeeter went up to snatch the McClellan notes from Constance’s room while Mrs. Dunbar kept her busy. They didn’t want the world to know their favorite general thinks God smiles on his defeats.”

  The rat scuttled back with something in its mouth. An egg?

  “In a little
while,” said McNealy, “you’ll smell bacon, when Mrs. Ryan starts cookin’ my breakfast. I need to go. So let me ask you a question.… What’s your game?”

  “I want that daybook.”

  “I can help you get it.” McNealy turned his head, as if he was sure that Halsey would not shoot now. “Or you can help me.”

  “I help you? How?”

  * * *

  McNealy predicted that whether the Federal troops won or lost the battle thirty miles away, there would come a moment when chaos would wash over the city and its bridges.

  The army controlled travel on all the bridges. The Long Bridge spanned a mile from Maryland Avenue to Alexandria. The flat Aqueduct Bridge crossed at Georgetown. It had once been an actual aqueduct, allowing canal boats to pass, but the army had drained it and planked it so that troops could use it. And the Chain Bridge went over the thin, rocky water a mile upstream.

  Artillery covered the Virginia approaches to each bridge. And the Provost Guard checked passes. Everyone needed a pass, from Jubilo and Jim-Boy to General McClellan himself.

  But in a crisis, the flow of people became too great, and the need to move them superseded the need for security. And McNealy expected that by afternoon, there would be a crisis.

  At worst, it would be the panicked flood of soldiers and civilians fleeing into the city ahead of the victorious rebels.

  At best, it would be a surge of wagons and people rushing out to bring the wounded home, because the ambulances of the Medical Corps were scattered from the Peninsula to Washington, and most of the medical supplies that should have been with General Pope’s army were sitting in the District quartermaster depot.

  “Either way, they’ll throw the bridges open, and spies and traitors and contraband niggers’ll cross like it was market day in peacetime. A Copperhead holding a valuable daybook just might see a chance to get to the other side in all that confusion.”

  “Why?” asked Halsey.

  “Because the sound of artillery gets everyone nerved up … Knights of the Golden Circle, female spies, even Peace Democrats. They’ve watched Lincoln strip McClellan down to a sergeant’s guard and a tent. So they called a meeting last night to do what they can to help him, or they won’t have anyone to beat Lincoln.”