The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

“Do you want to make McClellan president?”

  “I told you … I just want this damn war to end. No more dead brothers, no more widowed wives and cryin’ babies sufferin’ through the winter on some Ohio dirt farm.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Watch the Aqueduct Bridge. I’ll watch the Long Bridge. If you see any of them cross—Hunter, Mrs. Dunbar, fat Wiggins—see where they go. They may try to bring the daybook to McClellan’s camp. He has officers on his staff who have Copperhead instincts. And if you can get your hands on the daybook along the way…”

  “Don’t you have other spies?”

  “I do, but you’re here, and you have a motive. Bring the daybook back, we’ll talk you out of the McDillon murders and find a way to pin the Constance Wood killing on Skeeter. I expect he’s the one who did it anyway.”

  “And what if you find it?”

  “You swap me Squeaker’s ledger for it. I know you have the ledger, even if you say you don’t. A book of gambling debts, liquor bills, girl bills, boy bills. That could have some value.”

  “It could,” said Halsey. He did not add that there was no way he could get to the ledger because it was hidden in his desk in the telegraph office. Instead he asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You don’t. But like I told you, I may be your only friend.”

  * * *

  Later, on the back of the night soil wagon, Halsey decided to take McNealy’s bait, but he would not swallow the hook. He would nibble, have a meal, and move on. He would trust nothing that McNealy said.

  And if he could not get his hands on the president’s daybook, he would try to get out of the District altogether. He might cross into Virginia, or move north through Georgetown, steal a horse, and start riding. If he could slip through the ring of forts, he would find easy going toward Baltimore, then perhaps the train to New York.

  So he slept until the late-afternoon meal that Mother always cooked on Saturdays.

  Jubilo and Jim-Boy had ended work early and told of what they had seen on their walk home: Secretary Stanton had put out a call for volunteer nurses and doctors, and Washingtonians had answered. Stanton had also asked them to bring medical supplies, including painkillers.

  “They’s all reportin’ to the Surgeon General,” said Jubilo. “Right there at Fifteenth and F. So they’s mobs just millin’ and pushin’ and shoutin’, all the way down to Pennsylvania and all the way over to Fourteenth. And plenty of ’em brung the kind of painkillers that make a man drunk to make him painless.”

  “They all got a sniff of winnin’ in their snoots,” said Jim-Boy. “So they all wants to be in on the back-slappin’ and boozin’.”

  “A colored man could go plumb crazy gettin’ through a crowd like that, tippin’ his hat ever’ which way,” added Jubilo.

  Jim-Boy looked at Halsey. “And not a one of ’em tip back.”

  Bad manners, thought Halsey … and chaos. Time for him to go.

  So he finished Mother Freedom’s pig’s-foot stew. Then he went to the shed and put on the trousers of his brown suit. They had shrunk some after their soaking in that thunderstorm, but they would do. He combed his beard but did not trim it. He put brass-rimmed reading glasses on the tip of his nose for effect. He bundled his things, shouldered his holster, holstered his pistol, and put on the suit jacket.

  Then he looked around the little shed, at the dirt floor, at the sunlight poking through the cracks in the barn board, at the burlap mattress stuffed with hay. And he thanked God for the simple human comfort he had known here, for a place to sleep, work to do, food to eat, and friendship.

  He closed the door and went back into the little house. Jim-Boy had gone off, and the Freedom brothers were all napping with full bellies, but Mother was sitting in a shaft of late-day sunshine, darning socks.

  She looked up. “You leavin’?”

  “It’s time.” He knelt by her chair and took her hand. “I want to thank you.”

  “I do what the Lord commands, since the day my Maryland master heard the Quaker call and repented of his evil, repented that he beat my mama from the time she was little, cuffed her so hard round the ears, she grew up deef, repented of all his sins, all the livelong day, and part of repentin’ meant drivin’ my mama and me into the city one mornin’ and droppin’ us right in front of the Center Market. I was ten, maybe. I asked my mama what this meant.

  “She said, ‘Freedom, Molly, honey.’ That’s my real name, Molly, Molly Blodgett, Blodgett bein’ the name of that master.”

  “Freedom,” said Halsey, “a fine feeling.”

  “Freedom? It made my mama scared is what it done. Then we met some good white Quaker folks. They helped us, and we got on. I’ve now lived fifty-four years and I tell you, I been slave and I been free, and I rather live right next to a smelly old compostin’ yard as a free woman than slave for a king in golden palace.

  “And I made me a vow that I would do what I could so’s others could taste this sweet honey. Since then, that shed has hidden many a runaway dreamin’ of freedom. And the mornin’ when you come here, you had the same scared look and the same innocent eye. So I made you my first white runaway. You are a man set on a righteous path, and you are dreamin’ of freedom, too. I hope you find it.”

  And Halsey gave the old black woman a hug. He did not think about it at that moment, but she was the first Negro he had ever embraced.

  Then the door to one of the bedrooms opened and Zion peered out.

  Halsey’s eyes met his. Did he look disappointed? Suspicious?

  “Y’all leavin’?”

  Halsey straightened up and nodded.

  Zion said, “Good. I ain’t never felt too com-fable with you around.”

  Mother said, “Now, Zion—”

  Zion kept his eyes on Halsey. “And you ain’t never trusted me, neither.”

  “That’s not true,” answered Halsey.

  “I seen the way you look at me,” said Zion. “Like you was ’fraid I’d turn y’all in for the re-ward.”

  Mother Freedom said to Halsey, “Were you worried about that?”

  “A man in my position worries about everything,” said Halsey.

  “Remember the word of the Lord in Matthew,” said Mother. “‘Who of you by worryin’ can add a single hour to his life?’”

  “If you’re leavin’,” said Zion. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  Halsey felt the suspicion jump. “I thank you for the favor, but—”

  Zion rose up to his full height. He was as skinny as one of his own shovel handles but almost as tall as Lincoln. And he was angry. He was always angry. Halsey accounted his anger as something normal for a Negro whose station in life was in a privy, late at night, looked down upon by those who would never do such labor themselves. But that did not mean that Halsey trusted him.

  “I ain’t doin’ you a favor,” he said. “I’m doin’ us a favor.”

  “That’s right,” said Mother. “We made us a rule that you never come in or go out ’cept in the dark. We done it for a reason.”

  “Folks see a white man in a brown suit and bowler hat walkin’ out of here,” said Zion, “they get suspicious.”

  * * *

  Zion took him in the “clean-haulin’ wagon.” It was covered, and had canvas sides and padded seats, so that Halsey could ride in the back and no one would see him. Zion said he would go as far as Pennsylvania and Seventh. “But I ain’t drivin’ nowhere near where they’s white men drinkin’ too much.”

  Then they headed west on Maryland Avenue toward the Capitol.

  Halsey did not like this fix at all. He considered sliding out the back and dropping off. But there was too much traffic.

  After fifteen minutes of rocking and jostling through the ruts, Zion stopped the wagon, leaned in, and said, “We comin’ up to the Capitol now. We can roll down Pennsylvania and dump you.”

  “Good.”

  Then Zion smiled at Halsey for the first time. “Course, I could make a n
ame for myself if I turn south for half a block.”

  The Old Capitol was half a block south. Halsey did not think the joke was funny. He did not even think it was a joke. So he put his hand around his pistol.

  Zion knew he had it, because Halsey always had it. Zion had even commented on how pretty it was, on how much he would like to have a little Adams pistol just like it. Perhaps this was the moment that Zion had arranged to get the pistol and the reward, too, because suddenly the ground began to shake.

  Halsey looked out the back and saw a dozen Provost Cavalry riding up.

  So, Zion was doing it here, well away from his home, with the fugitive dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing the night he was framed. Far better to deliver him to the Provost Guard right in front of the Old Cap than to bring them to the compost lot while Halsey slept … or to a customer’s hole while Halsey shoveled.

  Halsey slipped the gun from his pocket and was about to put it against Zion’s spine when the Negro leaned in and said, “Hunker down. They’s a big square of canvas in the corner. Pull it on up over your head. I see if I can talk us clear.”

  Should he trust Zion … or shoot him?

  “Go on,” whispered Zion. “There ain’t no shit on it. Pull it on up over your damn head, or we both be in jail.”

  Halsey had no choice. The Provost Cavalry was almost on them. He covered himself, and Zion snapped at the reins.

  The captain of the guard said, “Hey, boy, where do you think you’re goin’?”

  “Good afternoon, suh,” said Zion in a tone so subservient that Halsey thought it was someone else.

  “What’s in that wagon, boy?”

  Zion said, “Nothin’, suh … yet. I’se jess headin’ on down the market. Doin’ my Saturday shoppin’. Mama cooks beans for the church supper on Sunday nights. I gots to buy the mo-lasses.”

  Two of the soldiers laughed and said the word as Zion had said it: “Mo-lasses.”

  “For the church supper?” said the captain skeptically.

  “I got the call to be a good Baptist, suh, and the bestest part’s the church supper.”

  “Don’t be funny with me, nigger. The Provost Marshal has called for all wagons in the city to bring medical supplies to the front.”

  “The front?” The bottom fell out of Zion’s voice.

  Through a hole in the canvas, Halsey saw a mounted soldier peer into the back of the wagon. He held his breath so the canvas would not move.

  The officer asked for Zion’s name and for the papers to prove it. Zion said he could show a Negro night pass.

  After a rustling of paper, the captain growled, “This says you’re a shit man. You haul shit in this wagon?”

  “We … ah … we likes to call it night soil, suh.”

  “Do you haul shit in this, nigger?”

  “I clean the wagon every Sat’day mornin’. Scrub it out good, but I don’t know that y’all want to be haulin’ no medicine in it.”

  Apparently, the captain agreed, because a moment later, he shouted, “Come on!”

  The sound of the hooves receded. Then the canvas was flipping off Halsey’s face and Zion was looking down at him. “Now do you trust me?”

  “I never doubted you.”

  “Then put away your pretty pistol.”

  After a short ride along Pennsylvania, Zion pulled up in front of the Center Market and jumped down. Then he stuck his head back into the wagon. “I’m goin’ in to buy some mo-lasses. You wait five minutes, then you slip off.”

  “Thank you, Brother Zion.” Halsey offered his hand.

  Zion said, “You know all them times you look at me like you thinkin’ that I was thinkin’ ’bout turnin’ you in?”

  Halsey nodded.

  “I was.”

  And Halsey laughed for the first time in weeks.

  * * *

  Chaos was the word as Halsey approached the Willard. The whole block, over to the Treasury and up to F Street, was jammed with ambulances, wagons, shouting cavalry officers, soldiers, men with satchels, men with flasks, men with women from the south side of the street, and a few women who had actually come to do some nursing.

  A train of wagons and ambulances was lining up on Fourteenth. An officer was shouting that there would be another train of private conveyances lining up soon on Fifteenth. One row of ambulances had already left for the Long Bridge. Others would go by way of the Aqueduct Bridge and head south to the Columbia Turnpike, then west for Manassas.

  Halsey pushed his way through the crowd, avoiding eye contact and conversation. He would trust no one. He would trust nothing that McNealy had said. He knew that McNealy might be using him. So he had made a plan and a promise to himself that he would not be caught in any man’s web. He would try instead to spin one of his own. So he hurried to Lafayette Square, then went two blocks north to Harriet Dunbar’s house.

  He knocked on the door and when the black butler appeared, he asked if this was the home of Mr.—he made up a name—Dolan. The butler was about to speak when Mrs. Dunbar scurried to the door and said, “Who is it?”

  “This gent’s lookin’ for a man named Dolan.”

  She glared at him.

  He kept his hat on his head. Perhaps she would not recognize him.

  She said, “No one around here by that name.”

  “My apologies, ma’am.” Halsey spoke as Cousin John had, with a mock British accent and fake formality. As he went off the stoop, he felt her eyes boring into his back.

  At least she was at home. He would watch for her on the bridge.

  Then he made for the Bigsby house on Pennsylvania.

  Mrs. Stetson, the colored maid, answered the door.

  He tipped his hat and asked for Dr. Wiggins, once more with the British cast to his Boston accent, which made him sound rather British to begin with.

  Mrs. Stetson said, “Doc Wiggins lives next door.”

  “Would you know if he happens to be at home?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  Halsey tipped his hat. “My apologies.”

  Mrs. Stetson looked back into the house, then said, “Hey, mister?”

  Halsey stopped. Had he pushed too far?

  She whispered, “Doc Wiggins is up to no good.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. And after the lightnin’-strike night, I tried listenin’ to their talk in the barn. I listen from the privy. Far as I can figure, they want to keep my people slaves forever. So, no, Doc Wiggins is not at home. But you watch out for him. I seen him leave a bit ago with the eye patch–wearin’ man and the one they call Skeeter.”

  “Did you ever hear them talk about something called a daybook?”

  “Last night. I heard them and the lady argue on what to do with it.”

  “Thank you. And … how long did it take for you to recognize me?”

  “Low, croakin’ voice like that, it’s hard to forget. You be careful.”

  * * *

  Evening was coming on. The light was fading as Halsey came up to M Street and followed it across Rock Creek, then passed the Union Hotel Hospital.

  A dozen men were lounging out front, watching a cavalry guard approach a wagon and announce that they were confiscating it by order of the Secretary of War.

  The driver started to complain.

  One of the soldiers on the stoop spit tobacco and shouted, “Don’t you know there’s a war goin’, mister? Get out and walk!”

  The others all laughed, and a few applauded.

  And then … Halsey saw her. His heart leaped to his throat, which was good because it kept him from calling her name.

  Samantha had come back. She stepped to the front door and rang the supper bell. Then she turned and was gone.

  He stood there for five minutes, hoping that she would come out again, wondering if he should go in and know the pleasure of her company once more before he was hauled away. But he reminded himself that if he persevered this night, he would be able to sen
d her the letter he carried in his jacket, next to her carte de visite:

  Dear Samantha,

  I hope that this finds you well and that the Lord in his mercy has brought comfort to your father, whether he remains among the living or has passed to his reward. I continue my efforts to clear my name. I may not be innocent of the hurt I caused you, but I am innocent of other things. I now hold a document that may absolve me of certain transgressions. Please tell my father and sister, in confidence, of this letter. Knowledge of my existence will come as a tonic to them both. I am deeply sorry for hurting you. I will not deny that my feelings for Constance were strong, but so are they for you. If the Lord gives us the opportunity to meet again, I will express them in person and hope that you will hear them.

  Then he reminded himself that it had been Skeeter watching Samantha that evening on the bridge. And Skeeter—or Hunter—was probably still watching her, watching for Halsey. And those men murdered women. All the more reason to persevere.

  So Halsey turned and headed for the Aqueduct Bridge.

  He had not gone far before he saw Doc Wiggins stepping out of a house on the towpath, right by the first lock. The doctor was carrying his bag. Had he just seen a patient? Or was he still running his safe house for deserters, even after a raid from the Provosts?

  Could that be? Or had McNealy lied about the raid? Halsey reminded himself of his resolve not to trust a word McNealy said.

  The doctor climbed into his carriage and put the bag on the floor at his feet. His Negro driver called to the horse, and the carriage started to roll along the towpath.

  Halsey sidestepped and dodged and hurried to keep up.

  Presently, the carriage arrived at the guardhouse by the bridge. Men and women were pouring across, and guards were waving most of them along, though here and there, they would stop a Negro or a pretty girl. Not-so-random searches seemed the order of the day, and high spirits, too, because reports from the battlefield had it that the Federal troops were driving Stonewall.

  This time, people were saying, Bull Run would be different.

  Doc Wiggins simply held up his bag to pass.

  Halsey watched it dangle ostentatiously in front of the guards, like a symbol of rank or professional honor. The guards saluted. The doctor returned it to the spot between his feet. And Halsey decided that if he were a smuggler looking to spirit a presidential daybook out of the city, he could think of no place better to hide it than a doctor’s bag.