American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  NINE

  “I HAVE A GREATER SPECULATION.. THEY WON’T LAUGH AT”

  AFTER A QUICK TRIP TO NEW YORK, BOOTH VISITED THE Clarkes at their new home in Philadelphia. He took Asia aside and gave her a large envelope, asking her to put it away for safekeeping. “I may come back for it,” he told her, “but if anything should happen—to me— open the packet alone and send the letters as directed, and the money and papers give to the owners.” The life of a touring star was hazardous by nature, and Asia thought nothing of his request. She just assumed he was taking care of loose ends. She promised to lock his package away, and was surprised when he said that that wasn’t good enough. “Let me see you lock up the packet,” he insisted. So with her brother looking on, she placed the envelope in an iron safe and locked it. He thanked her and left. 1

  Like countless other families, the Booths were torn apart by the war. Edwin and Sleeper Clarke were now committed supporters of the Lincoln administration, while John Wilkes and Joseph sided with the Confederates. Junius tried to appear neutral. He disagreed with John Wilkes, but as the eldest male, he felt an obligation to hear his brother out. He said that the war was like a family quarrel, in which both sides would eventually make up. For the sake of his own family, he urged John Wilkes to keep himself out of the struggle.

  June and Asia had always listened to John’s opinions, even if they didn’t agree with them. But Edwin and Clarke took a dismissive attitude. That was insulting, and it only made Booth more determined to be taken seriously. Relations with those two had been deteriorating steadily for years, and in August 1864, an argument with them threatened to split the family for good. “If it were not for mother, I would not enter Edwin’s house,” John Wilkes told his sister. “But she will leave there if we cannot be welcomed, and I do not want her to be unhappy for me. As for Clarke . . . I would never darken his door, but for you.” Mary Ann had apparently threatened to move to neutral ground, and a truce was called for her sake. Thereafter, political discussions were banned in her presence.2

  All things considered, it was no small feat to bring Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes together on stage, but it happened for the first and only time on November 25. The event took place at the Winter Garden, an aging Broadway landmark named for a playhouse and conservatory in Paris. It was filled to capacity that night, and Mary Ann proudly watched her sons from a box above the stage. The play was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, one of those rare works that feature three roles for leading men. Junius played Cassius, Edwin played Brutus, and John Wilkes took the part of Marc Antony in the reenactment of an event the Booths knew so well from the lessons of history.

  Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

  Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

  By these words, the death of Caesar was declared an act of heroism, inspired by the most patriotic motives.

  The play’s themes of civil war, oppression, conspiracy, and tyrannicide were hauntingly relevant to Booth’s own day. It cannot have gone unnoticed that it was presented now by the sons of a man named Brutus. Six months in the future, patrons would look back on this night and wonder what had gone through the mind of John Wilkes Booth as he stood in the wings, listening to the prophecy of Cassius:

  How many ages hence

  Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

  In states unborn and accents yet unknown!3

  The sculptor J.Q.A. Ward had designed a magnificent bronze of the Bard to be placed in Central Park, and this performance was arranged to help pay for it. Actors all over the country were contributing as well, and as a member of the statue committee, Edwin did not want to be outdone. The production finally came off after two delays, and was a tremendous success. The Booths collected $3,500 for the statue fund.

  This theatrical milestone did not go without a hitch. An alarm was sounded midway through the second scene. The prospect of a theater fire sent a panic through the audience, and patrons began a rush for the exits. They seemed on the verge of a stampede when Edwin stepped up to the footlights and assured everyone that there was no cause for concern; the building was not on fire. Nervously, the audience settled back into their seats, and the play resumed. But there really was a fire. It was at the LaFarge House, next door. That was one of a dozen buildings set ablaze that night by Confederate agents in an attempt to spread fear and panic throughout the city. But like everything else planned in Canada, it failed. The insurgents had used a concoction made of turpentine and phosphorus—something called “Greek fire.” It was ineffective, and no serious damage resulted.4

  The Booths’ performance was a critical success, but it did nothing to smooth over relations between John Wilkes and Edwin. William Stuart, a partner and publicist for the latter, played up the event as a personal triumph for Edwin, to the exclusion of everyone else. And to make matters worse, he threw a post-performance reception and inadvertently forgot to invite the brothers. Junius wouldn’t have gone in any event; he had to escort his mother home. But John Wilkes discovered the oversight, and, feeling slighted, went off in a huff.

  The following night, Edwin Booth embarked on a series of “Grand Revivals” he hoped would reinvigorate the legitimate drama. He planned to present three Shakespeare plays over the next year or two, with historically accurate costumes, restored scripts, and details that most performers had long since put aside. The bill for November 26 was Hamlet, and little did anyone suspect that it would run for one hundred consecutive nights— a feat that would seal Edwin’s place in American theater history. His star was clearly on the rise.5

  This New York visit gave John Wilkes a chance to work with his old friend Sam Chester, who was a member of the Winter Garden stock company. Sam was a passive man, and his refusal to argue politics gave Booth the impression that they agreed on all the major issues. It was a critical misunderstanding.

  One day in December, Chester was walking down Broadway when he saw Booth and some actor friends talking about the oil business. Booth insisted that his investments would make him rich, but the others just laughed. To them, oil sounded like a “humbug” speculation, and Booth’s glowing picture of success hadn’t changed their minds. So Booth gave up on them, and seeing Chester, he broke off the conversation and walked over to greet him.

  “They are laughing at me about a speculation,” he said, “but I have a greater speculation than they know that they won’t laugh at.” Chester didn’t take the bait, and Booth said nothing more about it.

  Booth returned to New York frequently in the next month, and he always made a point of looking up Sam Chester. Each time, Booth said a little more about that mysterious speculation, but he never said what it was. He even wrote to Chester between visits, in an effort to get him interested. But Sam’s responses were as vague as Booth’s entreaties. After weeks of playing cat-and-mouse, Booth finally told Chester that he was investing in Virginia and Maryland farmlands. He laid out a case for real estate, and said that if Chester wanted to join him, he would put up the funds to start him off. Chester was skeptical, and declined the offer.6

  BOOTH RETURNED to the home of Dr. Queen on December 17, and again he spent the night. But this time, he attended church with the family the following morning. St. Mary’s Catholic Church was a mile below Bryantown, on the road to Queen’s place. They arrived a few minutes early, and the doctor’s son-in-law, John C. Thompson, took the opportunity to show his guest around. By chance, he happened to notice Dr. Samuel Mudd standing with some other men in front of the church, and he introduced him to Booth. The Mudds owned a good many acres, and Thompson suggested that Booth might want to see if the doctor himself had any to sell. They talked for a few minutes, then everyone filed into church for the beginning of mass.7

  The following day, Booth paid a surprise visit to Dr. Mudd’s farm, four miles north of town. The Mudds found him polite, charming, and a good conversationalist. Booth told them a little about himself and his family. Junius was a good Republican, and had joined him in the oil business. Joe,
his youngest brother, was living in San Francisco, and seemed to like it out there. After such small talk, he finally got to the point of his visit: land and horses. He had been exploring the surrounding area, he said, and he wondered whether anything around here might be for sale. Mudd said he had thought about selling his own place and moving to Benedict, but with the end of slavery, farm prices were much too low to get what he needed right now.

  In better times, the Mudd place might have commanded a high price. The doctor had 218 acres, and they were as good as any around—fertile, well-drained, and situated on the highest elevation in the county. A freshwater spring ran nearby. He lived in a modest two-story white frame house with three bedrooms and an office. A new section joined the kitchen to the main house, and a few outbuildings clustered over the hills in the back. Two hundred yards behind the house were the headwaters of Zekiah Swamp, a tangle of wooded streams and freshets that led to the lower Potomac, twelve miles to the south.

  It is not hard to imagine how the conversation moved along. Mudd would have described his own property, and Booth would have asked for the broader picture—about neighbors, roads, and anything else that might interest a prospective buyer. They would certainly have talked about the recent demise of slavery, and how the farmers of Charles County intended to get by without a labor force. These were necessary questions, because they touched on the value of the land. Though it is only speculation, it seems likely, in light of later events, that Booth got a little too aggressive in his questioning. He may have hinted at his need to get something across the river, or he may have said it outright. Either way, he did not get the information he wanted. Dr. Mudd had a distrustful nature, and he had too much at stake if Booth should prove to be one of Baker’s spies. So he talked guardedly. By early evening, Booth realized that he had missed the Washington stage, and he asked if he could spend the night.8

  Booth wanted to buy a horse, and he hoped to find one in Charles County so he could ride it back to Washington. Dr. Mudd suggested he talk with his neighbor, George H. “Squire” Gardiner, and the next morning, they walked across the field to see him. Booth chose a brown saddle horse with heavy fetlocks and a defect in its right eye. It was a large animal, about twelve years old, but it was a good pacer. Gardiner wanted eighty dollars, and Booth paid it. He still needed a saddle and bridle, and Dr. Mudd recommended he get them at Henry Turner’s shop in Bryantown. They went into town together.

  Booth offered to buy the doctor a drink at Montgomery’s Tavern, and that is where they met Thomas Harbin, the former postmaster of Bryantown. Harbin, thirty-one, hated the Yankees. In 1861, they had arrested his brother-in-law, Thomas A. Jones, for blockade-running. Jones, who lived just below Pope’s Creek, had frequently gone to Virginia and had helped establish a system of getting mail across the river, then hiding it at designated places a few miles inland. Anyone who knew the hiding places—and that included a sizable number of local citizens—could check those mail drops and deposit anything they found at the local post office. The federal government would do the rest.

  For many people, that was the extent of their involvement, but Jones did not stop at carrying mail. “Scarcely a night passed,” he later admitted, “that I did not take or send someone to Virginia.” He often made the journey twice a night, and sometimes more than that. As he told his captors in 1861, “There are not twenty men in my county or the adjoining counties that would not have done the same as myself.”

  But Jones’s case was different from most. In 1862, a special commission recommended he be released, but William Seward intervened personally, and Jones was denied clemency. By the time he was allowed to return home, his wife, Jane—Harbin’s sister—had given birth to another child and lapsed into serious illness. She died soon after, and since that time, Harbin and Jones had been committed enemies of the Lincoln administration.

  Booth had spent enough time in the county to know that Tom Harbin could help him find his way to Richmond. When Dr. Mudd introduced them, Booth asked if he might have a private word. The two went upstairs to talk, and as Harbin remembered it, Booth looked around with a dramatic air, and checked the hall and windows for eavesdroppers. Then he laid out his plan to abduct the president. He said that Harbin would be perfect to guide the party to Virginia, and he hoped to enlist his help. Harbin was taken aback. Certainly, it was an audacious plan, if not really original. It was risky, but so was his work with the Signal Service. After thinking it over, he agreed to join.9

  Booth returned to Washington and left his horse at Cleaver’s Stable, at Sixth and C streets, Southwest. His scheme would require a second horse, and a buggy as well, so he instructed Sam Arnold to find something suitable in Baltimore. Since he expected to spend a lot of his time around Ford’s Theatre, he asked the staff there if they knew of a stable he might rent in the neighborhood. Jim Maddox, the property man, told him about a shed that opened onto Baptist Alley. It was about forty yards behind the theater, and Booth thought it sounded perfect. At his suggestion, Maddox worked out a deal with the owner, and got the shed for five dollars a month.

  The chief carpenter at Ford’s Theatre was James J. Gifford, the same man who had once torn the roof off Tudor Hall. Now, twelve years later, he and Ned Spangler, who had also worked on the Booth home, began working for Booth in their spare time. They partitioned the shed in the alley and raised its roof to accommodate a buggy. Booth promised to pay for their help, but somehow, he never got around to it.10

  ON DECEMBER 23, Dr. Samuel Mudd came to Washington to do some Christmas shopping with his brother Jeremiah. Mudd had been planning to buy his wife a new cooking stove, and he had arranged to have a man in Bryantown take it back to the country for him on Christmas Eve. They registered at the Pennsylvania House, just across from the National Hotel, and took a good supper. Their hotel was not the finest in town, but it was the terminus of the Port Tobacco stage line, and popular with visitors from Charles County. The Mudds looked around to see if they might know some of the other guests, then headed over to Brown’s Metropolitan Hotel to check for acquaintances there. The place was crowded, and the men became separated. Dr. Mudd started up Seventh, and had gone barely a block when he heard someone call his name. It was John Wilkes Booth.

  Meeting Dr. Mudd at this time, and in this place, was an apparent stroke of luck for Booth. He had been seeking an introduction to John Surratt, whom he planned to ask for advice about finding a home in Southern Maryland. Dr. Mudd knew Surratt, as most people in the area did, but he had no idea where to find him. He tried to beg off, saying that some relatives from Baltimore were expecting to meet him at the Pennsylvania House. Booth promised not to take more than a few minutes. He already had Surratt’s address written on a card.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out why Booth wanted this introduction. John Surratt had connections to the underground, and, as Mudd must have guessed by now, Booth was determined to work his way in. In that case, the Surratts were good people to know. They were one of the better-known families of southern Prince George’s County. John’s father once ran the tavern and post office at Surrattsville, ten miles south of Washington. The stagecoach made a stop there on every run, and passengers generally got out while the driver made a side trip to pick up mail. The elder Surratt passed away in 1862, and John left his studies at St. Charles College to come back and run the family business. But there was more to the job than most people knew. Surratt’s Tavern was a Confederate safe house, and couriers often stopped there on their way to or from Richmond.

  In time, John Surratt himself became a courier, with ambitions to be a spy. In the fall of 1863, he applied for a position in the U.S. War Department, hoping, no doubt, for access to sensitive information. But his plan backfired. His application called up rumors of rebel connections, and instead of moving Surratt into a better job, it cost him the one he already had. He was dismissed as postmaster of Surrattsville, and for the next year, he gave his time exclusively to the Confederate government.11

  Dr. Mudd m
ay have been wary of introducing Booth, as he later claimed, but he had no chance to back out of it. As they walked up Seventh Street, Booth pointed out a tall, fashionably dressed young man approaching them on the sidewalk with a companion. Booth recognized him as Surratt, and he insisted on being introduced.

  John Surratt did not look like a secret agent. He was just twenty years old, and his smooth, pale skin made him look even younger. He had fine, sandy hair, deep-set eyes, and a prominent forehead that gave him the look of a genteel schoolboy. With him was a tidy-looking man with dark hair and rosy cheeks. He was Louis J. Weichmann, a former schoolmate of Surratt’s and now a boarder in the home of his mother. Weichmann was also well dressed, but there was something distinctive about his trousers. They were blue, with stripes up the sides—from the uniform of the War Department Rifles. Lou Weichmann worked for General William Hoffman, the Commissary General of Prisoners.

  For John Wilkes Booth, this meeting was too good to be true. Not only did he meet John Surratt, who could point the way to Richmond, but he also met a man who dealt every day with the central inspiration of Booth’s conspiracy—prisoners of war. As he sized up this new acquaintance, Booth must have wondered if this meeting with Louis Weichmann would prove as fortunate for himself as it now seemed.12

  Booth led the others back to the National Hotel and suggested they all go up to his room for a drink. Mudd said that his friends were probably waiting for him, but since Surratt was disposed to take Booth up on the offer, Mudd soon changed his mind. Again, the actor played the perfect host. He ordered refreshments and invited everyone to make himself comfortable. He pointed out that the room had recently been occupied by a member of Congress, who had left some of his papers behind. Pulling them off a shelf, he remarked, “What a good read I shall have when I am left to myself!” Weichmann, intrigued, took some of them over to the sofa to examine.