American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Dr. Mudd excused himself and pulled Surratt out into the hall. Mudd felt he ought to apologize to Surratt for introducing him to Booth. He knew very little about the man, he said, and did not want Surratt to think he was vouching for him. Booth had insisted on being introduced, and without being rude, there just hadn’t seemed to be a way to avoid it. Surratt took it under advisement, and the two rejoined the others for drinks.

  Booth looked tired. He said that he had not yet recovered from his trip to Charles County, on which he had been to Dr. Mudd’s house, and had offered to buy the place. Mudd confirmed that with a nod, but added nothing more. Booth said that he had gotten lost on the way back and ridden several miles out of his way. As he talked, he took an envelope from his pocket and started tracing his route in the hope that Surratt could help him identify the roads and areas he had traveled. Weichmann, sitting on the sofa, paid little attention. All he remembered later was glancing up and seeing Booth drawing some lines on an envelope.13

  At Dr. Mudd’s suggestion, they all headed to the Pennsylvania House, across C Street. Sitting in the lobby there, Mudd talked with Weichmann about the war, and said that recent events had painted a gloomy picture for the South. Hood had been defeated in Tennessee, and nine thousand of his men had been captured. The rest of the army was demoralized, and the South was now at the mercy of Sherman. But Weichmann didn’t think the situation was that bad. For one thing, only four thousand of Hood’s men had been captured—or at least that was the count from his office. From the tone of the conversation, Mudd got the impression that Weichmann actually wanted the South to succeed. It struck him as a strange attitude for a man in a federal uniform. 14

  Booth left for New York on the morning train. He had kept up a correspondence with actor Sam Chester, and in several letters, had reminded Chester of that mysterious “speculation” he wanted him to join. So far, Booth’s efforts had come to nothing, so on Christmas night, he paid a visit to Chester’s house on Grove Street in Greenwich Village. They went for a walk, ending up at a pub called the House of Lords on Houston Street near Broadway. They talked over drinks and oysters, and eventually Chester said that he had better be going home.

  “Hold on,” said Booth. “I want to tell you what this speculation is.”

  “Yes,” replied Chester. “I wish you would, because you have worried me enough about it.” Booth asked him to take a walk up the street with him. This was private.

  They headed up Broadway to Fourth, and after going a block or two, Booth stopped and turned to his friend. “This is the speculation that I am concerned in. There is,” he said, “an immense party connected with it—fifty to one hundred people.” He took a few more steps, his eyes scanning the darkness for hidden listeners. “It is a conspiracy against the government.”

  Booth said they had planned for some time to capture the administration’s top officials—Lincoln included—and carry them off to Richmond. “It’s nearly made up now,” he said, “and we want you in.” All Chester had to do, Booth said, was hold open the back door of Ford’s Theatre so he and his conspirators could escape with the president.

  Chester was stunned. “No, John,” he said. “I can’t have anything to do with anything of that kind.” He said that it would ruin him, and especially his family.

  “If it is money you require, I have three or four thousand dollars that I can leave them.”

  “It is no compensation for my loss.”

  They talked some more, but Booth could see that it was no use. Chester had always thought of him as a braggart, and this scheme of his sounded like more of Booth’s patriotic posturing. It was simply too far-fetched to be believed. So they walked a bit farther, and Booth broke the silence. “At any rate,” he said, a little hesitantly, “you won’t betray me, because you can’t; for I have facts in my possession that will ruin you for life.”

  Chester felt his heart sink. “It is very wrong, John, because I have always looked upon you as a friend, and have never done you any wrong.”

  Booth said that everyone in the party had sworn an oath to hunt down and punish anyone who betrayed their plan. “I carry a derringer loaded to shoot everyone that betrays us,” he warned. Chester stood his ground. He insisted he could never involve himself in such a foolish scheme, and he was astonished to know that Booth would. Ending the discussion, he stormed off.

  This was something Chester could not put out of his mind. The conspiracy was bad enough, but that threat—that must have preyed upon him for weeks. It was unlike Booth to test their friendship that way. And what of those “facts” that could ruin him? His letters had mentioned that speculation, but only in vague terms. Did Booth have anything more than that?

  Booth’s revelation took Sam Chester by surprise, and it would have been equally shocking to his own conspirators. They had always planned to capture the president on the road to the Soldiers’ Home, and nothing had ever been said about an abduction anywhere else. If Booth was really contemplating an attempt in the theater, it is strange that he told no one except Chester, whom he had no reason to trust with the information. Most likely, the theater plan was a ruse that, if reported to authorities, would seem too far-fetched to be taken seriously.

  On his way back to Washington, Booth stopped in Philadelphia and spoke to his old manager, Matt Canning, at the Continental Hotel. Canning was still angry with Booth for canceling engagements that he had gone out of his way to arrange. That he should ask for a favor now seemed a little brash even for Booth. But the favor wasn’t really for him; it was for a friend.

  “You know Sam Chester,” he said. “He is a particular friend of mine. He is dissatisfied in New York, and wants to go back to Ford [for whom he had worked many years before], and if I interfere they might get angry with me.”

  “But they might get angry with me,” said Canning.

  “Oh, no,” said Booth. “There’s no danger of that. I will give you anything if you see Ford.”

  Matt Canning gave in, and in due course he persuaded John T. Ford to let Chester join his Ford’s Theatre stock company. Neither Canning nor Ford knew that this was Booth’s idea, and that Chester himself wanted nothing to do with it.

  Canning sent Booth a telegram to confirm the transaction, and got a puzzling response: “Don’t fail to hush that matter at once.” Booth later explained that he actually wrote “push that matter,” but the telegraph operator misread his handwriting. Nevertheless, the telegram would someday cast suspicion on Canning as a possible conspirator.

  Before he left Philadelphia, Booth had one more thing to do. He went back to Asia’s house and asked if he could put something else in her safe. It was an envelope marked “S. K. Chester.” No doubt, he had saved Sam’s letters about the “speculation.”15

  Joe Simonds stayed in Pennsylvania and continued to look after his own share of Booth’s former business. He knew that Booth had been too quick to give up on the Dramatic Oil Company, and his haste had cost him dearly. “I had hoped you were acting somewhere,” he wrote, “for I had no track of you and [hoped] that you were taking in Greenbacks at the rate of $1,000 per week.” He enclosed a check for five hundred dollars, saying that although it might not be much, it would help Booth stay on his feet. Coming from Booth’s financial adviser, his letter said a lot. The boasts of success, the lavish entertainment, and the promises of financial support were all a show. At the end of 1864, John Wilkes Booth was getting by on borrowed money.

  ON DECEMBER 30, John Surratt found employment with the Adams Express Company on Pennsylvania Avenue. Most of Adams’s business consisted of delivering packages to soldiers in the field, so anyone working for them would have to know where the troops were. That would make him a valuable asset to the South, even if it wasn’t his job to spy for them.

  Booth knew the risks Surratt was taking when he joined the plot, so he gave him advice on how to avoid confiscation. On January 3, Surratt signed a quitclaim deed that relinquished all claims to property he now owned or would own in the fu
ture. If he were ever charged with treason, nobody could take his mother’s houses in the belief that they were his. It was a protective measure Surratt’s Confederate handlers had apparently never mentioned. 16

  THE WAR WAS GOING BADLY for the Confederacy. Their armies had not achieved a significant victory for some time, and the winter would make things even more difficult. Attrition was eating into their ranks at an alarming rate. Soldiers were weakened by starvation, and hard war was eroding public morale. And increasingly, the Yankees were bringing another weapon to bear on the political front: the military commission.

  The idea of trying civilian dissidents before a military board had been a novelty before the war. Commissions were devised during the Mexican War by General Winfield Scott when judicial authorities fled Mexico City, leaving chaos and lawlessness to fill the void. When there was no one around to enforce the laws, military and civilians alike became the targets of thieves. So Scott improvised a system to restore order, using his own officers as jurors. It was an altruistic move, designed to bring civil stability back to the Mexican people.

  Now, however, commissions had become a weapon. Their chief function was to expose and quell political dissent, and they were becoming very effective at it. Recent trials at Indianapolis had led to imprisonment and even death sentences for high-profile politicians. Along with another in Cincinnati, they helped expose the treasonous motives of anti-administration activists.

  BY THE SECOND WEEK of January 1865, Booth had refined his capture plan and had a fair idea of the duties he would assign to his conspirators. Dave Herold, the pharmacy clerk, would be his all-purpose utility man. Arnold and O’Laughlen would provide muscle for the abduction itself. Harbin and Surratt would cover the route to Richmond, which they knew quite well. For security reasons, Booth kept his thoughts to himself and his conspirators in separate groups. They were unknown to one another.

  That business with Sam Chester still preyed on Booth’s mind, and he wrote Chester again in January. “You must come to Washington. We cannot do without you.” When Chester refused again, he wrote by return mail, “You must come. Enclosed you will find $50 to pay your expenses and more money when you get here. If you can’t come keep the money.” Having compromised, bullied, framed, and threatened his former friend, he realized that nothing would sway him. Finally, he employed his most potent resource: charm. Returning to New York on January 11, he apologized to Sam for trying to involve him in the plot. He was sorry he had put him in such a difficult position, and he promised not to keep after him about it. He wanted Chester to know that he truly respected him, as well as his wife and mother. Sam was touched by Booth’s sincerity, and he looked forward to putting all of this behind him.

  While in New York, Booth purchased supplies for his conspiracy, and he probably used Joe Simonds’s money to pay for them. He bought two Spencer carbines, six Colt revolvers, and three Bowie knives, plus caps, cartridges, belts, and two pairs of handcuffs. Since a heavy trunk was likely to arouse suspicions in the wartime capital, Booth chose not to accompany these items all the way there. He stopped in Baltimore and asked Arnold and O’Laughlen to take them the rest of the way. Arnold had bought a horse and buggy, as instructed, and Booth suggested he use them to take the carbines and revolvers to Washington. The rest of the items could be packed for shipment by express. That night, when Arnold and O’Laughlen arrived at the capital, they checked in to Rullman’s Hotel, near the National, to await further orders.17

  Booth needed someone to oversee the Potomac River crossing, and John Surratt was just the man. Surratt had barely started his new job at Adams Express, but he applied for a leave of absence anyway. His request was denied. The following day, his mother appeared at the office to plead her son’s case. Mary Surratt said that her son needed to escort her on a drive to the country. Charles Dunn, the supervisor, was unmoved. He told her that John was free to go, but he could not come back. Surratt walked out.

  On Saturday, January 14, Surratt rode with Tom Harbin down to Port Tobacco. They wanted to buy three boats, each large enough for fifteen men. The primary boat was to be kept in Goose Creek, south of town. Presumably, the others would be kept at alternate sites, in case something diverted them during their flight. Richard M. Smoot and James A. Brawner had only one boat, and it was still earning them good money. But eventually, they agreed to sell it to Surratt for $250, half in advance. There is no indication that Surratt ever found more than one boat to buy.

  They still needed an oarsman, and Surratt found a willing recruit at Port Tobacco. George Andrew Atzerodt, twenty-nine, was a seedy but inoffensive character who had been running the blockade since early in the war. He was born in Prussia, but moved to Virginia at an early age. He and his brother John had come to Charles County in 1857 to set up a carriage shop. The partnership lasted until 1861, when sectional tensions split the family. John and his brother-in-law, John L. Smith, became detectives on the Union side, while George and his brother Henry supported the South.18

  Andrew Atzerodt, as he preferred to be called, seemed to come right out of a Dickens novel. Grimy and consumptive, he looked like a man who might go for years without a change of clothing, then boast of the fact. A spinal curvature gave him a stooped appearance, and he walked with his head tilted a little to one side. Though Port Tobacco was a small town, few there even knew him, and those who did paid no attention to him. They all thought of him as an insignificant man whose most laudable quality was that he never took offense at an insult. The one thing he cared about was money, but he never seemed to have any of that. The bills were paid by Rose Wheeler, a thirty-five-year-old widow and seamstress with four children, the youngest being Atzerodt’s two-year old daughter. She and Atzerodt lived together as man and wife, resisting all pressure to formalize their union.

  Atzerodt’s carriage shop was just off the courthouse square, and that is where Surratt and Harbin found him. They said that sometime soon, they would need to run the blockade, and indicated that this would be no ordinary mission. Though they declined to be specific, they did make it clear that the job involved prisoners of war and horse relays. Timing would be critical, so if he chose to work with them, he would have to keep himself ready to go at a moment’s notice. If everything went well, the mission would make them all a lot of money.

  In all likelihood, the last word Atzerodt heard was “money,” and it was all he needed to hear. He joined the plot at once, and dropped all prior commitments. For one Eddy Martin, Atzerodt’s change of plans was bad news. An agent of the Confederate Treasury Department, Martin was trying to arrange a $700,000 tobacco deal in Fredericksburg, and Atzerodt had just promised to smuggle him across the river. But now, without explanation, his ferryman lost interest. He offered nothing but excuses, and after a week of frustration, Martin found someone else to row him to Virginia.19

  SOMETIME IN MID-JANUARY, Booth abruptly changed his mind about abducting the president en route to the Soldiers’ Home. Over dinner one evening, Booth told Sam Arnold and Mike O’Laughlen that Lincoln was no longer making regular trips to the country, so he had devised a new plan. Everyone knew that the president was fond of the theater, and one of his favorite actors, Edwin Forrest, happened to be playing an engagement at Ford’s. If Lincoln came to see Forrest, perhaps they could capture him right there in the theater. It was just a thought.

  Arnold and O’Laughlen were taken aback. An isolated setting had always been crucial to the plan, and indeed, it was one of the few details that made the scheme plausible. Booth had planned meticulously for an abduction in the country. He often rode out Seventh Street to familiarize himself with the area, and he seemed to know every avenue of escape from there. But if they changed the plan now, they would have to start from scratch. Abducting Lincoln in a theater sounded completely impractical, and worse, it made Arnold and O’Laughlen wonder just how much Booth was improvising or leaving up to chance. Sensing their skepticism, Booth took them to Ford’s Theatre and argued that the layout, the exits, and
the alleys were ideal for a quick getaway.

  ON JANUARY 20, Booth returned to the stage to play Romeo for the benefit of his dear friend, the actress Avonia Jones. This would be Booth’s first performance since Julius Caesar two months earlier, and only his second since the end of May, but he seemed to have lost none of the old fire. A critic for the Daily National Intelligencer gushed: “As earned by his Romeo, we hasten to add our laurel to the wreath which the young actor deservedly wears; to offer him our congratulations, and to say to him that he is of the blood royal—a very prince of the blood—a lineal descendant of the true monarch, his sire, who ranks with the Napoleons of the stage. . . . We have never seen a Romeo bearing any near comparison with the acting of Booth on Friday night.”20

  THE HARD WAR POLICY WAS HAVING a devastating effect on food supplies in the South, and even the most basic staples were now beyond the reach of thousands. A small loaf of bread that had sold for fifty cents the year before was now hard to find at any price. Subsistence stores could not keep the troops fed, and starving soldiers deserted in large numbers. To alleviate the problem, Confederate officials began surreptitiously working their way into the cotton and tobacco trade that had been going on with the Lincoln administration’s blessing. Such commerce was supposed to help stimulate the Northern economy while encouraging Southern planters and merchants to reestablish their ties to the Union.

  For Northern cotton speculators this became a multimillion-dollar business. But it could also benefit the Confederacy, filling its coffers and bringing in some of the resources needed to stave off defeat, for at least a while longer. Southern leaders were determined to make the most of the opportunity, and they often set up illicit deals that looked very much like those sanctioned by the administration. They seem to have found highly placed friends in Washington to help with the ruse.