The Day Lincoln Lost

by Charles Rosenberg

* * *

  The sheriff had intended to visit Mrs. Foster right away, but one thing led to another and he didn’t get around to it until her third day in his jail, when a crisis of sorts arose and he felt he had to go and see her.

  When he got near to the far set, he stopped for a moment to observe Abby from a place where he could see her but she couldn’t see him.

  They had given her the nicest and largest of the three cells. It was perhaps eight feet square, with bars on the front and a worn-looking wooden bench running along one side. A small wooden table sat in a corner and held a washbasin and pitcher. There was even a small painting of Jesus hung on a nail.

  The Jesus picture had been placed there a couple of years before by an itinerant preacher. The preacher had spent a few nights in the cell after punching a man at a camp meeting who had taken issue with his theology. No one had objected to it, so he had just left it up.

  Mrs. Foster was primly dressed—high white collar atop a long black dress, with her hair pinned up.

  As he drew near the bars, she was sitting stiffly upright on the only other piece of furniture in the cell—a straight-backed chair placed at the very rear. She looked both older and more severe—it was perhaps the gray hair—than he had expected. He could tell that she had once been quite beautiful, perhaps even stunning.

  She had apparently heard him approaching, because she looked up and said, “Good afternoon, Sheriff.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Foster. I’m Sheriff Tom Stromberg. I apologize that I’ve not come to visit you before this.”

  “I’m sure you have many duties to keep you busy, and your deputies have been tending to me.”

  “I’ve heard you are not well, and, if I may be so bold, you look quite pale.”

  “The problem is the food, sir. I cannot eat it and I do not have enough of my own.”

  “I am surprised because my wife has been cooking specially for you, and she is quite the good cook in my opinion.” He smiled. “Which could be biased, but is attested to by others, as well.”

  “It is of fine quality, Sheriff, I’m sure. The problem is that I am a follower of Sylvester Graham’s diet.”

  “I’m not sure I know what it is.”

  “I don’t eat meat.”

  “What else is there to eat?”

  “Fresh fruits and vegetables and Graham cakes.”

  “What are they?”

  “They’re made of wheat or corn that is coarse-ground.”

  He wrinkled his nose.

  “They taste better than you might think, Sheriff. Perhaps you’d like to try one.”

  “Well...”

  “I have only two left, but am happy to share one.” She opened a small satchel—prisoners were allowed to bring personal items into the jail as long as they were searched first—and took out two stiff-looking, brown, square cakes with rounded corners.

  She broke off a piece, walked to the bars and held it out to him.

  He shrugged, took it from her and bit into it. It tasted to him like sawdust might. But, not wishing to offend, he said simply, “Not really to my taste, but I can see how one might come to like it.”

  “I have.”

  “What about cheese and milk?” he said. “Do you eat those?”

  “Only if they are very fresh.”

  “Were you able to find the makings of the Graham diet here in Springfield before you were jailed?”

  “With some difficulty, but yes, although only a small amount.”

  It seemed a solution to his desire not to hold her in his jail. He hadn’t worked out the details, but he said it aloud anyway.

  “Suppose, Mrs. Foster, I were simply to let you go, on the ground that you need to be able to seek out your own special foods or it will imperil your health.”

  “What would I be required to do in exchange?”

  “To appear for your trial on the date it will be set for.”

  She was silent for a moment, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, to which she had returned. Finally, she said, “If you let me go, I cannot promise to come back since I consider the government that has imprisoned me to be illegitimate.”

  “You would not agree to stay in Springfield?”

  “I am most likely to get on a train and go back to Massachusetts.”

  “I just don’t understand, Mrs. Foster. I am offering you an opportunity to get out of this cell—in which you are clearly suffering—and you are turning it down based on some high principle.”

  “Sheriff, I am an abolition lecturer. Have you ever gone to an abolition lecture?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “If you were to come—and I invite you to come—you would learn that, very close to here, for Kentucky is not far away, slaves are suffering this very day. They are being forced to work in the blazing sun. They are being whipped and beaten. And they are being paid not one nickel for their hard work.”

  “I know that, of course. I am something of an abolitionist myself. In my own way.”

  “What way is that?”

  “I know that it has to end someday, somehow.”

  “Abolitionists want slavery abolished instantly.”

  “I don’t see how that is practical.”

  “That is always said. And it becomes an excuse for doing nothing.”

  There was a small silence, during which he felt embarrassed, because what she said was true. He was opposed to slavery, but not in any way that mattered. Finally, she broke the silence. “Do you have children, Sheriff?”

  “Two surviving.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Ten-year-old twins.”

  “Ah, that is a good age. I recall when my daughter was that age. But do you know what happens to slave children at the age of ten?”

  “No.”

  “That is often when they are taken from their families and sent to the fields for the rest of their short lives. Or sold.”

  “Not all of them surely.”

  “Most of them, quite surely. And that is why I am staying here in this cell. So that when the trial comes, I will emerge, haggard and thin, to fight the ludicrous charges against me. And stand witness to the terrible scourge of slavery. It will be the best platform I have ever had.”

  29

  Law Offices of Lincoln and Herndon

  Lincoln was, as usual, tilted back in his chair, reading. This time, he was perusing a telegram that Herndon had just handed him.

  “Billy, this an unwelcome complication. Do you think anyone at the telegraph office who has read it has told others about it?”

  “Telegraphers are sworn to secrecy by the telegraph company, and the ones here in Springfield have for the most part honored their oaths these last few years.”

  “Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. It is unlikely that Frederick Douglass will keep his position on the matter a secret for long. I assume the telegram is just him letting me know his position in advance, out of politeness. They say he can at times be a very polite man.”

  “If rather fierce,” Herndon said. “And at times blunt to a point that could hardly be called polite.”

  “You might be impolite, too, Billy, if you’d gone through what he has. Or gone through what those on whose behalf he speaks suffer every day. If you have not already done it, you should read his most recent autobiography.”

  “I have, Lincoln. I have. At times you forget that it is I who am the abolitionist, and you who are not one.”

  Lincoln smiled. “True.”

  “You have heard, I assume, that Abby Kelley is not doing well in jail,” Herndon said.

  “Yes. But who does do well in jail?”

  “I mean more than that. Apparently, Mrs. Foster was already in ill health when she arrived in Springfield. The jail confinement has made it worse.”

 
“Is she in such ill health that she might die?” Lincoln said.

  “I don’t think so, but I really don’t know. The information I have comes from the sheriff’s wife, who has been looking after her in the jail.”

  Lincoln got up out of his chair, walked to the window and looked out, saying nothing.

  After a while, he said, “We are truly in a pickle, Billy. I cannot do what Frederick Douglass demands—promise to pardon Abby Kelley if she is convicted and I am elected. Because while it might gain me more abolitionist voters, it will surely lose as great or greater a number of other voters. In particular those who are opposed to immediate abolition and believe me to be someone who will not rock the boat.”

  “Quite a pickle indeed, Lincoln.”

  “It would also be presumptuous of me to take a position on a pardon for Mrs. Foster before I have even been elected, not to mention before I have studied the facts of her indictment.”

  “You can’t continue to do nothing about it and say nothing about it.”

  “Perhaps you are right. But I continue to think that the solution is to find the slave—now that we know the master is dead—before Mrs. Foster’s trial. It will take the heat out of the thing and allow some sort of resolution short of trial.”

  “Unless President Buchanan wants a trial.”

  Lincoln turned from the window to face him. “Why would he want a trial?”

  “To put you on the spot. A famous abolitionist would be on trial not five blocks from your own home and you would not only be doing nothing about it but saying nothing about it.”

  “I see your point, Billy. But I see no easy solution. If I come out against the prosecution or say, as this telegram demands, that I will pardon her if elected, I fear I will not be elected. And what good would that do Mrs. Foster? Or the slaves, for that matter?”

  “You may also not be elected if you stay silent.”

  Lincoln shrugged. “My estimation is that it is not the abolitionist vote that will boost me into office. Frankly, they have nowhere else to go.”

  “And if they choose to stay home?” Billy said.

  “Many of them stay home anyway. Or at least they have in past elections.”

  “So you hope to rely on whom?”

  “I must rely primarily on Republicans who are opposed to slavery but don’t want to blow up the Union over the issue. And on Democrats who, in the privacy of their thoughts, don’t care a fig about slavery, but are fed up with the corruption of the Buchanan administration and will vote for me.”

  Lincoln returned to his chair, sat back down, picked up the telegram again and studied it. “Billy,” he said, “now that we know the slave master is dead, have you heard anything about where the missing slave might herself be?”

  “Not one thing.”

  “Do you think you might be able to find her?”

  “I could try.”

  “May I suggest you start by talking to the young editor of that new newspaper?”

  “Which one?”

  Lincoln walked over to a stack of newspapers that was teetering on a small table and extracted one from the middle of the pile, keeping his hand on top so that the whole thing wouldn’t topple over. “This one.” He handed it to Herndon. “The Radical Abolitionist.”

  “Ah, yes. I met that young man the night of Abby Kelley’s speech. Clarence Artemis is his name.”

  “Yes. He has accosted me twice. Once at home and once at the baker’s this morning, hoping for an interview.”

  “I hope to God you didn’t give him one.”

  “Of course not. But I told him if I’m elected he can come to Washington and I’ll let him interview me there.”

  “Why do you think he might know where Lucy Battelle is?”

  “He managed to track me down at the bakery, which took some sleuthing. And I suspect he is looking for Lucy Battelle himself.”

  “I’ll talk with him.”

  30

  Herndon had never liked running errands, as he called them, for Lincoln. Sometimes it involved handling cases Lincoln didn’t want to handle, sometimes it meant making sure the firm’s bills were paid on time (which he still wasn’t all that good at) and sometimes it meant researching the law for Lincoln since he didn’t much like doing that himself.

  Herndon had been doing those kinds of things now for sixteen years, ever since they had formed their law partnership in 1844. In those early days, it had made sense, of course, because Herndon was the very junior partner. When they’d begun he’d had effectively zero years of experience—he had just been admitted to the bar—to Lincoln’s eight.

  Over time, though, he had grown in stature, at least in his own mind, arguing his own cases in all the important courts in Illinois, including the Illinois Supreme Court. In 1854, he’d even been elected mayor of Springfield. With Lincoln’s nomination for president, he had hoped for a robust role in the campaign. Which had not been forthcoming due to Lincoln’s fear that Herndon’s strong abolitionist sentiments would come to the fore and damage Lincoln’s careful balancing on the slavery issue. Herndon knew that his praise of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry—he had said that Brown would “live among the world’s gods and heroes”—had not helped Lincoln’s opinion of his political judgment.

  Now he’d been given something to do that rose well above an errand—to find the missing slave girl. He was not certain what good finding her would do. But Lincoln had proven to have superb political instincts (he had managed to get the nomination for president!), so if Lincoln thought it important, it must be so.

  But where to start? It seemed obvious that the Underground Railroad had her. But to his shame, while he had been willing to defend fugitive slaves in court, he had shied away from helping them escape. It was, after all, a federal felony. He was a lawyer with children to support, and with his beloved wife of twenty years dead from consumption not much more than a month ago, it was too great a risk.

  Instead of going to see Artemis, he started with the baker. Wanting to avoid confronting him while others were around, Herndon waited until late afternoon, as Hotchkiss was about to close up shop for the day.

  “Mr. Hotchkiss,” he said, walking into the store, “can you spare a few minutes?”

  Hotchkiss looked up from the glass case from which he had been emptying the few items that had not sold.

  “Of course, Mr. Herndon. Would you like to buy a few loaves? I can sell them to you at a steep discount. End of day and all of that.”

  “No, thank you. I came on other business.”

  “Ah, and what business might that be?”

  “I am hoping to find out where Lucy Battelle is being hidden.”

  Hotchkiss went back to clearing out the glass case without looking up again. “There seems to be a run today on people hoping to find that out. You’re the second person today.”

  “Was the other one Mr. Artemis?”

  Hotchkiss paused a moment, as if considering whether he wanted to give up that information. Finally, he said, “Why, yes, as a matter of fact it was.”

  “I hope I’m not too late, then, to find out where Lucy is,” Herndon said.

  “Mr. Herndon, I can tell you what I told Mr. Artemis. I have no idea where Lucy Battelle is, and I don’t know why anyone thinks I do know.”

  Herndon made a noise with his lips that he hoped indicated his disbelief in Hotchkiss’s answer. “Why, sir, it is because it is widely known that you are the Stationmaster of the Underground Railroad here in Springfield.”

  Hotchkiss stood up, folded his arms and looked Herndon straight in the eye. “Sir, I do not know where that rumor got started, but as God is my witness, I know nothing at all about the so-called Railroad.”

  “Really?”

  “I do not even know if there is such a thing. For all I know, it has been made up by journalists from the East hopi
ng to tell a good story in order to sell more newspapers.”

  “I’m a lawyer, Mr. Hotchkiss. I’ve become quite good over the years at teasing out who is telling the truth and who is not. And I say you are not.”

  “Tease out all you want. It won’t be any more true when you leave my store than when you came in. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to lock the door so I can finish cleaning up. I don’t mean to be rude, but you need to vamoose.”

  Herndon left as requested, smiling at Hotchkiss’s use of the word vamoose. He had apparently been to see the same play as Herndon had, at the recently opened small theater a couple of blocks away.

  After Herndon departed, he walked down the street, but lingered in a doorway not far away. He hoped in the gathering darkness that he would not be seen. Soon enough, Hotchkiss came out, carrying a basket.

  Herndon followed him for several blocks, pleased at his ability to follow someone without being detected and thrilled at the adventure of it. He noticed his heart was even beating fast. He was disappointed, though, when Hotchkiss arrived at home.

  As Hotchkiss opened his front door, he turned and yelled, in a voice loud enough to carry all the way to the doorway in which Herndon was trying to hide himself, “Mr. Herndon, you should stay with lawyering!” He entered his house and slammed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Upon his return to their law offices, Herndon found Lincoln still perusing newspapers from the stack on the table, several of which had, once again, toppled onto the floor. Herndon walked over, picked up the strays and placed them back on the stack.

  Lincoln, seeming not to have noticed the disarray, said, “This thing with the arrest of Abby Kelley is beginning to gain more attention.” He handed the newspaper he’d been holding to Herndon. “Here’s a front page article about it from the Akron Summit Beacon.”

  Herndon read through the article quickly. “They demand you make a statement about it.”

  “Yes, and given their radical Republican politics, they probably want me to say I’ll pardon her if I’m elected. And the drumbeat is even louder from the opposition newspapers, Billy. Here, look at the Springfield Register, for example.” He dug into the pile and handed Herndon another paper,