Fates and Traitors (35 page)

Mary was not insensible to Mr. Booth's charms, and it was true that in their brief acquaintance she had become quite fond of him, but not with the starry-eyed infatuation of the younger women. In the course of Mr. Booth's frequent visits, they had spent much time in conversation, and they discovered that in matters of politics, they were true kindred spirits. They both despised Lincoln and the Republican Party, they considered Northern abolitionists to be the true instigators of the war, and they both lamented the end of slavery and the slow demise of the Southern way of life they both cherished. They denounced the injustices inflicted upon the citizens of their native state since the beginning of the hostilities—the federal occupation of Baltimore; the arrest of the mayor, police marshal, and other prominent citizens soon thereafter; the reprehensible incarceration of Southern sympathizers within the Maryland state legislature right before the scheduled vote on succession. They both agreed that Maryland surely would have left the Union if not for the outrageous and illegal actions of Mr. Lincoln's proxies, for which he alone should and must be held responsible.

Sometimes Mr. Booth spoke of his family, of his beloved mother, whom he seemed to revere as an angel of mercy and compassion despite her Union sympathies, and of a favorite sister, Asia, who had married a comedian and was raising his sweet young nieces and nephews in humble, genteel poverty in Philadelphia. Once or twice Mr. Booth alluded to a sweetheart, but Mary did not press him on that subject, reluctant to learn anything that maternal duty would oblige her to share with Anna. At any rate, Mary preferred their lively discussion of the war and politics and serving the Cause. It pleased her and flattered her pride that Mr. Booth sought her counsel on important aspects of the developing mission, and that he trusted her implicitly, as much as he trusted Junior.

She was less certain about some of the other men Mr. Booth seemed to trust. Strangers called at the boardinghouse at odd hours, some elegantly dressed, others wearing what she was certain were disguises. It would have been unwise for her to know their true names and
occupations, so she asked no questions when Junior and Mr. Booth came in quietly late at night and spoke in hushed voices in the ground-floor storage room, or when men with their hats pulled low and scarves covering most of their faces knocked on the front door and gruffly asked to see Mr. Surratt. She would merely nod, show them to the parlor, and go and fetch her son, resisting the temptation to listen from the hallway. What she did not know, as Junior occasionally reminded her, she could not be forced to confess.

She understood that the nature of their clandestine activities sometimes required Junior to mix with unsavory characters, but she was careful to shield Anna from them, as she had struggled to protect her from her father's alcoholic rages and dissipation—but now, as then, she often failed. In early February, much to her chagrin, she was obliged to leave Washington for a few days to visit her estranged, ailing mother at her home in Prince George's County. Upon her return, she was astonished to discover exactly the sort of undesirable creature she wanted kept away from her daughter making himself at home in the back room of the attic.

She soon learned that in her absence, Junior had invited the man to board with them. George Atzerodt was a Prussian immigrant of about thirty years, filthy and consumptive. His spine curved so that he stooped when he stood and he walked with his head tilted to the side, and there was a greedy, complacent gleam in his eye that she found unsettling. It offended Mary to see Anna, Olivia, Nora, and Eliza chatting pleasantly with him in the parlor, struggling to pronounce his German surname correctly, and failing that, dubbing him “Port Tobacco” after the town from which he hailed.

“I don't want that sort living beneath our roof,” she told Junior flatly.

“He's one of Booth's men,” Junior reminded her. “He's been running the blockade since the early months of the war, and we'll need him to transport our captive across the river.”

Fuming, Mary let the subject drop, but a few days later while cleaning Mr. Atzerodt's room, she discovered several bottles of liquor concealed beneath his bed, with more empty bottles scattered around the floor. A white-hot fury seized her, flooding her with hateful memories of her late and unlamented husband. She demanded that Junior evict
Mr. Atzerodt immediately, though her son insisted that due to his important role in Mr. Booth's plan, they would have to endure his frequent visits.

Mary's displeasure did not go unnoticed, especially by those who shared it. “Why does John bring such men as Atzerodt and Herold into the house?” Louis asked her one afternoon as she swept the sitting room so fiercely that straws snapped off the broom. “Why does he even associate with them?”

“John wants to make use of them for his dirty work,” she said irritably, adopting the name Louis used. Only Mary, Anna, and Isaac called him Junior, as his father once had.

Louis's brow furrowed. “What sort of dirty work?”

Silently Mary berated herself for speaking without thinking. “Oh, John wants them to take care of his horses boarding at Howard's Stables on G Street,” she replied airily, and to her relief, Louis nodded and went about his own business. In recent days his questions had taken on the quality of prying, and she resolved to be more circumspect.

Thankfully, the next of Mr. Booth's associates to request room and board with them was a lovely dark-eyed young woman, charming and intelligent and ostensibly demure. She also provoked Louis's curiosity, but of an entirely different kind. When she arrived on an icy February day wearing a veil down to her chin and a stylish fur-trimmed coat that emphasized her exquisite figure, Louis was the first to volunteer to fetch her trunk from the carriage and haul it upstairs to her room, scarcely pausing to pull on his coat to ward off the frigid wind before racing to complete the errand.

The young woman introduced herself to him as Kate Thompson, come to Washington to seek a preferment for her brother, but in truth she was Sarah Antoinette Slater, a French national residing in North Carolina and an accomplished agent with the Confederate Secret Service. She had learned of the Surratt boardinghouse through a mutual acquaintance, Augustus Howell, a Marylander they had known before the war and a Confederate Army veteran turned blockade-runner and smuggler.

Miss Slater and Mr. Howell, Mr. Atzerodt and Mr. Herold, as well as another man who had introduced himself as Lewis Payne but later confided to Mary that this was one of several aliases—and of course, Junior
and herself—comprised the conspirators Mary knew, all of whom had pledged themselves to Mr. Booth and his daring mission. Whoever else he might have recruited Mary did not know—nor should she, for their sake and her own.

•   •   •

I
n late February, Junior returned to the boardinghouse from a late-night meeting with Mr. Booth shivering from the lingering chill of late winter and looking deeply unsettled. Although the hour was late and their lodgers had retired to their separate rooms, Junior nonetheless insisted that they descend to the ground-floor storage room before he told her what was amiss. Lighting a lamp, she handed it to him without a word and followed him below, where he shut the door, inhaled deeply, and said, “Booth has changed the plan.”

She studied his expression, steeling herself. “And the change displeases you.”

“Yes, it certainly does, and I told him so, though he seems not to care.” He shook his head, his jaw set, his eyes narrowing. “The success of his scheme has always depended upon Lincoln traveling alone on an isolated road out in the countryside, but now—”

“Please, Junior,” she said, placing a hand on his forearm. “Be calm and tell me plainly.”

“Booth says a change to the plan is necessary because Lincoln no longer travels to the Soldiers' Home as frequently as he once did.” When Mary began to speak, Junior anticipated her question. “He studies the president's movements meticulously and I have no reason to doubt him. Lincoln might resume his regular trips to the country when the weather improves, but we can't delay until summer. All could be lost in the meantime.”

“Do you mean—” Mary hardly knew what to say. “The plan is aborted?”

“I could almost wish it were. As you know—as everyone knows—the president is very fond of the theatre. One of his favorite actors, Edwin Forrest, is engaged for several performances at Ford's Theatre, a place Booth knows well. If Lincoln attends one of Forrest's shows, which he is very likely to do, Booth believes we could snatch him from the presidential box, fling him over the back of a horse, and whisk him off to Richmond.”

Mary stared at him, dumbfounded. “But Mr. Lincoln never attends the theatre alone. He always shares the box with at least a few companions, not to mention his bodyguard. How does Mr. Booth expect to subdue him when he's surrounded by friends?”

Junior shook his head. “Perhaps he intends to strike when the president's accompanied by no one but his wife.”

“He shouldn't discount Mrs. Lincoln. Her shriek of alarm would bring at least a dozen men in all haste.” Mary clasped her hands together at her waist, steadying herself. “But let's say that Mr. Booth and his party are able to subdue Mr. Lincoln with the aid of chloroform. How would they wrestle him out of the presidential box, down the stairs, and outside the theatre to the horses without being apprehended? They can't fold him in half and stuff him in a sack.”

“We told Booth all this, Ma. It made no impression on him.”

“We?”

“I and two other men you haven't met.”

Mary knew better than to ask their names. “And you all told Mr. Booth firmly that you think his new scheme is doomed to fail?”

“We did. We tried. We also pointed out to him that to do as he wishes, we'd essentially have to throw out all the preparations we've made so far and start over. He insisted we were mistaken, that only the site of the abduction would change, and everything else would remain the same. To prove his point, he led us off to Ford's Theatre, took us on a tour of the exterior, and argued that the structure of the building, the exits, the alleys, were perfectly suited for a quick escape.”

“An escape while carrying an unconscious, very conspicuous, very well-known man who stretches more than six feet in height?”

“Ma, I like Booth. I admire him, and I wholeheartedly approve of his intentions. But this new scheme—” Junior sank down on the stool and buried his face in his hands. “It's ridiculous. It's a farce. It would never work.”

“I can't disagree with you.” With her son's revelation, all Mary's hopes seemed to have been swept from her grasp by a capricious winter wind—the end of the war, the capitulation of the North, Isaac's safe return home, if he were still among the living. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to wait and hope he changes his mind. In the meantime, I'm going to keep doing my bit for the Confederacy as I have since the
beginning—carrying dispatches, smuggling necessities, observing the placement and movement of Yankee troops and seeing that the details get to General Lee.”

“And if Mr. Booth sets a date to put his new scheme in motion?”

“In that case you'll have to inform him that I'm off on a courier mission for Jeff Davis, because if Booth insists on putting this disaster in motion, I intend to be as far from Ford's Theatre as my horse can carry me.”

As February drew to a close, Mary could hardly bear to leave the boardinghouse as the preparations for Mr. Lincoln's inauguration spread through the capital like the pervasive stench from the ubiquitous military hospitals. The Stars and Stripes hung from every flagpole; shop windows were transformed into a tangle of red, white, and blue ribbons; balconies fairly dripped with bunting; and offensive slogans blared from every wall big enough to post a sign upon. Offended, Mary drew the curtains and refused to look at the newspaper, but Louis, thinking himself useful, read aloud excerpts as she went about her chores.

“Listen to this,” he exclaimed, after subjecting her to lengthy descriptions of the order of the parade and of the elaborate menu for the inauguration ball. “The editors of the
Louisville Journal
, speaking of Lee's army, boast, ‘We have reason to say that the rebels are expecting very soon to startle the whole country and astonish the world. No matter what our reason may be, it is a good one.' What do you suppose they mean? Have the rebels developed some new weapon? Is this merely a bluff?”

“I assure you, it is no bluff,” snapped Mary, her head throbbing, her patience spent. “Very soon something will happen to prevent Old Abe from swearing his presidential oath again, and soon thereafter General Lee will take action that will startle the whole world.”

Louis gaped at her. “Mrs. Surratt, what do you mean?”

Mary felt the blood drain from her face. She clasped a hand to her forehead and looked about the sitting room, distressed. “I—” She took a deep, shaky breath. What had she done? “I don't know what I'm saying. Forgive me. I let my fears get the better of me. The threats on the president's life, this endless war, and Isaac—you know I haven't heard from Isaac in more than two years—”

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Surratt.” Louis shoved the paper aside, rose from his chair, and strode across the room to take her hand in both of his. “Forgive me. Here I am prattling along, insensitive and unfeeling, entirely forgetting that your son may be— I'll say no more of it. I've upset you enough. Pray, forgive me.”

She extracted her hand from Louis's grasp, managed a tremulous smile, and fled the room. Let him think her overcome by womanly distress and delicacy of nerves. Far better he believe that than suspect the truth.

•   •   •

W
hen March 4 dawned, gray and sodden, Mr. Lincoln was still at liberty, and he was still about to embark upon his second term, and it seemed that nothing could prevent it. Late that morning, Mr. Herold and Mr. Atzerodt called for Junior and sat with him in the formal parlor, speaking in hushed voices and falling silent at every creak of a floorboard signaling a lodger's approach. It was nearly eleven o'clock when Mr. Booth arrived, but he stayed only long enough to offer Mary a polite greeting before the men departed for the Capitol to witness Mr. Lincoln's oath and hear his address. A lady of Mr. Booth's acquaintance had given him a ticket granting admission to the Capitol rotunda, but Junior and the others would be obliged to stand on the grounds, which surely had been churned into a field of mud courtesy of the previous night's heavy rainfall and the trampling of many feet. “If one of us carried a pistol . . .” Mary overheard Mr. Herold say as the door swung shut behind them. She shivered, wondering who else might have heard him.