The Darkest Dawn Read online

  Far from enjoying what should have been a triumphal ride around Washington, U. S. Grant was fidgeting in his seat, puffing nervously on a cigar, his mind preoccupied with how he might extricate both himself and his wife from enduring a similar torture the following evening.

  Meanwhile, throughout the glowing city, the victorious merry-making continued. Bonfires blazed brighter than before, rockets soared higher, bands blared louder, revelers shouted longer, and liquor flowed freer as toasts to Grant and victory were raised again and again. Well into the following morning, the celebration continued.

  But from a window in a room at the National Hotel, one dim light burned that was not of celebration. A sad young man sat at his desk writing.

  April 14 2 A. M.

  Dearest Mother:

  I know you expect a letter from me, and am sure you will hardly forgive me. But indeed I have nothing to write about. Everything is dull; that is, has been till last night. (The illumination.) Everything was bright and splendid. More so in my eyes if it had been a display in a nobler cause. But so goes the world. Might makes right. . . .26

  Already a serious tippler—like his late father—the dark-haired, handsome actor was into his cups even more now, “to drive away the blues.”27 Friends who had seen him only recently noted the change. A female acquaintance who had encountered him on Pennsylvania Avenue the previous morning and had stopped to chat mentioned to him that she was on her way to buy some candy. Misunderstanding, the gloomy young man responded:

  What do you want with more candles? The windows are full of them now, and when they are lighted I wish they would burn every house to the ground. I would rejoice at the sight. I guess I’m a little desperate this morning and, do you know, I feel like mounting my horse and tearing up and down the streets, waving a Rebel flag in each hand, till I have driven the poor animal to death.28

  Then, even more surprising to the young woman, the man asked, “Don’t you study at school?”

  “I answered in the affirmative, where-upon he continued: ‘Then tell me this: is tyrannis spelled with two n’s or two r’s?’”29

  Richmond, Appomattox, Lee—the end was near. The war was all but over. The South teetered on the brink. History was rushing ahead and passing him. Immortality was almost beyond his reach now. No blow had been struck. And yet, even at this late hour, he knew there was still time. Fortunes might be retrieved from one last desperate act, one final roll of the dice. If history had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that one must never give up. And above all else, one must be ready to seize the moment should it arrive.

  “Something decisive & great must be done,” he told himself again and again.30

  But time was desperately short, as he well knew, and the deed must be done soon or not at all. With one final thought, the young man quickly scratched out the remainder of his letter.

  I only drop you these few lines to let you know I am well, and to say I have not heard from you. Excuse brevity; am in haste. . . . With best love to you all, I am your affectionate son ever, John.31

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE PRESIDENT AND

  THE PLAYER

  IT WAS A BRIGHT AND BREEZY DAY ON Charleston Harbor. The sea was stirred and choppy. Those assembled inside and along the crumbling brick walls of Fort Sumter might have seen vistas of billowing whitecaps covering the blue water of the bay had it not been for the hundreds of naval vessels.

  “A brilliant gathering of boats, ships, and steamers of every sort had assembled around the battered ruin of the fort,” wrote one amazed viewer. “The whole bay seemed covered with the vast flotilla.”1

  The masts alone, said another witness, “was thick as A forest of trees.”2

  Inside the shattered fort itself, gusts of wind drove swirling sand and dust into the faces of those in attendance.3 Few were discomfited. Instead, a thrill of high expectation stirred in the hearts of everyone. Today, the symbolic end of the war would be recognized on the very spot where it had begun full four years before. Adding to this startling significance was the breathtaking news of the evening preceding—news that had arrived from Appomattox Court House.4 For the estimated three thousand blacks and whites now seated around the Fort Sumter stage, no timing had ever been more perfect. Thus, the wind and sand and dust were small concerns to a gathering that sat this day, April 14, 1865, in the very center of the hearts and minds of all throughout the reunited nation.5

  Although many dignitaries were on hand for the occasion—Henry Ward Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison, General Abner Doubleday—the “hero” of the event was the very same man who was forced to strike the Stars and Stripes in surrender four years earlier.6 Like Lincoln, Robert Anderson was a Kentuckian. Also like the president, the slim, silver-haired general from that hotly contested slave state was a staunch Union man. For the past forty-eight months now, Anderson had lived daily in the knowledge that his hand was the first of the war to lower the beloved national emblem to the enemy. Hence, the ceremony this day was especially poignant for Anderson.

  Shortly before noon, following prayers and the singing of a new composition, “Victory at Last,” Robert Anderson stepped to the podium.7

  “I am here, my friends and fellow-citizens, and brother soldiers, to perform an act of duty which is dear to my heart,” said the handsome, devout general. “I thank God I have lived to see this day. . . . May all the world proclaim glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will toward men.”8

  And then, just as the bells of the surrounding ships struck noon, Anderson grabbed the halyard and hoisted the flag to the top of the staff.9 “The whole audience sprang to their feet,” recounted one writer. “Men swung their hats and grasped each other by the hand; women and children waved their handkerchiefs.” Added to the thundering ovation that followed, a deafening cannon salute erupted from the fort itself and the numerous batteries along the nearby coast. When the crowd thereupon joined in the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner,” the effect was “thrilling,” wrote a New York newsman. “Tears of joy filled the eyes of nearly every one present.”10

  Himself on the verge of tears as he gazed upon the same flag he was compelled to haul down in 1861, Robert Anderson had but one regret. If only the man most responsible for re-raising that flag now flapping stiffly in the breeze had been there in person to see the culmination of his efforts, the day would have been perfect.11

  Beyond the window, it was a pleasant though somewhat cloudy day in Washington. By noon, a balmy southern breeze had pushed the temperature into the sixties. Among the elms and maples outside, the first leaves of spring were spreading a gauzy green over the White House grounds. The sweet scent of lilacs perfumed the air. It was, remembered one who basked in the glorious warmth, “an ideal spring day.”12

  Inside the long, high-ceilinged room, the atmosphere surrounding those seated around the circular table was as mild and relaxed as the weather out the window. Around the men, maps hung so thickly that the color of the walls was difficult to discern. The carpet leading to these maps was trodden thin, so much so that most of the pattern and dyes had long since faded.13 Less and less would the carpet be paced by anxious men, and more rarely would the maps be scanned by nervous eyes searching for strategic roads, rivers, and rails. After 1,460 days of war, this day was the first day of peace. Although several rebel armies remained in the field, including one facing General William T. Sherman in North Carolina, and although the head of the Confederate government, Jefferson Davis, was still at large, on this day President Lincoln considered the war over.14

  “He was more cheerful and happy than I had ever seen him,” said Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, whose termination of the draft spoke louder than blaring bands and booming guns in stating that, indeed, the war was closed.15

  “He was, in fact, transfigured,” added a startled Senator James Harlan of Iowa after talking with his friend earlier. “That indescribable sadness . . . had been suddenly changed for an equally indescribable expression of serene
joy, as if conscious that the great purpose of his life had been achieved.”16

  And with the dawn of peace came the spirit of mercy. Unlike many whose hearts hardened in victory, Lincoln’s softened. Charity and peace went hand in hand, to the president’s way of thinking, and on this day especially he spoke “kindly” of those who were once his enemies.17 Lincoln, revealed Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, “was for prompt and easy terms with the rebels.”18

  One of the president’s private secretaries, John Hay, agreed:

  He was particularly desirous to avoid the shedding of blood, or any vindictiveness of punishment. He gave plain notice that . . . he would have none of it. “No one need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off,” said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. “Enough lives have been sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”19

  “Let ’em up easy,” was the president’s simple standing order.

  Though a New Englander violently opposed to slavery, white-bearded Gideon Welles—”Father Neptune,” Lincoln called him—favored swift reunification with as little pain and suffering as possible. Representing the sentiments of his father, William Seward, who was recovering from a terrible carriage accident, acting secretary of state Frederick Seward’s approach to reconstruction of the South most closely mirrored the president’s. Ulysses Grant led by example. Invited to attend the cabinet meeting, the general’s generous terms to Robert E. Lee placed both North and South on the road to peace with a firm footing. Of all the gathering, perhaps Edwin Stanton differed most. Hard, vindictive, unforgiving, the secretary of war had such an intense hatred of treason and secession that he felt only a severe chastisement of Confederate leaders would be sufficient to warn future generations of the terrible cost of rebellion. Ever loyal to the president, however, quieted by Lincoln’s popularity and wisdom, Stanton would smother his true feelings and remain the dutiful public servant.

  Turning to the subject of General Sherman, who stood facing a Confederate army under Joseph Johnston near Raleigh, North Carolina, Lincoln announced that an important event was about to occur.

  “I had a dream last night; and ever since this war began I have had the same dream just before every event of great importance,” the president confided to his cabinet.20 On the night prior to a number of important battles, which he listed, Lincoln imagined that he was a passenger on some unusual vessel, sailing with great speed “towards an indefinite shore.” When Grant matter-of-factly pointed out that one of the engagements named was not a victory but a defeat, Lincoln shrugged the thought aside. Good news from Sherman was bound to arrive soon, the president felt. “It must relate to Sherman, my thoughts are in that direction,” insisted Lincoln, “and I know no other very important event which is likely just now to occur.”21

  In all, this cabinet meeting on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, was by far the most relaxed and pleasant of Lincoln’s entire administration. Everyone was in the best of spirits. But as Ulysses Grant sat contemplating the president’s words, another matter, much more mundane, preoccupied the general’s mind. After the torture of the night before, and after his wife’s angry arguments, Grant was on the verge of doing something he had never done before. He was about to tell his boss “No.” He would not attend the theater that night as requested. As an alibi, Grant and Julia would leave by train later that day to visit their children in New Jersey.22 After facing shot and shell during the past four years and being hailed as an American hero, U. S. Grant’s toughest battle perhaps was simply trying to sidestep a night at the theater and placate an angry wife.

  In a room adjoining the cabinet meeting, Mary Lincoln was sealing a note and handing it to a messenger. The message—a summons—was directed at Julia Grant.

  “Here comes the handsomest man in Washington,” said one of the young men loafing outside Ford’s Theater. Their eyes, full of fun and boyish admiration, followed the graceful figure as it neared the theater. Dressed in an elegant dark suit, with a cane for effect and a black silk hat tipped slightly on his head, the dashing, dapper man referred to may indeed have had the most winning face in the nation’s capital. As he approached the front of the theater with an easy swagger, an air of cool confidence surrounded the young man. But there was more to this individual than mere youth and beauty. Although he was “caressed and flattered by the best people of Washington,” revealed theater owner John Ford, it didn’t really seem to matter; the handsome, dark-haired dandy with the trim mustache was as devoid of pretension and arrogance as any mortal man could possibly be.23

  It was fitting that John Wilkes Booth not only received his fan mail at a theater but chose to read his letters on the steps of a theater, for the stage was his world and the world was his stage. A career in acting seemed preordained. Junius Brutus Booth had been the most celebrated actor of his day. His Shakespearean roles had electrified English audiences. After he immigrated to America in 1821, the sons he sired in the New World were determined to follow in their revered father’s footsteps. Initially, one of the older sons, Edwin, seemed most likely to carry the family torch. His moody, sensuous good looks, his rich, beautiful voice, and his professional dedication made him a favorite among American audiences. By 1860, however, Edwin’s role as Booth standard-bearer was being challenged by younger brother, John, or “Wilkes,” as he was known in the family.

  “Edwin has more poetry, John Wilkes more passion,” noted one critic. “Edwin has more melody of movement and utterance, John Wilkes more energy and animation; Edwin is more correct, John Wilkes more spontaneous; Edwin is more Shakespearean, John Wilkes more melodramatic; and in a word, Edwin is a better Hamlet, John Wilkes a better Richard III.”24

  And yet, it was not the role of the hunchbacked murderer that John Wilkes preferred, and for which he was most closely identified, but that of the wronged king, and that of the selfless slayer of tyrants. “Of all Shakespeare’s characters I like ‘Brutus’ the best, excepting only ‘Lear,’” admitted the actor.25 Nevertheless, it was Richard, the role his late father performed with such spellbinding perfection, that shot young Booth into stardom. “John has more of the old man’s power in one performance than Edwin can show in a year. He has the fire, the dash, the touch of strangeness,” said one who knew the father and sons well.26 John, added another critic simply and succinctly, had more “natural genius” than Edwin.27

  Indeed, “genius” was the term most used by critics when describing the acting ability of John Wilkes Booth.28 The secret to the young man’s success, revealed one Washington reviewer after witnessing a performance, was “intensity.” And that passion, continued the critic, stemmed “not from stage rule, but from his soul.”29

  “THE PRIDE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,” proclaimed a play-bill at Grover’s Theater in Washington during the 1863 season. “THE YOUNGEST TRAGEDIAN IN THE WORLD.”30

  Booth was also one of the most athletic performers in the world. Fellow actor William Ferguson once saw his friend leap a five-foot-tall piece of scenery as if it were a footstool, and others were stunned by how easily he mastered every sport encountered.31 Not content with merely acting his roles, the thespian lived them. “When he fought, it was no stage fight,” remembered a friend. On more than one occasion, mock sword fights spilled real blood.32 After watching such a realistic, energetic performance, not a few considered Booth to be “as manly a man as God ever made.”33

  As if such athletic and artistic ability in one man were not already great enough, Booth was also endowed with an almost perfect face. Some compared him to a Greek god.34 “His coloring was unusual,” recalled actress Clara Morris. “[T]he ivory pallor of his skin, the inky blackness of his densely thick hair . . . gave a touch of mystery to his face when it fell into gravity—but there was generally a flash of white teeth behind his silky moustache, and a laugh in his eyes.”35 Booth, said another acquaintan
ce, had “the most wonderful black eyes in the world. . . . [T]hey were like living jewels. Flames shot from them.”36 In addition to dramatic dark eyes, the actor also possessed a voice that was musical, yet strong.37 When Booth spoke, the melody in his words lingered in one’s ears long after he had left.38

  Not surprisingly, and almost in spite of himself, Wilkes Booth became the coveted object of many a lady’s heart. After any given performance, the stage door was literally jammed by scores of tittering women hoping to catch a glimpse of the actor.39 Whether at the theater, in restaurants, or at hotels, Booth was hounded by swarms of adoring females.40

  “Such dreamy eyes,” swooned one Boston lady. “I almost lose my heart when hearing him.”41

  This almost irresistible urge to catch Booth’s eye and hear his voice led many a woman into potentially disastrous indiscretions. Reveals Clara Morris:

  [T]here were many handsome, well-bred and wealthy ladies in the land, married as well as unmarried, who would have done many foolish things for one of those kisses. Booth’s striking beauty was something which thousands of silly women could not withstand. His mail each day brought him letters from women weak and frivolous, who periled their happiness and their reputations by committing to paper words of love and admiration which they could not, apparently, refrain from writing. . . . These fond epistles were seldom read. He instructed his dresser to burn them. Many of them were signed with the real names of the foolish women who wrote them.

  The dresser one day boasted that a certain lady, moving in high social circles, had written a compromising letter to Mr. Booth. The statement was treated as an absurd lie and, to prove that he had not been boasting, the dresser displayed the letter, which he had not burned as he had been instructed to do. Mr. Booth’s anger was terrible when he learned the facts, and the dresser was dismissed and ever after the signatures to those letters were torn into tiny fragments by the actor.42