It is April 15, 1865. Abraham Lincoln has survived a dastardly assassination attempt by actor John Wilkes Booth, who shot off half of Lincoln's right ear and then attacked the President - a struggle that ended with Booth crashing headfirst onto the stage and breaking his neck. Now the President must figure out why the famous actor wanted him dead . . . and what to do next.
(One note, BTW - I wrote this chapter in 2022, two years before the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, PA. Weird coincidence, but nothing more)
WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE will be released sometime next year; I'll keep you posted as the date gets closer.
Abraham Lincoln was a patient man. His adult life had been marked as much by sorrow as it had by achievement – he had buried two of his four boys, and his wife’s grief and paranoia often bordered on madness. But he had never harbored hate in his heart, and he despised cruelty in all its forms. It was one of the Almighty’s grim jests, he thought, that a man who couldn’t even bring himself to whip a stubborn mule wound up presiding over America’s bloodiest war. But hatred – at least, hatred of another individual – had never been part of his makeup. Oh, he could be frustrated, exasperated, and even angry with his fellow men – and often had been, over the previous four years – but he had never wanted to kill anyone in his life. Now a man lay dead by Lincoln’s own hand, hurled to his death in single combat.
The events of the previous evening had left him shaken. By only the slightest of chances, he had avoided a bullet to the brain – a shot that would not only have taken his life but left the nation without his leadership at the most critical moment in its history! Then he had killed his attacker, a deed that disturbed him to his core. Intellectually, he recognized that he’d had no choice – Booth would have skewered him with that knife if Lincoln hadn’t caught his arm – but the image of the man’s shocked face as he plummeted to his death had replayed itself before Lincoln’s eyes whenever he shut them that night. His throbbing ear probably would have kept him awake anyway, he mused. The pistol ball had carried off a good chunk of it, and it had bled profusely. Between the grisly memory of Booth’s death and the pain of the wound the actor had inflicted on him, it had been a long and sleepless night.
Mary Todd Lincoln was deeply shaken by the assassination attempt, and the President’s doctor had finally given her a cup of hot tea with a few drops of laudanum in it to get her to sleep. Once she was finally unconscious, he had stripped out of his bloody shirt and bathed. After lying down beside her, wide awake, for two hours, Lincoln had gotten up, dressed, and then padded down the hallway to his office, where John Hay found him at six the next morning.
Hay looked like he’d passed a rough night, also, Lincoln thought as the young man entered.
“Good morning, Mister President,” he said. “I can honestly say I have never been happier to see you!”
“And I can say the same in return, John,” he replied. “That madman nearly killed me last night! Stanton told me he would have some news for me when I arose, so would you run down to the War Department and fetch him for me?”
“I think I see him coming up the walk, sir,” said Hay, glancing out the window. “I’ll send him in.”
“Thank you, John,” Lincoln said, and turned to the fireplace, throwing on another log. Spring had come to Washington City, but the mornings were still chilly, and fatigue made the President feel the cold more keenly than ever. He stirred the embers with a poker and held his huge hands over the flames, rubbing them together and relishing the warmth. At fifty-six, arthritis was starting to gnaw at his joints, and the heat relieved the stiffness.
“Mister President,” Edwin Stanton said. “Thank God you are well, sir!”
Lincoln straightened up and greeted his loyal cabinet secretary with a smile. Stanton was cantankerous, hot-tempered, stubborn as a mule, and hard for many to get along with – but he was also brilliant, loyal, and relentless in pursuit of his duties. Lincoln could tell by the redness of his eyes that the Secretary of War had not slept all night, either.
“That was a closer call than I care to have again anytime soon, Edwin,” Lincoln quipped. “If that shot had gone to the left an inch or two, you’d be dealing with Andy Johnson this morning instead of me!”
“God forbid!” Stanton said. “Johnson’s a good Union man, sir, but there’s only one of you, and the country needs you right now.”
“So what news this morning?” Lincoln asked. “Why would John Wilkes Booth, of all people, try to kill me?”
“We found a diary in his saddlebags, sir,” said Stanton. “I’ve only perused it, but the man had been plotting against you for some time. And he wasn’t the only one, sir. He had associates who were assigned to kill several other members of the administration – the Vice President, General Grant, and Secretary Seward that we know of. Maybe me, too – there was someone lurking outside my home last night, but he fled when the police came to wake me. Only Seward’s would-be assassin actually made an attempt, assaulting William in his bed last night, as you know.”
“How is he doing now?” Lincoln said.
“Grievously wounded,” Stanton replied. “He was stabbed in the chest and his throat was cut, but the knife missed his jugular, and the body cast he was wearing from that carriage accident protected his vitals. The doctors think he will most likely survive, but he is still unconscious. His son Fred was also attacked, and he sustained a fractured skull. He hasn’t come to yet, either. The assailant is in custody and being questioned, and I should have the other conspirators in hand by the end of the day.”
“The war is over,” Lincoln said sadly. “At least it will be, as soon as Joe Johnston surrenders his forces in North Carolina. Lee’s already a prisoner, and Jeff Davis and the rest of his so-called government are high-tailing it to the border. What on earth did Booth think he was going to accomplish by killing me?”
“Vengeance, sir,” Stanton said. “Vengeance for his precious Southern confederacy! Booth was a Confederate agent, I’m almost certain of it. I would not be surprised to learn that Jeff Davis himself had a hand in this conspiracy!”
“Jeff’s a smarter man than that,” Lincoln said. “The South is on its knees at the moment, its cities in ruins and half its young men dead or maimed. I want to restore the Union as quickly and peacefully as I can, as I have said on several occasions. The last thing any intelligent Southerner would want is an angry, grieving government bent on vengeance in charge of Reconstruction!”
“Southerners are not rational creatures, Mister President,” said Stanton. “They have proven that in their relentless pursuit of this pestilential war, a war that they should have known they could never win!”
“They came close, on more than one occasion,” Lincoln said. “We should never forget that. Well, continue pursuing Booth’s associates. I want to find out exactly what they were up to; what they hoped to achieve. And tell Fanny Seward to send me word the minute her father wakes up.”
“Yes, sir,” Stanton said. “I left word with her to notify me as soon as he regains consciousness. I also got a telegram from Grant a few minutes ago; when he heard of the attempt on your life, he left his family to go on to Illinois, and is on the train back here.”
“He didn’t need to do that,” Lincoln said. “The man has certainly earned a few weeks’ leave from his duties. But I won’t lie; I’ll be glad to have him close till we get this sorted out. Please send word to the rest of the cabinet that I want to meet with them at nine o’clock.”
“I will,” Stanton said. “Now, sir, if I may be so bold, you should eat something. You lost a good deal of blood and have had no sleep, by the look of you. The body needs fuel to run on.”
“And when did you last have a bite, Edwin?” Lincoln asked with a chuckle.
“Supper yestereve,” Stanton said. “About ten or twelve hours ago. But I’m not the President, sir - you are. I’m expendable.”
“Not to me, you’re not,” Lincoln said. “Pull up a chair and I’ll have the cook bring us some bacon and eggs.”
“A bit of coffee, too,” said Stanton. “I want my wits about me.”
“I hate the stuff, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for me to have a cup also,” Lincoln said. He walked to the door of his office and saw his White House usher standing in the hallway. There were no visitors thronging the hall yet, but experience told Lincoln they would start to arrive shortly.
“Mister Slade,” he said, “have Cornelia send up some bacon, eggs, and coffee for Secretary Stanton and me, please.”
“Gladly, sir,” said Slade, a dignified mulatto who was deeply fond of the President. “And let me say how good it is to see you up and about this morning! I heard of last night’s dreadful attack.”
“I suppose the Almighty ain’t done with me yet,” said Lincoln. “I thank you for your kind sentiments. And please tell any folks that show up that I will not be receiving petitioners this morning.”
“I posted soldiers at the doors of the White House, Mister President,” Stanton said. “I think it wise to curtail public visits until we have this plot sorted out.”
“That’s a bad business,” Lincoln said. “People should be able to come in and see their President, if they’ve a mind to. And I am rather fond of my public opinion baths, although they do tire me out.”
“It will be a temporary state of affairs,” Stanton said. “This has been a long and ugly war, and its end has left the ship of state on troubled waters.”
“Speaking of troubled waters, that reminds me of a story,” Lincoln said. “A Tennessee farmer lived in the bottom land close to the river, and one rainy spring his fields were being inundated by the rising river. His neighbor came driving by on a wagon and said: ‘You’d better hop in, the whole valley is going to flood!’ The farmer said: ‘The good Lord will deliver me from all distress, you go on!’ Well, pretty soon the road was underwater, and the local sheriff came by in a rowboat and said: ‘You’d better get in, the waters are still rising!’ and the farmer replied again: ‘The good Lord will deliver me from this distress, you go on!’ Pretty soon the entire valley was underwater, and the farmer climbed up onto the roof of his house, the only thing left above the rising waters. Then a steamboat came chugging through the valley, far above where the river normally flowed, and the captain called through the bullhorn: ‘You’d better get in, you damned fool, the water is still rising!’ And for the third time, the farmer informed him that the good Lord would deliver him from his dilemma. Well, the waters rose another ten feet, the house was swept away, and the farmer drowned. When he arrived at the pearly gates, he looked at God and said: ‘Lord, you promised to deliver me from all my distress!’ And God said: ‘Thou fool, I sent a wagon, a rowboat, and a steamboat, what more did you want?!’”
Stanton laughed out loud – although he often scowled at Lincoln’s endless stories and jokes, this was one he had not heard before, and he was so glad to have his chief with him safe and sound that his relief turned to joy. Lincoln laughed too, amused by the dour Secretary’s reaction - and he also was just glad to be alive.
“Here you are, Mister President,” said Slade, coming in with a silver platter. There were two plates piled high with ham, bacon, and eggs, two fine china coffee cups, and a steaming pot full of fresh coffee.
“Thank you kindly, Mr. Slade,” said Lincoln. “Take some for yourself, if you wish.”
“Miss Cornelia fed me an hour ago,” Slade said. “I knew you’d be about your business early today, after that ugliness last night.”
“All right then,” the President said. “Let’s tuck in, shall we, Edwin?”
“I think a prayer might be in order today, Mister President,” Stanton said.
“I’ve said several over this long night,” Lincoln replied, “more so than is my wont – but I suppose one more wouldn’t hurt anything.” He bowed his head and gathered his thoughts for a moment. “Almighty Father,” he finally said, “I cannot presume to know your purposes; only that my life is bound to your will, as are all things. But today I thank you for the gift of life, and for sparing me from the evil intent that sought to end me last night. May I not squander the opportunity you have graciously granted me, and let this good food fortify me for the task at hand.”
“Amen!” Stanton said heartily, and the two men dug into the rich breakfast that Slade had brought them. Lincoln found that his body had remembered its appetite with a vengeance and cleaned his plate quickly. He took a long sip of the coffee, making a wry face at the bitter flavor, and then looked over at Stanton.
“First thing I want you to do, Edwin,” he said, “is bury your head in Booth’s journal. Read every page and see how much you can find out about his purposes and those of his confederates. Then I want every man of them rounded up. We need to know for sure who planned this and whether or not there was any involvement on the part of the Confederacy’s so-called government. I frankly doubt it, but I need to be sure. Personally, I’d just as soon Jefferson Davis and the whole damned lot of them slipped across the border into Mexico or Canada and faded away quietly, but they’re a long way from either border - and the whole country is looking for them. I imagine I’ll have to deal with them, and when that time comes, I need to know if they were party to this villainy.”
“Consider it done, sir,” Stanton said.
“I also need you to get word to General Sherman about what happened. He needs to corner Johnston and his army and force their surrender as soon as possible. The news of Appomattox will probably bring that about regardless, but enough blood has been shed. Whatever could be proven by force of arms has been proven, and I am ready for it to be done. Buzzard’s guts, man, I am so weary of this endless fighting!” Lincoln finished with a sigh.
“As are we all, Mister President,” Stanton said. “It has been a very long four years.”
“One other thing, Edwin,” Lincoln said, “and I’ll let you get back to the War Department till our nine o’clock meeting. This is an order from your commander-in-chief: No more executions for desertion. The war’s over and done, and there’s no need for any more killing, especially of our own boys. I know you’re a big believer in making examples of cowards, but enough is enough. It’s time for us to have peace.”
Stanton shrugged. He’d ordered the execution of hundreds of deserters and cowards, not because he took any pleasure in it, but because an Army could not run without discipline, especially in a bloody meat grinder of a war that required men to march towards certain death. But the war was over, finally – or at least, it was ending. And even his grim spirit was lifted by that thought.
“I suppose there is less need for such examples now,” he said. “All hangings will be commuted to forty lashes and a dishonorable discharge.”
“Twenty lashes,” Lincoln said. “No need to cripple a man before sending him home.”
“As you command, sir,” Stanton said. He stood and stretched, and then looked up at the lean face of the chief executive, who towered over him by nearly a foot. His throat caught for a moment with emotion he hadn’t let himself express during the long, anxious night after the attempt on Lincoln’s life.
“You did it, sir,” he finally said. “You brought us through the storm, and now a new day of liberty is dawning on our land.”
“A new birth of freedom,” Lincoln quoted his own famous speech. “Let us make it so, Edwin, let us make it so.”
After Stanton withdrew, Lincoln called Slade back into his office.
“William, you are a leader in Washington’s colored community, are you not?” he asked.
“Well, sir, I suppose there are those who might call me such,” the usher replied. “I am certainly well known to those who might be considered our community leaders.”
“Well, then,” Lincoln said, “I would appreciate it if you let’em know that I’d like to meet with some of them Monday morning, after Easter is done. Not too many – I don’t want this to become a stir in the press. But if you could buttonhole a half dozen or so of the most influential leaders in the free black community, I’d like to have a sit-down with them.”
“I can certainly do that, sir,” Slade replied. “May I ask what you’re thinking about?”
“Well, you heard my speech Thursday night,” Lincoln said. “It was an impromptu moment, but I meant what I said. It’s time to move beyond ending slavery and try to figure out what role your people are going to play in our country’s future, now that the war is ending.”
“You aiming to let us colored folks vote?” Slade asked, arching an eyebrow. “Suh, I don’t know that the country will support that at all!”
Lincoln nodded. “You are right, and I don’t think a general enfranchisement of all black men would stand a chance of making it through Congress, even without the Southern states represented,” he said. “It will have to be limited and qualified at first. But with the rebel states lining up to rejoin the Union, as they will be soon enough, I find it intolerable to think that many men who fought against the Union will be able to vote, while many who fought for it will not be. Our heroic Negro troops have fought very bravely, and faced grave danger, to save this country. I will not see them cast aside now that the conflict has ended. They have earned the right to have a voice in our democracy.”
“You’ve done more for our people than any American ever has,” said Slade. “Whether you succeed or fail in this endeavor, we will not forget.”
“I only want justice for you, and for all Americans,” Lincoln replied. “Every political idea I have ever held came from the Declaration of Independence. It’s time we quit reciting those great words and started practicing them – for all Americans.”
The White House usher nodded, and then took the tray of dishes back downstairs, leaving the coffee pot and Lincoln’s cup. He had only been gone for a moment when the door knocked again.
“Come in,” Lincoln said. Vice President Johnson stepped into the room, looking at his chief with an expression of relief and joy.
“Mister President,” he said. “Thank God you are still with us! I heard you had a very close call last night.”
Lincoln gently touched the bandage that covered his damaged ear.
“Too close for comfort,” he said. “But I suppose the Almighty wasn’t done with me yet. How are you, Andy?”
“Well enough, sir,” the Vice President said. He’d been sick on the day of the inauguration, a month earlier, and had taken several shots of whiskey to soothe his sore throat before taking the oath of office and giving his speech. The result had been a horrible, drunken performance that had embarrassed Johnson and infuriated Lincoln. Several of Johnson’s friends had finally interceded and explained to the President the reason for the Vice President’s dismal debut, and Lincoln had begun meeting with Johnson the week before. The two men had come to know and respect each other during the war, as Johnson was the only Southern Senator who had remained loyal to the Union when his state seceded. He’d served ably as military governor of Tennessee after Union armies reconquered that state and had endured numerous death threats and even some attempts on his life.
“Tell me something – did you hear the speech I gave Tuesday night?” Lincoln asked.
“I did not,” Johnson said, “but I read the printed version in the paper yesterday. You spoke in support of the Unionist government forming in Louisiana, as I recall.”
“I did,” said Lincoln. “And I also addressed something that I wished I had saved for a better speech. Here’s the rub, Andy – my Emancipation Proclamation freed nearly four million enslaved Negroes. I wasn’t sure, though, if it was legal for me to do so. I assumed it was, under the mantle of ‘war powers,’ but I also knew that the courts might step in when the war was done and overrule me. So I fought tooth and nail this past winter to get the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress and sent out to the states to be ratified. The only way to make sure this cancer doesn’t return to kill our Union was to excise it completely and irrevocably, by amending the Constitution. Of all the things that I done as President, that is the one that I am proudest of. I want the Southern states brought back into the Union with as little fuss and bother as possible, but not at the cost of seeing these unfortunate people forced back into bondage.”
“The Bourbon planters are going to fight you tooth and nail,” said Johnson. “They are traitors, Mister President, and treason should be punished. If you want the Negroes to stay free, make ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment a requirement for restoring the Southern states to the Union.”
“I’ve given some thought to that,” said Lincoln. “But what kind of freedom can they enjoy when there are no guarantees of their rights? That’s what I wanted to ask you, Andy. You’re a Southerner, and a former slaveowner. One thing I mentioned in that speech was the possibility of conferring the vote on some members of the Negro community – I said the intelligent, the educated, and those who have fought for the Union. It galls me to think that men who fought against our Republic should be enfranchised, while men who fought for it would see their right to vote denied. So tell me, do you think the South will ever agree to the idea of some freedmen being allowed to vote?”
“Negro voting?” Johnson said with a scowl. “That’s a lot to impose on the men of the South, Mister President. This nation was founded by white men, for white men. I’m a poor Tennessee cracker, sir – son of a dirt farmer made good. Everything I ever had, I had to fight and work for, and none of those grand gentlemen in their fine plantation houses ever gave me a hand up. Men like Jefferson Davis and Henry Chestnut, Alex Stephens and the rest – they’ll never tolerate men they once owned being given the ballot.”
“I was born in a dirt floor cabin, too, Andy,” the President said. “You and I come up together by virtue of our own ability. The South’s been walloped hard by this war. Richmond – it hurt my heart to see that proud town in ruins, even if the rebels brought that fate upon it. I only have four years to put this broken country back together again. I do not know who will follow me in office, so it may be that this will be my one chance to do whatever good I can for all the people of this nation – the rich and the poor, the Yankee and the Southron, the black and the white. I want to give justice to them all – ‘with malice towards none, with charity for all,’ I said last month, and I meant it. So I’m asking you – what about folks like you and me? The common folk of the South, not the great planters and grandees – will they accept some Negroes being given the right to vote? Can they be made to accept it?”
Johnson furrowed his brow. He was an ambitious man, and he had little regard for Negroes as a race – the prejudices of the South were deeply ingrained in him. But he had thrown his lot in with the Union, and many of his own people now regarded him as a traitor. President Lincoln had supported and sustained him as a senator and governor and then had raised him to the second highest office in the land. Whatever political future he had, it lay with Lincoln and the Republicans, not with the rich planter class of the South that had done their best to hold him back all his life.
“They won’t like it, sir,” he said. “Hell, I don’t particularly like it. I have never been able to accept the notion that the darkies are our equals. But if this is your policy and you are committed to it – they’re not in much of a position to refuse you.”
Lincoln sighed and put his face in his hands, then winced as he accidentally brushed his bandaged ear. He was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and wished for nothing more than the chance to lay aside the burdens of his office and simply rest. But he had sought the Presidency, and then immediately been thrust into the gravest crisis the Union had ever faced. Now the fate of his country, and the rights of all its citizens, were in his hands. He could not shirk the responsibility he had taken up on himself.
“It’s a powerful dilemma,” he said. “I’m going to need your support, Andy – and it can’t be half-hearted. I need you to endorse the administration’s positions with all the fire and vigor with which you supported the Union these last four years. The southerners need to understand, I’m not talking about universal suffrage for Negroes. I think that will happen, eventually, and probably needs to. But the journey to that destination must begin with a single step – and the step I want to take is enfranchising the educated, the intelligent, and the veterans of the black community. Let Southerners see that these men can bear the responsibilities of citizenship as bravely as they bore the responsibilities of wartime. Can I count on you in this, Mister Vice President?”
“Whatever doubts I have will be reserved for your ears alone, President Lincoln,” said Johnson. “I’ve burned my bridges behind me in Tennessee, so there is no way back home for me - except to go forward.”
Lincoln stood and held out his hand, and Johnson took it warmly.
“Thank you, Andy,” he said. “Keep this between us for now. One thing that I have learned is that you can’t get too far ahead of the people. You can call yourself a leader all day long, but if you lead and no one follows, you’re just going for a walk! I’m going to meet with my cabinet in an hour or so, and you and I can talk some more Monday evening. Have yourself a good Easter Sunday, Mister Vice President.”
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