A convalescent sun came out, weak and pale, and young buds and rooftops glistened in the cool air. Ships which had been anchored downstream, loaded with prisoners, began to hoist anchor and sail and move upward against the southwesterly breeze.
In Charleston at this time of day, men stood proud and men stood sullen as they watched the Stars and Stripes lift jerkily up the halyard at Fort Sumter where, four years ago, it had come down. On the mainland, the Federal artillery belched fire and rattled the windows of the homes and the churches of Charleston.
An old alien authority had returned to South Carolina and the Union was going to have its celebration even if it had to do its own applauding. The slate blue smoke was lifting over the harbor when the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher spoke the speech that few Southerners believed—that the war was the fault of a small ruling class in the South, that the common people of the South would join their brethren of the North and rule the United States, that there was honor for all in this peace. Then he thanked God, who had sustained the life of the President, “under the unparalleled burdens and sufferings of four bloody years, and permitted him to behold this auspicious confirmation of that national unity for which he has waited with so much patience and fortitude. . . .”
In the White House, the man with so much patience saw a lawyer from Detroit, named William Alanson Howard. Then ex-Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire, newly appointed to be Minister to Spain, sat down for a chat. He had served sixteen years in the United States Senate and he had permitted himself to become the biggest bone in a factional fight and had been defeated for reelection. Now he was grateful for an appointment to a $12,000-a-year job.
Nothing was said of his lame-duck status, and Lincoln was not the one to mention Hale’s slashing attacks against the administration. The ex-Senator had confided to friends that, in one way, he was glad to leave the country because his daughter Bessie, he found, had succumbed to the blandishments of an actor named Wilkes Booth and he did not want an actor in the family; but that a sea voyage, and a long stay in Spain, would help the girl to forget the man.
Lincoln advised Hale to keep Assistant Secretary of State Frederick Seward informed of his preparations to leave, at least until the secretary was well enough to conduct the business of the department. The two men parted with a handshake.
The next visitor was shown into the office. For this man, the President arose from his big chair and came around to the other side of the desk for a warm handclasp. He was John A. J. Cresswell, the man who was credited with keeping Maryland from seceding from the Union. Lincoln, catching his mood from the broad beams of sunlight coming through the east windows, sat back in his chair and slapped both hands on the polished oak arms.
“Cresswell, old fellow,” he said happily, “everything is bright this morning. The war is over. It has been a tough time, but we have lived it out”—then his voice dropped—“or some of us have.”
In a moment, the notation of mass death was gone, and he said: “But it is over. We are going to have good times now, and a united country.”
Cresswell agreed. The two men chatted about family welfare and the unique feeling of peace, and at last Mr. Cresswell got around to the favor he wanted to ask. It seems that a friend of his had gone south and, through some inadvertence, had enrolled in the Confederate Army. He had fallen into the hands of the Union Army and was now a prisoner. This friend had intended no harm, but there it was.
The President listened. Mr. Cresswell reached into his pocket and withdrew some papers. They were affidavits bearing on the friend’s good character. “I know he acted like a fool,” Mr. Cresswell said, “but he is my friend and a good fellow. Let him out, give him to me, and I will be responsible for him.”
Lincoln’s long fingers held a letter opener and he studied it as he turned the instrument in his hands. The ebullience of a few minutes ago was gone.
“Cresswell,” he said, “you make me think of a lot of young folks who once started out Maying. To reach their destination, they had to cross a shallow stream, and did so by means of an old flat boat. When they came to return, they found to their dismay that the old scow had disappeared.
“They were in sore trouble and thought over all manner of devices for getting over the water, but without avail. After a time, one of the boys proposed that each fellow should pick up the girl he liked best and wade over with her. The masterly proposition was carried out, until all that were left upon the island was a little short chap and a great, long, gothic-built elderly lady. Now, Cresswell, you are trying to leave me in the same predicament. You fellows are all getting your own friends out of this scrape, and you will succeed in carrying off one after another until nobody but Jeff Davis and myself will be left on the island, and then I won’t know what to do. How should I feel? How should I look lugging him over? I guess the way to avoid such an embarrassing situation is to let them all out at once.”
Mr. Cresswell left, his mission unaccomplished. Afterward, other visitors came and left in rapid succession. Some sought pardons, one wanted a service discharge, others asked for approval to buy contraband in the South. The President wrote short notes directing department heads to take care of certain minor matters and, when two Southerners sent in word that they would like to have a pass to revisit Richmond, Mr. Lincoln sent a note out to them:
“No pass is necessary now to authorize anyone to go to and return from Petersburg and Richmond. People go and return as they did before the war.”
In a momentary lull, he called for a messenger and asked him to run over to Tenth Street to Ford’s Theatre and to tell the manager that the President would require the State Box for the evening performance and to explain that General Grant would be in the party. He probably forgot to mention Mrs. Grant because the newspaper accounts later in the day did not mention her.
Mr. Lincoln took care of this chore early for two reasons: one was that the impending Cabinet meeting might last a long time. The second was that he had a feeling that the last big Southern army, under General Joseph Johnston, would capitulate to General William T. Sherman this day, and he wanted very much to wait this news out either in his office or in the War Department telegraph office and this would leave him too busy to think of the theater.
Someone, perhaps Major Thomas T. Eckert, chief of the Telegraph Office, reminded Secretary Stanton that today was Good Friday. Mr. Stanton said that he was aware of the day. The subordinate said that many Christians, on this day, are in the habit of attending services or merely visiting churches. At once, Stanton wrote an order stating that all clerks under his jurisdiction, in whatever department, would be permitted to leave at once to attend services if they so desired. Copies of the order went out, and a carbon was signaled to all the forts and military installations in and around Washington. It would be left to the discretion of the commanding officer, in each case, to decide whether the individual could be spared from service for the day.
Across Long Bridge, two weary regiments trooped into Washington City and, without music or drums, marched down the Avenue. The men looked dusty. In ranks of four, they marched out of step, gawking at the city sights, the hotels, the restaurants, the taverns, the citizens standing on the north side of the Avenue, and especially at the patriotic women who waved handkerchiefs.
The boys were coming home from Virginia and the dirty blue columns would be marching day after day after day down the Avenue, until, in time, few pedestrians would pause to notice, and no handkerchiefs would flutter an engaging welcome. The men would still gawk, and spit tobacco juice, and make obscene remarks, but the only thing about them that would catch the warmth of light would be their bayonets.
The messenger reached Ford’s Theatre at 10:30 A.M. and James R. Ford, business manager, was in the front office when he arrived. He heard the news, particularly about General Grant, with gratitude and enthusiasm. He sent the messenger back to the White House with word that the box was indeed available, that the Ford management was honored to have the President of the United States and his party as guests, and that suitable measures would be taken to entertain him.
Mr. James Ford couldn’t stop smiling. Inside, a rehearsal was going on for Our American Cousin, and Ford had, until this moment, felt certain that Laura Keene and her company would be playing to an almost empty house on this final night of the engagement. Every theater manager knew that Easter week was the worst, for business, of the year. And the worst night of the worst week, by far, was Good Friday.
To make matters more discouraging for the Fords, their rival, Mr. Hess, had advertised that tonight Grover’s Theatre would put on a monster victory celebration with lights and special songs. Ford had nothing to compete with it except an old comedy which, without Laura Keene’s infusing fire, would have burned itself out long ago. Now suddenly, miraculously, the evening had been saved, and Ford realized that he must have Mrs. Lincoln to thank because, although the President had attended Ford’s three times in the closing season, all three performances had been Shakespearean plays with Edwin Forrest. Ford could not imagine Mr. Lincoln volunteering to see Our American Cousin. It was not in character.
Still, a man has no right to question his own good fortune, and Mr. Ford bustled around the theater, passing the news to his younger brother and the actors on the stage. He stressed the fact that, while Lincoln was a fine attraction, General Grant would be the personage who would bring the crowd. Mr. Ford hurried out of the theater and over to the new Treasury building to get some bunting with which to decorate the State Box.
The exultation which James Ford felt is the more understandable because his older brother, Mr. John Ford, the owner of the theater was, at the time, in Richmond. For a week, James and young Harry Clay Ford were running the place. It was a coup to get the President of the United States on the poorest night of the year, but to get General Ulysses S. Grant was a major triumph.
John Ford, when he returned, would be pleased with his brothers. He was a veteran theater owner and manager, and had had houses in Baltimore and in Richmond. Once, by political accident, he had been Acting Mayor of Baltimore. He was known as a stubborn and independent businessman, but he was a family man too and, in spite of eleven children at home, he found time to worry about the safety of an aged uncle and a mother-in-law in Richmond. He had gone off to assure himself of their safety.