Murder at Manassas

Chapter 1

July 1861

They say the war shall be won tomorrow, Caitlin Howard said, setting down her whiskey glass to take up the two cards Harrison Raines had dealt her.

Dear lady, they’ve been saying the war’s about to be won every day since Sumter, Raines replied, after pondering his own poker hand. I don’t think they know for certain there’s even to be a battle tomorrow.

Someone must be certain, Harry. Half of Washington City’s going to be out there to see it.

Finding sport in watching men die.

Call it what you will, Sir. I should like to be with them.

He let that pass. They were alone in Caitlin’s small, stuffy sitting room in the quarters she rented at Mrs. Fitzgerald’s boarding house just off Pennsylvania Avenue, idling away the hours of another hot Washington July night. Harry preferred euchre or whist for pastime, considering poker serious business—in fact, his principal line of work. But it was Caitlin’s game of choice. As always, he indulged her.

Caitlin had made a wise choice in her landlady. Mrs. Fitzgerald was wonderfully careless about her enforcement of the rules of proper conduct, and didn’t object to these late night tête à têtes, which provided Harry some of his happiest moments. He didn’t feel he was compromising Caitlin’s reputation. As an actress, Caitlin had small reputation to worry about, man in her chambers or no.

Harry had drawn only one card and stared at it unhappily through his gold-rimmed spectacles. The Queen of Hearts he normally considered lucky, but it was a poor mate to the four spades he had kept in his hand.

He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and once again wiped the sweat from his brow. They had tried having the window open, but there was no breeze, and the smell of Washington in the summer was a worse thing to endure than the heat.

If there is a battle tomorrow, he said, I expect it’s only going to aggravate the quarrel, not end it.

No matter who should win?

These armies are so green, I’m not sure either one can win a fight.

There was a gleam in Caitlin’s gray-green eyes from the gaslight, adding mischief to her famously lovely smile. And which side would be yours, Harry? Have you at last decided upon a ‘we’?

It was a question with which she had regularly taunted him since Virginia had joined the Secession parade. Despite his protestations of neutrality, there were those in Washington City who thought Harry Raines a Confederate agent, with Lafayette Baker, chief inquisitor of the Provost Guard himself among the most highly suspicious.

Washington was acrawl with Southern sympathizers, and Harrison Grenville Raines had been born and raised on a Tidewater Virginia plantation that was home to more than one hundred owned Negroes. Upon coming of age, he’d moved away to Richmond, where he’d acquired the reputation of a wastrel and dandy. Here in the Federal City, he lived well with no apparent means of support other than gambling, occasional horse trading, and vague investments.

Most suspicious of all, his father and brother were officers in General Longstreet’s brigade of the Confederate Army. Despite his excellent horsemanship and potential as a cavalry officer, Harry had declined all offers and pointed suggestions to become part of the Union forces, refusing to bear arms against his home country of Virginia, much as his father’s friend Robert Lee had done.

In their last encounter, Baker had threatened to have him arrested as a possible—which to Baker’s mind meant probable—spy. He’d not yet made good on that threat, but Harry presumed he was serious.

The truth was, Harry detested the notion of a Confederacy as much as he bore affection for Virginia. Like Caitlin, who was English born and the child of fiercely liberal London actors, Harry openly hated slavery and had voted for Abraham Lincoln as the one politician he thought might have the moral fortitude and cleverness to uproot the peculiar institution for good. He had left home because he’d fallen out with his family over the issue. His exile to the Federal City was the eventual result.

Harry was sick at heart that it had now come to war, much as his kin in gray proclaimed it the Second American Revolution. He saw little good or noble to come of such a conflict. Only death and devastation and no resolution of the problem.

You know very well why I take no side, he said to Caitlin, still squinting at his poker hand. Not while the one side is the United States and the other Virginia.

But this is war, Harry. Over slavery.

If you find me less than handsome without brass buttons, Madame, I would remind you that your magnificent Mr. Booth wore a borrowed uniform of the Richmond Grays just so he could attend the hanging of John Brown two years ago, but has not been seen in one since, and we’ve been three months at war.

At the mention of Booth’s name, Caitlin’s smile vanished and her look turned hard.

I would never think you a coward for not becoming a soldier, she said. It cannot be an easy thing to kill another man, and I respect you for not wishing to do it. But I find no courage in your refusal to take a side.

Booth is on what you hold to be the wrong side, yet …

The bet, Sir, is ten cents, she said, coldly.

It was the price of a matinee theater ticket, or half a pound of butter. Harry looked once more at his failed hand. There were few things in life as unsatisfactory as two-handed poker, except perhaps for loving a woman who would have him only as a friend. A woman who loved another.

Raines was considered a man of most agreeable countenance—even handsome—among his circle of saloon, theater, and artist friends, with or without his spectacles. Nearly six feet tall, he had sandy hair worn long in the Southern fashion, and a long cavalier’s moustache, though no whiskers. His eyes were an amiable brown. His manners were remarkably genteel, even for a member of Southern chivalry.

But he was small match for John Wilkes Booth, whom the newspapers had proclaimed the handsomest man in America. A look from that actor’s coal-dark, burning eyes caused women to wilt by the regiment, even those like Caitlin, who knew at first hand Booth’s callous disregard for their sex once his pleasures were taken.

Harry had hope, but it resided less in his own attractions than in the more loathsome aspects of Wilkes Booth’s behavior. Some day Caitlin would tire of the actor, his maddening narcissism, and frequent absences. Or if not that, at least of her endless, pointless wait for some return of her affection. In the meantime, Harry would stay near. He could have escaped Lafayette Baker’s threats and harassment simply by moving to Philadelphia or New York, which remained under civilian rule and were outside Baker’s jurisdiction. He could support himself, even thrive in these cities—whose civilization appealed to him far more than that of the bumptious national capital, with its crude wooden sidewalks, muddy streets, and wandering pigs and livestock.

But no place was truly civilized without a Caitlin Howard in it.

She was not prospering in this season. She earned forty-five dollars a week or more as an actress in good times, but only one of the city’s theaters was open for the summer months. That house was staging a new drama, Eily O’Connor, but Caitlin had not been cast in it. Until Grover’s Theatre reopened, she’d be living on savings.

I raise your bet ten cents more, he said.

Done, she said, with a malicious grin, and laid down a hand with three jacks in it.

He tossed his own cards on the table facedown, but she took them up.

A pair of sevens? You’d bluff me, Harry?

Not well, Ma’am.

I thought you a better player, for you are a good actor. Yet I gain nearly four dollars from you tonight.

He shrugged. Small loss. I’ve had your company for the evening. That’s gain enough for me.

The hour is late, she said.

Caitlin had unbuttoned the jacket of her green dress because of the heat. Rising, astounding Harry, she now removed it, revealing bare arms and shoulders, corset and camisole. This was without precedent in their relationship, but of course no invitation to amour, much as he might have wished it. Their friendship was as much a barrier to intimacy as was her still smouldering passion for Booth.

You’re a bold lady tonight, Kate, he said.

No. Merely a hot one. You men love the corseted dresses we wear. These pesky hoop skirts and piles of petticoats. The more cloth on us, the grander possession we make. But you’ve no idea how much we women hate these clothes. In our own rooms, we commonly go about in undergarments—as I suppose you’ve amply discovered. I yearn for the Empire gowns of my mother’s time. In summer, when she was abroad in sunny climes, she often wore nothing underneath.

Then that’s a yearning I’d share, he said.

The yearning you may have, Harry, but nothing else.

Raines knew many actresses, but few surpassing Caitlin in beauty, despite her age, which was now thirty—two years beyond his own. Not the flirtatious and fetching Agnes Robertson or the regal Lucille Western. In Washington, only the young, raven-haired New Orleans born Louise Devereux was considered a greater beauty on the stage.

None surpassed Caitlin in talent. Maggie Mitchell was perhaps more a master of comedy and the aging Charlotte Cushman more varied in her range. But Caitlin could hold her own on stage with anyone, and thrill the audience with mere tilt of head and cast of eye. She was decidedly a better actress than the famous Laura Keene. Some compared her to the young Fanny Kemble.

A remarkably tall woman, some nine inches above five feet in height, Caitlin had large, beautiful eyes and perfectly groomed light brown hair worn with side curls in the still-lingering fashion. Her figure was not full, but her carriage was splendid, even now, when she seemed much fatigued.

Caitlin went to a low chest of drawers, atop which was a decanter of whiskey and a pitcher.

Would you like more apple tea? she asked, pouring herself a glass of liquor. Or would you have stronger spirits now you’ve lost in our game?

Harry had gone to the window, pulling the drape gently to the side. Caitlin’s rooms overlooked 6th Street, but he could see to the corner and the Avenue.

No one was there. That had not been so earlier.

Neither, Ma’am. I should be leaving.

Harry pulled forth his pocket watch, a gift from his now dead mother on his twenty-first birthday. The present his father had given him on that occasion he no longer possessed—a male slave named Caesar Augustus.

Indeed, it’s past midnight, he said. Not an hour for a gentleman to be seen leaving a lady’s rooms.

Nor an hour for a gentleman to be in ’em—but you would occasion no surprise in this house, Caitlin said. She turned toward him and sipped from the glass, leaning back against the chest of drawers. What will you do tomorrow?

He thought upon it. Rise at eight or nine o’clock. Breakfast at the hotel where he resided, the National. Perhaps take the train to Baltimore, an hour and three quarters away, where he owned some real estate and from time to time dealt in horse trading. Perhaps not.

Nothing in particular, he said, returning his spectacles to their hard-backed case and slipping it into the breast pocket of his linen frock coat.

You won’t go to Centreville for the battle?

Kate, why do that?

Several of the folk in our little troupe plan to attend the show. Members of Congress are going—and taking their ladies! I think all the newspaper correspondents have left for there, or are about to. Have you not noticed how empty are the saloons?

Indeed, McDowell’s army, thirty-five thousand strong, seemed to have dragged along a large part of the city’s one hundred thousand population with it, like a dog whose tail had become ensnared by a brambly vine.

Hell, Kate, the fight may not be until next week. It may already have commenced. Instead of Centreville, it may be at Warrenton, or at the gates of Richmond. We’ve no idea.

She drained her glass and set it down hesitantly on the top of the chest, as though she might take it up again for yet another refilling. Wilkes Booth had been away from the city for days, and this depressed her.

I’ll offer you a reason, she said. You’re a gentleman. Would you allow a lady you’ve sworn always to defend make the journey to such a dangerous place unescorted?

You’ve no business there, Kate. You’ve always told me you hate to watch men fight—that you detest the sight of blood. Why drive thirty miles into Virginia in a hot July to watch them stick bayonets into each other?

A smaller, more perfunctory smile now, as though she were blithely trying to make light of something she held serious.

It’s history. The thing could be decided right there, before our very eyes. But, I—Harry, there will be people in attendance about whom I have concern.

What, you now have an army officer among your beaux?

No! She turned in a whirl of skirts to pour herself another whiskey.

A sergeant then?

She ignored this. I am going out there, Harry. Will you come with me?

He still hoped to find a way to talk her from this—or somehow prevent their departure. But not at this moment. He bowed, with a theatrical flourish. Of course, dear lady. Always. Anywhere.

Can you hire a gig? I shouldn’t want to sit a horse all that way.

There would be no gig nor carriage left in the city for hire. He doubted there was a night soil wagon still available. You don’t require a coach and pair? A barouche for the fairest lady in the Federal City?

As I must ask you to pay for it, Harry, I would wish something less dear. And nimbler. I’m told the country’s rough.

No great hills, but rough. Yes, very rough. And dangerous. Brigands, worse.

She sipped, thoughtfully. You’ll be armed, I trust. I had a pocket pistol among my things, but it seems to have gone astray.

That pepperbox of yours would be about as useful as an apple out there, he said. If I can’t talk you out of this folly, I’ll bring my Navy Colts. Reaching into his coat again, he stepped toward her. Until you find the other, please take this.

He handed her, gently, his own gambler’s pocket pistol—a single-shot percussion derringer. It was loaded, but better in her hands than his. As she had demonstrated on more than one country outing, she was a much better shot than he, particularly when he wasn’t wearing his spectacles.

She examined it. One shot. Mine fires two bullets.

As memory serves, yours is .36 caliber. This is a .44, which should do the work of two. But let us hope you’ll have no need for even one.

You are a kind man, Harry. I’m happy to have your friendship.

He looked at his watch again. It’s so late, we’d do just as well to head for Virginia this very hour. She was exhausted, barely keeping her eyes open.

No, Harry. I would sleep awhile. Let us depart at, say, half past four. Those damned army reveille drum rolls by the Capitol always wake me at four o’clock, no matter what. I’ll be ready in time for us to be well across the Potomac by first light, and I’ll bring refreshment for the journey. She extended her hand to be kissed, a habit of theirs. A good night to you then. I would be out of these suffocating clothes this instant.

Harry left flushed and frustrated. He’d make an effort to acquire a conveyance. She’d be furious with him if he did not. He’d go to the best livery stable in Washington. But there wouldn’t be anything available. He was sure of it. In the morning, he’d console her on the disappointment, she could return to her bed, he could go off to Baltimore, and that would be that. The soldiers could have their brawl without them.

There was a steamy mist to the air this hot night, and Harry ambled more than strode toward the stable, which lay many blocks away along Pennsylvania. On the other, disreputable side of this broad, tree-lined thoroughfare, which everyone in Washington called simply the Avenue, were red clay brick rowhouses, saloons, bawdy houses, and gambling parlors. They ran past C Street down to the foul City Canal. As he walked, he could hear the assorted sounds of carouse and exuberant sin.

But the northern, respectable side of the Avenue was home not only to his expensive National Hotel but the elegant Metropolitan, the Kirkwood House, and the palatial Willard. Here were the best saloons, restaurants, ice cream parlors, and oyster bars in the city. The street on this side was nearly deserted. Harry could hear his own footfalls.

And another’s. He paused, and took a quick look over his shoulder. In the shadows of a tree at the corner was a vaguely glimpsed figure of a tall, sizable man. The fellow was back.

The stranger had stopped, though there was no ostensible business on that deserted corner to occupy him. Harry had seen the man earlier in the evening, following along behind when he had set out for Caitlin’s, but had tried to dismiss him from his mind. Now he was made exceedingly nervous by the fellow.

With the loan of his derringer to Caitlin, he had no weapon with him save a small folding saloon knife. The city did employ some fifty policemen to see to the safety and order of the streets, but they were all political hires who went off duty at sundown and hung about in the safest places no matter what. Another force of fifty who worked for the federal government took over in the hours of darkness, but their charge was the protection of federal buildings, not the local citizenry. The nearest to him now were over at the Treasury Building several blocks away.

There were a few soldiers about, but they were to be regarded as more potential menace than security. Two of them loitering across the street seemed quite drunk and quarrelsome. As always and everywhere in Washington, there were some Negroes lounging, small help to a white man. It was foolish to walk these streets so poorly armed at such an hour.

Harry quickened his step, glancing back again to see the tall figure moving forward and matching his pace, boldly and brazenly. The livery stable Harry was bound for was at the farther end of the Avenue near the baseball field and the President’s Park. He decided to stop in first at the bar of his hotel before proceeding, in hopes his pursuer might think him retiring for the night and so be thrown off.

Only four men were in the National’s bar, one a gambler Harry knew named Big Jim Coates, two strangers, and the photographer Matthew Brady.

The bartender, a Welshman named Maddox, had poured a glass of Harry’s favorite for him, not apple tea but Old Overholtz ’55. Harry debated whether to take it. The unease at being followed and the excitement of Caitlin’s company required calming. He accepted the drink and put a coin down to pay for it.

Few about tonight, said Maddox.

All off to see tomorrow’s grand martial pageant.

Surely there’ll not be fighting on the Sabbath? The Welshman laughed, then moved to some labor at the end of the bar.

Harry turned to face the room. The photographer was seated at a table by himself. He had given Harry no notice, though they knew each other.

May I join you, Mr. Brady?

The photographer looked up. His spectacles were foggy, and he had to peer over them. Harry Raines, is it? Yes, please. Sit. Sit.

Brady was a celebrated man, more so in New York than in Washington City, but fame and success had brought him small content. Harry thought him fidgety, and Brady drank overmuch.

Surprised you’re still in the town, Brady said, as Harry seated himself.

No more surprised than I am to find you here. The battle should be a worthy subject. Though I wonder how you would photograph a war. Soldiers don’t stand very still in a fight.

I am going to the battle. Yes, indeed. My assistant Mr. Gardner and I will be there. You may be certain. But I’ve no clear idea how I’m going to get a single useful exposure. You’re quite right. Unless I can get the armies to stand perfectly still, there’ll be little to photograph.

They’ll be perfectly still when they’re dead.

The thought seemed to depress Brady even more. He pulled at his beard, as if to straighten it. He was in a great fidget.

I am uncertain even where to go. I have maps. I have a wagonload of equipment. But armies move hither and thither. Are you going, Raines? You know Virginia. I should be glad for your company, for your guidance.

I am sorry, Mr. Brady. I am going, but I’m to escort a lady—if I can find a rig to hire.

Have you a pass? A military pass?

He did not. Harry hadn’t thought of that. It would be a marvelous excuse. No pass. He shook his head.

If you come with me, Raines, you won’t need one.

If he remained there much longer, Brady would have him in his wagon. Harry stood. Let me buy you a drink, Sir. But I must be going. I’ve an errand still to attend to. A good night to you.

But tomorrow, where should I go?

To Centreville, Mr. Brady. Once you’re there, head for the sound of the cannons. But don’t let it get too loud.

What do you mean?

I mean don’t get so close you find a cannonball in your lens.

Harry finished his drink, signalled to Maddox for refreshment of Brady’s glass, set another coin on the table, and walked to the door. Sticking his head out cautiously, he found himself staring into the face of the tall, muscular man who had been following him.

It was a rough and very Irish face, with nose and cheekbone slightly misplaced as though from some old, odd injury. The man wore a black coat and a bowler hat. His clothes were cheap, but a city dweller’s. Though tall and broad-shouldered, he was in no way stout. What bulk there was looked all muscle. In rougher clothes, he might have been a teamster or dockyard laborer.

Harry stepped outside. Who are you? he asked. And why do you follow me?

Why do you think, you goddamned Rebel, the man said. His voice was as Irish as his face—and as mean. He gruffly turned and moved on toward the next corner. Good night and to hell with you, Harrison Raines.

What? You leave me now?

There are others to watch you.

Not a comforting thought, somehow. The fellow’s knowledge of his name gave Harry a clammy feeling, but he shook it off. As the man disappeared up 6th Street, another came around the corner on a large gray horse. Harry recognized him immediately, as much by his fine horsemanship and flamboyant style as anything

Booth. The National was his residence as well. Wherever he’d been, he was back.

In addition to handsome, the actor was a splendid athlete. It was for that reason that men came in such crowds to join the swooning ladies at his plays. He swung his right leg over the saddle and landed on the street in a graceful leap. Without further pause, he touched his hat, muttered a quick Raines, and started into the bar.

A moment, Sir, Harry said.

Booth stopped. He was wearing a pair of fine kid gloves despite the heat, and polished riding boots, only lightly touched with dust. What do you want, Raines? A drink? I am buying for the house.

It’s a small house to buy for, but no thank you. Miss Howard has asked me escort her to Centreville tomorrow. General McDowell is expected to do battle and she wishes to see it.

He hoped Booth would protest. Another excuse.

If there’s a battle, said Booth, his mellifluous voice booming out into the street as though to an audience, then you and Caitlin shall see the triumph of my country. You are welcome to that pleasure, Sir. Have a care to the lady’s safety.

With that he swept into the bar.

His country, indeed. Having begun his acting career to small success in Philadelphia, Booth had moved to Richmond and prospered, remaining there for two years. But that was all he could claim of Virginia as country. He was a Marylander. His father, the great mad drunken actor Junius Brutus Booth, had brought his large and illegitimate family up on a farm in Bel Air near Baltimore and in a grand house in that city as well. Both of Booth’s parents had come from England.

Harry had met and much admired Wilkes Booth’s brother Edwin, a fine and poetic tragedian. Edwin was as hostile to slavery and supportive of Lincoln as Harry was, and if Edwin claimed a country, it was New York.

Harry stepped off the walk and passed beneath the trees into the street. The corner at 6th remained deserted, but that didn’t mean he was safe.

Directly across the way, next to the Murray Hotel, was the Palace of Fortune, this night sounding as lively and busy as the National’s barroom was not. Harry knew the tawdry establishment well, and the location of its back door.

With studied casualness, he walked across, pausing at the entrance of the gambling hall to look up 6th Street again with some care. It was all in darkness, lacking gaslights. Harry could sense nothing moving, or lurking, except perhaps a dog or two, and the usual scurrying rats. He put on his spectacles. Still nothing at all, though he heard a bit of laughter coming from a house south of the Avenue. Situated in Marble Alley, it was the establishment of a Miss Julia Deen, declared by the Provost Marshal’s office to be one of the most reputable disreputable houses in Washington City. It boasted eight female inhabitants and was seldom without visitors.

Harry turned away. Pushing open the doors, he strolled into the gambling emporium, nodding to a few acquaintances. He ordered and paid for a drink at the bar, but left it untouched as he excused himself to use the necessary in the rear.

Someone had gotten to the privy first, but Harry actually had no need of it. Moving as swiftly as he could manage in the gloom, he slipped into the yard of the Murray next door. No one came after him.

Stepping over what proved to be a sleeping pig, squealing in its sudden wakefulness, he crossed the yard and made his way behind the St. James, crossing C Street and following the back lane that led past the fish wharves on the canal. On this hot night, the canal itself smelled worse than the stocks of fish. He wondered how many dead bodies had been dumped into it that week. There were always cats and dogs to be found floating in its muck, and horses were not uncommon. Neither, especially with so many soldiers now calling the city home, were humans.

Harry was passing by the rear of a row of shabby small hostelries of the most dubious reputation when a gunshot boomed out, echoing off the shadowy brick walls.

Thinking the source of it the belligerent Irish tough who’d accosted him, he flattened himself against a wall, upsetting a