We are pleased to hear of your loss. Our plans continue unabated. Await further instructions.
II
The theater had become one of Abe’s favorite escapes over the years. Perhaps it was his love of storytelling that drew him in; the theatrical flourishes he added to his carefully scripted performances that allowed him to relate. Perhaps the nervous thrill he felt when speaking before thousands gave him an appreciation for the performers. Abe enjoyed musicals and operas, but he was particularly fond of plays (whether they were comedies or tragedies didn’t seem to matter). More than anything, he enjoyed seeing his beloved Shakespeare brought to life.
And so it was with particular delight that Mary and I took in a performance of Julius Caesar on a blustery February evening—the recent troubles of the election behind us at last. Our dear friend Mayor [William] Jayne had been kind enough to lend us his box and its four seats.
The Lincolns were joined that evening by Abe’s law partner Ward Hill Lamon and his thirty-four-year-old wife, Angelina. The production was, in Abe’s words, “a splendid spectacle of ancient dress and painted scenery”—with the exception of a misspoken line in the first act.
I nearly broke out laughing when the wretched soothsayer warned Caesar: “Beware the Ides of April.” * I thought it a miracle (and a relief) that no one in the audience had snickered or yelled out a correction. How could such an error be made by an actor? Had my ears deceived me?
In Act III, Scene 2, Marc Antony stood over Caesar’s slain, betrayed body and began the play’s most iconic speech:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones…
Abe’s eyes welled up at the young actor’s impassioned delivery.
I had read those words countless times; marveled at the genius of their construction. Only now, though, in the hands of this gifted young man did they ring true. Only now did I comprehend the whole of their meaning. “You all did love him once, not without cause,” he said. “What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him now?” Upon this, however, his speech came to a stop. He leapt from the stage and into the audience.
What strange interpretation was this? We watched him, bemused yet fascinated, as he bounded toward our side of the theater and disappeared through the door which led to our box. Apprehension suddenly filled the whole of my body, for I was sure that he meant to make a spectacle of my being in attendance. I had reason to worry, for this had happened several times in the past. Such exhibitions were one of the perils of being a public figure, and [they] always produced in me no small measure of embarrassment.
Just as Abe feared, the young actor entered the box with a flourish, drawing light laughter and applause from the audience. Every eye in the theater was trained on him as he stood behind the Lincolns and their guests. Abe smiled nervously, sure of what was coming next. But (to his surprise and relief) the actor simply continued his speech:
“Oh judgment!” he cried. “Thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason!” Upon this, he produced a revolver from his costume, leveled it at the back of [Angelina’s] head, and fired. The noise quite frightened me, and I laughed, momentarily certain that this was all part of the play. But when I saw her dress covered with pieces of brain; when I saw her slump forward in her chair—the blood running not only from her wounds, but from her ears and nostrils as water from a well—I knew.
Mary’s screams set off a panic below, the audience trampling each other to reach the rear of the hall. I drew the knife from my coat (I had taken to carrying one since my meeting with the Union) and rose to meet the bastard as Lamon attended to his wife, lifting her head and calling to her in vain as her blood poured over his hands. I reached the actor just as he leveled his pistol at Mary. I brought my blade down on him, sinking the whole of it into the muscle where his neck and shoulder met, causing him to drop the gun before he fired. I pulled my blade out and made to bury it again. Before I could, the world turned on its side.
The young actor kicked Abe’s legs out from under him, sending him to the floor and sending the knife flying from his hands. Abe looked down the length of his body—toward the strange, pulsing pain coming from his left leg. It had been twisted at the knee so that it bent neither forward nor backward, but grotesquely to the side.
At once I felt terribly sick. Seeing me in this state, Lamon left his wife and joined the fight. He turned to meet the devil with his own revolver, but before he could level it, the actor drove a fist into his mouth with such force as to push his teeth inward and loose his jaw from its hinge.
A goddamned vampire…
Mary could bear the scene no longer and fainted dead away, falling to the ground near her chair. Lamon stumbled backward and steadied himself against the railing—clutching at his jaw, instinctively trying to force it back into place. The vampire retrieved his weapon, leveled it at Lamon’s head, and fired, sending pieces of skull flying over the railing and onto the empty seats below. He was gone. The vampire next turned the gun on Mary, and despite my screams of protest, shot her through the chest as she slept. She would never wake.
He came for me next, standing over me as I lay helpless. He aimed the barrel of his revolver at my head. Our eyes met.
They were Henry’s eyes.
“Sic semper tyrann—”
The last word was cut off by the sound of the shot.
Abe awoke with a start.
He sat straight up in his bed and shielded his face with his hands, just as he had all those years ago, on the night he saw his father dealing with the devil. The night Jack Barts had condemned his mother to death.
Mary slept peacefully by his side. His boys were safely in their beds. A thorough check of the house turned up no evidence of trespassers—living or otherwise. Still, Abe would sleep no more that February night. There’d been something so familiar about the dream. So real. He could see every detail of the theater in his mind; every detail of the costumes and scenery. He could feel the nauseating pain of his leg, and hear Angelina’s blood running onto the floor. But try as he might, Abe couldn’t remember those three damned words that his murderer uttered just before he woke. *
Shortly after Abe’s dream, William Seward, still the heavy favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee in 1860, made a strange tactical decision:
Seward has abruptly left for a tour of Europe, and shall be gone these next six months at least. What can it mean on the eve of so crucial an election? How can such an absence be to his advantage? There are many who have criticized [the trip] as proof of his arrogance; his aloofness. I, however, am reluctant to levy such condemnation—for I suspect that he has been sent at the Union’s behest.
Abe’s suspicion was confirmed by Henry’s next letter.
Abraham,
Our friend S has been sent on an errand—one which we hope will shore up support for our cause in the coming months and years. We now ask that you turn your whole heart toward that greatest of political contests.
—H
In Seward’s absence, Abe’s political allies worked to shore up support for a presidential run, while Abe worked on raising his national awareness. On the evening of February 27th, 1860, at New York’s Cooper Institute, he delivered what some historians consider to be the greatest political speech of all time to an audience of more than a thousand.