They Killed Lincoln
by Samuel Blackwood
For six nights she made the bed of a guest whose name she never caught. By the morning of the fifteenth of April, the whole country knew it. And men came to ask her what she had seen.
Washington, November 1864. Sarah Millward is twenty-seven and has eleven years in the house. She does the upper floors of the National Hotel, she does not look at faces, and it is her trade not to look at them. One rainy evening a guest comes in at twenty past nine and asks her to make again a bed she has just made. His name is Booth. She has forgotten it before she goes up to her own room.
Outside the hotel, two and a half feet out from the chalk line, Isaiah Fortune waits for the fare who will not get into his carriage. He is a driver; the carriage is not his, and neither is the horse. Behind the theater on Tenth Street, Harriet Vesey reads the lists of exchanged prisoners twice a week and never finds her husband's name. And in the rotunda, three evenings a week since November, a clerk from the provost marshal's office sits down in a leather chair to watch a woman go by with a tray.
Five people who decide nothing, prevent nothing and discover nothing. On the 14th of April 1865, at a quarter past ten at night, History passes sixty paces from their doors — and what it leaves behind is not heroes. It is names written on lists by men who do not read what they copy.
Outside the hotel, two and a half feet out from the chalk line, Isaiah Fortune waits for the fare who will not get into his carriage. He is a driver; the carriage is not his, and neither is the horse. Behind the theater on Tenth Street, Harriet Vesey reads the lists of exchanged prisoners twice a week and never finds her husband's name. And in the rotunda, three evenings a week since November, a clerk from the provost marshal's office sits down in a leather chair to watch a woman go by with a tray.
Five people who decide nothing, prevent nothing and discover nothing. On the 14th of April 1865, at a quarter past ten at night, History passes sixty paces from their doors — and what it leaves behind is not heroes. It is names written on lists by men who do not read what they copy.
Chapters
- 1 Room Twenty
- 2 The Chalk Line
- 3 The Man Who Goes Up
- 4 What Is Not on the List
- 5 A Clean Hand
- 6 The Rooms That Are Not Taken
- 7 Eleven Days
- 8 Four Men and a Shelf
- 9 Annapolis Premium
- 10 He Gets Down from the Train Premium
- 11 The Bread Under the Bed Premium
- 12 An Account Settled Premium
- 13 Three Mornings at Eight O'Clock Premium
- 14 The Key That Cannot Be Found Premium
- 15 What He Does Not Set Down Premium
- 16 There Has Been Coming and Going Premium
- 17 The Tea of the Twenty-Fifth of March Premium
- 18 The Night the City Did Not Sleep Premium
- 19 The City Illuminated Premium
- 20 The Sixth Bed Premium
- 21 The Only Happy Chapter Premium
- 22 Two O'Clock in the Afternoon Premium
- 23 The Papers Have Announced It Premium
- 24 A Quarter Past Eight Premium
- 25 The Parting That Fails Premium
- 26 The Horse That Will Not Stand Premium
- 27 Ford's Theatre Premium
- 28 The House on Lafayette Square Premium
- 29 The Alley, the Streets, and What Is Not Yet Known Premium
- 30 What Comes In at Three in the Morning Premium
- 31 The Picket Premium
- 32 Looking for Somebody in a Closed City Premium
- 33 The Open Door Premium
- 34 They Search the Hotel Premium
- 35 The Sixteenth of April Premium
- 36 They Arrest Anybody Premium
- 37 The Waiting Premium
- 38 The Refusal Premium
- 39 Where Were You on the Evening of the Fourteenth? Premium
- 40 They Pull Down the Theater Premium
- 41 Without a Letter Premium
- 42 What the Law Allows Premium
- 43 Author's Note — What Is True Premium
