Book Excerpt
The first pursuer
The first stage of the mythological journey—which we have designated the “call to adventure”—signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
ON THE AFTERNOON OF GOOD FRIDAY, April 14, 1865, Joseph B. Stewart walked home from his office when he passed near Ford’s Theatre and felt a momentary panic. He suddenly remembered he had not purchased tickets for Our American Cousin, as he promised his family that morning. The evening performance would be the final run of the comedy starring Laura Keene, the luminary English actress and theater manager who achieved acclaim in America. Even better, President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant planned to attend. With the curtain rising in only a few hours, Stewart feared the play would be sold out.
He could be excused for his absent-mindedness. Besides the maelstrom surrounding the end of the Civil War, Stewart had urgent personal and business affairs preoccupying his mind. Before departing his office, he sent a letter to Thomas C. Durant, the vice president and general manager of Union Pacific Railroad, introducing him to a Texas political operative with access to Confederate cotton—who Stewart vouched for as “a gentleman worthy of the highest confidence and respects and whose word can be relied upon for all purposes.”
Stewart hurried inside Ford’s Theatre and the ticket agent informed him the best remaining block of seats was in the front row of the orchestra section. He purchased four tickets at one dollar each—compared to twenty-five cents in the family circle—before returning to his mansion at 349 K Street. Stewart disliked sitting close to the orchestra, but he still looked forward to a well-needed comedy.
By the time Stewart sat down to the play, he had already lived a consequential life as a firsthand witness to key moments that shaped America’s first century; he would live another lifetime at Ford’s Theatre. Like the fictional Forrest Gump, Joseph B. Stewart was everywhere—and with everyone—who mattered.
The conventional account of the Lincoln assassination portrays the Ford’s Theatre audience frozen in its seats as John Wilkes Booth alighted on the stage, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” and ran out of the building. This is mostly true—but Stewart is a notable exception. There is something cathartic about Stewart seeing through the confusion and chasing Booth out of the theater. We cannot change how that terrible night ended, but Stewart allows us to imagine what might have happened had he seized Booth and delivered him to justice. With Joseph B. Stewart, we can take a small measure of comfort President Lincoln did not suffer the fatal blow with the audience sitting down.
The most intriguing question is what motivated him to act—what unique quality, among thirteen hundred theatergoers, impelled Stewart to spring from his seat and pursue the assassin? Considering the wide historical fascination with Lincoln’s killing—of which there are over 120 books, and counting, on the subject—it is natural to assume at least one historian has published Stewart’s actions in minute detail. However, this is not the case. Nonetheless, as a lawyer, lobbyist, political booster, and railroad executive, he shaped numerous impactful events, and his life reads like a veritable highlight reel of nineteenth century America.
Despite having access to presidents, cabinet officials, senators, business tycoons, and other notables—and despite the many controversies he endured—history has overlooked Stewart. Many of his obituaries even neglected to mention his chase of Lincoln’s assassin. The backroom nature of where he operated partly explains this, as he remained obscured in the shadows of more prominent figures. Nonetheless, as the nucleus of history forms in the shadows, Joseph B. Stewart’s story is compelling in its own right.
From the frontiers of Kentucky and Kansas to the urban sprawl of Washington, D.C. and New York City, Stewart was an active participant in America’s uneven growth across the continent and onto the world stage. He felt the republic’s divisions firsthand in Louisville, and he backed presidents Lincoln and Grant through victory. He was intimate with the key players in the Transcontinental Railroad, and as a lobbyist, he paid a heavy price after its completion. His business ventures exposed him to racial inequality and lingering injustice in the nation’s capital and in the post-Reconstruction South. His meddling contributed to the ouster of US and foreign officials, and the imperiling of a treaty with a fledgling ally. He saw vast fortunes come and go, and—along with several notorious colleagues—experienced scandal and misfortune. Through his successes and failures, Stewart provides unique insights into what happened behind closed doors within the corridors of power.
Joseph B. Stewart’s actions and motivations do not conform to the idealistic image of him being America’s almost-hero following President Lincoln’s assassination. He was no stranger to corruption and scandal. Yet, despite being afflicted with the familiar vices of more powerful and better-known men, it is too simple to dismiss him as merely a corrupt and greedy lobbyist. Stewart was, after all, an influential lawyer in the nation’s political and financial capitals during a consequential time in American history. There is wisdom to glean from the almost-hero, or the flawed figure who stumbles in the arena, and beyond the lessons in the arc of Joseph B. Stewart’s story, the trials he faced mirror the challenges America encounters today.