Lincoln memorabilia fills author's home to the rafters

WASHINGTON -- James Swanson didn't really have much of a chance.

Born Feb. 12, 1959, the day Abraham Lincoln was born 150 years earlier, he was destined to become more than a tad familiar with the 16th president.

One of the "best gifts" he ever received as a child was a print of John Wilkes Booth's Derringer pistol, superimposed on the front page of the Chicago Tribune bearing news of Lincoln's shooting.

"I guess you could say it was my Rosebud," he says, referring to the beloved childhood sled from Citizen Kane.

Though the gift has sentimental value -- his grandmother gave it to him -- the Derringer print is hardly the centerpiece of Swanson's collection, which fills his 1885 Victorian town house on Capitol Hill. It's just one of hundreds.

"I could spend the next five years just having Lincoln prints framed."

Swanson's new history, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (William Morrow, $26.95), joins the rows of Lincoln-related volumes that line Swanson's bookshelves upstairs. Two of the four bedrooms already have been turned into libraries.

"When I moved in two years ago, I decided the first floor was not going to be a book warehouse. I can't get away from them any way else," says the 46-year-old attorney, who held a number of government and think-tank posts before taking a leave to write Manhunt. (The movie begins filming in March, with Harrison Ford as Col. Everton Conger, who captures Booth.)

The main floor of Swanson's home looks more like a Civil War museum than a library, right down to the tin bugle on a living room table and the military drums stacked in the corner of the dining room. Old-fashioned velvet drapes cover the doorways to keep in whatever heat Swanson might have. (His last gas bill was $600, "and it wasn't even cold.")

"I like the house to look like it did originally," he says. Much of it does. The hardwood floors, some inlaid, are original, as are the sliding pocket doors between the parlors, the Victorian fireplace mantels and the stained-glass windows.

The home was built by a German doctor later charged with killing his patients and taking their money. It even has an underground chamber, which Swanson has never entered. "The house inspector wouldn't even go in there."

But other parts of the house have been updated over the years. Because the most recent owner was a lobbyist who frequently entertained on a large scale, Swanson's kitchen boasts a six-burner Garland stove, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and enough counter space to make a caterer smile.

But less than a year ago, the house was not party-ready. Stacks of books and Civil War newspapers covered the floors of his front parlor, middle sitting room and the dining room, where he wrote Manhunt on a 16-foot long table sporting all its leafs. "You could hardly walk through here."

"I love being surrounded by the original materials when I write. It gives a certain authenticity. ... The space, the house, allows me to create the mood I need."

He says the house worked its magic.

"What I hope is the book is a time capsule. That it will take people back 150 years to what was both the best and worst week in American history."

Though the research material has been put away, much of what helped Swanson's writing mood is still on view today.

One of his most treasured possessions is a clipping of Lincoln's hair taken by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton the night the president was shot. It hangs in the dining room. A bloodstained swatch of actress Laura Keene's dress -- she cradled Lincoln's wounded head at Ford's Theatre -- is yet to be framed. There's a bronze plaque of Lincoln's profile, which became the face on every penny, and the playbill from the fateful performance of Our American Cousin.

Booth gets his due, too. Swanson owns a photograph of Booth that was presented to a theater owner, "but I'd never display images of him. He was a murderer. I'm not going to hang him up on my walls."

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant gets better treatment, as does Lincoln, of course, whose huge oil painting hangs in the front parlor.

Friends say it looks like Lincoln in drag. Too much makeup. Too exaggerated.

"It was never meant to be viewed close up. It was to be used on stage at a political rally. To be seen from afar."

Like Swanson, it seems at home here.

"The moment I walked in, I knew it would be a perfect repository for my collection."

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