Lincoln's Last Days Page 11

  Booth, overcome with despair, sets the papers aside. Then he takes out his diary. In it, he writes his reflections on killing Lincoln, just to make sure that his point of view is properly recorded for posterity. “I struck boldly and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on,” Booth writes. “I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made men the instrument of his punishment.”

  Booth writes and rants and writes some more. Then he sleeps. Then he awakens and writes some more. There’s nothing else to do with his time.

  John H. Surratt, Jr.

  Chapter

  45

  MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1865

  Mary Surratt’s Boardinghouse

  Night

  MARY SURRATT HAS BEEN A SUSPECT since the night Lincoln was shot. Detectives questioned her at two o’clock that morning, even as Lincoln lay dying. The widow was forthcoming about the fact that John Wilkes Booth had paid her a visit just twelve hours earlier and that her son John had last been in Washington two weeks earlier. When a thorough search of the house turned up nothing, the police left. No arrest was made.

  Now they are back. One of her boarders, Louis Weichmann, has volunteered information to the authorities about the comings and goings of Booth and the conspirators at the boardinghouse.

  It is well past midnight when police surround the house. She answers a knock at the door, thinking it is a friend. “Is this Mrs. Surratt’s house?” asks a detective.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you Mrs. Surratt?”

  “I am the widow of John H. Surratt.”

  “And the mother of John H. Surratt, Jr.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Madam, I have come to arrest you.”

  Three policemen step inside. Mary’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Anna, is also taken into custody. Just before they are led outside, Mary asks permission to kneel in prayer. She is a devout Catholic and prays “the blessing of God upon me, as I do in all my actions.”

  Major General Christopher C. Augur (seated, third from right) and his staff. Augur was the commanding general in charge of all the troops responsible for defending Washington, D.C.

  The house is quiet. Her words echo through the half-lighted rooms.

  Then there’s another knock on the door.

  When the detectives open it, they are shocked by the sight of a tall man with a pickax slung over his shoulder, wearing a shirtsleeve on his head like a stocking cap. His boots are coated with mud, and he is unshaven. As he steps inside, they see what appears to be blood on his sleeves. The detectives quickly close the door behind him.

  Lewis Powell, starving after three days of sleeping in the woods, instantly realizes he has made an error. “I guess I am mistaken,” he quickly tells the detectives, turning to leave.

  The police send Mary and Anna Surratt out the door, where carriages wait to take them to jail at the army headquarters of Major General Christopher Augur, the commander of troops in the Department of Washington. Then they focus their attention on the tall stranger with the pickax.

  A photograph of Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, 1890.

  Powell gives his name as Lewis Payne and makes up an elaborate story, saying that he has come to Mary Surratt’s at her request, to dig a ditch. The police press him, asking about Powell’s address and place of employment. When he can’t answer in a satisfactory manner, they arrest him. At the police station, he is strip-searched, and an unlikely collection of items, including cash, a compass, a pocketknife, and a newspaper clipping of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, are found in his pockets.

  “Payne’s” height and rugged build clearly match the description of Secretary Seward’s attacker. The police summon William Bell, the young black servant who had given the description to the station.

  When a lineup of potential suspects is paraded into the room before him, Bell marches right up to Powell. “He is the man,” Bell proclaims. Powell’s fate is sealed. He is sent to the same army jail holding the Surratt women.

  Lewis Powell’s pickax.

  Chapter

  46

  TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  AT THE WAR DEPARTMENT, Lafayette Baker follows the progress of the soldiers’ searches in Maryland. He also has his hired agents out searching, but his efforts to send and receive messages are hampered by the lack of telegraph lines through the Maryland and northern Virginia countryside. There is, however, a telegraph line at Point Lookout, a former Union prisoner-of-war camp at the mouth of the Potomac River. To keep himself informed of all activities in the area, he dispatches a telegraph operator to that location and orders him to tap into the existing line.

  A sketch of a telegraph operator.

  Now, safe in the knowledge that he has done everything that he can, Baker waits for that telegraph line to sing.

  Chapter

  47

  TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1865

  Maryland Countryside

  Afternoon

  THE MOMENT DR. SAMUEL MUDD has been dreading comes while he is in the fields, working his crops. The Union cavalry unit galloping up the road is not there by accident. There are at least two dozen riders, including his cousin George. It was George to whom Mudd confided that two strangers had spent the night of Lincoln’s assassination in his home. They spoke after Easter services, when Booth and Herold were still very much in the vicinity. Mudd took pains to state that his life was in danger should these two men ever come back. The story was a cover, intended to make it look as if he had no knowledge of the strangers’ identities. It was Mudd’s hope that George would act as a go-between, alerting the police to the fact that his Good Samaritan cousin might just have “accidentally” aided the men who killed Lincoln.

  George, however, is a devoted Union sympathizer. Instead of the police, George has brought the cavalry. The riders dismount. Lieutenant Alexander Lovett is in charge and quickly begins to question the rattled Samuel Mudd to determine exactly who and what he saw.

  Dr. Mudd, nervous and afraid, forgets the story he made up and rehearsed. Rather than present himself as eager for the “entire strangers” to be captured, he is vague and contrary. He mentions that one stranger had a broken leg and that he had done the neighborly thing by splinting it before sending the men on their way. When Lovett asks him to repeat parts of the story, he frequently contradicts himself.

  Lieutenant Lovett is positive that Samuel Mudd is lying. But he does not arrest him—not now, at least. He is determined to find evidence that will link the man to the two strangers. He barks the order to mount up, and the cavalry trots back out to the main road.

  Samuel Mudd, his heart pounding in relief, can only wonder when they will return.

  A commemorative mourning pin honoring President Abraham Lincoln.

  Chapter

  48

  THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1865

  Maryland Countryside

  4 A.M.

  GEORGE ATZERODT HAS CHOSEN to escape by a northeast route, rather than push south like Booth and Herold. This takes him into a much more pro-Union territory. On the surface, Atzerodt’s plan is an act of genius, allowing one of the most wanted men in America to hide in plain sight.

  But the increasingly unbalanced Atzerodt is not a genius. His escape is not well planned. Instead he wanders from home to home among people he knows, accepting hospitality wherever he can find it. He dawdles when he should keep going. After four days on the run, he makes a critical mistake, boldly supporting Lincoln’s assassination while eating dinner with strangers. His statements quickly make their way to police authorities.

  Now, as Atzerodt takes refuge at a cousin’s house in the small community of Germantown, Maryland, twenty miles northwest of Washington, a cavalry detachment knocks at the door.

  There is no fight, no attempt to pretend he shouldn’t be arrested. George Atzerodt goes meekly into custody and is so
on fitted with wrist shackles, and a ball and chain on his ankle.

  Two types of the wrist shackles used on the Lincoln assassination conspirators.

  Chapter

  49

  FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  7 A.M.

  ONE WEEK AFTER THE ASSASSINATION, the body of Abraham Lincoln is loaded aboard a special train for its return to Illinois for burial. General Ulysses S. Grant supervises the occasion. Also on the train is the casket of the Lincolns’ third son, William Wallace “Willie” Lincoln, who had died in 1862 at age eleven of typhoid fever. Mary Lincoln has had Willie’s casket removed from the cemetery, and now father and son will take the long train ride home to their final resting place in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

  The president’s funeral was held in Washington on Wednesday, April 19. Six hundred mourners were ushered into the East Room of the White House. Its walls and mirrors were covered with black cloth and the room was lit by candles. General Ulysses S. Grant sat alone nearest his dear friend, next to a cross of lilies. He wept.

  Mary Lincoln is still so distraught that she will spend the next five weeks sobbing in her bedroom. She does not attend the funeral.

  Abraham Lincoln’s body lying in state in the East Room of the White House.

  Immediately after the funeral, Lincoln’s body was escorted by a military guard through the streets of Washington. One hundred thousand mourners lined the route to the Capitol, where the body was put on view for the public to pay their last respects.

  Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession on Pennsylvania Avenue.

  And now, two days later, there is the matter of the train. The trip will re-create Lincoln’s journey from Illinois to the White House four years earlier—though in the opposite direction. It will stop along the way in twelve cities and pass through 444 communities. In what will be called “the greatest funeral in the history of the United States,” tens of thousands of people will take time from their busy lives to see this very special train before its great steel wheels finally slow to a halt in Lincoln’s beloved Springfield, Illinois.

  The steam engine Nashville that would pull the Lincoln funeral train from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois. Notice Lincoln’s portrait mounted on the front of the engine.

  Chapter

  50

  FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1865

  Maryland Countryside

  Noon

  SAMUEL MUDD IS NOT HOME when Lieutenant Lovett and the cavalry return. Lovett sends farmhand Thomas Davis to find him. Mudd is having lunch nearby and quickly returns.

  The terror of the previous encounter returns. Mudd knows that Lovett has spent the previous three days searching the area around his property for evidence. His nervousness increases as Lovett questions him again, probing Mudd’s story for contradictions, half-truths, and outright lies.

  This time Lovett does not ride away. Nor is he content to search the pastures and outer edges of the farm. No, this time Lovett gives the order to search inside the house to see where the supposed strangers slept.

  Mudd frantically gestures to his wife, Sarah, who walks quickly to him. He whispers in her ear, and she races into the house. She returns holding two items: a razor and a boot. “I found these while dusting up three days ago,” she says as she hands them to Lovett.

  A typical house in the Port Tobacco, Maryland, area.

  Mudd explains that one of the strangers used the razor to shave off his mustache. The boot had come from the stranger with the broken leg.

  Lovett presses Mudd on this point, asking him if he knew the man’s identity.

  Mudd insists that he didn’t.

  Lovett cradles the long riding boot in his hands. It has been slit down one side by Mudd, in order to pull it from Booth’s swollen leg to examine the break.

  Lovett asks if this is, indeed, the boot the stranger wore.

  Mudd agrees.

  Lovett asks Mudd again if the doctor knew the stranger’s identity.

  Mudd swears that he didn’t.

  Then Lovett shows Mudd the inside of the riding boot, which would have been clearly visible when Mudd was removing it from the stranger’s leg. Marked inside the boot, plain for all to see, is the name J. Wilkes.

  Dr. Samuel Mudd is put under arrest.

  And while Lieutenant Lovett has just made a key breakthrough in the race to find John Wilkes Booth and David Herold, the truth is that nobody in authority knows where they are.

  Lafayette Baker, however, has a pretty good idea.

  Baker keeps a collection of coastal survey maps in his office. With what he calls “that quick detective intuition amounting almost to inspiration,” he knows that Booth’s escape options are limited. When news of the discovery of the abandoned riding boot makes its way back to Washington, Baker concludes that Booth cannot be traveling on horseback. He decides that Booth must hope to cross the Potomac River and guesses that the fugitive won’t head toward Richmond if he does get across the Potomac, because that would lead him straight into Union lines.

  Lafayette Baker is convinced that John Wilkes Booth’s destination is the mountains of Kentucky. He will later write,

  Being aware that nearly every rod of ground in Lower Maryland must have been repeatedly passed over by the great number of persons engaged in the search, I finally decided, in my own mind, that Booth and Herold had crossed over the river into Virginia. The only possible way left open to escape was to take a southwestern course, in order to reach the mountains of Tennessee or Kentucky, where such aid could be secured as would insure their ultimate escape from the country.

  Baker studies his maps, searching for the precise spot where Booth would cross the Potomac. His eyes zoom in on Port Tobacco. In his memoirs he will quote a journalist as saying, “Five hundred people exist in Port Tobacco. Life there reminds me, in connection with the slimy river and the adjacent swamps, of the great reptile period of the world, when iguanodons and pterodactyls, and plesiosauri ate each other.”

  Lafayette Baker is wrong about Booth’s effort to reach Port Tobacco—but not by much.

  A photograph of Dr. Mudd’s house in 1901.

  Chapter

  51

  FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1865

  Maryland Swamps

  Night

  FIVE DAYS. FIVE LONG, COLD, MISERABLE DAYS. That’s how long Booth and Herold have been in the swamp, scratching at wood ticks, shivering under thin, damp wool blankets, and eating the one meal a day provided by Thomas Jones.

  The newspapers delivered by Jones continue to be a source of information and misery, as it becomes more and more clear that Booth’s actions have condemned him.

  Booth is just settling in for another night in the swamp when he hears the first whistle. Herold hears it, too, and is on his feet in an instant. Grabbing his rifle, Herold warily approaches the sound and returns with Jones. “The coast seems to be clear,” Jones tells them, his voice betraying a sense of urgency. “Let us make the attempt.”

  Their camp is three miles from the river. Getting to the Potomac undetected means traveling down well-used public roads. Despite the darkness, they might run into a cavalry detail at any moment, but it is a chance they have to take.

  Booth can’t walk, so Jones lends him a horse. Herold and Jones help Booth into the saddle. The actor clings to the horse’s mane with one hand to steady himself, the reins in the other, desperate not to fall off.

  Jones tells them to wait, then walks ahead to make sure the coast is clear. Only when he whistles that all is well do they follow. Their pace seems frustratingly slow to Booth. But Jones is taking no chances.

  When they approach Jones’s house, Booth begs to be allowed inside for a moment of warmth. Jones won’t hear of it, reminding them that his servants are home and could possibly give them away. Instead, Jones goes in and returns with hot food, telling the two fugitives that this might be the last meal they eat for a while.

  They continue on to the river
to a place called Dent’s Meadow. Jones has hidden a twelve-foot-long boat at the water’s edge, tied to a large oak tree. The bank is steep, and Booth must be carried down the slope. But soon he sits in the back of the boat, grasping an oar. Herold perches in the front. The moon has not yet risen, so the night is dark. A cold mist hovers on the surface of the wide and treacherous Potomac. Safety is just across the river in Virginia, where the citizens are pro-Confederacy. But getting there means navigating unseen currents that can force them far downriver—or even backward. The river is two miles wide at this point and patrolled by Union warships.

  John Wilkes Booth’s Spencer carbine.

  “Keep to that,” Jones instructs Booth, lighting a small candle to illuminate Booth’s compass and pointing to the southwesterly heading. The actor has carried the compass since the assassination, for just such a moment as this. “It will bring you into Machodoc Creek. Mrs. Quesenberry lives near the mouth of this creek. If you tell her you come from me, I think she will take care of you.”

  “God bless you, my dear friend,” says Booth. “Good-bye.”

  They shove off. Jones returns home, his work complete. His deeds will go unpunished. When his part in the conspiracy is revealed later on, the testimony will come from a black resident of southern Maryland and will be ignored.

  Booth and Herold paddle hard for the opposite shore. That is, Herold paddles hard. Booth sits in the back and dangles his oar in the water under the pretense of steering.