Lincoln's Last Days Read online

  “You sockdologizing old man-trap” booms out through the theater.

  John Wilkes Booth in typical expensive attire.

  The audience explodes in laughter.

  Chapter

  32

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:15 P. M.

  A FEW BLOCKS AWAY, someone knocks hard on the front door of the “Old Clubhouse,” the home of Secretary of State William Seward. The three-story brick house facing Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, took that name from the time when it served as a boardinghouse and gathering place for congressmen.

  There is another sharp knock, even though it’s been only a few seconds since the first one. This time the pounding is more insistent. William Bell, a young black servant in a pressed white coat, hurries to the entryway.

  “Yes, sir?” he asks, opening the door and seeing an unfamiliar face.

  A handsome young man with long, thick hair stares back from the porch. He wears an expensive slouch hat and stands a few inches over six feet tall. His jaw is misshapen on the left, as if it was badly broken and then healed improperly. “I have medicine from Dr. Verdi,” he says, holding up a small vial.

  Secretary of State William Seward’s home, known as the “Old Clubhouse.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take it to him,” Bell says, reaching for the bottle.

  “It has to be delivered personally.”

  Bell looks at him curiously. Secretary Seward’s physician had visited just an hour ago. Before leaving, he’d administered a sedative and insisted that there be no more visitors tonight. “Sir, I can’t let you go upstairs. I have strict orders—”

  “You’re talking to a white man, boy. This medicine is for your master.”

  When Bell protests further, Lewis Powell pushes past him, saying, “I’m going up.” Powell starts climbing the stairs. Bell is a step behind at all times, pleading forgiveness and politely asking that Powell tread more softly so as not to wake the residents. “I’m sorry I talked rough to you,” Bell says sheepishly.

  Lewis Powell after his capture, under guard at the Washington Navy Yard.

  “That’s all right.” Powell sighs, pleased that the hardest part of the plot is behind him. The next step is locating Seward’s bedroom.

  Suddenly the secretary’s son Frederick stands at the top of the stairs, blocking Powell’s path. He had been in bed, but the sound of Powell’s boots pounding on the steps woke him. Young Seward demands to know Powell’s business.

  Politely, Powell holds up the medicine vial and swears that Dr. Verdi told him to deliver it to William Seward and William Seward only.

  Frederick takes one look at Powell and misjudges him as a simpleton. Rather than argue, he walks into his father’s bedroom to see if he is awake.

  This is the break the assassin is looking for.

  Frederick Seward returns. “He’s sleeping. Give it to me.”

  “I was ordered to give it to the secretary.”

  “You cannot see Mr. Seward. I am his son and the assistant secretary of state. Go back and tell the doctor that I refused to let you go into the sickroom because Mr. Seward was sleeping.”

  “Very well, sir,” says Powell, handing Frederick the vial. “I will go.”

  After Frederick Seward accepts the vial, Powell takes three steps down the stairs. Suddenly he turns. He sprints back up to the landing, drawing his revolver. He levels the pistol, curses, and pulls the trigger.

  Frederick cries out in fear, throwing up his arms to defend himself. He will later tell police he thought he was a dead man. But the pistol jams. The two men struggle until Powell leaps up onto the landing and hits Frederick with the butt of his revolver, knocking him unconscious.

  An illustration showing Frederick Seward fighting for his life against Lewis Powell.

  Lewis Powell continues to pound on Frederick’s head without mercy, blood spattering the walls and his own hands and face. The beating is so savage that the pistol literally falls to pieces in his hands. Only then does he stand up straight and begin walking toward the secretary of state’s bedroom.

  David Herold.

  “Murder, murder, murder!” William Bell cries from the ground floor. He sprints out the front door, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Across the street, in the shadow of a tree, David Herold holds the two getaway horses. Bell’s cries are sure to bring soldiers and police. Herold panics. He ties Powell’s horse to a tree, mounts his own horse, and gallops down Fifteenth Street.

  Chapter

  33

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:15 P. M.

  THE COMMOTION IN THE HALLWAY has alerted twenty-year-old Fanny Seward. The daughter of the secretary of state has been sitting at the foot of her father’s bed. Also inside the room is Sergeant George Robinson. Now Robinson leans his full weight against the door as the assassin tries to push his way in. But Lewis Powell forces open the door and slashes at Robinson with his knife, cutting the soldier’s forehead to the bone and almost putting out an eye. As Robinson crumples to the ground, Fanny Seward places herself between Powell and her father. “Please don’t kill him,” she begs, terrified.

  Powell punches Fanny Seward in the face, knocking her unconscious. A split second later, he is on the bed, plunging his knife into Seward’s neck and shoulders.

  The room is pitch-black, except for the sliver of light from the open door. Powell’s first thrust misses, making a hollow thud as it slams into the headboard.

  Powell kneels over Seward, stabbing him again and again and again. The secretary wears a splint on his broken jaw, which, luckily, deflects the knife away from the jugular vein, but it does little to protect the rest of his skull. The right side of his face is sliced away from the bone and now hangs like a flap.

  The assassin is almost finished. Powell brings up his knife for one final blow. But at that moment, Seward’s son Augustus, a career army officer, enters the room. Powell leaps at Seward, stabbing him seven times. In the midst of the attack, Robinson staggers to his feet and rejoins the fight. Robinson is stabbed four more times. Powell then races from the room, still clutching his knife.

  An illustration of the fight with the assassin in William Seward’s room.

  At that very moment, State Department messenger Emerick Hansell arrives at the door on official business. He sees Powell, covered with blood, running down the steps. Powell stabs the messenger.

  “I’m mad! I’m mad!” Powell screams as he runs into the night, hoping to scare off anyone who might try to stop him.

  Upon exiting the house, Powell throws the blood-covered knife into the gutter. He then looks for David Herold and their getaway horses. Seeing nothing, he listens for the telltale clip-clop of approaching horseshoes.

  “Murder! Murder!” William Bell cries from the porch. Soldiers who have been stationed nearby on guard duty in the neighborhood come running. Powell sees his horse now, tied to the tree where Herold left it, and his heart sinks. He knows that without Herold he will be lost on the streets of Washington. Still, he can’t very well just stand around. Powell unties the horse and mounts. He has the good sense to wipe the blood and sweat from his face with a handkerchief. Then, instead of galloping away, he nudges his heels gently into the horse’s flanks and trots casually down Fifteenth Street, with William Bell running behind him, shouting “Murder!” But instead of stopping him, the unsuspecting soldiers ignore the black man and run right past Powell.

  After a block and a half, Bell falls behind. He eventually returns to the Seward home, where four gravely injured men and one woman lie. Miraculously, they will all recover.

  Lewis Powell trots his horse toward the edge of town. He hides in a field and wonders if he will ever find a way out of Washington.

  George Atzerodt’s two Bowie knives. Bowie knives came in a variety of sizes and styles. They were noted for having long blades, some up to twenty-four inches lon
g.

  Chapter

  34

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:15 P. M.

  GEORGE ATZERODT is drinking hard. Like his target, Andrew Johnson, Atzerodt is staying at Kirkwood House, on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Twelfth Street, four blocks from the White House and just one block from Ford’s Theatre.

  At nine thirty, Atzerodt visits J. Naylor’s stable on E Street to pick up his horse. The stable manager, John Fletcher, knows Atzerodt and his friend David Herold and does not care for either of them. Nevertheless, when a nervous, sweating Atzerodt asks if he’d like to get a drink, Fletcher answers with a quick “don’t mind if I do.” He is concerned about Herold, who rented a horse from him earlier that day and is long overdue. Fletcher hopes that Atzerodt will disclose his friend’s location after a drink or two.

  They walk to the bar at the Union Hotel. Atzerodt, who Fletcher suspects has been drinking for some time, orders a whiskey; Fletcher asks for a tankard of ale. After just one drink, Atzerodt pays, and they return to the stable, with Fletcher none the wiser about Herold’s location.

  “Your friend is staying out very late with his horse,” Fletcher finally prods. Atzerodt has just handed him a five-dollar tip for boarding his horse.

  “He’ll be back after a while,” Atzerodt replies as he mounts the mare and returns to Kirkwood House.

  Andrew Johnson, meanwhile, eats an early dinner alone. Largely uneducated, he learned to read and write late in his life. He was a tailor by trade and entered politics in his twenties, working his way up to the Senate. He owes a lot to President Lincoln, who first appointed him the military governor of Tennessee and then chose him to run on the vice presidential ticket after Lincoln asked Hannibal Hamlin of Maine to step down. Hamlin was a Northerner, and Lincoln needed a Southern presence on the ticket.

  A typical livery stable in Washington, D.C., in 1865.

  At ten fifteen, George Atzerodt is at the bar in Kirkwood House, getting drunk. Truth be told, he wants no part of murder. A few floors above him, Johnson lies alone in his room. In his lifetime, he will suffer the public shame of impeachment. Andrew Johnson will not, however, suffer the far worse fate of death at the hand of an assassin. For that, Johnson can thank the effects of alcohol, as a now very drunk George Atzerodt continues to raise his glass.

  An election medal showing Andrew Johnson.

  Chapter

  35

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:15 P. M.

  JOHN WILKES BOOTH TAKES A BOLD STEP out of the shadows, derringer clutched in his right fist and knife in his left. He extends his arm and aims for the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head.

  Booth squeezes the trigger.

  * * *

  Dr. Joseph Janvier Woodward’s autopsy report, written at noon on April 15 and smeared with Lincoln’s blood, will read, “The ball had entered through the occipital bone about one inch to the left of the median line and just above the left lateral sinus, which it opened. It then penetrated the dura mater, passed through the posterior lobe of the cerebrum, entered the left lateral ventricle and lodged in the white matter of the cerebrum just above the anterior portion of the left corpus striatum.”

  A lithograph by an unknown artist showing John Wilkes Booth shooting President Abraham Lincoln.

  During the autopsy, the president’s calvarium—or skullcap—will be removed with a saw. A surgeon will probe the exposed brain before slicing into it with a scalpel, using the path of coagulated blood to trace the path of the ball. This will show that it entered behind Lincoln’s left ear and traveled diagonally across the brain, coming to rest above his right eye.

  * * *

  At the instant of being shot, President Abraham Lincoln slumps forward in his rocking chair. Mary Lincoln, lost in the play until this very moment, stops laughing. Major Rathbone snaps his head around at the sound of gunfire. He is on his feet immediately.

  John Wilkes Booth drops the derringer and switches the knife to his right hand. Major Rathbone vaults across the small space. Booth raises the knife and brings it down in a hacking motion. Rathbone throws his left arm up in a defensive reflex and feels the knife cut him to the bone.

  Booth moves quickly. He steps to the front of the box. “Freedom!” he bellows down to the audience.

  Booth hurls his body over the railing. But he briefly gets caught in the portrait of President Washington and misjudges the thickness of the bunting decorating the front of the box. Booth’s right spur tangles in the folds of the cloth. Instead of a gallant two-footed landing on the stage, Booth topples heavily from the state box and lands awkwardly.

  The fibula of Booth’s lower left leg, a thin bone that is not intended to bear weight, snaps just above his ankle. The fracture is complete, dividing the bone into two neat pieces. If not for the tightness of Booth’s boot, which forms an immediate splint, the bone would be poking through the skin.

  James Ford steps out of the box office thinking Booth is pulling some crazy stunt to get attention. Observers in the audience have heard the pop and are amazed by the famous actor making a sudden surprise appearance on the stage—perhaps adding some comical whimsy to this very special evening. Harry Hawk still stands center stage, his head turned toward Booth, wondering why in the world he would intrude on the performance.

  Then the assassin takes charge and shouts, as he had planned, “Sic semper tyrannis!”

  An illustration showing John Wilkes Booth on the stage of Ford’s Theatre immediately after he shot the president. Mary Lincoln and Lincoln’s slumped body are in the upper middle.

  The rocking chair President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot.

  Booth limps off the stage “with a motion,” observes one spectator, “like the hopping of a bull frog.”

  “Stop that man!” Major Rathbone screams from above.

  “Won’t somebody please stop that man!” Clara Harris echoes.

  “What is the matter?” cries a voice from the audience.

  “The president has been shot!” Clara shouts back.

  The theater explodes in confusion. Men climb up and over the seats, some fleeing toward the exits while others race to the stage. Women faint.

  Meanwhile, Booth passes within inches of leading lady Laura Keene as he limps off the stage. William Withers, the orchestra leader, stands between Booth and the stage door. Withers is paralyzed with fear, but Booth assumes he is intentionally blocking the way and slashes at him, “the sharp blade ripping through the collar of my coat, penetrating my vest and under garments, and inflicting a flesh wound in my neck,” Withers will later testify.

  Only one man is bold enough to give chase. Set carpenter Jake Ritterspaugh and Booth reach the stage door at the same time. Booth thrusts the knife blade at him. Ritterspaugh leaps back. And in that instant, Booth is gone, squeezing through the door and hauling himself up into the saddle.

  Rather than give Peanut John the nickel the boy had hoped for, Booth kicks him hard and hits him with the butt of his knife.

  “He kicked me! He kicked me!” the boy moans, falling to the ground.

  At the same instant, a spontaneous torchlight parade blocks Booth’s getaway on Tenth Street. He swerves into the alley, spurs his horse down the cobblestones between two large brick buildings, and turns onto F Street, avoiding the procession.

  John Wilkes Booth disappears into the night.

  One of John Wilkes Booth’s spurs.

  Chapter

  36

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:20 P. M.

  WORD IS ALREADY SPREADING through Washington that the president has been shot. People aren’t racing away from Ford’s, they’re racing to Ford’s to see for themselves if these wild rumors are true.

  Now a troop of cavalry arrives and plunges recklessly through the crowd assembling outside the theater. Inside, the audience surges toward the sta
ge, chanting all the while that Booth must be caught and killed immediately. Laura Keene has the presence of mind to march to center stage and cry out for calm and sanity, but her words go unheeded.

  Soon more bad news begins to spread: Secretary Seward has been assaulted in his bed.

  In front of the Willard Hotel, John Fletcher is still seething that David Herold hasn’t returned the horse he rented earlier. At that very moment, Herold trots past. “You get off that horse now!” Fletcher cries, springing out into the street and reaching for the bridle. But Herold spurs the horse and gallops away. Acting quickly, Fletcher sprints back to his stable, saddles a horse for himself, and races after him.

  A drawing by Thomas Nast of the gentleman’s reading parlor in the Willard Hotel. Typically men would meet in hotel parlors like this to conduct business and discuss issues of the day.

  Meanwhile, Booth proceeds unchallenged through the streets. There are plenty of men riding horses through town. It’s only when he finally nears the end of his three-mile journey to the Navy Yard Bridge that his fears about being caught force him to spur the horse and ride hard to freedom.

  It is ten forty-five when Booth pulls back on the reins once again and canters up to the wooden drawbridge by the Navy Yard. Booth approaches like a man confident that his path will go unblocked. “Where are you going, sir?” cries the military sentry. His name is Silas T. Cobb, and his long and boring shift will be over at midnight. He notices the lather on the horse’s flanks, a sign that it’s been ridden hard.