Chasing Lincoln's Killer

by James L. Swanson

Stanton, just behind Welles, charged up the stairs to Seward’s bedroom. It was true! A scene of mayhem replaced the calm that Stanton had seen a little more than an hour before. The bed was saturated with blood. Several doctors hovered over the bloody secretary of state, working to save his life. Fanny Seward was wandering like a pale ghost, her dress dripping with blood. That was not all — Augustus Seward had been stabbed and his brother, Frederick, was unconscious from a crushed skull; brave Sergeant Robinson had endured multiple stab wounds.

  Recovering from their initial shock, Stanton and Welles realized that there was nothing they could do for the victims: It was in the hands of the doctors and God. They turned their thoughts to the president and the rest of the cabinet. Stanton gave orders to rush military guards to the home of every member of the cabinet and to Vice President Johnson’s hotel.

  Without guards or army escort, despite the danger that might still lurk in Washington, Stanton and Welles rode in a carriage to Ford’s Theatre. As the carriage clipped along, it passed men and women running crazily in all directions. The closer they got to Ford’s, the thicker the crowds became. As the carriage turned down F Street, it approached a roaring, angry mob of thousands of people swarming in the street in front of Ford’s.

  On Tenth Street, Dr. Leale ordered Lincoln’s bearers to head straight for the man with the candle standing at the top of the stairs at the Petersen house. The soldiers carried the president up the curved staircase. In this elevated position, the near-lifeless body of Abraham Lincoln became visible to the entire crowd gathered below. In awe, the people watched as their president disappeared into the boardinghouse. Except for a handful of doctors, government officials, and family friends who would enter the Petersen house, that glimpse of the president ascending the stairs was the last time Americans saw Abraham Lincoln alive.

  Almost thirteen miles out of Washington, Booth and Herold approached their destination: Surrattsville, Maryland. The town was small, little more than a crossroads outpost, named after the family that owned the tavern there. Before they could continue on their escape south, the fugitives had business at the tavern. They would pick up the “shooting irons” Mary Surratt had ordered Mr. Lloyd to get ready that afternoon.

  Surratt’s place was hard to spot at night — the plain two-story structure was unpainted, and the dull wood boards reflected no moonlight. The tavern had served three functions: saloon, inn, and post office. In 1864, Mary Surratt, under a cloud of suspicion over her husband’s loyalty to the Union, had moved her family to her Washington, D.C., boardinghouse and rented the tavern to John Lloyd.

  The tavern operated as a typical nineteenth-century roadside establishment. It was divided into private and public spaces. Paying customers entered, not through the front door, but through a side door that led directly into the bar and post office. The room smelled like wax, candles, oil lamps, tobacco, burning stove wood, whiskey, dirty clothes, and leather boots. Drink and meal prices were posted on a wall or chalked on a board. Nighttime callers were not unusual.

  Booth and Herold rode their horses to the side entrance. The night was still. Inside, the tavern was quiet and dark. They had to make this quick. Herold dismounted and walked to the door while Booth remained in the saddle. They had no time to waste, and it would hurt Booth too much to dismount and put weight on his foot. Herold’s pounding fist finally roused the innkeeper. John Lloyd climbed out of bed, went downstairs, and opened the side door. He recognized David Herold, a friend of John Surratt. Herold, impatient, hissed at him, “Lloyd, for God’s sake, make haste and get those things.”

  Herold did not have to be more specific. Lloyd knew what they wanted. After Mary Surratt’s afternoon visit, he took the “shooting irons” from their hiding place so they would be ready for the callers. Lloyd returned in a moment, bearing a small package wrapped in twine — the binoculars — and a loaded Spencer repeating carbine. Booth would further arm himself when he picked up pistols at his next stop.

  As Herold and Booth prepared to ride away, Booth could not resist the temptation to brag. The impulsive actor had to tell someone of his achievement or he would burst! He told Lloyd, “I am pretty certain that we have assassinated the president and Secretary Seward.”

  Lloyd watched the pair ride off into the night, not understanding exactly what Booth had meant. He went back to bed. Booth and Herold had spent less than five minutes in Surrattsville.

  They continued to the southeast for an unplanned but necessary detour. Booth’s leg was throbbing painfully. He needed a doctor. And he knew just where to find one, four hours’ ride away.

  At the Petersen house, Abraham Lincoln would soon have more doctors than he could ever want, but little use for any of them.

  Abraham Lincoln’s body was carried into the dim hallway that led to the rear of the boardinghouse. As the bearers shuffled along through the tight passageway, they passed the parlors and stepped into the back room. The boarder who rented the room was out for the evening, celebrating the end of the war. Leale examined the small room with a bed, its headboard wedged into the corner. He glanced around the room. This place would have to do.

  Chasing after the president, Mary Todd Lincoln, followed by Clara Harris and Major Rathbone, with Laura Keene trailing close behind, burst into the boarding-house. Wringing her hands, Mrs. Lincoln pleaded, “Where is my husband? Where is my husband?” to no one in particular.

  In the back bedroom, only one person mattered now. Someone tore back the bedding, someone else turned up the valve of the gas jet coming out of the wall. In an instant, the hissing, burning gas vapor lit the grotesque scene. The others laid the unconscious body across the mattress. Mary Todd Lincoln burst into the room, and the bright gaslight confirmed to her that this was not a nightmare as she hoped it was — this was real.

  The air in the room was warm and moist, with too many people in it competing for the oxygen from the air. Leale ordered the windows opened and everyone but the doctors to leave the room. Mrs. Lincoln hovered over her husband. Leale gently encouraged her to leave the room and wait in the front parlor. Alone with their patient, the doctors worked quickly, removing the president’s clothes.

  Strangers slipped into the Petersen house before guards could be posted at the door. People invading the house inched their way down the hallway, closer to Lincoln. If someone did not take command of the situation soon, the house would be in chaos.

  Stanton’s carriage came to a stop, unable to get through the crowd. If they could not drive through, they would walk. On foot, in the dark, in the midst of thousands of people, anything could happen that night. Indeed, it already had. But now Stanton and Welles exited the carriage, headed into the mob, and vanished from sight.

  The doctors examined Lincoln’s body for knife or gunshot wounds but found nothing other than the bullet hole in his head. The president’s feet and legs were already getting cold. The eyelids were so filled with blood that they looked bruised, like someone had punched the president in the face. All signs were consistent with a catastrophic injury to the brain. The surgeons covered Lincoln’s body with a sheet and blankets. His breathing was regular but heavy, interrupted with an occasional sigh. They laid a clean white napkin over the bloodstains on the pillow. They placed a small chair at the head of the bed near Lincoln’s face. Now the president was ready for Mary to see him again. Leale sent an officer to fetch her. She rushed into the room and sat beside her husband. “Love, live but for one moment to speak to me once — to speak to our children.” Lincoln was deaf to her pleas.

  With the president’s medical condition stable for the moment, Dr. Leale sent messengers to fetch Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s eldest son, Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Lincoln’s family physician, another surgeon, and the president’s pastor, the Reverend Dr. Phineas T. Gurley. Leale sent a hospital steward in search of a special piece of medical equipment, a Nelaton probe. There was work to do inside
Lincoln’s brain.

  Ignoring the danger of the surging crowd, Stanton pushed through, up the stairs and into the back bedroom of the Petersen house. The sight of the president shocked him. He did not need doctors to tell him what would happen: Abraham Lincoln was going to die, and there was nothing the doctors could do about it. But he could do something for the president: He could protect and defend the country.

  Stanton took charge, making the back parlor of the Petersen house his field office. He would not return to the War Department yet, but would remain here. Stanton believed that the Lincoln and Seward assassinations had exposed a Confederate plot to kill the leaders of the national government in an attempt to reverse the results of the Civil War. Stanton and his lieutenants assumed that all the cabinet heads had been marked for death that night. And a rebel army might be advancing on Washington at that moment!

  Stanton wanted his commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, back in Washington. He sent a telegram to order Grant back to Washington at once. It was the first telegram issued from the temporary War Department headquarters at the Petersen house. Stanton ordered troops to turn out into the streets, the guards to be doubled, military forts to be alert, guns manned, and special guards to be posted around the Old Capitol Prison. Clear away the mob from the street in front of the house, Stanton ordered. Soldiers tried to push back the crowd from around the foot of the staircase.

  The immediate area secured, Stanton turned to his second mission, launching the investigation into the crimes that had occurred at Ford’s and at the Seward house. He was determined to catch the criminals. He made it clear he was in charge. Later, when Vice President Johnson arrived at the deathbed, he remained in the background and chose not to take charge. In the days to follow, newly sworn-in President Johnson left it to Stanton to bring Lincoln’s killer and his accomplices to justice.

  Stanton had witnesses from Ford’s Theatre brought before him. One witness after another swore it was Booth, John Wilkes Booth, who had shot the president.

  Stanton’s operators could wire news and orders all over the country — and soon telegraph lines across the nation were announcing the news: The president has been assassinated and the secretary of state attacked. Messages were telegraphed to Baltimore, New York, and beyond. Search the trains! Guard the bridges! Orders were sent to commanders in the field in Virginia, chasing down leads based on early but false information Stanton received from tipsters. In need of help, at 1:10 A.M. on April 15, Stanton sent a request to the chief of police in New York City, asking him to send his best detectives to assist in the investigation of the assassinations.

  He continued to expand the search, activating manhunters in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Booth was identified to detectives as the assassin. Orders were sent to cover possible water escape routes. Cavalry rode to the Occoquan River to intercept anyone who attempted to cross. Fishermen along the river were notified to keep watch for Booth. The hunt had begun in earnest.

  Back in Washington, Army Major General Halleck made plans to imprison the assassins when they were caught. If Booth was captured, the army would have to protect him from Lincoln’s avengers — rampaging mobs of vigilantes who might storm the Old Capitol Prison — if they discovered Booth was jailed there. It was too risky to imprison Booth anywhere on land. Halleck issued an order: If the assassins are caught, put them in double irons and take them to the commander of the Washington Navy Yard, who will confine them to a monitor warship anchored there. The river would protect Booth from the angry citizens of Washington.

  Now all they had to do was catch John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell, John Surratt, David Herold, and George Atzerodt.

  The doctors probed Lincoln’s bullet wound with their bare, dirty fingers, sticking their pinkies inside Lincoln’s brain. They used the Nelaton probe to find the bullet for possible removal, as if that would have helped Lincoln. Eventually, the physicians gave up their tinkering and simply monitored Lincoln’s heartbeat, temperature, and breathing.

  While Lincoln still lived, the manhunt was already under way. At Ford’s Theatre, the Deringer pistol, the murder weapon, was recovered from the floor of the president’s box. Soldiers and detectives rushed to Booth’s room at the National Hotel. Of course, Booth was gone, but they searched his trunk and discovered an incredible and mysterious letter to Booth signed only “Sam” that described a large conspiracy against the Union government.

  Several blocks from the National Hotel, just a few hours after the assassination, a group of detectives showed up at Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse. In the chaos in the streets outside Ford’s Theatre, one or more sources reported that John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt were close friends, and that Mrs. Surratt’s boardinghouse was just a few blocks away. A boarder and school friend of John Surratt, Lewis Weichmann was the first to appear at the door to respond to the patrol’s arrival.

  The detectives announced their mission: They were there to search the house for John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Weichmann knocked on Mrs. Surratt’s bedroom door, telling her that detectives had come to search the house. She instructed Weichmann to let them in. Weichmann seemed not to know why the house was being searched.

  One detective revealed the shocking and half-false information to the occupants of Surratt’s boardinghouse: “John Wilkes Booth has shot the president, and John Surratt has assassinated the secretary of state.”

  Weichmann told the detectives John Surratt was not at home, but in Canada, and offered to help them with their investigation. Mary Surratt claimed not to know where her son was. The detectives searched the house, then left, leaving Weichmann, Mary, and her daughter, Anna, behind.

  Throughout the night and into the early morning, Mary Todd Lincoln made regular visits to her husband’s bedside. At one point, she wailed, “Oh! That my little Taddy might see his father before he died!” then fainted, falling to the floor. Stanton, startled by her cry, and fearing that the president had died, rushed into the room and called out loudly, “Take that woman out and do not let her in again.” She did not deserve that cruelty. It did not matter: Stanton was obeyed.

  After riding half the night on the deserted road south from Surrattsville, Booth and David Herold neared their destination — an isolated farmhouse a few miles north of a village called Bryantown. A city-dwelling night rider unfamiliar with the remote area might have missed the turnoff in the dark, but Booth rode confidently ahead. He had been here before. There appeared a handsome, two-story house in the distance. Booth recognized their sanctuary at once.

  They could rest here. They would not be rushed, as they were at Surratt’s tavern, which was much too close to Washington and possible pursuers. Here, farther south and in the darkness of this remote countryside, they could rest, eat, and sleep. And Booth could get medical care for his injured leg, which he was sure was broken. He needed to renew his strength after being awake for almost twenty-four hours. He was dog-tired, and his weary body ached from five bumpy hours on horseback.

  The spring night air was still and eerily silent. Booth and Herold approached the farmhouse. No barking dogs warned of their arrival, and the slow pace of their horses’ hooves failed to awaken the six people sleeping in the house.

  Herold dismounted and walked to the house while Booth remained in his saddle. The assassin was alert for signs or sounds of danger. No lamplight shone through the window into the front yard. David would have to wake the people inside. He knocked on the door and waited for signs of life within the house. The loud rapping awoke the farmer, who was alarmed at being wakened in the middle of the night. The farmer rose from his bed, walked to the front door, and called “Who’s there?” to the person on the other side. Two strangers, replied David Herold, on their way to Washington. One of their horses had fallen, he claimed, throwing the rider and breaking his leg. Hesitating, the farmer peered through a window, then unlocked the door.

  In his front yard, he saw the two m
en about twenty feet away, standing under a cedar tree. He approached them. Booth relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. The farmer helped Booth dismount, offering support when the fugitive’s body weight bore down on his injured leg. Booth grimaced in pain when his feet touched the ground. He staggered into the arms of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.

  Their faces only inches apart, Mudd helped Booth limp up the steps and into his home. Herold tended to the horses, then followed Booth and Dr. Mudd inside the farmhouse. Herold was a stranger to Mudd — the doctor had never laid eyes on him before — but Booth was not.

  (Previous page) Dr. Samuel A. Mudd

  The chain of events that led John Wilkes Booth to Mudd’s farm in the predawn hours of April 15, 1865, began six months earlier in Montreal, Canada. By late 1864, Booth had hatched the risky plan to kidnap President Lincoln. He attempted to recruit accomplices in New York City, a place where there were many Lincoln-haters and Confederate sympathizers. Booth knew the city well, of course. He had acted there many times.

  North of New York, Canada was a major base of operations for the Confederate Secret Service. In Montreal, nests of rebel agents with plans and money were busy hatching anti-Union conspiracies. Booth sought contacts there. He and his little band of conspirators would snatch Lincoln and transport him out of Washington, south to Richmond. He needed no less than a rebel version of the Underground Railroad that transported runaway slaves north to freedom. Booth’s railroad, however, would run in reverse. He would take the tyrant Lincoln, who had freed the slaves, south to the Confederate capital of Richmond. He would trade Lincoln for Confederate prisoners of war, or attempt to use his captive as leverage to give the South an advantage in peace negotiations. To pull off this plan, he needed loyal Confederate agents and safe houses located at points along the route.

  One operative he met in Canada gave Booth letters of introduction vouching for the actor’s devotion to the Confederacy and requesting aid for him. One of the letters was addressed to Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.