Chasing Lincoln's Killer

by James L. Swanson

  Mudd, thirty-two years old, was a doctor living on a farm with his wife and family. He was anti-Union, anti-black, and the owner of up to eleven slaves before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had freed them.

  By November 9, 1864, Booth had visited the Bryantown tavern in southern Maryland. A combination saloon, inn, and post office — not unlike Surratt’s tavern — it was known among Confederate sympathizers as a reliable safe house and place to exchange information.

  A few days later, at church, Booth was introduced to Dr. Mudd.

  In Maryland a month later, Booth again encountered Mudd at church. Booth invented a cover story. He claimed to be looking for real estate and a horse to buy. Booth needed horses for the kidnapping gang he hoped to put together. Samuel Mudd was happy to help. After church, Booth rode home with the doctor and spent the night at his farm. Mudd introduced Booth to a neighbor, who sold Booth a peculiar one-eyed horse.

  Dr. Mudd had been helpful to Booth in Maryland, but the actor also needed the doctor’s help — an introduction — in Washington. Mudd went to Washington to introduce Booth to a Confederate courier named John Harrison Surratt. Surratt operated out of his mother’s boardinghouse on H Street and from her country tavern at Surrattsville. Booth would require the type of help Surratt could provide along his escape south.

  On the way to the H Street boardinghouse, Booth and Mudd encountered John Surratt on the street and the introduction took place. Booth invited everyone — Mudd, Surratt, and Lewis Weichmann, a friend of Surratt’s and a boarder at the H Street house — back to his room at the National Hotel for drinks and private conversation. Booth recruited Surratt into the conspiracy to kidnap the president, and soon became a frequent visitor to the boardinghouse, where he befriended Surratt’s widowed mother and his young sister, Anna.

  His work done, Mudd returned, just before Christmas 1864, to his farm and waited for further word from Booth about the kidnapping. No word ever came. Lincoln’s second inauguration came and went in March. Richmond fell on April 3, Lee surrendered on April 9, but Dr. Mudd saw no more of Booth. Booth had sent liquor and supplies to Mudd’s farm for hiding until the day came for Booth and his kidnap victim to flee the city, but it never did. Given the disastrous events of April 1865, Mudd assumed that the Union victory had changed the actor’s plans and the scheme to kidnap the president had been abandoned.

  Now, four months later, Booth was here at the farm again, though the doctor, standing in the darkness of his front yard, did not know it yet. Once inside, Booth sat on a sofa in the front parlor, then reclined. Mudd lit an oil lamp and dialed up the flame to permit a proper examination of his new patient. Their eyes locked in recognition; in an instant, the doctor knew the identity of the man who was lying in front of him. How could he fail to recognize the actor’s familiar, thick black hair, pale complexion, trademark mustache, and striking good looks?

  The first step in the examination process would be to pry the thigh-high cavalry boot off Booth’s left leg. Mudd stood at one end of the sofa, took firm grip of the heel and sole, and tugged. Booth’s jaw clamped tight in pain. The boot would not budge. The injury to Booth’s leg had caused the tissue to swell up and create a seal that could not be broken without inflicting agony upon the patient and possibly worsening the injury. Mudd made a cut on the boot near the ankle, careful not to cut too deeply and open Booth’s soft flesh. Mudd seized the boot firmly and pulled slowly. This time, it slipped off. He dropped the boot to the floor, removed Booth’s sock, pushed his pant leg up his calf, and began the examination.

  The diagnosis was simple: a broken fibula. Mudd informed Booth that he had a broken bone about two inches above the ankle joint. The doctor did not regard it as particularly dangerous or painful, reassuring Booth that he could treat the injury. He improvised a splint for Booth.

  It was now about 5:00 A.M. Booth knew he should press on south. He knew he was still traveling ahead of the news of the assassination, which Mudd was not yet aware of. He knew that news would spread and overtake him, making the daylight hours unsafe for traveling. Booth weighed the risk of capture against his desire for food and rest. No one in the world knew he had gone to Mudd’s tonight. He had not known he would go there himself until after he shot Lincoln and injured his leg. Better to hide out and chance discovery than be caught in open country at sunrise. He and Herold would spend what few hours remained of this night at the farm, rest there all day, and then ride south at nightfall.

  Mudd invited the pair to rest in his house for the night. He offered them a room upstairs and bade them good night. Unknown to Mudd, he had just extended his hospitality to Lincoln’s assassin and his accomplice.

  Their secret still safe from Mudd and his family, and their location a mystery to the manhunters, Herold and Booth collapsed into their beds. As Booth drifted off to sleep, he did not know whether his master plan had succeeded or failed. Had George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell carried out their missions and murdered Vice President Johnson and Secretary Seward? And what of the president — had Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, or did the tyrant still live? Booth did not know he would be damned in the morning newspapers as the most wanted man in America.

  While Booth and Herold slept at the Mudd farmhouse, the first cavalry patrol rode south from Washington, headed for Maryland. Soon this group from the Thirteenth New York Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant David Dana, would ride close to Mudd’s farm. Booth had about seven hours.

  Edwin Stanton continued his investigation as Abraham Lincoln slept his last, deep sleep at the Petersen house. His brain was dead and beyond dreaming.

  By 4:00 A.M., Stanton was sure that he was dealing with a conspiracy. The evidence found in Booth’s hotel room included the mysterious “Sam” letter that seemed to predict the assassination. The recovery of this letter, which Booth had carelessly — perhaps on purpose? — let fall into the hands of the manhunters was obviously addressed to the actor by an unknown conspirator. Stanton read it and recognized that it was full of clues: Booth had at least two coconspirators named “Sam” and “Mike”; Sam was in Baltimore; the assassination was premeditated, planned before March 27; and the Confederacy might be involved.

  At the Petersen house, a doctor recorded statistics in the notes he kept, tracking the sad and inevitable deterioration of Lincoln’s condition that night.

  5:50 A.M., respiration 28, and regular sleeping.

  6:00 A.M., pulse failing, respiration 28.

  6:30 A.M., still failing and labored breathing.

  At the Petersen house, Abraham Lincoln began the death struggle.

  The end was coming fast. Surgeon General Barnes placed his finger on the pulse in Lincoln’s neck. Dr. Leale placed his finger on the pulse in Lincoln’s wrist. Another doctor placed his hand over Lincoln’s heart. The doctors and nearly every man in the room took watches out of their pockets. It was 7:20 A.M., April 15, 1865. More than once, they had thought Lincoln had passed away. But the strong body resisted death many times through the long night.

  Abraham Lincoln took his last breath. His heart stopped beating at 7:22 and 10 seconds. It was over. “He is gone. He is dead,” one of the doctors said. The occupants of the room stood silent and motionless for a few minutes. Edwin Stanton finally spoke. He asked Reverend Gurley, Lincoln’s pastor, whether he would say a few words.

  “I will speak to God,” replied the minister. “Let us pray.” He summoned up a very moving prayer, then murmured “Amen.”

  Stanton broke the long silence. “Now he belongs to the angels.”

  Stanton reached for pen and paper and wrote a single sentence. There was nothing else to say. It was the telegram that would transmit the sad news to the nation.

  Washington City, April 15, 1865

  Major General Dix,

  New York:

  Abraham Lincoln died this morning at 22 minutes after 7 o’clock.

 
; Edwin M. Stanton

  Reverend Gurley and Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert, told Mary the news. She would not go to the room where Lincoln had died. She could not bear it. She never saw her husband’s face again.

  Around 9:00 A.M., she left the Petersen house for the White House.

  The room was empty of all visitors except Edwin Stanton. The morning light streaming through the back windows crossed Lincoln’s still face. Stanton closed the blinds, took a small knife or pair of scissors from his pocket, and bent over Lincoln’s body. Gently, he cut a generous lock of hair and sealed it in a plain white envelope. Stanton signed his name in ink on the envelope, then addressed the envelope to mrs. welles. The memento was not for him but for Mary Jane Welles, wife of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and one of Mary Todd Lincoln’s few friends in Washington. In 1862, she had helped nurse Willie Lincoln, ill with typhoid fever, until his death. Afterward, she did double duty, nursing Tad Lincoln and caring for Mrs. Lincoln, helpless in her grief. Shortly thereafter, the Welleses’ own young son died of diphtheria. With that event, Mary Jane Welles and Mary Todd Lincoln shared a loss that brought them even closer to each other. Stanton knew that if any person in Washington deserved a precious lock of the martyr’s hair, it was Mary Jane Welles. She later framed the cherished relic with dried flowers that had decorated Abraham Lincoln’s coffin at the White House funeral. Stanton gazed down at his fallen chief and wept.

  (Previous page) In some cities, the newspapers did not wait for their regular editions to publish news of the assassination. Instead, they rushed into print one-page extras that announced the latest—and frequently erroneous—news. The Daily Citizen Extra contains many errors: It reports that Secretary of State Seward is dead (he was wounded in a knife attack); it states that Lincoln died at 7:02 A.M. (the time of death was approximately 7:22 A.M.); it says that one of Lincoln’s theater companions, Rathbone, held the army rank of captain (he was a major); and it states that Rathbone was shot in the arm (Booth cut him with a knife). These incorrect statements, plus spelling and typographical errors, suggest that this broadside was rushed to print on the morning of April 15, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s death.

  It was time to take Lincoln home. Stanton ordered soldiers to transport the president back to the Executive Mansion. The men arrived with a plain pine box. It looked like a shipping crate, not a proper coffin for a head of state. Lincoln would not have minded. He had always been a man of simple tastes. This was the plain coffin of a rail splitter.

  The soldiers wrapped Lincoln in an American flag. They placed him in the box and screwed down the lid. The only sound in the room was the squeaking of the screws being tightened in the holes. The soldiers carried the coffin into the street and loaded it onto the back of a simple, horse-drawn wagon. The driver snapped the reins and the modest parade, escorted by a small group of bareheaded officers on foot, took Abraham Lincoln to the White House. There were no bands, drums, or trumpets, just the beat of the hooves and the footsteps of the officers. Lincoln would have liked the simplicity.

  (Previous page) Soon after the nation’s newspapers published the first accounts of the assassination and death of Lincoln, other publishers followed with pamphlets. This was the first.

  Vice President Andrew Johnson was not present when Lincoln died, so the cabinet sent him an official notification of the president’s death and of his succession to the presidency. Johnson agreed to take the oath of office at 11:00 A.M. in his hotel room at the Kirkwood House. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Salmon Chase and the cabinet members found Johnson grave, dignified, and deeply moved. Given the tragic and unique circumstances of his elevation to the presidency, it was decided that it would not be appropriate for him to deliver a formal public inaugural address.

  Though John Surratt was being sought by Stanton as one of Lincoln’s assassins, he had not even been in Washington on April 14. Instead, he was in Elmira, in upstate New York.

  The morning Lincoln died, John Surratt heard the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Afraid that his name might be connected with Booth’s, he fled to Canada. Then he decided that fleeing to Europe offered him the best chance of survival. In Rome, Italy, he joined the pope’s army and eluded capture for a year.

  In Maryland, Lieutenant David Dana of the Thirteenth New York Cavalry followed leads he received from informants. Unfortunately, he was pursuing the kind of false leads that would come to haunt the manhunters in the days ahead.

  Little more than an hour before Lincoln died, George Atzerodt rose from his humble room at the Pennsylvania House and left the hotel. As Atzerodt walked along Booth’s escape route just two blocks from Ford’s Theatre, he tossed his knife under a wood carriage step, into the gutter. A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed woman looking out a third-story window in a building across the street saw it there. The clue, still in its sheath, was taken to the chief of police.

  From New York City came an offer of help, twelve hours after Stanton had asked its chief of police to send his finest detectives to Washington to help track the president’s killer. Stanton also summoned Lieutenant Lafayette C. Baker, one of his favorites, to leave New York for Washington.

  The executive branch of the government — Vice President Johnson and the cabinet — had survived the night; no other assassinations had occurred. No invading rebel army stormed the capital. Secretary Stanton attempted to coordinate the efforts of the local police force, detectives, and the army. Booth and his conspirators had to be caught before they vanished into the Deep South, where they would find aid and comfort in the heart of the Confederacy.

  At the farm, Dr. Mudd’s wife, Frances, rose early, called for her servants to prepare breakfast, and woke her husband. After only two hours of sleep, David Herold walked downstairs and joined the Mudds for breakfast while a servant carried breakfast upstairs for Booth. Booth, his mind and body still exhausted from his great day, stayed in bed. He was too far from Washington to hear the ringing bells of the city’s churches tolling in mourning.

  As he made casual conversation at the breakfast table, Herold appeared unaware of the danger he faced. He was running for his life, but seemed to the Mudds not to have a care in the world. He asked for a razor so that he could shave, and asked Dr. Mudd if he would make a pair of crutches for Booth. Mudd fashioned a crude pair out of a piece of plank and sent them up to Booth.

  By 8:00 A.M., George Atzerodt had walked to Georgetown, on the way to his cousin’s house. He showed up at Matthews & Co.’s store and paid a call on an acquaintance. He tried to raise some money: first by selling his watch, then by using his revolver as collateral for a ten-dollar loan. Atzerodt left the store with the money and continued his journey. He would leave Washington. He knew a place where he thought he would be safe.

  At the Executive Mansion, the soldiers carried the president’s body in its temporary coffin to the second floor for an autopsy. Cutting open Abraham Lincoln’s brain and body served little scientific purpose. The surgeons already knew what had killed him — a single bullet through the brain. They hid their morbid curiosity behind the shield of scientific investigation. One surgeon reached for his saws and knives while the others watched. And they wanted the bullet. The nation could hardly bury its martyred Father Abraham with a lead ball lodged in his brain. They cut it out, marked it as evidence, and preserved it for history. His blood, according to a newspaper report, was drained from his corpse by an embalmer, transferred to glass jars, and preserved. When they were finished, Mary Todd Lincoln sent a request: Please cut off a lock of his hair for her.

  With Dr. Mudd providing advice and assistance, Herold rode to Bryantown to find a buggy or carriage to transport Booth south. When they got within sight of the edge of town, Herold yanked back hard on the reins and brought his horse to a stop. He could not believe what he saw several hundred yards ahead. Mounted men, wearing a uniform Herold recognized: Yankee cavalry! Manhunters!

 
Herold had just spotted the Thirteenth New York Cavalry. Lieutenant Dana had led his troops into Bryantown, a well-known place of Confederate intrigue, commandeered the tavern, and occupied the town. Dana intended to establish a command center there, and from Bryantown launch cavalry patrols through the surrounding countryside, in pursuit of the Lincoln and Seward assassins. They were just a few miles from Mudd’s farm. This was the closest the pursuers had gotten to Booth since the assassination.

  Herold made a quick decision to get out of Bryantown before he could be spotted by the cavalry. He told Mudd he didn’t need a carriage after all, Booth could still ride a horse. Mudd was puzzled by the sudden change in plan, as Booth had not yet told Mudd he was Lincoln’s assassin. Mudd continued into Bryantown at a relaxed pace, just as he had done on countless Saturday afternoons.

  He went about his business, buying supplies, greeting friends and neighbors he passed in the streets. But a strange, wild atmosphere hung over Bryantown. The cavalrymen’s faces were angry. Mudd wondered what had happened. Then someone blurted it out: Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated in Washington last night! He died early this morning. The cavalry is here in pursuit of the assassin who escaped. Detectives and soldiers were searching the Maryland countryside, hunting the murderer. Most astonishing of all was who had done it. It was the actor John Wilkes Booth!

  Mudd remained calm and did not betray the secret known, at this moment, to him alone: America’s most wanted man was hiding in a farmhouse, less than five miles away!

  Herold rode to the farm to warn Booth. When he arrived, Booth was still in bed, but he wouldn’t be for long. The cavalry is here, Herold warned. They are just down the road in Bryantown.

  It was around 3:00 P.M., Saturday, April 15, and Booth was in grave danger. Only Samuel Mudd stood between him and disaster. Mudd had the power to end the manhunt for Lincoln’s killer that afternoon. All he had to do was tell the soldiers that John Wilkes Booth and his accomplice were hiding at his farm. He could tell them Booth had a broken leg; he cannot run away. He could take them to Booth right now. All he had to do was tell them, and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd would become, instantly, a national hero.