Chasing Lincoln's Killer

by James L. Swanson

  Booth’s pleasure at reading about his success in killing Lincoln could not hide his worsening condition. His leg was in bad shape, and Booth was obviously in great pain. As Jones discussed the escape plan with Booth and Herold, he became distracted when he heard a familiar and terrifying sound in the distance — clanking metal and horses’ hooves pounding the earth. Instantly, Jones recognized the sound — cavalry sabers slapping the saddles of Union troops riding in their direction.

  It was too late for them to try to hoist Booth onto a saddle to attempt escape. A fight was out of the question: Booth could not walk, Jones was unarmed, and Herold had never been in a battle before. With only two revolvers and one carbine, they couldn’t hold off a patrol of Union cavalry for long. The three men hugged the ground and held their breath. The cavalry horses got within two hundred yards. It was Booth’s closest brush with capture since he galloped down the alley behind Ford’s Theatre. Lucky for Booth, instead of turning into the thicket, the troops remained on the road, passed the thicket, and rode until the sound of hoofbeats vanished in the distance.

  Jones locked eyes with Booth. “You see, my friend, we must wait.”

  “Yes,” Booth agreed, “I leave it all with you.”

  On the morning of the seventeenth, another man waited, too. Troops still had not called on Dr. Mudd to pursue his tip — because they still did not know about it! It wasn’t until the next afternoon that George Mudd rode into Bryantown. He made a vague report to Lieutenant Dana: Two suspicious strangers visited his cousin’s farm seeking medical attention. Then, in another unbelievable stroke of good luck for Booth and Herold, Dana ignored the news as old and unimportant. He thanked George Mudd and sent him on his way. He did not send troops to Mudd’s farm to investigate. Distracted by other leads, many of them dead ends, Lieutenant Dana ignored the one tip that placed Lincoln’s assassin within his reach.

  When soldiers had not come by his farm by that evening, Dr. Mudd relaxed. Perhaps, at this point, they would not come at all. With the assassin’s trail in Maryland growing cold, the soldiers would soon leave and shift the action to other places far from Bryantown and his farm.

  Thomas Jones had experienced enough excitement for one day. He agreed to return to the thicket to feed Booth and Herold the next morning, but he refused to bring horse feed again. It was difficult to carry enough feed for the horses, and Jones feared a passing cavalry patrol would hear their horses, which were hungry, restless, and noisy. The horses had served them well, and Herold loved animals, but they all agreed that the horses must be disposed of. The horses’ reward for faithful service was death. Herold led them to a quicksand pit about a mile away, shot them, and then sank their bodies.

  Herold returned to the thicket and sat on the ground beside Booth. Never during their escape were they more vulnerable and alone. If the Union cavalry found them now, they would not be able to make a run for it. Exhausted and injured, Booth could not hope to outrun a mounted pursuit. And if Thomas Jones abandoned them, how would they find a way to cross the river? Later, in the safety of the night, Booth and Herold rolled out their woolen blankets and spent another night on the ground.

  In Washington, the occupants of Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse prepared for bed, too. That evening the authorities paid another visit to put pressure on Mary and her daughter, Anna. The manhunters were desperate. Three days after the assassination, John Wilkes Booth was still on the run. Seward’s attacker was a mystery man — Stanton did not even know the assailant’s name. John Surratt was suspected in the Seward attack, but there was no proof.

  Major W. H. Smith went to Surratt’s boardinghouse to arrest the residents and search the house. Smith and his men questioned Mary, Anna, and other residents, then summoned a carriage to transport the women to headquarters.

  Just then, a man walking down H Street wandered up the front steps of the house, knocked on the front door, and rang the bell. It was soldiers and not Mrs. Surratt who opened the door to him. He stood before them, a large, powerful-looking man, carrying a pickax. He was dressed in a gray coat, black pants, and a fine pair of boots. As soon as the man stepped inside and into the hall, a soldier shut the door behind him. The man immediately sensed that something was wrong. He said he was there to see Mrs. Surratt. The officer told him he was in the right place and began to question him. The officer wanted to know the man’s occupation, why he was there so late at night, how old he was, and where he lived.

  The man claimed that he was there to find out what time he should start work digging a gutter for Mrs. Surratt in the morning. He said she had offered him the job when she had seen him working in the neighborhood.

  The soldier asked Mrs. Surratt to confirm the man’s story. She stood three steps from Lewis Powell as the soldier asked, “Do you know this man? And did you hire him to come and dig a gutter for you?” Her eyes locked on the man’s face in recognition. He was Lewis Powell, Seward’s would-be assassin. Powell’s remarkable face was unforgettable, and he had been to her home at least twice before.

  Mary raised her right hand as if swearing an oath. “Before God, sir, I do not know this man; and I have never seen him and did not hire him to dig a gutter for me.”

  Powell looked at Mary in silence. Lewis Powell had been caught in a lie. Now he was trapped in this house full of soldiers. In moments, they would surely try to seize and arrest him. Powell was armed only with a pickax, but his incredible strength could turn that tool into a formidable weapon. If Powell chose to fight, he could certainly do great harm to a few of the soldiers before being captured or before being shot in the confusion. Powell glared at the soldiers. He could swing that ax quicker than they could draw their pistols. It was his move. Then, surprisingly, meekly, without protest, he surrendered without a fight.

  If Lewis Powell had not wandered into the government’s hands this night, he might have escaped Washington and vanished from history. Instead, the government celebrated his capture as the first major break in the manhunt. Within hours, Seward’s servant identified Powell as the knife-wielding maniac.

  The soldiers arrested Powell, Mary Surratt, her daughter, Anna, Lewis Weichmann, and the rest of the boarders. They searched the house and found evidence: photographs of Confederate generals, one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, some ammunition, and a photo of John Wilkes Booth, hidden behind a picture frame.

  At headquarters, the interrogator, Colonel Wells, wanted to know what had brought Mary’s son and John Wilkes Booth together, about her son’s relationship with the other possible conspirators, and what her connection was to the newly arrested Lewis Powell. Mary Surratt proved to be cool and collected under questioning. She revealed nothing to help the authorities to find Booth. She only admitted facts she was sure her questioners knew from other sources, especially her connection to Booth. She lied when she claimed she met Powell for the first time that evening as he arrived at her house while the soldiers were there. She admitted to knowing George Atzerodt, something the government already knew. Atzerodt was already connected to Booth from the evidence recovered in the search of the German’s room at the Kirkwood House. Mary Surratt did not tell Colonel Wells about Booth’s April 14 visit to her, the binoculars, her carriage ride to Surrattsville, nor her instructions about the “shooting irons.”

  (Previous page) The capture of Lewis Powell at Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse and the arrest of George Atzerodt

  The questioning over for now, Wells refused to let Mary return home. He sent her to the Old Capitol Prison, where she would join the many other suspects and witnesses arrested after the president’s murder. Though she did not suspect it that night, Mary Surratt would never see her boardinghouse again.

  With the arrests of Sam Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen, and Edman Spangler, Monday, April 17 closed as the most successful day in the three-day-old manhunt. Arnold, a thirty-one-year-old Confederate army veteran and former schoolmate of Booth’s,
was arrested based on a tip. He confessed that he participated in Booth’s earlier scheme to kidnap the president, but he denied involvement in, or knowledge of, the assassination plot.

  Michael O’Laughlen, a twenty-eight-year-old childhood friend of Booth’s, another former Confederate soldier and participant in the kidnapping plot, was also arrested on the seventeenth.

  Edman Spangler, the thirty-nine-year-old stagehand from Ford’s Theatre, was also arrested. His crime was briefly holding the reins of Booth’s horse in the alley behind Ford’s Theatre. Poor Spangler had nothing to do with the assassination or the earlier kidnapping plot. His long association with Booth, holding the mare’s reins, and the claim by another theater employee that Spangler did not tell pursuers which way Booth went down the alley earned Edman a cell in the Old Capitol Prison for the remainder of the manhunt.

  Many other people in the theater were rounded up, including the Fords. Stanton suspected the participation in the plot by other theater employees: How else could Booth have escaped so smoothly and easily? The theater itself was “arrested,” ordered closed, and was eventually confiscated from the Fords.

  The dragnet of the manhunters eventually rounded up more than one hundred suspects. The arrests filled the headlines, but Booth, the most famous and recognizable man in America, remained free.

  Edwin Stanton needed help. He would be unable to continue to devote all of his time and brainpower to the manhunt. He had a war to finish. Just because Lee had surrendered his army did not mean the war was over for Stanton. Other Confederate armies remained in the field in some Southern states. Some generals had not yet surrendered. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was on the run, the subject of his own massive manhunt. Stanton had the War Department and Union army to run and the reconstruction of the South to plan. He had to investigate the assassination, capture the conspirators, and organize a military tribunal to try them. It was more than one mind, even Stanton’s, could manage. He had to delegate authority to a small circle of trusted manhunters, including Lieutenant Lafayette Baker, newly arrived from New York.

  When John Wilkes Booth planned the assassination and his escape, he did not prepare for an extended campout under the stars. He focused on the need for speed, not camping in the forests of Maryland, cowering like a wounded animal, fearful that every noise meant the hunters were about to seize him.

  Traveling light had served him well in the first part of his escape, but left him unprepared for this unanticipated phase of his journey. He left Washington wearing the equivalent of a modern-day business suit, unsuitable for camping out. Without a change of clothing, his garments quickly became dirty, ruining a key element of Booth’s trademark, winning style — his beautifully dressed, well-groomed appearance. He and Herold could not bathe or wash clothes and, unshaven, they looked and smelled worse each day. They looked like the fugitives they were. Their looks might even jeopardize their ability to receive a proper reception at the fine Virginia households they planned to call on across the river.

  On the morning of Tuesday, April 18, Jones paid his third call on the fugitives. With each visit, he risked capture, arrest, or worse. Soldiers had visited his farm several times and searched his house once. Jones handed over food and newspapers, then quickly left Booth and Herold alone again. Booth’s curiosity about the country’s reaction to the events of the last four days was limitless. Eager for the papers Jones had brought him, what he read stunned him.

  Whatever papers Booth read, they all condemned him for his heinous act. Even worse, Booth saw the beginning of a change in how Abraham Lincoln was viewed by America. Lincoln was transformed from a controversial and often unpopular war leader into a martyr and hero. Stories reported in the papers condemned Booth by name in the most unforgiving, vicious language. The accounts of the Seward attack stunned Booth. Had Powell gone insane? Yes, Seward had been a target, but the viciousness of the assault shocked and revolted Booth. Why had Powell attacked the sons? The daughter? The nurse?

  Booth searched the papers for the article he had written the day of the assassination. He had entrusted the letter to an actor friend, who was to deliver it to the National Intelligencer for publication. Incredibly, not one newspaper published or even mentioned his letter. But he was wrong to think the newspapers or government was suppressing his letter: His friend, terrified of being connected to the assassin, never delivered the letter to the newspaper. He burned it.

  Booth wanted to explain why he killed Lincoln. He opened his small date book. In hurried, cramped writing, he began his letter to history. He explained some of the reasons he had assassinated Lincoln: He longed for the South as it was and deplored the Union. He gave details about how he had committed the act.

  Booth was not the only conspirator shocked at what he read in the papers. In Elmira, New York, John Surratt read accounts that mistakenly identified him as Seward’s attacker! Though John Surratt had been a conspirator in the kidnapping plot, he was not even in Washington on the evening of the assassination.

  Tuesday, April 18, acting on what was now a stale tip, a cavalry officer decided to follow up on the information about the mysterious strangers who stopped by Mudd’s farm on assassination night. The soldier sent for George Mudd but, as a witness, George Mudd was useless. He only knew what his cousin Samuel Mudd had told him. The manhunters decided to pursue the lead to its source. The men mounted up, heading for Samuel Mudd’s farm, taking George Mudd with them.

  When they arrived at the farm, the soldiers questioned first Mrs. Mudd, then Dr. Mudd. Samuel Mudd had plenty of time to concoct his story. If he behaved naturally and did nothing to arouse suspicion, all would be well. Mudd told the soldiers the bare bones of what had happened: Two strangers on horseback arrived near daybreak, one had a broken leg, and he set the bone. The injured man rested in the parlor. The strangers did not stay long. He gave vague and general descriptions of the two men. One soldier asked if Mudd knew the men. No, the doctor replied, they were complete strangers to him. Mudd then attempted to send the manhunters on a wild goose chase, claiming the strangers asked for directions to a farm to the west. His story was full of lies and half-truths. He had passed the point of no return: He had given aid and comfort to Abraham Lincoln’s killers and now he lied about it to protect them.

  The soldiers searched the barn and other buildings on the farm but found nothing. After about an hour, the patrol left. If Mudd thought he had cleared himself, he was wrong. The lieutenant had decided Mudd was guilty of something and he would arrest him sooner or later.

  In Washington, on the morning of April 19, the most solemn day in the history of the nation began with the president’s funeral. On Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands of people jostled for a place from which they would see the funeral procession pass as it left the White House. Six magnificent white horses drawing a carriage carrying Abraham Lincoln’s coffin made their way up the avenue. Every building lining the avenue wept with black crepe. The procession rolled slowly, the beat of the march measured by drums wrapped in crepe. Lincoln’s funeral procession was the saddest, most profoundly moving spectacle ever staged in the history of the United States. Thousands of citizens would wait for hours to view Lincoln’s open casket under the great dome inside the Capitol. When the funeral was over, the president’s body would be placed aboard a special train that could carry him home to Springfield.

  While tens of thousands of mourners viewed Lincoln’s remains, detectives prepared to raid the Philadelphia home of the assassin’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke. They searched for and confiscated anything and everything connected to John Wilkes Booth, including documents unconnected to the assassination.

  In the early morning hours of April 20, in Maryland, two teams of detectives were planning a raid that would take George Atzerodt. He had spent the last four nights at his cousin’s place, not moved to flee by the great risk of capture he faced. Atzerodt should have known the detectives would have se
arched his room at the Kirkwood and discovered his connection to Booth. He had foolishly aroused suspicion when he made unusual comments about the assassination over dinner in the presence of guests. One of the guests reported his statement to a local Union informant, who passed the tip along to soldiers who were now at the door at Hartmann Richter’s place to pick up Atzerodt.

  When Richter answered the soldiers’ knock, the soldiers asked whether Atzerodt was there. When Richter said he had been there but had left, a soldier said he would search the house anyway. Richter then admitted that Atzerodt was upstairs. The manhunters found Atzerodt in bed. He surrendered without a fight, not even asking why he was being taken.

  Atzerodt confessed all. The man questioning him did not even have to apply pressure. Atzerodt told him many details about the plot to kill Lincoln, the kidnapping plot, and the conspirators’ final meeting on April 14. He implicated Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd. Now the War Department had its hands on two of the four men — Powell and Atzerodt — who were in the inner circle of the conspiracy.

  Following Atzerodt’s arrest, Stanton issued a new proclamation: A reward was posted offering $100,000 — an enormous sum — for Lincoln’s killers. The poster included photos of Booth, Herold, and John Surratt, the most wanted men in the country.

  People expressed their grief by wearing white silk ribbons printed in black.

  Small, colorful paper flags were popular symbols of mourning for the slain president.

  On Thursday, April 20, Thomas Jones witnessed the cavalry riding out of town on the news that the assassins had been spotted in another county. Jones concealed his excitement as the soldiers rode away. Once safely out of view of the village, he wasted no time in getting back to the thicket. He emitted the three-note whistle. Herold appeared and led Jones to Booth. This late-night visit from Jones could only mean one thing. It was now or never!