Reveille in Washington

by Margaret Leech

  The sudden disappearance of the body gave rise to wild conjectures. There were rumors that it had been thrown into the swamps around Giesboro’ Point, a dumping ground for the carcasses of horses and mules. Other accounts contended that it had been burned, dismembered, sunk in the Potomac. The melodramatic mystification of the public eventually aroused suspicions that the identification of Booth’s remains had been a hoax, and that the assassin had actually escaped.

  Soon after the burial, the decayed old Penitentiary became a place of notorious importance. The accused conspirators were incarcerated there. Once more the jail in the Arsenal grounds heard the tramp of guards and the rattle of chains, as the eight prisoners, seven men and one woman, were lodged in cells on the third floor. They were transferred to the custody of General Hancock, who had been ordered with strong reinforcements to the command of the defenses of the capital. A special provost marshal for the trial, General John F. Hartranft, guarded the prison with a brigade of soldiers and a detachment of Veteran Reserves. The prisoners were placed in solitary confinement. Their guards were forbidden to converse with them, and they were also under the surveillance of a force of detectives. Every man, on his arrest, had been heavily ironed, hand and foot. In the old Penitentiary, they were manacled with stiff shackles, handcuffs joined by a rigid iron bar.

  In his severe treatment of the accused, Stanton had not balked at torture. While they were held on the monitors, he had given directions that “for better security against conversation,” their heads should be placed in canvas bags. The male prisoners had been shrouded in heavy, stifling sacks, which extended over the chest, and were tightly tied about the neck and body. They were obliged to push their food through an air hole at the mouth, a difficult feat for blinded and manacled men. They were not permitted to remove the bags even to wash their swollen faces. In the Penitentiary, the bags were changed for tight-fitting hoods, padded with cotton an inch thick. The medical officer of the Arsenal, who was in attendance on the prisoners, feared that the hoods would produce mental derangement, and stated that his representations and those of a specialist on insanity persuaded Stanton to remove the headpieces. This may have been true in the case of other suspects, who the surgeon said were similarly treated in prison, but the accused conspirators wore their hoods throughout the trial, being relieved of them only during the proceedings in the courtroom.

  The exacerbated feelings of the time gave the War Department a free hand. The prisoners were regarded as outcasts, beyond the pale of human sympathy. Even secession sympathizers turned away from them. “The rebels,” wrote William E. Doster, “. . . eager to think with the triumphing side in a cordial way . . . . found, in the appearance of a forlorn lot of conspirators, a most timely subject of common reprobation—a most agreeable means of being identified with the loyal side. . . .” Only the case of Mrs. Surratt aroused uneasiness. The trial of any woman before a military tribunal would have been shocking to the community. Mrs. Surratt bore the record of a blameless character, respectable and devout. She was spared some of the hardships of the male prisoners, but not the relentless prosecution of the War Department. It was the contention of the Bureau of Military Justice that her missing son, John, was second only to Booth in importance in the assassination plot. The boarder, Weichmann, shut up in Carroll Prison and fearful for his own neck, would give evidence implicating John’s mother.

  Stanton had personally assumed the direction of the investigation. Night after night, he labored until dawn, driven by a fantastic ambition to see the accused condemned and executed before Lincoln’s funeral should take place at Springfield. In preparing the case, he worked with Colonel H. R. Burnett, an energetic young judge advocate, who had made such a good record in securing death sentences in the West that he had been summoned to Washington. When he arrived on the day of Lincoln’s funeral, Burnett had not found even the evidence against Booth conclusive. A cavalry squad sent out by Provost Marshal O’Beirne was then suspiciously watching Dr. Mudd; and, two days later, a riding boot was found in the physician’s house, with Booth’s initials inside. The identification of this boot by its maker in New York was, in Burnett’s opinion, the first positive proof that Booth was the assassin.

  Aside from this point, however, Burnett proved to be no stickler for conclusive evidence. He entered enthusiastically on a case based on the kind of evidence which Colonel Baker could be relied upon to secure—extorted, perverted and, when necessary, manufactured. It was the intention of the prosecution to find the prisoners guilty in a mass trial on the general and loosely worded charge of conspiracy. By this means, participation in the abduction plot was identified with the assassination, and it was possible to involve Mrs. Surratt, as well as Arnold and Dr. Mudd, both of whom could establish that they were not in Washington on the night of April 14. From the articles placed in evidence, Booth’s pocket diary was eliminated. The notations plainly showed that the original design had not been murder.

  Although Stanton did not succeed in disposing of the defendants in the space of three weeks, preparations for their trial were nearly complete, when on May 4 Washington heard the minute guns and the national salute in honor of the funeral at Springfield. Attorney General Speed had legalized the War Department’s procedure with an opinion that the prisoners were lawfully triable before a military commission, and the President had ordered nine officers detailed for this duty. Colonel Baker had assembled his array of witnesses. A room on the third floor of the old Penitentiary had been made ready for the court. Divided lengthwise by three pillars, and poorly ventilated by four grated windows, this apartment’s only suitability lay in the fact that it was connected by an iron door with the block of cells in which the prisoners were confined. A narrow, railed platform had been built across this wall for the dock. The room had been freshly whitewashed, carpeted with coconut matting, and provided with tables and chairs and a witness stand.

  On May 10, the trial opened, and the charges were read to the prisoners. They were jointly and severally accused of having conspired with Booth, Surratt, Jefferson Davis and other Southern officials to murder Lincoln, Johnson, Seward and Grant. There was a clear case against Paine, who had been identified as Seward’s assailant, and against Booth’s companion, Herold. Atzerodt was charged with lying in wait for Johnson, with intent to murder. O’Laughlin’s junket to see the illuminations had brought on his head the specific accusation of lying in wait for Grant at Stanton’s reception. Spangler was charged with having assisted Booth in his preparations at Ford’s and in his escape. The death penalty was demanded for all. The prisoners communicated with their counsel in court, whispering through the bars of the dock. All pleaded not guilty, and made motions for separate trials, which were in each instance refused.

  That the eight pariahs had been able to secure reputable counsel was remarkable. The most distinguished name was that of Reverdy Johnson, senator from Maryland, who headed the defense of Mrs. Surratt. Before that court, however, his services were nullified by his Southern sympathies. He soon withdrew, leaving the case to a pair of inexperienced youngsters. General Thomas Ewing, Sherman’s brother-in-law, was one of the defense lawyers, and the former provost marshal, Doster, undertook the hopeless task of defending Atzerodt and Paine.

  The first intention, to hold the sessions of the commission in secret, had brought outcries of military highhandedness from the press, and the courtroom was presently opened to reporters and to visitors who could procure passes. As the warm May days passed, sightseers congregated at the old Penitentiary.

  “A perfect park of carriages stands by the door to the left,” wrote George Alfred Townsend, correspondent of the New York World, “and from these dismount major-generals’ wives in rustling silks, daughters of congressmen attired like the lilies of the milliner, little girls who hope to be young ladies and have come up with ‘Pa’ to look at the assassins; even brides are here, in the fresh blush of their nuptials . . . . they chatter and smile and go up the three flights of stairs to the cour
t-room, about as large as an ordinary town-house parlour.”

  The spectators were herded in confusion in the space to the left of the pillars, where a long table had been set up for the press. The continual whispering of the ladies caused much annoyance to the reporters, who were intently following the evidence. Counsel for the prisoners sat at the foot of the press table, and were frequently cut off by the crowd from a view of the court, which occupied the space on the other side of the pillars.

  At the head of a long, green-covered table sat the president of the commission, General David Hunter, flanked by his fellow-officers, two major-generals, four brigadiers and two colonels, all of unimpeachable loyalty to the Republican party. Hunter, newly released from his post of honor at the head of Lincoln’s casket, combined the virtues of radical sympathies and long devotion to the dead President. General Albion P. Howe had been in charge of the artillery depot in Washington. Colonel Clendenin was attached to the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, which had long been stationed at the capital. General Lew Wallace was known for his stand on the Monocacy.

  A table adjoining that of the nine officers of the commission was occupied by Judge Advocate General Holt and his two assistants, Colonel Burnett and the Honorable John A. Bingham, who under military rules were members of the court. Bingham was a former Republican congressman from Ohio, and a successful criminal lawyer. He was conspicuous in this trial for his bullying of defense counsel.

  The army officers were in full uniform, but, as they negligently lounged in their chairs, they presented an appearance neither correctly military nor solemnly judicial. The whispering ladies had not come to stare at the unimpressive gentlemen who comprised the court. The eyes of all spectators were fixed on the prisoners’ dock at the end of the room.

  When the iron door opened, there entered a clanking file of seven men, like inhuman figures from a nightmare, with padded hoods for heads. Each was escorted by a soldier in the light-blue uniform of the Veteran Reserves. Two of them—Paine and Atzerodt—had their legs weighted with heavy iron balls, which their guards carried, as they shuffled to their places. As soon as the prisoners were seated, their hoods were pulled off, and the glare of the spring sunlight struck their habitually darkened eyes. Flinching and squinting, with disheveled hair and whiskers, they gave the scribbling reporters inspiration for lurid paragraphs about their wild and bloodthirsty aspect.

  Four of the prisoners appeared crushed by their terrible predicament. Atzerodt was demoralized by fear. Sam Arnold sat brooding, inattentive to the proceedings. O’Laughlin, still wearing his gaudy suit, moved his chained feet, and rolled his large black eyes uneasily. Spangler’s fingers incessantly twitched up and down his thighs. Davy Herold, on the other hand, smiled vacantly as he pulled at his budding mustache, and seemed pleased at the notice he attracted. Dr. Mudd, whose mild, intelligent face was tragically out of place in the prisoners’ dock, looked sure of himself. Paine, a towering figure with muscles bulging under a tight, knitted shirt, sat bolt upright, with his head against the wall, staring at the crowd. His splendid physique and defiant bearing inspired a reluctant admiration in the spectators. Paine’s dim brain had mastered one lesson, that of being a good soldier. He had obeyed orders, and he was ready to die.

  Last of all in the procession which passed through the iron door was Mrs. Surratt. As she shambled to her place at the end of the row, a little apart from the rest, many people in the courtroom heard the clank of chains under her skirts. Her face, with its expression of motherly innocence, was heavily veiled; she kept it turned to the wall, and fanned herself constantly. One observer reported that she kept up a pitiful moaning and called for water. Mrs. Surratt was ill, greatly weakened by disorders incident to the menopause.

  From the beginning, the trend of military justice was plain. The lounging officers of the commission obediently aligned themselves with the prosecution. The trial would go all one way, Stanton’s way, toward the ultimate verdict which on a July day would hang Mrs. Surratt, along with Paine, Atzerodt and Herold, on a scaffold in the Arsenal yard, and exile the others to the barren rocks of the Dry Tortugas.

  Outside the whitewashed courtroom, the fragrant streets were washed with Union blue. The muster-out of a million men had begun at the end of April. Divisions, awaiting disbandment, were arriving at the capital. Three corps and Sheridan’s cavalry had come from the Army of the Potomac, and four corps from Sherman’s army. Miles deep, on every slope and ridge, their camps radiated from the city, “musical by day, smoky and twinkling by night. . . .” Many of the soldiers spoke vehemently against the military trial of the conspirators. They had had their fill of killing; and they had given their blood and sweat for another ideal than the justice meted out in the old Penitentiary. On the two days of late May, when they marched in triumph on Pennsylvania Avenue, the streets were so crowded that witnesses could not reach the Arsenal grounds. Fittingly, the military trial was suspended during the grand review of the armies of the republic.

  The spirits of the capital had revived, as it made ready for the last and greatest pageant of the war. The emblems of mourning were taken down, and once more the city was bedecked with the national colors. In all the display of celebration, there was but one tragic reminder—the blue regimental flag of the Treasury Guard, which bore, like a battle scar, the tear made by Booth’s spur.

  Before the White House rose a covered pavilion, decorated with flags and flowers and evergreens and surmounted by the names of the great battles of the war. Here the President and General Grant would review the armies, in company with the Cabinet members, the diplomatic corps and other notables. Across the Avenue was a large stand for governors, members of Congress and the Supreme Court judges. Other stands afforded space for officers of army and navy, the press, invited guests, State delegations and disabled soldiers, and there were ranks of seats extending down both sides of the Avenue.

  After four years of teeming crowds, Washington was staggered by the invasion. Lodgings were all engaged, and a party of young ladies from Boston, one of whom would become Mrs. Henry Adams, gladly occupied a single attic room in a house near Willard’s. On the day before the grand review the girls drove out to Georgetown, hailing the passing troops, “What regiment are you?” “Michigan!” the boys would shout, or “Wisconsin!” or “Iowa!”

  At sunrise on May 23, the spectators were gathering. The sky was blue, a soft breeze stirred the roses, and from the Capitol to the White House the Avenue was aflutter with waving flags and handkerchiefs, when at nine o’clock the signal gun was fired, and General Meade rode out on his garlanded horse at the head of the Army of the Potomac.

  The bands blared, and around the corner of the Capitol came the cavalcade of Sheridan’s troopers, filling the street for an hour with the racket of hoofs and the clash of sabers and the sharp whine of the bugle call. Before his division of horsemen, scarfed like himself in red, rode the dashing figure of Custer, with long, yellow hair and buckskin breeches, “half general and half scout.” The crowd near the White House gasped when a thrown wreath frightened Custer’s horse, and the young general galloped madly past the reviewing stand, brandishing his saber in salute. There were cheers, as he reined in and wheeled gracefully back to the head of his column.

  After the Provost Marshal General’s and the engineer brigades, the first of three proud and famous infantry corps went swinging toward the White House—the Ninth Corps, Burnside’s former command, with its badge of a shield, with anchor and cannon crossed. It was followed by the Fifth, which wore the Maltese cross, and the Second, whose emblem was the cloverleaf. Brigades and divisions, preceded by generals and their staffs, marched with mechanical precision. There were mounted artillerymen, with their cannon; pioneers hauling pontoons and boats; gaudy Zouaves; Irish regiments, with green sprigs in their hats. These were but variations in the steady lines of blue, sixty men abreast, in tight-fitting coats and jaunty kepis, their bayonets shining in slanted rows of steel.

  Massed on stands and houseto
ps, hanging from windows and balconies, the people had forgotten their disappointments: that Sheridan, sent to the Rio Grande, was not there to ride with his cavalry; that the Sixth Corps—the Greek crosses of grateful memory—had been detained in Virginia. They sang the choruses of the tunes the bands were playing, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” and “When This Cruel War Is Over” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Showers of bouquets and garlands festooned the officers and their horses, banked the cannon, adorned the flags and carpeted the street. The crowds shouted with exultation, which caught, like tears, in their throats. For this was Washington’s own army. The capital had seen it grow from a muddle of untrained boys. It had built the city’s fortifications, and formed a living barrier in the Virginia mud. It had stopped Lee at Antietam and at Gettysburg, had taken the slow and bloody path to Appomattox. People wept as the battle flags went by, and many rushed into the street to kiss their shredded folds.

  Through the plaudits and the flowers and the singing, the brigades marched past the Treasury and swung right to pass the reviewing stand in front of the White House. As corps and division commanders went by, the President and General Grant and Mr. Stanton and the rest stood up, and swords were lowered in salute and the colors dipped. General Meade had taken his place on the reviewing stand, as did the corps commanders in their turn—Merritt and Parke and Griffin and Humphreys, generals who had won high honors in the Wilderness. All day, Meade’s spectacled scholar’s face looked down on the pageant of the army he had led to victory, with glory overshadowed by Grant. It was late afternoon, when the hoarse cheers were silent, and the last cloverleaf badges of the Second Corps disappeared beyond the reviewing stand.

  Early next day, with enthusiasm increased by vivid curiosity, the crowds burst out to welcome the strangers from the West. Again the sun was bright, as the signal boomed and General William Tecumseh Sherman rode on Pennsylvania Avenue. Most onlookers saw for the first time this tall, wiry, nervous soldier, with deeply wrinkled face and grizzled red beard and a smile of unexpected sweetness. His loss of popularity had been transient. That day, Sherman was again a hero, wreathed like his horse in flowers, almost fiercely acclaimed, while the bands played a jubilant new air, “Marching Through Georgia.” His countrymen had forgotten the wrong done to his reputation, but Sherman had not. On the reviewing stand, when Stanton held out his hand, Sherman’s face clouded and grew scarlet, and he turned brusquely away.