The Day Lincoln Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  “You sit there,” said Mudd, helping the man to a sofa, “and I’ll get more light.”

  Mrs. Mudd was at the head of the stairs and she asked what the trouble was. “A man hurt his leg,” said the doctor. “It may be broken.” Mudd lit two lamps and then crouched in front of the horseman. He did not try to pull the boot off. He just pressed both sides of the foot and ankle until he felt a mass and saw the patient jump.

  “I don’t think you will get to Washington tonight,” he said. He looked at the old man wincing in pain. Then he looked at the boy watching. “I would suggest,” the doctor said, “that you come upstairs with me and let me have a look at that leg.”

  Only the eyes and cheekbones of the injured man were showing. He nodded slowly, and Herold picked up one of the kerosene lamps and Mudd picked up the other. Between them, they assisted the silent man up the stairs. Mudd sensed that this man’s pain was acute, but that he was trying not to make an outcry.

  In the guest room were two beds. Mudd helped the patient to fall on the near one. The doctor stood near the bed, looking now at the patient’s face, and the man kept the muffler up on his chin, although the house was warm. The doctor asked a few questions about the injury, and the patient groaned and closed his eyes. The young fellow stood in the doorway.

  Dr. Mudd stooped and tried to pull the boot off. It wouldn’t come off. The silent man raised his head off the pillow.

  “Please make haste,” he said. “I want to get home and have this attended to by my regular physician.”

  The doctor noticed that, when the patient moaned, his left hand went to the small of his back. Mudd excused himself and went downstairs and got some heavy pasteboard and some paste. He wet the insides of the pasteboards and glued them together until he had several very firm splints.

  When he got back upstairs, he took surgical scissors and made a vertical incision in the boot directly over the instep, and cut straight up. When he reached the top, he peeled the leather back and, tugging gently, removed the boot, then the sock. A lump of purpled flesh showed about two inches above the foot. After probing and manipulating, Doctor Mudd found a simple fracture of the tibia, and no fractures of adjoining bones.

  At 4:45 A.M. Mudd had finished his examination and had applied the splint. The patient then complained of a pain in his back and said it caused him to have trouble with his breathing. He was sure, the silent one said, that he could not be moved right now. This seemed to startle the young man in the doorway, but he said nothing.

  “You can stay here,” the doctor said. Mudd had good powers of observation. His mental notes were: Man five feet ten inches high, pretty well made. I suppose he would weigh 150 to 160 pounds. His hair was black and worn long and seemed to curl. He had a pretty full forehead and his skin was fair. To me he seemed to be accustomed to an indoor, rather than an outdoor life.

  Mudd went downstairs and awakened his colored man, Frank Washington, and asked him to take both horses to the stable and to make sure that they had hay and water. The doctor decided that, as long as he was fully awake, he would have breakfast and he invited the young man to join him. The young man, he found, was talkative. He was short and dark, to the doctor’s eyes, and appeared never to have had a reason to shave.

  He told the doctor that his name was Henston and that the injured man was Mr. Tyser. He prattled on, telling the doctor that he knew him, although they had not met before, and that he was well acquainted in this part of Maryland. Mudd found him to be guileless and superficial.

  After breakfast, the doctor was about to go out into the fields when the young man asked if he could borrow a razor. The doctor, normally an apprehensive and suspicious man, had been at ease until now. He asked what the blade was to be used for, since he had noticed that the boy had no beard. Herold said that his friend upstairs would like to shave.

  “It will make him feel better.”

  The doctor gave him a razor. Mudd’s suspicions were aroused because upstairs when the shawl had slipped a little bit, he had seen part of a full graying beard and a coal-black mustache. It did not seem reasonable that a man in pain, in a stranger’s house, should suddenly decide to remove a well-nourished beard or mustache. Dr. Mudd went out into the fields to direct the day’s work.

  Stanton finished his third press bulletin to General Dix, and because it supported his “huge conspiracy” feelings, he was pleased with it. It was sent by Bates at 4:44 A.M.:

  Major General Dix:

  The President continues insensible and is sinking. Secretary Seward remains without change. Frederick Seward’s skull is fractured in two places, besides a severe cut upon the head. The attendant is still alive but hopeless. Major Seward’s wounds are not dangerous.

  It is now ascertained with reasonable certainty that two assassins were engaged in the horrible crime, Wilkes Booth being the one that shot the President, the other a companion of his whose name is not known, but whose description is so clear that he can hardly escape. It appears from a letter found in Booth’s trunk that the murder was planned before the 4th of March, but fell through then because the accomplice backed out until “Richmond could be heard from.”

  Booth and his accomplice were at the livery stable at 6 this evening, and left there with their horses about 10 o’clock, or shortly before that hour. It would seem that they had for several days been seeking their chance, but for some unknown reason it was not carried into effect until last night. One of them has evidently made his way to Baltimore, the other has not yet been traced.

  Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War

  This was, in a manner of speaking, a defensive press release. When Stanton wrote, “It appears from a letter found in Booth’s trunk that the murder was planned before the 4th of March,” he lied. There is nothing in Sam Arnold’s letter that bears on inauguration day. The letter itself was mailed on March 27. The only possible way that the Secretary of War could have been reminded of a period prior to March 4 was if Augur had told him now that Booth and Surratt and Atzerodt had been named in a presidential kidnap plot prior to March 4 (by Wiechman and Captain Gleason) and that the department had done nothing about it.

  Mr. Stanton had Arnold’s letter before him when he wrote the dispatch to Dix, and he quoted Sam as writing to Booth that the accomplice backed out until “Richmond could be heard from.” What Arnold wrote was “I would prefer your first query: ‘Go and see how it will be taken in R——d . . .’” The misquotation must have been deliberate because there is an enormous difference between going to ascertain how Richmond will react to a scheme, as opposed to holding a plot in abeyance until “Richmond can be heard from.”

  He was wrong in other, lesser matters, but these were errors of judgment. Stanton now believed that Booth and Arnold were the culprits and, because Arnold’s letter was dated from Hookstown, Balto. Co., he alerted the Baltimore Department to locate Samuel Arnold and arrest him in the Seward assassination. Mr. Arnold was working as a clerk at one of the War Department’s bastions: Fortress Monroe, in Virginia.

  At the same time, Stanton was convinced that Booth had escaped from Washington City, and, in the light of the reports he had on activities at the Surratt boardinghouse, he called for maps and called a conference of ranking officers.

  It was late and almost ludicrous to be examining the bars of the municipal cage now, but it was done. Military reports from the north, from the west and from the south showed that no one resembling Booth had been seen on any of these roads. All of the city exits were examined and the only one uncovered, unwatched, unpatrolled, was the peninsula called southern Maryland.

  One of the officers reminded the Secretary of War that the blind horse had been found in East Capitol, almost on the route to the Navy Yard Bridge and southern Maryland. If, the military minds reasoned, Booth went that way, then he would be bottled up in the area unless he could get back to Virginia. His best chance to get back on Old Dominion soil would be in the region of Piscataway, Maryland, or below Indian Head. Stanton asked
for a picture of Booth and someone got one from the files at Ford’s Theatre. It was a picture of Edwin Booth.

  Another troop of cavalry was ordered out and was told to patrol the area of Piscataway, Maryland, and if clues were turned up to signal the War Department by telegraph. It was commanded by Lieutenant David D. Dana, the younger brother of the Assistant Secretary of War. He was requested to cover the road north out of Piscataway, south to Accokeek, and northeast to Surrattsville.* Piscataway was a good junction of roads for such a search. If Booth was not in this area, and had not been seen, then he was probably headed for Annapolis or Upper Marlboro. Either that or—Stanton placed little credence in this—he was sleeping somewhere right here in Washington City.

  5 a.m.

  A dark stain spread around the President’s head and the Surgeon General announced that Lincoln had sustained a fresh hemorrhage. The doctors lifted his head and a new pillow and case were placed on the bed. The hair around the wound was cleaned and cotton batting was pressed against it. After that, the President’s breathing appeared to be more regular.

  Gray light began to swell against the bedroom windows. In the room, the gaslight seemed to pale. Dr. Barnes sat at the head of the bed, trying to take a pulse from the carotid artery. Halfway to the feet of the patient, Dr. Leale sat, still holding Lincoln’s hand, now and then checking the pulse in the flaccid wrist, sometimes getting a count, sometimes getting nothing. On the wall side of the bed, Dr. Stone sat, as helpless as the others.

  The faces in the room had changed during the long night. Two, besides the doctors, remained constant. One was Robert Lincoln, still standing behind the head of the bed, looking down. The other was Secretary of the Navy Welles, fat and solemn, sitting with a hand on one knee, staring at this man who was, in effect, almost the last soldier to die in the war.

  Death was roosting in the room now. Everyone present knew it. In the early hours, the President looked relaxed and, in spite of the medical prognosis, one would expect him to awaken any moment. Now, with the bullet lodged directly behind it, the right eye was swollen and purpled. The lips were cyanotic. The heart throbbed, skittered, and seemed to stop. The legs were as cold as the marble tabletops. Breathing stopped for long periods, and after a few seconds one or two of the doctors would pull out watches to note the exact time of death. Suddenly, the lungs would burst with air, the heart would dance with life, and the President would groan through half-opened lips, as though, in a dream, he was walking down the White House stairs asking: “Who is dead?”

  Mrs. Lincoln sat quietly. Laura Keene and Clara Harris were too spent for conversation. In the silence, they sat looking at the wall, or watching the inexorable growth of light in the room. As in a distance, they could hear the deep voices of the doctors in the bedroom and, now and then, the thin pitch of Mr. Stanton asking for something. In sound, the thud of boots and the clank of spurs never seemed to stop. For days, it seemed, soldiers had been walking through the hall outside this room. For the rest of her life, Mrs. Lincoln would dread the sight and sound of them.

  An officer of General Augur’s staff awakened the general agent of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at his hotel. This was Mr. George S. Koontz, and he did not know the news. When he heard it, he dressed quickly, asking again and again to make sure that this was not a mistake or, worse, a joke.

  The captain accompanied Mr. Koontz to the terminal and said that the government wanted the B & O to stop all trains leaving Washington. All road exits from the city had been sealed, and Stanton wanted to prevent the assassins from leaving town by train.

  At the depot, they found the waiting room and the train platforms swarming with soldiers and detectives. The first northbound train scheduled was the 6:15. Koontz issued orders that no train was to leave the station. When the cars had been made up, and backed into the siding, passengers climbed aboard and then detectives went aboard and studied every person in every car. The soldiers examined all luggage and all mail bags. They questioned the engineer, the fireman, the conductor and the brakemen. It was then decided, although the scheduled time had not arrived, that this train could depart at once.

  The bewildered passengers stared out of the windows as the train eased out of the depot, picked up speed, and got as far as Relay House, a short distance on the road to Baltimore, where it was stopped by General Tyler. He explained to the train crew that Relay House was in his domain, and that if the army in Washington permitted trains to leave the city, that was their business. His business was to stop them at Relay House, and there the trains would remain.

  The general, who got his star by obeying orders implicitly, also stopped all southbound trains out of Baltimore so that, in a short while, he had several trains standing on the tracks. Some passengers begged him to permit two sick children to continue their journey home, but the general said no.

  Thus, if any of the conspirators had elected to take the morning train out of Washington, he would have been stopped at Relay House—provided, of course, that he could get through the tight military net at Washington depot—and later, when traffic was cleared through to Baltimore, such a conspirator would not have been able to make any train connections to New York or to Canada, as some were to charge that John Surratt did.

  It was another gray and misty day and Robert Nelson, Negro, was walking across Lafayette Square on his way to work. He was crossing the street in front of Mr. Seward’s home when he saw a knife. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. A soldier, now patrolling in front of The Old Clubhouse, watched him and came out in the street and asked what he had picked up. Nelson showed him the knife. The soldier took it.

  Lewis Paine had dropped it.

  Twenty minutes later, a half mile to the east, William Clendin was walking down F Street toward Eighth when he saw a Negro woman run out of a doorway, step into the gutter, and pick something up. As he approached, he asked her what it was. In silence, she handed him a knife and a sheath.

  A woman leaned out of an upstairs window and told Clendin that she had raised the shade and had noticed something in the road and had sent her maid down for it. Clendin held it aloft and told her that it was a knife and sheath. The lady said she would not permit it in the house and slammed the window.

  Clendin turned it over to the police. Atzerodt had thrown it away.

  6 a.m.

  C Street glistened with mist. The Pennsylvania House looked a little bit more dismal than usual as George Atzerodt came out, looked up and down, then crossed to the other side and started up Sixth Street. He was sleepy, and dirty, and penniless. He had a hangover. He was sick, soul and bone. The morning air was chill. He dug his hands into his trouser pockets and walked up toward the Mall.

  “Mr. Atzerodt. What brings you out so early?”

  The carriage maker jumped. He looked up. A colored boy from the hotel was coming back after seeing a lady guest off on the morning train.

  Atzerodt’s grin was forlorn. “Well,” he said, “I have got business.”

  Mr. Atzerodt had business all right. He wanted to hide. In bed he had thought of many places, and now he had made up his mind to hide in the little town where he had first started in America. He knew that this was not a good place in which to hide, but he reasoned that, no matter where he hid, no matter how far away, the news would reach that place and they would come and get him. The world dealt harshly with cowards. A judge would not believe that he, George Atzerodt, could not kill anyone. So he had to hide. And, not having any money with which to ride, this conspirator was going to walk.

  He would walk westward, through Washington City, through Georgetown, until he got to his little town. There, the people liked George Atzerodt. They were not like the people of Port Tobacco. They knew him as a harmless buffoon, a beaming, perspiring drunkard. He would hide there, listening and laughing and maybe drinking until some men came and asked him if he was George Atzerodt.

  When he got to the Mall, he turned on Constitution Avenue and he walked and walked and walked, the furt
ive piggish eyes dancing, the dampness on his round hat. This was a stupid conspirator. He was doing what no other conspirator would—walk through the enemy lines the day after the high crime. It wasn’t brazenness. Nor courage. The man had no other place to go.

  In Surratt House Louis Wiechman had breakfast with Mr. Holahan. Wiechman was talkative and Wiechman was righteous. The police would have raided the place a long time ago if they had listened to him. He had suspected what was going on and if Booth plotted this dangerous thing, and John was foolish enough to get into it, then John deserved whatever he got out of it. Thank God that he, Louis Wiechman, had not become part of it; had, in fact, gone on record as reporting his suspicions months ago.

  Now, today, he was going to do his duty as any self-respecting citizen should. He was going down to police headquarters right after breakfast and he was going to offer his services to the police. He would help them to track down his dearest friend, John Surratt, no matter whether the trail led across the Eastern Branch to Surrattsville or up north to Canada.

  Holahan pushed his plate away. He had little to say. He might have reminded Louis that he had heard more secessionist talk from him than from the others. He didn’t.

  Mr. Holahan stood and said that he had some things to do. Wiechman finished the breakfast Mrs. Surratt had prepared for him and then walked off to the police station. He had an excellent memory and he could quote old dialogue as though it had been uttered yesterday. He would talk and talk and talk until the police tired of listening.

  He was a hanging witness.

  A few streets away, James Ferguson was finishing breakfast when Mr. Gifford, chief carpenter at Ford’s Theatre, walked in looking irritated.

  “You made a hell of a statement last night,” he said. “How could you see the flash of the pistol when the ball was shot through the door?”

  Ferguson was puzzled. The stage carpenter said that the authorities had discovered that Booth had fired the fatal shot through the door of Box 7, and he had seen the hole to prove it.