The Day Lincoln Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  “Mr. Gifford,” said Ferguson fervently, “that pistol never exploded in any place but the box. I saw the flash.”

  “Oh hell!” said Gifford walking out. “The ball was shot through the door. How could you see it?”

  Old Gideon Welles had sat with his President as long as he could. He needed a stretching of aging limbs, a breath of air. He got his coat and, when he put it on, fluffed his white whiskers outside the lapels, jammed a broad-brimmed felt hat over his long brown curls, and walked outside.

  The chatting sentries on the walk snapped to attention. Mr. Welles walked slowly around the block, noting that small groups of people huddled against the buildings in the drizzle. They were waiting for news. Final news.

  They recognized the old Secretary of the Navy and some looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing. Sometimes, a person would ask timidly: “Is there no hope?”

  Once or twice, he said “No,” and kept walking. Once he said, “The President can live but a short time.” He was affected by the colored people, who stared at him, unable to ask the question except with their eyes. He noted that there were more of them standing this death watch than white. On some faces, he saw the varnished furrow of old tears. To one group, without being asked, he was so moved that he said it would be better now if the President did not live.

  Mr. Welles finished his tour and walked up the small steps at Petersen House and went back into the bedroom. Outside, two sentries made a game of trying to remember the names of all the important people who had come to this house this night. They remembered thirty. There were 46: Hugh McCulloch, Edwin M. Stanton, Gideon Welles, John P. Usher, William E. Dennison, James Speed, Andrew Johnson, William T. Otto, Robert King Stone, Joseph K. Barnes, Thomas T. Eckert, John B. S. Todd, Schuyler Colfax, Robert T. Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Maunsell B. Field, Leonard J. Farwell, Isaac N. Arnold, C. H. Liebermann, Charles H. Crane, John F. Farnsworth, John Hay, Gilman Marston, David K. Cartter, J. C. Hall, Charles S. Taft, Christopher C. Augur, Charles A. Leale, Henry R. Rathbone, Almon F. Rockwell, Louis H. Pelouze, E. L. Dixon, Thomas M. Vincent, Clara H. Harris, Constance Kinney, Richard J. Oglesby, Edward H. Rollins, Montgomery C. Meigs, Mary C. Kinney, Isham N. Haymes, Benjamin B. French, Phineas D. Gurley, George V. Rutherford, Lyman B. Todd, Henry Halleck, Laura Keene.

  Now a new sound could be heard. Newsboys, carrying the morning papers, were shouting the bulletins up and down Tenth Street and the soldiers out front were buying the papers. The story, running down the left side of page 1, looked like this:

  IMPORTANT

  * * *

  ASSASSINATION

  * * *

  President Lincoln

  * * *

  The President Shot at The Theatre Last Evening

  * * *

  Secretary Seward

  Daggered in his Bed

  But

  Not Mortally Wounded

  * * *

  Clarence and Frederick Seward Are Badly Hurt

  * * *

  Escape of the Assassins

  * * *

  Intense Excitement In Washington

  At one of the police precincts, the man nobody missed showed up. John F. Parker, unseen since ten o’clock last night, walked into the station with his contribution to justice. He had a prostitute by the arm and he told the sergeant of her crimes. She was Lizzie Williams. The sergeant looked her over. She was scared and drunk. He shrugged and refused to book her. She was ordered to get out of town.

  Parker did not offer to tell the sergeant where he had been all night, and the sergeant did not ask. The policeman did not ask the condition of the President, nor did he offer to file a report about the assassination. The sergeant advised him to go home and to get some sleep. Parker left. He remained a policeman in good standing for three more years. He was not tried and no charges were filed against him.

  Corporal Tanner had finished his work for Secretary Stanton and he stood, picked up his notebooks, crushed his hat under his arm and, in leaving, passed through the bedroom where the President was. His uniform was rumpled and baggy and he tiptoed to the bed, standing between Generals Halleck and Meigs. He looked at the face that would be no more, and he studied the two doctors who sat on the bed.

  Nobody looked at Corporal Tanner; no one spoke to him. He watched Stanton, at the foot of the bed, pressing a fist into a palm. Robert Lincoln, dry-eyed, stood behind the bed. The corporal put his uniform cap on, saluted, and walked out.

  7 a.m.

  John Cass, merchant, in Elmira, New York, started his day thinking—after a look out of the bedroom window—that this was going to be one more cloudy Saturday. It was going to be a bad business day too, because first of all money was still tight, and secondly, no one was going to buy a suit of spring clothes in Cass’s Clothing Store so long as the weather remained cool.

  Then the news reached Mr. John Cass. It came at the breakfast table and it hurt. Everybody, it seemed, except Cass knew that the President of the United States had been shot last night, the Seward family had been murdered in its beds, murderers were running loose in Washington City. Cass looked at his eggs, the homemade bread and the jelly, and he said that he must go to the store at once; it must be closed for the day.

  He did not weep, as so many did this morning. He was too stunned for realization. He got his coat and he went out and walked down to the corner of Water and Baldwin Streets trying to convince himself that Lincoln had been shot and was dying, was, perhaps, dead by now. First he stopped across the street at the telegraph office and asked if there was any further news about the President. The telegrapher shook his head. The last news on the key, hours ago, had said that the President could not live.

  John Cass walked across the street, unlocked his store, and got a big piece of cardboard. He was going to handletter a sign explaining that the store would remain closed out of respect to Mr. Lincoln. He looked up, trying to marshal the wording, and he saw a young man coming across the street. His attention was fixed on the fellow because he was wearing a type of coat seldom seen in Elmira. It was called a Canadian coat. The young man walked in and asked for a white shirt. He was pleasant, and had a nice smile. He was fairly tall, had a domed forehead, and wore a faint, wispy goatee. He asked for a very special style of white shirt. Mr. Cass told him that he was sorry; he did not keep that particular brand, but he had others just as good. In a moment, the sign had been temporarily forgotten, and the urge toward business had stepped forward.

  Cass brought out a number of fine white shirts. The customer said no, he’d prefer to wait until he could buy that particular brand. “Well,” said Cass, “you won’t find any in this town.” He was putting the shirts back in the bins and he said: “We have received some bad news.”

  “What’s that?” the customer said.

  “The death of Abraham Lincoln.”

  The young man made a discourteous remark, which Mr. Cass never again repeated. However, he stared at the fellow and would remember him forever. This was John Surratt. His interest in Elmira, New York, on that morning was that 5,025 Confederate prisoners were held there.*

  Heavy pelting rain began to fall in and around Washington City, and at Piscataway Lieutenant David D. Dana made his first report by telegraph on the hunt for Booth:

  Captain R. Chandler,

  Assistant Adjutant-General

  Sir: I have the honor to report that I arrived in this place at 7 A.M. and at once sent a man to Chapel Hill to notify the cavalry at that point of the murder of the President, with descriptions of the parties who committed the deed. With the arrangements which have been made it is impossible for them to get across the river in this direction.

  Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  David D. Dana,

  First Lieutenant and Provost-Marshal, Third Brigade.

  I have reliable information that the person who murdered Secretary Seward is Boyce or Boyd, the man who killed Captain Wilkins in Maryland. I think it without doubt true.

  D. D.
Dana.

  He was wrong, but he was young and he was trying. As he wrote, John Wilkes Booth slept soundly, the painful leg forgotten, in Dr. Mudd’s house twelve miles to the southeast. Sixteen miles straight north, in a patch of Washington woods, Lewis Paine crouched, wondering how long he could hold out and how one proceeds to get out of the city, and where “Cap” had gone. On the upper reaches of Wisconsin Avenue, in Georgetown, George Atzerodt walked more slowly. He sold his gun for ten dollars, and now, if he could find a place in this farmland where drinks were served, he could buy one. Downstairs in Doctor Mudd’s house, David Herold learned that even assassins cannot stay awake forever. Sleep stilled him in a chair.

  President Lincoln’s right eye was black. He began to moan—the long, frightening moans heard so often by the guard Crook in the White House corridor—and some around the bed in Petersen House felt that he had endured pain so long that he could no longer bear it in silence. His breathing became shallow and swift. The lips blew outward and were sucked in. His black hair was in disorder and there was a slight ruddiness on the cheekbones.

  The big veinous hands were composed on the white sheet, and the feet stuck out into the aisle.

  In the back parlor, his old friend of the circuit-riding days, Interior Secretary John Usher, snored on a couch. Justice Cartter sat in silence, looking out a window at the rain.

  Surgeon General Barnes looked at the other doctors, felt the cold skin of the patient, and asked an officer to bring Mrs. Lincoln to the bedroom. Robert Lincoln heard the words and buried his face in his hands. Stanton came in and stood at the foot of the bed, his hat in his hand.

  They brought Mrs. Lincoln in, tottering, and she looked at her husband and, hearing her son sob, looked at him. Then, without a word, she was led out of the room. Secretary Welles came into the room, sat, and then stood again. The President was in his death struggle and, at intervals, he tried to breathe but all that happened was that he pulled the cheeks inward but the lips remained closed.

  Surgeon General Barnes studied his watch. Dr. Phineas Gurley, the President’s pastor, came in from the front parlor and looked at the thin red rug. Dr. Leale saw the chest heave upward, hold the position, and then relax. The time was twenty-two minutes and ten seconds past 7 A.M.

  Dr. Barnes stood, waiting for the next breath. It did not come. He peeled an eyelid back, looked closely, and pulled down the sheet and listened with his ear against the plaster-covered chest. He remained in this attitude for some time, then he straightened up, reached into his vest pocket, and withdrew two silver coins. He placed them on the President’s eyes.

  Secretary Stanton broke the silence. “Now,” he said, “he belongs to the ages.” He clapped his hat on his head. Someone whispered that Dr. Gurley would say a prayer. The hat came off. As the minister began the slow, soft prayer, Robert left the room to tell his mother.

  Leale performed the last loving service. He composed the arms of the man. Dr. Gurley knelt on the floor and said: “Let us pray.” The men of the Cabinet were standing with bowed heads as Robert led his mother into the room. She tore loose and threw herself on her husband and cried: “Oh my God! I have given my husband to die!”

  She was lifted from the bed and taken from the room again. This time she was partly carried. Leale smoothed the skin of the face back toward the ears. He removed the silver coins, smoothed the eyelids gently closed, and replaced the coins. He pulled the white sheet over the head.

  He said nothing. Dr. Gurley was still praying. Dr. Leale got his uniform coat and walked out, putting it on. He was in a haze of fatigue and knew only vaguely that he was walking in heavy rain. He put his hand to his head and noticed that he was hatless. Then he remembered: the hat was still in Ford’s Theatre.

  The doctor did not go back. He wanted to walk. He was walking—he knew not how long—when he heard the first deep toll of the bell. It came from nearby and the bass sound reverberated a long time before it died in resonance and a second toll sounded. In a few minutes, he heard another bell, a higher-pitched bell, and the sound clashed with the first one. Then he heard another, and another, and soon, as he walked, the rain dripping off his forehead, Dr. Leale was surprised to learn that Washington City had many bronze tongues.

  The bells were tolling everywhere, it seemed, and people came out on the street, heedless of rain, to listen. No one asked what the bells meant or, if someone did, it was not recorded that he did. These people were trying to believe something which was hard to believe. Some looked sick. Some were grim. Some swore loud oaths to a wet sky. Some wept. Patrols called a halt to stand and listen. A barber on F Street bent to his task, looked at the hand holding the razor, and folded it up. “No more,” he said to the customer. “I’m sorry, but no more now.”

  Telegraph keys began to chatter north, east and west and bells began to toll in Boston and Chicago and in Springfield, Massachusetts as well as in Springfield, Illinois.

  Gentle men were trying to lead Mrs. Lincoln out of the house, and she kept trying to squirm from their grasp. She was shouting: “Oh, why did you not tell me he was dying!” As she was led down the steps of the stoop, she saw the brick façade of Ford’s Theatre across the street. “Oh!” she screamed. “That dreadful house! That dreadful house!”

  Inside, Stanton wrote:

  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

  Secretary of War

  Then he too left. And Welles left. And Speed and Usher and Cartter and all the rest. General Vincent remained with the body. He told an officer to go get a closed hearse and an honor guard of soldiers. They would walk the body back to the White House.

  As if the bells were not enough, big-mouthed cannon all over the nation began to boom every thirty minutes all day and all night. The requiem was in bad taste. Strangest of all, millions of people who had not cared much one way or the other now discovered that they loved this man. Maybe they loved him only because he was a martyr. The tears were universal. In New York, a red-eyed man, sober, stood on a corner talking to no one in particular and he said: “If he could just come back for one moment, I know what he’d say; he’d say ‘Forgive him—he knew not what he did.’”

  In Coles County, Illinois, the news came and farmers hitched up their buckboards and drove en masse across cold-looking fields to the little place where Sarah Bush lived; she was Lincoln’s stepmother. They stood on the doorsill and they told her the tidings and her old leathery face did not change when she said: “I knowed when he went away that he would never come back.”

  Across the street from the White House, on the far side of Pennsylvania Avenue, the plain people waited to say goodby. Mostly, they were Negroes and they formed a thick dark ribbon on the walk. The cold rain stitched their backs but they did not move. The men wept too, and one called out: “If death can come to him, what will happen to us?”

  The rain beat hard against the White House portico and, inside, the Secretary of the Navy shook drops from his hat. He looked up and saw little Tad Lincoln, with strained dignity, coming down the stairs.

  “Mr. Welles,” he said, “who killed my father?”

  And that night, history has it that another little boy, whose name is lost in anonymity, sat chattering in the cold on a buckboard beside his father. All day long he had heard men, his father included, repeat the story that shook them to tears. All day long he had been frightened by the slow tolling of the bells and the smashing roar of the big guns; all day long, without asking questions, he had watched women tack bolts of black around their front doors and now, as he looked up into the cold sky, his childish heart could not believe that the stars were out.

  He just couldn’t believe it.

  Postscript

  Perhaps, like me, you wonder what happened to some of the people who played a part in this day of April 14, 1865. I will tell you, in no set order,
the little that I know:

  Surgeon General Barnes lived long enough to minister to the assassinated President Garfield. Andrew Johnson lived ten years. William H. Seward recovered, and died in 1872 of natural causes. He was seventy-one. James Speed, Lincoln’s old friend, resigned as Attorney General in a year.

  Stanton was forced from his post by Johnson and begged to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The appointment arrived as he was on his deathbed in 1869. The Secretary of the Interior, John Usher, resigned in a month. Gideon Welles lived to be seventy-six years old. General Augur, who had been in Grant’s class at West Point, retired from the army and lived to see the start of the Spanish-American War. Schuyler Colfax became Vice President of the United States and was later involved in the Credit Mobilier scandal. William H. Crook, the guard, lived a great number of years and wrote his memoirs.

  Thomas Eckert, who could break pokers over his arm, became a general, retired, became head of a big commercial telegraph company, and lived until 1910. The owner of Ford’s Theatre, John T. Ford, was thrown into prison, but was later released for lack of evidence. The government confiscated his theater, but he forced it to pay $100,000 for the house. Twenty-eight years later, the floors of Ford’s collapsed, killing more than a score of government workers. Today, rebuilt, the theater is a national museum.

  Ulysses S. Grant, in time, became President of the United States, had a poor term of office, became a tool of Wall Street operators, and wrote extensive memoirs to keep from dying penniless in 1885.

  Bessie Hale, the Senator’s daughter who loved John Wilkes Booth, later married William Eaton Chandler, who was not an actor. Clara Harris was killed by her husband, Major Henry Rathbone, who, in turn, lived out his days in an insane asylum. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon, who might have saved Lincoln, regretted all his days (and they covered the next twenty-eight years) that he was in Richmond the night the President was shot.