American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Hookstown, Balto Co.

  March 27th, 1865.

  Dear John:

  Was business so important that you could not remain in Balto. till I saw you. I came in as soon as I could, but found you had gone to W——n. I called also to see Mike, but learned from his mother he had gone out with you and had not returned. I concluded therefore he had gone with you. How inconsiderate you have been. When I left you, you stated we would not meet in a month or so. therefore I made application for employment, an answer to which I shall receive during week. I told my parents I had ceased with you. Can I then under existing circumstances, come as you request. You know full well that the G——t. suspicions something is going on there. therefore, the undertaking is becoming more complicated. Why not for the present desist, for various reasons, which if you look into, you can readily see, without my making any mention thereof. You, nor any one can censure me for my present course. you have been its cause, for how can I now come after telling them I had left you. Suspicion rests upon me now from my whole family, and even parties in the county. I will be compelled to leave home any how, and how soon I care not. None, no not one, were more in for the enterprise than myself, and to day would be there, had you not done as you have—by this I mean, manner of proceeding. I am, as you well know, in need. I am, you may say, in rags whereas to day I ought to be well clothed. I do not feel right stalking about with means, and more from appearances a beggar. I feel my dependence, but even all this would and was forgotten, for I was one with you. Time more propitious will arrive yet. do not act rashly or in haste. I would prefer your first query, “go and see how it will be taken at R——d, and ere long I shall be better prepared to again be with you. I dislike writing, would sooner verbally make known my views. Yet your non writing causes me thus to proceed. Do not in anger peruse this. weigh all I have said, and as a rational man and a friend, you can not censure or upbraid my conduct. I sincerely trust this nor aught else that shall or may occur, will ever be an obstacle to obliterate our former friendship and attachment. Write me to Balto. as I expect to be in about Wednesday or Thursday. Or if you can possibly come on, I will Tuesday meet you in Balto. at B——. Ever I subscribe myself,

  Your friend,

  Sam.9

  The colonel congratulated Tyrrell on this important find, and he ordered him to report to Secretary Stanton immediately.

  AT ABOUT THREE O’CLOCK, the hospital steward arrived with a Nelaton probe, and Dr. Barnes went right to work. Kneeling next to the bed, he carefully fed the probe into Lincoln’s wound. This instrument went in deeper than the last one. It too struck something hard—something with a rough and jagged surface, but not lead. Dr. Taft suggested it might be the president’s right eye socket. Barnes agreed, and he checked again. This time the probe went in to a depth of seven and a quarter inches. That seemed to be the extent of the damage.

  The ball had been shot from just a few inches away. It had entered the back of Lincoln’s head, not far from the base of the skull, about an inch and a half to the left of center. From the bruising and swelling of the right (opposite side) eye, it appeared that the bullet had crossed over the centerline, but not at a trajectory low enough to sever the brain stem and stop the heart and lungs. Dr. Crane and Dr. Stone each took a turn with the probe, and each concurred that Booth’s bullet was behind and above the right eye.10

  All of this occurred under the gaze of more than a dozen people. Secretary Welles kept watch from a rocking chair near the foot of the bed. Attorney General Speed, Treasury Secretary McCullogh, and Postmaster General Dennison joined Secretaries Stanton and Usher on one side of it, while the Reverend Dr. Gurley, John Blair Smith Todd, and Rufus Andrews stood at its head. Robert Lincoln remained by his father’s side, always in the company of Senator Sumner. Eventually, his mother returned. Mary Lincoln knelt and wept, begging her husband to take her with him. Suddenly a change came over her. She straightened up and gasped. Her eyes widened, and after a slight pause, she fainted dead away. Mrs. Dixon, standing beside her, caught her and, with some help, dragged her over to an open window, where the cool air helped restore her to consciousness. She returned to the bedside, but one of the doctors suggested she might feel more comfortable in the parlor. Saying nothing, she answered with a faint nod. The weary, vacant look never left her face. Leaning over the bed, she tenderly kissed her husband for the last time, and stood up. Mrs. Dixon helped her from the room, and as she passed by the back parlor door, James Tanner heard her moan, “O, my God, and I have given my husband to die.” As he told a friend, “I never heard so much agony in so few words.”11

  Secretary Stanton was too busy to grieve. Sitting at the marble-topped table in the rear parlor, he sent off another message to authorities in Baltimore:

  WAR DEPARTMENT,

  Washington, April 15, 1865 — 3 a.m. (Sent 3.55 a.m.)

  Brigadier-General MORRIS,

  Commanding District of Baltimore:

  Make immediate arrangements for guarding thoroughly every avenue leading into Baltimore, and if possible arrest J. Wilkes Booth, the murderer of President Lincoln. You will acknowledge the receipt of this telegram, giving time, &c.

  EDWIN M. STANTON,

  Secretary of War.12

  The shooting of that picket near the Lincoln Hospital remained very much on Stanton’s mind. If the horsemen who fired on those guards had indeed been conspirators, then the assassin was likely to be heading toward Baltimore. Maybe the criminals had exchanged horses, and that one-eyed horse was left there to distract pursuers. Perhaps the two men seen heading for the Navy Yard Bridge were decoys. After all, the bridge was southeast of the city, but all the other signs pointed northeast.13

  In ordering acknowledgment of his messages “giving time, etc.,” Stanton betrayed some frustration about the distribution of his orders. They simply weren’t getting through quickly enough. In fact, the process of communicating was slow by nature. Though the secretary might finish a dispatch in a matter of minutes, he would have to give it to Major Eckert, who would hand it off to Sergeant Hatter, who would relay it, through five or six men, to the War Department, a mile away. Once there, an operator converted the message into a cipher code. When a line came open, he sent it out, one character at a time. Add receiving and deciphering delays at the other end of the line, and Stanton’s message might finally reach its destination a full hour after he wrote it. In 1865, they called that “instantaneous.”

  Other forms of communication were no quicker. Court-martial testimony taken shortly after the assassination offers a glimpse of how orders traveled from commanding general to private on patrol. Just after midnight on April 15, General Martin Hardin commanded all troops in his division to take precautions and prevent the escape of the assassins. That message went out by flag signal. Colonel Charles H. Long, in charge of the forts northwest of the city, received the order and sent out cavalry patrols to detain or turn back anyone who looked suspicious. Long received another message to the same effect at 2:55 A.M., and he, in turn, reiterated the need for vigilance. Just like the first order, Long’s second message passed to the smaller command of Captain Charles Dupont at Fort Reno. Dupont passed each order on to the officer of the day, Lt. Frederick Dean, who relayed them to the men on guard duty. Soon every soldier in the command knew what the general’s orders were—with a delay of perhaps an hour.

  But while that first message was in transit, General Hardin’s headquarters also sent duplicate orders directly to Lieutenant Dean. This redundancy was meant to accelerate the process, but sometimes it lessened the sense of urgency along the regular channels. This may account for the tendency in some officers to reiterate orders ad nauseam—and for Stanton’s insistence that his own messages be acknowledged and acted upon. 14

  Stanton’s three o’clock telegram got on the line at about average speed, but the reply came back right away.

  BALTIMORE, MD., April 15, 1865 — 4.16 a.m.

  [Received 4:30 a.m.]

  Hon. E. M. STANTO
N,

  Secretary of War:

  Your dispatch received. The most vigorous measures will be taken. Every avenue is guarded. No trains or boats will be permitted to leave this department for the present.

  W. W. MORRIS,

  Brigadier-General.15

  Like most senior officers, General Morris didn’t wait to be told. When the first reports of the shooting had come in, he tightened security throughout his command.

  PRESIDENT LINCOLN WAS SINKING RAPIDLY. At 2:54 his pulse had been barely perceptible. Since then, his breathing had grown more feeble and shallow. Dr. Barnes kept a finger on the president’s carotid artery, while Drs. Taft and Liebermann took turns holding his head. They had kept it up for hours, and fatigue was taking its toll. All were amazed that the president had lived for so long. At 5:30 A.M. his wound stopped bleeding, and brain matter no longer oozed from the opening. The pulse by then was intermittent, with two or three beats followed by a long silence. From that point on, the patient’s breathing increased in frequency but decreased in strength. Inhalations came in short bursts, and exhalations were drawn out. Each breath made a loud guttural sound that almost everyone in the house could hear.16

  THE PACE SLOWED at police headquarters, so Bushrod Reed, acting assistant superintendent, went up to General Augur’s headquarters office in search of a favor. Boarders at the Surratt house had suggested that Reed’s detectives search for Booth in Southern Maryland. It sounded like good advice, but there was just one problem: the police department owned no horses. So Reed asked Augur’s adjutant, Colonel John H. Taylor, if he might borrow some cavalry troops. Taylor wanted to be accommodating, but the cavalry had all gone out by then. The police were welcome to use whatever horses they could find.17

  Though events were still pulling him in every direction, Edwin Stanton was finding the task more manageable. He also took on more duties. An aide reminded him that Jacob Thompson, the top Confederate State Department official working in Canada, had been spotted in Maine, allegedly on his way to Europe. Several other members of the so-called Canadian Cabinet were thought to have crossed the American border, but the federal government showed no interest in arresting them. Just the day before, President Lincoln was asked for guidance on the matter. “I should not be sorry to have them out of the country,” said the president, “but I should be for following them up pretty closely to make sure of their going.”

  But things were different now, and the more Stanton thought about it, the more indignant he became. Abraham Lincoln had shown leniency to one of the very men who, Stanton believed, had been plotting Lincoln’s death. So in the early hours of April 15, he countermanded the president and ordered the arrest of Jacob Thompson if found anywhere in the United States. Edwin Stanton was not in a forgiving mood.18

  Much had happened since Stanton sent out his three o’clock dispatch, and an updated report was undoubtedly warranted. So at four o’clock, he checked again on the president’s condition, then sat down to compose another message:

  Washington City,

  No. 458 Tenth Street, April 15, 1865 — 4.10 am

  Major-General Dix:

  The President continues insensible and is sinking. Secretary Seward remains without change. Frederick Seward’s scull 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, Booth 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. in 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 [illegible, crossed out] could be heard from. Booth and his accomplice got their horse 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 tonight last night. They One of them has evidently made his way to Baltimore, the other has not yet been traced.

  Edwin M. Stanton,

  Sec. of War19

  This 4:10 update was far less frantic than the original 1:30 telegram. Its words and lines were drawn more carefully, its message laid out with more precision. Stanton was regaining his composure and had again become the commanding figure that people had come to expect. His press releases were said to prefigure an organizational style that would become standard among journalists in later years. The so-called inverted pyramid composition gave the most weighty facts at the top of the story, with information of lesser importance tapering toward the end, or bottom, of the piece. The secretary’s dispatches followed that system closely. If this was intentional, it shows a remarkable ability to stay focused and to systematize his thoughts under pressure. It is more likely, though, that the organization of these telegrams was inadvertent. Stanton was pressured by other demands, and he simply began his missives with the assumption that he would have only a moment to finish them. Thus, he put the most important information down first. Then, lost in thought, he kept writing for as long as he had something to say.20

  This new dispatch had some glaring inaccuracies. Stanton mangled the details of Atzerodt’s livery stable visits, and he connected Booth to the horse at Nailor’s, though Fletcher never mentioned Booth. More important, he draws from the “Sam” letter something that wasn’t there— evidence of a plan to attack on inauguration day, March 4.

  It is easy to imagine the source of the confusion. For months, the city had swirled with rumors of an attack at the inauguration, and this letter may have given Stanton a vague sense that the rumors were based on fact. He may have been given inaccurate reports, and he may have jumped to unwarranted conclusions. Whatever the cause, we should not assume Stanton was deliberately distorting the facts. Inaccuracies colored every dispatch, affidavit, and report on record that night, and in all likelihood, Edwin Stanton was just passing along what he had heard.

  That last message gave a sense of Stanton’s priorities. The discovery of the Sam letter, the recovery of that half-blind horse, and the picket shooting northeast of the city were uppermost in his mind. That skirmish was one of several incidents that focused attention on the road to Baltimore. Those horsemen had been in a hurry, and desperate enough to risk their lives in fleeing from Washington. And there were six of them. If they were indeed Booth’s accomplices, then the attacks on Lincoln and Seward were part of a vast conspiracy, planned and executed by many people. It was a tentative theory, and a bit paranoid in hindsight. But even if it was wrong, the facts still pointed toward a Baltimore escape route.

  The identity of Seward’s assailant was still in doubt, but some investigators were confident that George Atzerodt was their man. His saddle and bridle were on the one-eyed horse. Booth’s bankbook had been found in his room, and he had obviously been tracking the vice president with evil intent. Though the case against Atzerodt looked solid, an early morning incident threw the whole case into doubt.

  Just after dawn, two privates from the 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery encountered a suspicious horseman on a road near Glenwood Cemetery, northeast of the city. Herbert Staples and Charles Ramsell were riding back to their command from a night on the town, when they stopped to chat with their regimental courier. As the three men stood in the driving rain, a horseman and his servant approached them and struck up a conversation. The horseman seemed nonchalant, considering all that had happened, and the soldiers found it strange that the first thing he said was “What’s the news?” He, after all, had just come from Washington. Ramsell told him that Secretary Seward had been assassinated. “By God, is that so!” the horseman said, slapping his thigh. There was more than a hint of mockery in the gesture.

  The soldiers assured him it was so, and the president had been killed as wel
l. But the rider was not interested. Without even asking for details, he went on to inquire how he might get outside the military lines. “Is there anything to hinder me?” he asked. A sentry stood along the road in the distance, and Ramsell told the man that he would likely be stopped when he got up there. The stranger thought it over, then spun his horse around, saying, “I shall venture it.” He rode off, and as the soldiers stared incredulously, he went unchallenged past the man they had assumed was a sentry. Ramsell thought they ought to go chase him down, but it was too late.21

  To General Augur’s detectives, Ramsell and Staples’s report seemed to confirm that Seward’s assailant was still in Washington. Though the soldiers could not identify that horseman, their description sounded just like a composite of Surratt and Atzerodt. Mostly, he resembled Atzerodt: medium height and build; long gray coat, stained in the front; scruffy whiskers; and in Staples’s words, “a good head of hair, tossed back behind his ears in southern style.” But his horse was a medium-sized dark bay, like the one John Surratt owned. He even wore boots with red morocco facings, like those worn by the Sewards’ attacker.

  If this horseman was one of the conspirators, the fact that he was still close to the city was encouraging. Yet there was something about him that didn’t add up. Staples said that he looked like Booth, not Surratt or Atzerodt, and his friend agreed. When shown a photograph of the assassin, Ramsell said, “If that man didn’t have a mustache, I should swear it was him.” The stains on the long gray coat looked more like tobacco spittle than like blood. And the man sounded educated, or at any rate, he did not speak with a German accent. This stranger had some of the right traits, but they didn’t add up to George Atzerodt. Could he have been one of the others? Was he John Wilkes Booth, riding Surratt’s horse? The possibility could not be dismissed. That skirmish had occurred nearby, and a sweaty horse belonging to a known conspirator was discovered just a little to the south of there. Many clues were cropping up in the same area.