American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Those people were lucky; the costs of their indiscretions were minor. For many others, though, rejoicing over Lincoln’s death would have deadly consequences. A man at Hilton Head was shot dead the moment he said he “was glad of it.” Another man in Estherville, Iowa, declared his satisfaction at the news, and was “hung without benefit of clergy.” A soldier in the military prison at Fort Jefferson, Florida, cheered at the news and was “strung up” for so long that he died soon after being cut down. A soldier who witnessed this wrote, “I honestly confess that I have very little sympathy for him or any man who is punished for such expressions.” It is not certain how many people died for their inappropriate reactions, but the number undoubtedly reached into the hundreds. 14

  Concerns about mob violence led Secretary Stanton to delay his announcement of the assassination to troops in the field. Safeguards had to be put into place before commanders could break the news. Guards were posted over Confederate prisoners, and paroled rebels were told to refrain from wearing their gray uniforms. Commanding officers were ordered to take “the most vigorous measures” to suppress any outbreak.15

  Throughout most of the civilized world, foreign leaders expressed horror at the assassination and sympathy for the nation’s loss. But in Montreal, reactions were mixed. Canadian officials offered condolences, and a great many citizens draped their buildings in mourning. But others celebrated openly, and their revelry caused the U.S. consul to remark that “treason has transformed them to brutes, and seems to have eradicated from their breasts all sense of moral right.” He would have been deeply offended by an editorial in the London Examiner that said, “It must be remembered that atrocious as was Booth’s deed, his ‘sic semper tyrannis’ was literally justified by the facts. The man he killed had murdered the Constitution of the United States, had contradicted and set at naught the principles under which the States came together, had practically denied the competence of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, and overthrown all for which Washington fought and Patrick Henry spoke.”

  By and large, even Southerners greeted the news with sadness. Many recognized that Lincoln had favored a lenient approach to reconstruction and had probably been their best friend in the government. They were quick to disavow the assassination. In Richmond, civic leaders condemned the killing, while the editor of the Whig denounced Booth in unmeasured terms. They did not say it publicly, but many, in fact, were afraid of retaliation. Captain Joseph J. Westcoat, a Confederate prisoner of war, stated it plainly: “I am afraid that we poor devils will have to suffer for [Lincoln’s] death.” Like others in his situation, Westcoat could not imagine that anything good could come from the assassination. Confederate General Richard S. Ewell, on his way to prison in Boston, would have agreed. Ewell was visibly shocked, and he remarked that the loss of Mr. Lincoln was the worst thing that could have happened, for the South as well as the North. He hastened to assure General Grant that he and all good Southerners were appalled.

  Some doubted the sincerity of these expressions. They saw the assassination as a natural extension of “irregular warfare,” and they thought the only proper response to it was vengeance. General Sherman understood the public mood. “We have met every phase which this war has assumed, and must now be prepared for it in its last and worst shape, that of assassins and guerrillas,” wrote Sherman. “But woe unto the people who seek to expend their wild passions in such a manner, for there is but one dread result.”16

  With public feelings running so high, critics of the Lincoln administration had to tread lightly or face dire consequences. Sidney Gay of the New York Tribune understood that. Gay’s boss, Horace Greeley, had written a scathing editorial to be published on the fifteenth, and in the early morning hours, Gay pulled the offensive piece. Greeley was furious, but Gay stood his ground, insisting that if he had published that editorial, their building would have been torn to the ground—as it probably should have been. The Tribune was one of the few anti-administration papers not targeted for violence. In San Francisco, mobs destroyed the offices of the American and the Union, while a French-language paper, L’Ecore du Pacifique, was saved only by the timely arrival of guards. In Westminster, Maryland, a citizen group ordered Joseph Shaw, editor of the Democrat, to leave town. He did so, but when he returned on the twenty-fourth, he was set upon and killed.

  As Willie Clark observed, this was no time to be a rebel. Clark, in whose bed the president had died, wrote in a letter home, “The time has come when people cannot say what they please. . . . Leniency is no longer to be thought of.”17

  As Laura Keene learned, the threat of arrest was just as great as the fear of violence. Though cleared of suspicion, Keene and her co-stars were arrested several times en route to their next engagement in Cincinnati. After the third such incident, Edwin Stanton personally intervened to protect them from further detention. But the rest of the cast and crew—John T. Ford’s permanent staff—did not fare so well. Detectives bore down on Spangler, Rittersback, Gifford, and Borrows, among others. Even Ford’s Baltimore employees came under scrutiny when McPhail learned that the orchestra at the Holliday Street Theatre had played “Dixie” the previous week. Though none of the musicians was arrested, all were ordered to leave the state.

  Theatrical people were especially vulnerable; as one Baltimore man said, “It wasn’t safe for an actor to walk the streets.” It was commonly assumed that someone in the theater had cleared a path for Booth’s escape, and the whole profession was called to answer for that. Even their homes and workplaces were threatened. When Police Superintendent A. C. Richards learned that an anonymous group intended to burn down Ford’s, he asked for reinforcements. “My force is entirely inadequate to protect the building and property in the neighborhood,” he insisted. So Colonel Ingraham detailed an officer and twenty men to protect the place—but only after seven o’clock each night.18

  Junius Booth was in Cincinnati, where he had just performed a farewell benefit in The Merchant of Venice at Wood’s Theatre. Terrified of mob violence, he barricaded himself in his hotel room, pacing the floor and pulling at his hair “like a man deranged.” He told a reporter that if John Wilkes were really the killer, then no Booth could ever appear on stage again. Indeed, he was not the only one to reach that conclusion. At Orlando Tompkins’s house in Boston, Edwin learned the news when a servant tearfully handed him the morning paper. He anxiously scanned its columns, looking for some way to assure himself that his brother was not really the killer. Though friends suggested that the papers were mistaken, Edwin was not so sure. “If John didn’t do it,” he asked, “where is John?” Like most people who knew his brother, Edwin instinctively understood. The athletic leap to the stage; the flourish of the dagger; the cry of “Sic semper tyrannis!”—in style and spirit, it was all so much like John Wilkes Booth. He remembered, with some irony, the closing lines of Don Cesar de Bazan:

  Long live the King! Long live the King! Long live the King!

  Who e’er repays out love with love again,

  Let peace be joined to length of days,

  Let peace be joined to bless his happy reign.

  Those were the lines Edwin had spoken just the night before, unaware that peace and happiness had already slipped beyond his reach. Now, the thought overwhelmed him. When he finally composed himself, he penned a note to Asia, offering some advice on how to cope: “Think no more of him as your brother; he is dead to us now, as he soon must be to all the world. . . .”

  Edwin knew how the public would feel about his family. For his own part, he was compelled to reassert his loyalty. So when theater manager Henry C. Jarrett released him from all further obligations, he responded with a public note of thanks. “While mourning, in common with all other loyal hearts, the death of the President, I am oppressed by a private woe not to be expressed in words. But whatever calamity may befall me and mine, my country, one and indivisible, has my warmest devotion.”

  Mary Ann and Rosalie remained at Edwin’s house in N
ew York. Friends had rushed to comfort them, but the task was hopeless. John Wilkes had always been his mother’s favorite, and the news of his act fell upon her with crushing force. Even worse than the hurt and shame was the prospect that her son would have to face a public execution. While she agonized over the thought, a newsboy passed the house, calling out, “The President’s death, and the arrest of John Wilkes Booth!” Hearing that, Mary Ann moaned, “O God, if this be true, let him shoot himself, let him not live to be hung! Spare him, spare us, spare the name that dreadful disgrace!”19

  Asia Booth Clarke bore the news stoically. Though in fragile health and pregnant with twins, she thought immediately of Mary Ann. She urged Clarke to invite her mother down from New York at once. She asked herself why John Wilkes would do such a thing, and searched her mind for warnings she might have missed. Mentally replaying her brother’s conversations, she suddenly remembered that he had entrusted a packet of papers to her care. Quietly she slipped away and opened the safe. Inside the large envelope John Wilkes had left were several items. One was a smaller envelope, marked with the name of someone Asia knew. To protect him, she burned it, then scattered the ashes. The rest of the papers went back into the safe, to be rediscovered later.20

  IN HIS THIRD-FLOOR OFFICE at the War Department, Edwin Stanton worked at his usual frantic pace, writing memoranda and dashing off orders to all parts of the country. Three years in charge had honed Stanton’s leadership skills, and in theory he ought to have handled this crisis without a hitch. But, of course, this situation was unique. Civilians were taking part in the manhunt, and they were not so easy to control. They had never answered to the War Department, cared nothing about the chain of command, and had never learned how to deal with the dictatorial secretary and his idiosyncrasies. Their presence added an element of chaos to the task, and to someone who was used to having his own way, they must have been enormously frustrating.

  MARY TODD LINCOLN WENT BACK to the White House an hour after the president’s death. Elizabeth Dixon tried to find a comfortable place to leave her, but the first lady refused to go into any room that reminded her of her husband. The Cabinet, meanwhile, avoided her. They remained at the Petersen house, composing a formal announcement of the change in administration. They invited Andrew Johnson to designate a time and place to be sworn in as president. Johnson said that the ceremony could take place in his rooms at the Kirkwood Hotel, at eleven o’clock. The Cabinet adjourned to prepare.21

  All of this occurred within sight of the president’s body. It was not until after the Cabinet left that a detail of six men took charge of the remains, placing them in a rough wooden coffin and carrying them back out the narrow hallway and down the winding steps. An ambulance waited in front of the house. As the body was loaded into it, the crowd closed in for a final glimpse of their martyred leader. Then they embarked on a slow, mournful, rain-drenched procession to the White House.

  A middle-aged African American woman stood in the rain and watched as the president’s remains were carried up to the north portico. Hearing her sobs, a sadistic man in the crowd taunted her by suggesting that with Abraham Lincoln gone, she would have to return to slavery. “Oh, no!” the woman wailed. “God ain’t dead yet!”

  The soldiers laid the president out on a table, then took the coffin back to the Quartermaster Department. They discovered later that Mr. Lincoln’s shirt had been left in the box, and they cut it up for souvenirs. Each of the six men was allowed to keep a swatch of the sacred cloth, thanks to their commander, General Rucker.22

  A GATHERING OF SENATORS and congressmen joined Andrew Johnson for a formal swearing-in at the Kirkwood House. Some of the guests made a few remarks, then Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase stepped up and administered the oath. The new president addressed the crowd. “I must be permitted to remark that I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the solemn event that has occurred,” he said, “and I feel the heavy responsibilities which I have just undertaken.” From the powerful to the obscure, everyone expected Johnson to deal harshly with Southern leaders. Willie Clark, in whose bed Mr. Lincoln had died, expressed a near-universal opinion when he wrote: “We have a man now who will teach the south a lesson.” Indeed, Johnson’s record left little room for doubt. Just recently he had told some well-wishers, “When you ask me what I would do, my reply is, I would arrest them; I would try them; I would convict them, and I would hang them. . . . We have put down these traitors in arms; let us put them down in law, in public judgment, and in the morals of the world.” Now he assured his listeners that he had not changed his mind, and he looked to all those present for their support and assistance.

  Johnson’s delivery was a relief to those who feared he might repeat his inaugural performance of March 4. His speech on that occasion had been, in the words of Gideon Welles, “a rambling and strange harangue, which was listened to with pain and mortification by all his friends.” Johnson was not a drinker, but had apparently taken stimulants to relieve an illness. It was an embarrassment he would never live down.23

  Johnson’s first act as president was to call a Cabinet meeting at the Treasury building, three blocks away. The meeting was brief, and afterward Johnson went to the White House to observe the autopsy. He, General Augur, and a team of medical observers looked on as Drs. Joseph Janvier Woodward and Edward Curtis performed a postmortem examination of Mr. Lincoln’s remains. The face was swollen, and the eyes were blackened and protruding slightly. Dr. Stone, the president’s personal physician, suggested that both sockets were fractured when the shock of the bullet’s impact momentarily distorted the shape of the head. All agreed.

  When the skull was opened, a small leaden ball dropped with a clink into the pan placed beneath the body. The brain was dissected to determine the physical damage it had done. The track of the ball was filled with clotted blood and pulplike brain matter. Small skull fragments were scattered along it, and the largest of these had lodged about two inches into the brain. There was some disagreement on where the bullet came to rest. In his official report, Dr. Woodward said that it stayed on the left side of the brain, and stopped behind the president’s left eye. Dr. Stone agreed with this observation, but others who were there did not. Surgeon General Barnes thought the path moved upward and to the right, with the ball lodging above the right eye socket. Dr. Charles Taft said it had crossed the midline to a point behind the right eye. A recent study sides with Dr. Barnes.

  When the autopsy was complete, Drs. Stone and Taft took the ball and bone fragments to Secretary Stanton’s office, where Dr. Stone used a penknife to inscribe the ball with the initials “A.L.” He sealed it in an envelope, and marked it as evidence.24

  There was now the matter of funeral arrangements. Some in the Lincolns’ inner circle thought the president should be buried in Washington, but others favored interment in Chicago. Nobody, at this point, wanted to approach Mrs. Lincoln, and her wishes were not known. Mary Jane Welles, wife of the navy secretary, had been summoned to attend her, and she was the only one speaking with her just now. So tentative plans were set in motion for an elaborate state funeral in Washington. Such things took time to arrange, and already some of the army’s finest units were being called to Washington to march in the procession.25

  THIRTEEN

  “I BELIEVE HE WOULD HAVE MURDERED US, EVERY ONE”

  JOHN WILKES BOOTH WAS IN PAIN, WHICH WAS LIKELY TO worsen after more hours on horseback. So David Herold asked Dr. Mudd if he could supply a carriage for the trip to Washington. The doctor did not have one of his own, but just after midday, he took Herold down to Oak Hill, the home of Mudd’s father, to see if there was an extra buggy there. Mudd’s brother, Henry Mudd, Jr., said that only one carriage was in working order, and since the next day was Easter Sunday, the family would need it for church. So Dr. Mudd and his visitor left Oak Hill, heading for Bryantown. Mudd needed to buy a few items for his wife, and Herold, apparently, was just tagging along. They started out together, but after riding to within
sight of the town, Herold changed his mind and rode back to the farm alone.

  Bryantown was a small village, and the arrival of Lieutenant Dana and the cavalry, around midday, caused a stir among its citizens. Some had already heard rumors about the assassination, and though many of the stories were false, Dana’s men did little to set the record straight. They made no formal announcement, but told anyone who asked that a man named Booth had shot the president, and the guerrilla John H. Boyle was probably the assailant of Seward. Since Boyle had threatened the lives of several Unionists in the neighborhood, he was notorious in and around the village.

  Dr. Samuel Mudd mingled with the townspeople, and of course he heard the news that was on every tongue. Years after the fact, a friend of Mudd’s suggested he had gone into town only to pick up contraband messages, but that was apparently a mistake. Confederate agents were no longer in Richmond, and a regular mail service from there was already in place, making smuggling unnecessary. In any case, Mudd took care of his errands and stopped to talk with some friends who were discussing the assassination; Mudd later claimed that nobody said anything that led him to suspect that the visitors back at his farm were involved. He took a leisurely ride home, even stopping off for a chat with a couple of farmers who lived along the way.

  In conversation with his friends, Mudd said that the assassination was the worst thing that could have happened. As he understood it, the guerrilla Boyle was one of the assassins, and the other was a man named Booth. John F. Hardy asked if that was the same Booth who had been nosing around in Charles County the year before. Mudd said that he didn’t know; there were several brothers in the family, but if it was the same person, he knew him. After chatting for another minute or two, Mudd left to go home.1