American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Evidently Hardy’s question began to gnaw at Dr. Mudd, and he thought back to Booth’s December visit, and perhaps to that encounter in Washington as well. He realized at some point that the injured man at his house must be Booth, and that he had been trying to conceal his identity. In hindsight, both of Mudd’s visitors seemed more excited than they should have been. Such thoughts tormented him, and Dr. Mudd rode back home with a quickening pace and a deepening sense of dread.

  As he approached the house, he saw his visitors leaving by a side road, and he galloped over to confront them. He upbraided Booth for having deceived him, and he threatened to give him up to the authorities. Booth admitted his identity and pleaded with Mudd, in a theatrical style, to keep quiet. The doctor relented, but insisted they leave at once. They rode off in the direction of Zekiah Swamp.

  Mudd thought he knew where the fugitives were going. Herold had asked him for directions to the home of Rev. Lemuel Wilmer, on the opposite side of the swamp. He asked again as they left, and as far as Mudd could tell, they seemed to be heading that way. But the road they took led over a hill, then turned sharply to the right. Once they passed over that hill, they would be out of sight, and Dr. Mudd would have no way of knowing whether they stayed on the road or turned away somewhere off in the distance.

  Back in the house, Mudd learned that his wife had had suspicions all along. She had spoken with the injured man during the daylight hours, when her husband was outside working the fields. He had worn a false beard, she said, and it slipped a bit as he came down the stairs later on. They both recalled that he had asked for a razor, and in hindsight, they found it odd that a man with full whiskers would want to shave them off during a trip through the country. After talking it over, they realized that Booth had made them accessories in his escape, and their only recourse was to report his whereabouts right away. That wouldn’t be easy. It was already dusk, and Dr. Mudd could not go back to Bryantown without leaving his wife and young children alone in the house. For all they knew, the fugitives were still out there, hiding somewhere just over the hill. Though Mudd wanted to file a report anyway, his wife begged him to wait until morning, when they would all be in town anyway for Easter Sunday mass.2

  THE AFTERNOON PAPERS were flooded with accounts of the assassination and manhunt. Almost all of them ran at least one of James P. Ferguson’s interviews. Ferguson was so much in demand as a witness that he neglected his saloon, and eventually lost it. Somehow he managed to recount his experience in Ford’s without saying a word about his companion. Mary Ellen Cecil had been sitting next to Ferguson in the dress circle, and probably saw just as much as he did. But she wanted to stay out of the limelight to avoid explaining her engagement to a thirty-year-old man when she was only fourteen. In fact, she was one of many eyewitnesses who, for various reasons, never spoke out on the subject. And no one was forcing her. The government made no systematic effort to interview those who had been present, or even to collect their names.

  While many people assumed that hidden forces were behind the assassination, others speculated that Booth had acted on his own. The reason: he wanted to immortalize himself. Within days of the shooting, newspapers began to report that an anonymous source had once heard Booth talk about killing the president. Asked why he would do such a thing, he had quoted a couplet from the Colley Cibber version of Richard III:

  The daring youth that fired the Ephesian dome

  Outlives in fame the pious fool that reared it.

  The story spread quickly, and it became the basis of the most popular explanation for Lincoln’s killing. But it has the character of a modern urban legend. Though it sounded authoritative, its original source has never been identified.3

  BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON, nearly a thousand soldiers were in the saddle, pursuing leads on Booth’s whereabouts. Much of their search was now concentrated in Southern Maryland, a place that struck one reporter as “the most heaven-forsaken country within a hundred miles of Washington. . . . No fences anywhere, no green thing in sight, no trim farm houses, no people with white faces, save ever and anon a bankrupt and hopeless looking farmer stretched on a load of manure and cornstalks and gazing dejectedly at a team of palsied ponies.” Through this supposed wasteland rode seven hundred men of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Their commanding officer, Major John M. Waite, split them into three companies to cover all major routes and settlements in the area. When one detachment reached St. Peter’s Church, near the home of Dr. Mudd, they asked if anyone there was familiar with Booth or his companion, “Harold.” The jovial priest, Father Peter Lenaghan, assured them that the only Harold he ever knew was Byron’s “Childe Harold.”

  While soldiers searched the countryside, detectives covered the city. At the Herold house, just outside the navy yard, Washington police officers borrowed a photograph of David from his sister Jane. They turned it over to Frank Van Benthuysen of General Augur’s staff, and within hours, copies were being produced for distribution.4

  AT HIS HOUSE on Lafayette Square, William H. Seward awoke to find his face covered in bandages and his wife trying to give him tea with a spoon. He could hear the murmur of low voices in the room, and he motioned for a tablet. When a doctor handed him one, he took it and wrote, “Give me some more tea. I shall get well.” His family physician, Dr. Tullio S. Verdi, had already determined that the secretary’s wounds were not life-threatening, but he knew that both Seward and his son would require constant care for months. Verdi would soon have the help of Dr. Thomas B. Gunning, a dentist who specialized in the treatment of jaw fractures. Dr. Gunning would fashion a splint for the secretary. Made of vulcanized rubber, it fit inside the mouth and was fastened by screws driven into the teeth. Eventually, saliva started to collect inside, and the cheek had to be lanced to relieve the problem. Thus did the suffering of William H. Seward continue for months on end.

  Frederick Seward had been in a coma since shortly after the attack, and when he regained consciousness a few days later, his first thought was of a British diplomat whose credentials were to have been presented on April 15. He asked whether the ceremony had taken place as scheduled.5

  GENERAL GRANT ARRIVED in Washington after a long and worrisome night in transit. He checked in to Willard’s, as he always did. Only minutes later, he received a message from General Halleck advising him, as a matter of security, not to be so predictable. He went straight to the War Department for a conference with Secretary Stanton. That, too, was to be expected.

  Attorney Britten A. Hill followed a busy night at the Petersen house with an even busier day of developing leads. In the morning, he spoke with Robinson and Bell, of the Seward household, and got a detailed description of the assailant. In the afternoon he went to Ford’s Theatre to speak with witnesses about Booth’s movements on the day of the murder. He even went inside the president’s box, and discovered that the locks to both doors had been broken sometime before the shooting. Of all the investigators on this case, Hill was the first to take those commonsense measures. Still, his instincts were not perfect; he mistakenly concluded that Booth had ridden northeast, in the direction of Bladensburg, and was still bottled up in the city. “If not,” he reported, “then I am wholly at fault.”

  Like Stanton, Hill read too much into the clues that Booth might be heading for Baltimore. It made sense that he would escape to his hometown, and even though they had not yet found him there, most authorities were convinced that they were on the right track. Only days later would they confirm that Booth had gone in another direction.

  Many thought that Booth was probably still in Washington. The federal net could be drawn only so tight, though, and it would be difficult to keep him bottled up indefinitely. Soldiers had already blocked every road out of the city, and all forms of mass transportation were halted until further notice.

  One of those caught in the traffic was George Atzerodt. On Saturday morning, Atzerodt borrowed ten dollars from a friend in Georgetown, putting his revolver down as collateral. He then walked up High
Street to the home of Lucinda Metts, a family connection, and took a meal. He had apparently made up his mind to head north toward Montgomery County, where he might stay with relatives. He boarded the stage for Rockville, but outbound traffic had been stopped for hours and nobody could get past Tennallytown, on the northern edge of the city. So Atzerodt left the stagecoach and struck up a conversation with one of the men posted along the road. Before long, he and Sgt. Lewis F. Chubb, 13th Michigan Light Artillery, were sitting down together for a drink.6

  Traffic jams and flaring tempers were paralyzing the city and putting the public safety at risk. By mid-afternoon, the problem had gotten so out of control that it had to be called to Stanton’s attention. The secretary ordered the roadblocks removed at once, and he told General Morris, in Baltimore, that he never meant to stop all trains heading his way. From now on, Morris should let the trains pass, but watch the passengers carefully.

  Once travel restrictions were eased, Mike O’Laughlen took a three o’clock train back home. He felt sick, and not just from a sense of dread; if his friend Edward Murphy was correct, O’Laughlen and his companions had spent their time in Washington visiting twenty-one bars, four bawdy houses, and one “leg show”—all in a period of thirty hours.

  THE CAPITAL WAS quietly transforming itself from a party town to a city of death. Patriotic displays of red, white, and blue were replaced by the black crape of mourning. That, and a dreary sky, made Washington the picture of misery: weary, dull, lifeless, devoid of light and shadow. Charles H. Jones, of the navy, was ordered to hang rolls of crape on government office buildings. After draping the White House, he went to the War Department, next door, to size up the task there. He walked into a darkened office on the third floor and noticed a man sitting at a desk, head bowed as if asleep. “Pardon me,” Jones said. The man looked up, and Jones was startled to see that it was General Grant. He looked haggard and utterly exhausted. “Don’t mind me,” sighed the general. “Carry out your orders.” 7

  BOOTH AND HEROLD HAD NOT CROSSED Zekiah Swamp, as Dr. Mudd believed. They had gone away from Mudd’s farm heading toward the swamp, but after disappearing over the hill, they turned around and rode in the opposite direction. A short while later, Herold was seen alone near the barn at Oak Hill, where he was confronted by Alexis Thomas, an elderly servant of Henry Mudd. Thomas and his wife thought that Herold seemed nervous. His conversation was disjointed, and he acted as if he had been caught at something he couldn’t explain. He said he had lost his bearings, and asked if there was a “Dr. Sam” living nearby. Though Thomas gave him directions to Mudd’s, Herold changed the subject, and asked, “Who lives here?” He wondered if he might spend the night at Oak Hill, but on second thought maybe he should just head for Bryantown. Instead of asking how to get there, though, he inquired whether there was a big swamp nearby. Thomas pointed toward the Zekiah in the distance, and Herold rode off in that direction. The Thomases were glad to be rid of him.

  Booth was probably hiding nearby. Why they had gone to Oak Hill is anybody’s guess, but quite possibly, Herold had gone back to steal the carriage he had tried unsuccessfully to borrow. Failing that, he rejoined Booth and they continued southward on horseback. They reached the present settlement of Hughesville, a few miles below Mudd’s, long after dark. Somewhere west of there they got lost, and by nine o’clock in the evening, they decided to ask for directions.8

  They could not have known it, but a company of Confederate cavalry passed within eight miles of their escape route that night. The federal government owned a farm along the Patuxent River where they raised food for the army, and some of Mosby’s Rangers happened to be snooping around there to see how much they could divert for their own use. Assuming these men were in Southern Maryland to assist Booth, the commander of Union troops in the area sent a detachment to intercept them. The unit returned in a panic, and after sorting things out, Maj. John M. Waite concluded that the skirmish they reported was a “humbug,” and the officer who made it up ought to be dismissed. In fact, the troops actually were fired upon— but by local citizens, not the Rangers. Three of those citizens were later arrested.

  At about nine o’clock that evening, the fugitives spotted a small house off the Cracklintown road, southeast of Bryantown, and Herold knocked on the door. The man who answered was Oswald Swan, a so-called wesort— of white, African American, and Piscataway Indian descent—who lived there with his wife and eight children. Swan gave Herold whiskey and bread, as requested. For two dollars, he agreed to guide him and his friend to the home of William Bertles, who lived near St. Mary’s Church. But as soon as they got on the road, Herold changed his mind and asked if Swan would take them across the swamp instead. For that, he offered an additional five dollars. 9

  The man they wanted to visit was Samuel Cox, one of Charles County’s best-known citizens. Cox lived at Rich Hill, an 845-acre farm a few miles east of Port Tobacco. The Coxes had bought it from the family of Dr. Gustavus Brown, one of George Washington’s physicians. The present owner was a humorless, domineering man with a commanding air and a social prominence that made the Yankees want desperately to catch him at something. Noting that he had once served as the captain of a militia company, the Federals once mounted an expedition to search for weapons Cox was said to have stashed away for his old comrades. He had none. The rumors were false, like most stories told about Cox. One, printed in the New York Tribune, accused the captain of murdering an escaped slave who had gone to the Federals for sanctuary but who was then returned to Rich Hill and killed. The story was a clumsy fabrication, and was exposed as such. But in time it reemerged, with different killers and different victims. For better or worse, these myths made Samuel Cox famous, and though Booth had never met the captain, he knew his reputation. 10

  The Cox home was a large white frame house on the crest of a hill just west of Zekiah Swamp. It was about one A.M. when the fugitives arrived there. Herold’s loud knock on the front door awoke Mary Swann, a servant, who went to get the captain. Cox was leery of answering the door in the middle of the night. Looking out the window, he saw Herold standing back from the steps, calling out to Cox for a night’s lodging and something to eat. He declined to identify himself, and the captain was inclined to turn him away. “I will not admit strangers who refuse to give me their names,” he said. It was only then, as Herold turned to walk away, that Cox noticed another man waiting near the fence. They both approached the house and pleaded for help.

  Samuel Cox told authorities that he turned Booth and Herold away, and his nephew, who heard the conversation, confirmed that. “If it is the last word I have to say on earth,” said the captain, Booth “never entered my home, unless he came into the door and knocked before I got up.” But as their guide Oswald Swan reported it, the fugitives did go into the house, and they stayed inside for several hours while Swan waited in the yard for the money promised him. Many years later, Cox’s servant Mary Swann claimed to have served the fugitives a meal in the dining room. Whatever happened that night, it was almost dawn before Booth and Herold left the property. Swan and Herold helped Booth into the saddle, and Booth muttered, “I thought Cox was a man of Southern feeling.” The fugitives left the yard with their guide, and a few minutes later, Herold gave Swan twelve dollars and a warning: “If you tell that you saw anybody you will not live long.”11

  A COLD FRONT SWEPT over the area that morning, with bone-chilling temperatures and a wind so strong it nearly tore the flag off its pole at the War Department. The change in weather concerned Samuel Cox, who probably worried that Booth and Herold would seek shelter among his neighbors, bringing danger to anyone who agreed to let them in. So after breakfast he went out to look for the fugitives. He found them shivering in a ditch, and promised to help them after all. The Potomac River was three miles away, and Cox said that a friend of his could get them across it. His overseer, Franklin A. Robey, would guide them to an old Confederate mail drop a mile or so west of Rich Hill. They should hide in the woods nearby,
and someone would come to meet them. That man would identify himself by a certain whistle.12

  THIS WAS EASTER SUNDAY, the day that Christians celebrate the martyrdom and resurrection of Christ. But Lincoln’s death brought a new meaning to the idea of redemption and sacrifice, and ministers all across the North proclaimed a new national savior. Abraham Lincoln was now the “chief of martyrs,” whose sacrifice would save the nation. The irony was inescapable: Booth had hoped to kill Lincoln on the Ides and highlight his resemblance to Caesar; but instead, he shot him on Good Friday, and the world compared him to Christ.

  In Cincinnati, Rev. A. D. Mayo ran through a catalog of Southern atrocities and pointed out the irony of their last, brutal act. “Wicked men upon earth always go on to the last result,” said the minister, “and that result is to slay their truest friends, and quench their blind rage in the blood of the noblest who would die to save them.” From other pulpits came dire predictions and warnings for the South. As Rev. J. A. Thome told his congregation in Cleveland, “God is exalted among us; assassins cannot reach him, with pistol and dagger, and ‘sic semper tyrannis’; but He can reach them, and He hath said, ‘Vengeance is mine.’ ”13

  EDWIN BOOTH HAD NOT BEEN in touch with his old friend Adam Badeau for some time, but he wrote him a letter before leaving Boston. He described his brother as one who “seemed so lovable and in whom all in the family found a source of joy in his boyish and fighting nature.” What, he wondered, would now become of him and everyone who bore “the once honored and now despised name”? He needed Badeau’s advice.