American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  He put aside the dainty bribe

  The little pro fered hand

  Albeit he held it in his thought

  The dearest in the land

  Not sharply nor with sudden heart

  But with regretful grace

  Meanwhile the shadow of his pain

  Fell white upon his face

  Almost teasingly, these lines touched upon the feelings Booth would have known too well in the past ten days: premeditation, regret, and pain. If he did indeed refer to the assassination, his opening line suggested something that had never before come to light: that Booth may have turned down an offer for Lincoln’s killing. Given his penchant for deception, one cannot help wondering if that “dainty bribe” was just an artful way of confounding authorities with a question they could never answer.

  After writing those lines, Booth handed the paper to Herold, who wrote out a few of his own:

  Dark daughter of the Sultry South

  Thy dangerous eyes & lips

  Essayed to win the prize and leave

  Dear honor we Eclipse

  She shyly clung upon his brow

  He stayed now at the door

  I could not love thee, dear, so much

  Loved I not Honor more.

  “Adieu, forever mine, my dear

  Adieu forever more!” 22

  Booth sat on Ruggles’s horse as the ferryman, Jim Thornton, took him and the others across the river. The Rappahannock was barely two hundred yards wide here, and beyond it was Port Royal, a charming old village that was home to some of Virginia’s leading families—the Tayloes, the Fitzhughs, and the Lightfoots, to name a few. Washington and Jefferson had been intimately familiar with the place, and they had often stopped here in their travels. Now Booth was to inscribe his own name in the history of the village. While he waited at the landing, Jett went knocking on doors in search of a place for Booth to stay. A couple of blocks up the hill, Jett found Sarah Jane Peyton at home, and asked if she would mind taking care of a wounded soldier. Miss Peyton consented, and Jett went back to get Booth.

  As soon as Booth entered her parlor, Sarah Jane had second thoughts. Maybe it was a simple change of heart, or maybe it was the assault on the senses that one gets from a man who has lived in the wild for more than a week. At any rate, she suggested to Jett that they take him elsewhere— perhaps to the Garrett place, two miles outside town. No one in the party thought to ask Miss Peyton if she could lend them a horse. Had they done so, John Wilkes Booth might have ridden away on the one extra mount in the Peyton stable: an old stallion named Brutus. Instead, he doubled up with Ruggles, while Herold rode with Bainbridge. Willie Jett rode by himself.

  Booth had been rejected yet again. His spirit was broken, his optimism gone. Willie Jett was oblivious to Booth’s low mood, and on the way out of Port Royal, he tried to strike up a conversation about the assassination. Booth was reticent, saying it was “nothing to brag about.” Life as a fugitive had taught him a new reality. Just days ago, he had drawn a calendar in his diary that would cover two full months on the run. Now, he didn’t care how much time he had left. He took it for granted that authorities would catch up to him soon, and he had no intention of being taken alive. “If they don’t kill me,” he vowed, “I’ll kill myself.”23

  LOU WEICHMANN AND JOHN HOLOHAN were still in Canada, and nobody had heard from them in days. Since they had left in the company of police detectives, Secretary of War Stanton called in their superintendent, A. C. Richards, to demand an explanation. He accused Richards of everything from gross stupidity to hindering the investigation, and he threatened to hold him personally responsible for losing those witnesses. Richards insisted it was not he who sent them away, but Colonel Baker. Still, that did not excuse his losing track of them. When the secretary asked where they were now, Richards admitted he did not know, but “supposed they were at Montreal, or Quebec, or somewhere.” It was hardly the answer Stanton wanted to hear, and it didn’t help to know that the detectives sent to search for them had not reported back yet either. Richards was ordered to find them all.24

  THE LOCUST HILL FARM was a 517-acre spread that straddled a high ridge southwest of Port Royal. Its owner, Richard H. Garrett, lived here with his second wife and nine of his children. The two oldest, Jack and Will, had just returned from Confederate service, and were still in uniform when Willie Jett and four strangers rode up on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth. “Here is a wounded Confederate soldier that we want you to take care of for a day or so,” said Jett. “Will you do it?” When Richard Garrett consented, Booth hobbled into the house.

  Undoubtedly, Jett was relieved to be rid of Booth. He just wanted to get his parole and, on the way, to stop for a visit with his girlfriend Izora. But surprisingly, Herold also chose to leave Booth—perhaps a sign that those Mosby men had taught him the wisdom of a “skedaddle.” Herold and the others headed for Bowling Green, and after pausing for drinks at a place called The Trap, they ran into Izora Gouldman’s brother Jesse. Jett pulled Jesse aside and told him that their companion was Herold, the conspirator. They were bringing him along to the Star Hotel.

  Jesse Gouldman was horrified. “My God, Jett, you can’t do that,” he said. “Why, the whole country is swimming with Yankee cavalry, and the hotel is the first place they will search. . . . If they find Herold there they will burn it down and hang every one of us!” Jesse’s parents owned the hotel, and he was adamant that Herold could not stay there. The plan was changed. Jett and Ruggles still went to the Star Hotel, but Herold went with Bainbridge to the home of Virginia Clarke, three miles outside town. By coincidence, both knew her son James—Bainbridge from his service with Mosby, and Herold from an acquaintance made years before.25

  FOUR HOURS OUT OF WASHINGTON, the steamship John S. Ide docked at Belle Plain, Virginia. On board were Lieutenant Doherty, Detectives Conger and Baker, and twenty-six enlisted men from the 16th New York Cavalry. Like nearly every unit that had fought in the war, this detachment was made up of ordinary men—mostly farmers and mechanics—uprooted by the call of duty from their homes in the Adirondacks, in Buffalo, or in New York City. The most colorful character among them was also its ranking enlisted man. Sgt. Boston Corbett, thirty-two, was a four-year veteran with an outstanding record for bravery. He was born Thomas H. Corbett in London, but moved to the United States at an early age and grew up in Troy, New York. He learned the trade of hatter, got married, and planned to start a family. But when death claimed his wife and newborn child, Corbett fell into a profound depression. He eventually drifted up to New England and underwent a spiritual awakening. Renaming himself Boston Corbett, for the city of his rebirth, he grew his hair and beard in the fashion of Jesus Christ and dedicated himself to a pious existence in the service of God. Of his sincerity, he left no room for doubt. He once encountered a couple of prostitutes, and resolved to put himself above their temptations. Returning to his room, he cut off his testicles with a pair of scissors, and spent two weeks recovering at Massachusetts General Hospital.

  Though Corbett was only five feet four inches tall, he made up in confidence what he lacked in stature. He once upbraided an officer who took the Lord’s name in vain, and was given a harsh confinement—which he actually enjoyed, because it gave him some time alone with his Bible. In early 1864 he was captured in a fight against Mosby and was sent to Andersonville. He nearly died there, but the Confederates released him, even without an exchange, and he recovered miraculously. When he returned to his unit, he held the rank of sergeant.26

  Corbett was among those landing at Belle Plain. It was ten o’clock at night by then, and Lieutenant Doherty ordered Captain Henry Wilson, of the Ide, to wait there for two days before returning to Washington. Though all the men had been up since sunrise, their work was just beginning. From the landing at Belle Plain, they headed west three miles, then struck the main road that ran south out of Fredericksburg. There they split up the command and rode in two groups toward King George Court House. For the next
twelve hours they pushed ahead, searching, foraging, and questioning anyone who might have encountered the fugitives. Detectives Conger and Baker preferred deception to coercion; they pretended to be looking for two friends—one of them lame—from whom they had become separated. The rest of the party, following another route, searched for doctors who might have treated a man with a broken leg.

  ALL THE WHILE, Booth was asleep in a comfortable farmhouse in neighboring Caroline County. The Garretts had opened their home to him, and he was a great hit, especially with the youngest girls, Lillian, Cora, and Henrietta. They called him Mr. Boyd, and believed his story: that he had been wounded by an artillery shell while serving under A. P. Hill at Petersburg. For a time, he became a part of their household, and life was almost normal. Then the news arrived.

  As the family sat down to dinner on Tuesday, Jack Garrett came in and announced that Lincoln had been killed. They had all heard rumors of an assassination, but nobody knew the details until Jack spoke to a friend in Port Royal. He said that a $140,000 reward had been offered for the killer, and one of his brothers remarked, “He better not come this way or he would be gobbled up.”

  Booth remained nonchalant through all of this. “How much did you say had been offered?” he asked. When Garrett repeated the amount, he said, “I would sooner suppose five hundred thousand.”

  Talk of the manhunt didn’t seem to bother Booth, and even though he walked with crutches, nobody at the Garrett farm suspected he was actually the assassin. Indeed, they saw nothing suspicious about him until later that evening, when he took off his coat to go to bed. That’s when Will and Jack noticed he had two revolvers and a knife tucked into his belt.27

  A DAY AFTER they dropped Booth at the Garrett place, Herold and Bainbridge met up with Jett and Ruggles in Bowling Green. Herold had intended to keep moving west, toward Orange Court House, but someone had spotted a large cavalry unit on the way out there. Herold could not stay in town, so Bainbridge asked if he wanted to go back the way he came. “No,” said Herold, “I am not anxious to do so, but the gentleman [Jett] left there yesterday will be anxious for me to come back, and I am almost afraid to stay away from him.” So Bainbridge, Ruggles, and Herold went back to Garrett’s, while Jett stayed in town with his girlfriend.

  By then, Lieutenant Doherty and his men had come to the end of the line. After a long night of knocking on doors, they and the detectives converged at Port Conway on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth. They had fulfilled their orders to search the Northern Neck, and had found no trace of Booth. If they stayed on the road much longer, Captain Wilson might take his ship back to Washington without them. However, a chance encounter was soon to change their minds.

  A group of soldiers were milling around the ferry landing, and they happened to notice Dick Wilson, a black man employed by William Rollins. They asked if any strangers had been around lately, and Wilson said that strangers came through all the time. But when someone showed him the photographs of Booth, Herold, and Surratt, he recognized two of them. Excitedly, Byron Baker took the photos and showed them to Rollins. He confirmed it: Booth and Herold had come through there just twenty-four hours before. They had wanted to go to Orange Court House, but whether they made it that far, he could not say. Perhaps Willie Jett could tell them. Jett was one of three Confederates who had crossed the river with them. He shouldn’t be too hard to find; according to Rollins’s wife, Bettie, he was probably in Bowling Green, where his girlfriend lived at the Star Hotel.

  Finally, someone had found positive information on the fugitives’ progress. Though Booth and Herold had a twenty-four-hour lead, they might still be within reach. The chase party sprang to life, and Lieutenant Doherty sent three men across the river to bring back the ferry.28

  THAT WAS ABOUT FOUR-THIRTY on the afternoon of the twentyfifth. At the same time, Booth was sitting on the front porch of the Garrett house jotting something down in his diary. He was still there an hour later when two horsemen went past the gate in the distance. Jack Garrett recognized them from the day before, and he said, “There goes some of your party now.”

  Booth wasn’t expecting anyone, and the appearance of Bainbridge and Ruggles startled him. He jumped to his feet and shouted to Garrett, “You go get my pistols!” In a moment, he saw Dave Herold walking by himself toward the house, and he calmed down. Extending his hand, he asked his friend if he intended to stay.

  “I would like to go home,” Herold answered. “I am sick and tired of this way of living.” But Booth welcomed him back, and asked Jack Garrett if Herold could spend the night.

  Just then, Bainbridge and Ruggles came galloping up the lane. They had seen a column of Yankee cavalry on the road from Port Royal. “Marylanders, you had better watch out!” they warned. As Bainbridge and Ruggles “skedaddled” into the woods, Booth called for one of the Garrett boys to run and get his pistols. He hobbled into the woods, and Herold started to follow. But then he stopped in the yard and turned around. He was ready to give up.

  What Bainbridge and Ruggles had seen, of course, was the 16th New York Cavalry, galloping past them in search of Willie Jett. Had the cavalry been more alert, they might have noticed the fugitives heading for the woods. Herold, at least, was fully visible from the road as they went by. But nobody in the detachment had had a moment’s rest in the past thirty-six hours, and whatever energy they had left was focused ahead of the column, in the direction of Bowling Green. They stayed on track, and with William Rollins as their guide, they found their way to The Trap, where they made inquiries and continued on.

  It was well after eleven o’clock at night before they arrived in Bowling Green. Doherty posted a few of his men on the roads outside town, then took the rest with him, along with the detectives. Just across from the courthouse, on a main thoroughfare, stood the Star Hotel, a large two-story building with a wraparound colonnade. The soldiers dismounted some distance away, then quietly crept up to the building. Byron Baker tip-toed onto the front porch while Conger and Doherty went around to the back. An old black man was walking down the alley, and he pointed out that there was a rear entrance to the place. Conger posted himself there and waited for the signal that all exits were covered. Then he rapped at the door.

  After a long silence, someone inside walked up to the door and unlatched it. The door opened just a crack, and a woman asked who was there.

  “Open the door, or we will break it down,” said Conger. He and Doherty pushed their way inside, guns drawn, and confronted the petite middle-aged woman who had answered their knock. She was Julia Gouldman, wife of the owner, who had gone on a fishing trip. Mrs. Gouldman lit a lamp and, on Conger’s orders, led the way to Willie Jett’s room. They stormed in and found two men sharing a bed. One was Jesse Gouldman.

  Conger turned his attention to the other man. “Is your name Jett?” he asked. “Get up. I want you!” As Jett pulled on his drawers, he stammered out some excuse for not having his parole. He said he was going to get it at the first opportunity. Conger said that this had nothing to do with his parole. He wanted to know where those two men had gone—the ones who came across the river with Jett at Port Royal. From the tone of voice, and a Colt revolver aimed at his temple, Jett knew that Conger meant business. He asked if they might speak alone.

  When everyone else had cleared the room, Jett offered the detective a handshake, saying, “I know who you want, and I will tell you where they can be found.” He asked for some assurance that he would not be blamed for aiding in Booth’s escape. Conger agreed, and Jett got right to the point. “They are on the road to Port Royal, about three miles this side of that.” Booth and Herold had both crossed the Rappahannock, he said, but Booth had gone no farther than Garrett’s farm, where Herold had rejoined him. “I will go there with you, and show where they are now, and you can get them.”

  Conger thought that something didn’t sound right. “You say they are on the road to Port Royal?” He said that they had just come from there.

  “I thought you c
ame from Richmond,” said Jett. “If you have come that way, you have come past them.” It occurred to Jett that Booth and Herold might not still be at Garrett’s; the cavalry could have scared them off. Conger said they would just have to go back there and see.29

  Jett got dressed, and the soldiers regrouped for the ride back to Garrett’s. They would have to backtrack over twelve miles of rough country roads. With no moon, it was all they could do to stay on the road. They would have to go slowly, and after so many hours in the saddle, the trip must have seemed endless.

  After two hours of riding, Willie Jett finally located the entrance to Garrett’s farm. Doherty and the detectives asked about the layout of the place, and the best way to cover it. Jett said that there was another gate farther up, and when the soldiers gathered there, Lieutenant Doherty told them to have their weapons capped, loaded, and ready. “The assassin is in that house,” he said. “I want you to surround it, and let no man out.”

  “Open file to the right and left— Gallop!” With that command, the soldiers split up and surrounded the house. There was a barn in the distance, and when Doherty noticed it, he ordered Corporal Herman Newgarten to take six or seven men to cover it.

  Byron Baker looked for exits to the house. The front door opened onto a wide porch, and a kitchen wing, on the left side, had its own door that opened to the yard. Baker covered the kitchen door on horseback, and waited for the men to dismount and take up positions. The clamor awoke some dogs, and their barking aroused Richard Garrett from his sleep. He came to a window and asked what the trouble was.

  “Strike a light immediately,” Baker yelled. He dismounted and told Conger, who had just come from around the other side, that there was an old man in the house. They hitched their horses to a tree as Mr. Garrett stepped outside, without his clothes, candle in hand.