Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth — Solution of the Conspiracy (2)

In this growing darkness, where all rehearsed cold-hearted murder, Wilkes Booth grew great of stature.

He had found a purpose consonant with his evil nature and bad influence over weak men; so he grew moodier, more vigilant, more plausible.

By mien and temperament he was born to handle a stiletto.

We have no face so markedly Italian; it would stand for Caesar Borgia any day in the year.

All the rest were swayed or persuaded by Booth; his schemes were three in order: 1st.

To kidnap the President and Cabinet, and run them South or blow them up.

2d.

Kidnapping failed, to murder the President and the rest and seek shelter in the confederate capital.

3d.

The rebellion failed, to be its avenger, and throw the country into consternation, while he escaped by the unfrequented parts of Maryland.

When this last resolution had been made, the plot was both contracted and extended.

There were made two distinct circles of confidants--those aware of the meditated murder, and those who might shrink from murder, though willing accessories for a lesser object.

Two colleagues for blood were at once accepted--Payne and Atzerott.

The former I have sketched; he is believed to have visited Washington once before, at Booth's citation; for the murder was at first fixed for the day of inauguration.

Atzerott was a fellow of German descent, who had led a desperate life at Port Tobacco, where he was a house-painter.

He had been a blockade-runner across the Potomac, and a mail-carrier.

When Booth and Mrs. Surratt broke the design to him, with a suggestion that there was wealth in it, he embraced the offer at once, and bought a dirk and pistol.

Payne also came from the North to Washington, and, as fate would have it, the President was announced to appear at Ford's theater in public.

There the resolve of blood was reduced to a definite moment.

On the night before the crime Booth found on whom he could rely.

John Surratt was sent northward by his mother on Thursday.

Sam Arnold and McLaughlin, each of whom was to kill a cabinet officer, grew pigeon-livered and ran away.

Harold true to his partiality, lingered around Booth to the end; Atzerott went so far as to take his knife and pistol to Kirkwood's, where President Johnson was stopping, and hid them under the bed.

But either his courage failed, or a trifling accident deranged his plan.

But Payne, a professional murderer, stood "game," and fought his way over prostrate figures to his sick victim's bed.

There was great confusion and terror among the tacit and rash conspirators on Thursday night.

They had looked upon the plot as of a melodrama, and found to their horror that John Wilkes Booth meant to do murder.

Six weeks before the murder, young John Surratt had taken two splendid repeating carbines to Surrattville and told John Lloyd to secret them.

The latter made a hole in the wainscotting and suspended them from strings, so that they fell within the plastered wall of the room below.

On the very afternoon of the murder, Mrs. Surratt was driven to Surrattsville, and she told John Lloyd to have the carbines ready because they would be called for that night.

Harold was made quartermaster, and hired the horses.

He and Atzerott were mounted between 8 o'clock and the time of the murder, and riding about the streets together.

The whole party was prepared for a long ride, as their spurs and gauntlets show.

It may have been their design to ride in company to the Lower Potomac, and by their numbers exact subsistence and transportation; but all edifices of murder lack a corner stone.

We only know that Booth ate and talked well during the day; that he never seemed so deeply involved in 'oil,' and that there is a hiatus between his supper here and his appearance at Ford's theater.

Lloyd, I may interpolate, ordered his wife a few days before the murder to go on a visit to Allen's Fresh.

She says she does not know why she was so sent away, but swears that it is so.

Harold, three weeks before the murder, visited Port Tobacco, and said that the next time the boys heard of him he would be in Spain; he added that with Spain there was no extradition treaty.

He said at Surrattsville that he meant to make a barrel of money, or his neck would stretch.

Atzerott said that if he ever came to Port Tobacco again he would be rich enough to buy the whole place.

Wilkes Booth told a friend to go to Ford's on Friday night and see the best acting in the world.

At Ford's theater, on Friday night, there were many standers in the neighborhood of the door, and along the dress circle in the direction of the private box where the President sat.

The play went on pleasantly, though Mr. Wilkes Booth an observer of the audience, visited the stage and took note of the positions.

His alleged associate, the stage carpenter, then received quiet orders to clear the passage by the wings from the prompter's post to the stage door.

All this time, Mr. Lincoln, in his family circle, unconscious of the death that crowded fast upon him, watched the pleasantry and smiled and felt heartful of gentleness.

Suddenly there was a murmur near the audience door, as of a man speaking above his bound.

He said: "Nine o'clock and forty-five minutes!"

These words were reiterated from mouth to mouth until they passed the theater door, and were heard upon the sidewalk.

Directly a voice cried, in the same slightly-raised monotone: "Nine o'clock and fifty minutes!"

This also passed from man to man, until it touched the street like a shudder.

"Nine o'clock and fifty-five minutes!"

said the same relentless voice, after the next interval, each of which narrowed to a lesser span the life of the good President.

Ten o'clock here sounded, and conspiring echo said in reverberation: "Ten o'clock!"

So like a creeping thing, from lip to lip, went: "Ten o'clock and five minutes."

(An interval.

) "Ten o'clock and ten minutes!"

At this instant Wilkes Booth appeared in the door of the theater, and the men who had repeated the time so faithfully and so ominously scattered at his coming, as at some warning phantom.

Fifteen minutes afterwards the telegraph wires were cut.

All this is so dramatic that I fear to excite a laugh when I write it.

But it is true and proven, and I do not say it but report it.

All evil deeds go wrong.

While the click of the pistol, taking the President's life, went like a pang through the theater, Payne was spilling blood in Mr. Seward's house from threshold to sick chamber.

But Booth's broken leg delayed him or made him lose his general calmness and he and Harold left Payne no to his fate.

I have not adverted to the hole bored with a gimlet in the entry door of Mr. Lincoln's box, and cut out with a penknife.

The theory that the pistol-ball of Booth passed through this hole is exploded.

And the stage carpenter may have to answer for this little orifice with all his neck.

For when Booth leaped from the box he strode straight across the stage by the footlights, reaching the prompter's post, which is immediately behind that private box opposite Mr. Lincoln.

From this box to the stage door in the rear, the passage-way leads behind the ends of the scenes, and if generally either closest up by one or more withdrawn scenes, or so narrow that only by doubling and turning sidewise can one pass along.

On this fearful night, however, the scenes were so adjusted to the murderer's design that he had a free aisle from the foot of the stage to the exit door.

Within fifteen minutes after the murder the wires were severed entirely around the city, excepting only a secret wire for government uses, which leads to Old Point.

I am told that by this wire the government reached the fortifications around Washington, first telegraphing all the way to Old Point, and then back to the outlying forts.

This information comes to me from so many creditable channels that I must concede it.

Payne, having, as he thought, made an end of Mr. Seward--which would have been the case but for Robinson, the nurse--mounted his horse, and attempted to find.

Booth.

But the town was in alarm, and he galloped at once for the open country, taking as he imagined, the proper road for the East Branch.

He rode at a killing pace, and when near Fort Lincoln, on the Baltimore pike, his horse threw him headlong.

Afoot and bewildered, he resolved to return to the city, whose lights he could plainly see; but before doing so ho concealed himself some time, and made some almost absurd efforts to disguise himself.

Cutting a cross section from the woolen undershirt which covered his muscular arm, he made a rude cap of it, and threw away his bloody coat.

This has since been found in the woods, and blood has been found also on his bosom and sleeves.

He also spattered himself plentifully with mud and clay, and, taking an abandoned pick from the deserted intrenchments near by, he struck at once for Washington.

By the providence which always attends murder, he reached Mrs. Surratt's door just as the officers of the government were arresting her.

They seized Payne at once, who had an awkward lie to urge in his defense--that he had come there to dig a trench.

That night he dug a trench deep and broad enough for both of them to lie in forever.

They washed his hands, and found them soft and womanish; his pockets contained tooth and nail brushes and a delicate pocket knife.

All this apparel consorted ill with his assumed character.

He is, without doubt, Mr. Seward's attempted murderer.

Coarse, and hard, and calm, Mrs. Surratt shut up her house after the murder, and waited with her daughters till the officers came.

She was imperturbable, and rebuked her girls for weeping, and would have gone to jail like a statue, but that in her extremity, Payne knocked at her door.

He had come, he said, to dig a ditch for Mrs. Surratt, whom he very well knew.

But Mrs. Surratt protested that she had ever seen the man at all, and had no ditch to clean.

"How fortunate, girls," she said, "that these officers are here; this man might have murdered us all."

Her effrontery stamps her as worthy of companionship with Booth.

Payne has been identified by a lodger of Mrs. Surratt's, as having twice visited the house under the name of Wood.

The girls will render valuable testimony in the trial.

If John Surratt were in custody the links would be complete.

Atzerott had a room almost directly over Vice-President Johnson's. He had all the materials to do murder, but lost spirit or opportunity.

He ran away so hastily that all his arms and baggage were discovered; a tremendous bowie-knife and a Colt's cavalry revolver were found between the mattresses of his bed.

Booth's coat was also found there, showing conspired flight in company, and in it three boxes of cartridges, a map of Maryland, gauntlet for riding, a spur and a handkerchief marked with the name of Booth's mother--a mother's souvenir for a murderer's pocket!

Atzerott fled alone, and was found at the house of his uncle in Montgomery county.

I do not know that any instrument of murder has ever made me thrill as when I drew this terrible bowie-knife from its sheath.

Major O'Bierne, of New-York, was the instigator of Atzerott's discovery and arrest.

I come now to the ride out of the city by the chief assassin and his dupe.

Harold met Booth immediately after the crime in the next street, and they rode at a gallop past the Patent Office and over Capitol Hill.

As they crossed the Eastern branch at Uniontown, Booth gave his proper name to the officer at the bridge.

This, which would seem to have been foolish, was, in reality, very shrewd.

The officers believed that one of Booth's accomplices had given this name in order to put them out of the real Booth's track.

So they made efforts elsewhere, and so Booth got a start.

At midnight, precisely, the two horsemen stopped at Surrattsville, Booth remaining on his nag while Harold descended and knocked lustily at the door.

Lloyd, the landlord, came down at once, when Harold pushed past him into the bar, and obtained a bottle of whiskey, some of which he gave to Booth immediately.

While Booth was drinking, Harold went up stairs and brought down one of the carbines.

Lloyd started to get the other, but Harold said: "We don't want it; Booth has broken his leg and can't carry it."

So the second carbine remained in the hall, where the officers afterward found it.

As the two horsemen started to go off, Booth cried out to Lloyd: "Do you want to hear some news?"

"I don't care much about it," cried Lloyd, by his own account.

"We have murdered," said Booth, "the President and Secretary of State!"

And with this horrible confession, Booth and Harold dashed away in the midnight, across Prince George's county.

On Saturday, before sunrise, Booth and Harold, who had ridden all night without stopping elsewhere, reached the house of Dr. Mudd, three miles from Bryantown.

They contracted with him for twenty-five dollars in greenbacks to set the broken leg.

Harold, who knew Dr. Mudd, introduced Booth under another name, and stated that he had fallen from his horse during the night.

The doctor remarked of Booth that he draped the lower part of his face while the leg was being set; he was silent, and in pain.

Having no splits in the house, they split up an old-fashioned wooden band-box and prepared them.

The doctor was assisted by an Englishman, who at the same time began to hew out a pair of crutches.

The inferior bone of the left leg was broken vertically across, and because vertically it did not yield when the crippled man walked upon it.

The riding boot of Booth had to be cut from his foot; within were the words "J. Wilkes."

The doctor says he did not notice these, but that visual defect may cost him his neck.

The two men waited around the house all day, but toward evening they slipped their horses from the stable and rode away in the direction of Allen's Fresh.

Below Bryantown run certain deep and slimy swamps, along the belt of these Booth and Harold picked up a negro named Swan, who volunteered to show them the road for two dollars; they gave him five more to show them the route to Allen's Fresh, but really wished, as their actions intimated, to gain the house of one Sam.

Coxe, a notorious rebel, and probably well advised of the plot.

They reached the house at midnight.

It is a fine dwelling, one of the best in Maryland.

And after hallooing for some time, Coxe came down to the door himself.

As soon as he opened it and beheld who the strangers were, he instantly blew out a candle he held in his hand, and without a word pulled them into the house, the negro remaining in the yard.

The confederates remained in Coxe's house till 4 A. M.

, during which time, the negro saw them drink and eat heartily; but when they reappeared they spoke in a loud tone, so that Swan could hear them, against the hospitality of Coxe.

All this was meant to influence the darkey; but their motives were as apparent as their words.

He conducted them three miles further on, when they told him that now they knew the way, and giving him five dollars more--making twelve in all--told him to go back.

But when the negro, in the dusk of the morning, looked after them as he receded, he saw that both horses' heads were turned once more toward Coxe's, and it was this man, doubtless, who harbored the fugitives from Sunday to Thursday, aided, possibly, by such neighbors as the Wilsons and Adamses.

At the point where Booth crossed the Potomac the shores are very shallow, and one must wade out some distance to where a boat will float.

A white man came up here with a canoe on Friday, and tied it by a stone anchor.

Between seven and eight o'clock it disappeared, and in the afternoon some men at work in Virginia, saw Booth and Harold land, tie the boat's rope to a stone, and fling it ashore, and strike at once across a ploughed field for King George Court House.

Many folks entertained them without doubt, but we positively hear of them next at Port Royal Ferry, and then at Garrett's farm.

I close this article with a list of all who were at Garrett's farm on the death of Booth.

1. E.

J.

Conger, \ Detectives.

2. Lieut.

Baker, / 3. Surgeon from Port Royal, 4. Four Garrett daughters.

5. Harold, Booth's accomplice, _Soldiers_.

--Company H, Sixteenth New-York Volunteer Cavalry, Lieutenant Ed.

P.

Doherty commanding: Corporals A. Neugarten, J. Waly, M. Hornsby: Privates J. Mellington, D. Darker, E. Parelays, W. Mockgart;

Corporals--Zimmer (Co. C), M.

Taenaek; Privates H. Pardman, J. Meiyers, W.

Burnn, F. Meekdank, G. Haich, J. Raien, J. Kelly, J. Samger (Co. M),

G.

Zeichton,--Steinbury, L. Sweech (Co. A), A.

Sweech (Co. H), F.

Diacts; Sergeant Wandell; Corporals Lannekey, Winacky; Sergeant Corbett (Co. L).

Sergeant Corbett, who shot Booth, was the only man of the command belonging to the same company with Lieutenant Doherty, Commandant.

LETTER VI.

THE DETECTIVES' STORIES.