A Night of Horrors: A Historical Thriller about the 24 Hours of Lincoln's Assassination (23 page)

“You there! That’s my horse and she was due at the stable hours ago!” He yelled and ran toward the man. Before he could get close at all, the man kicked poor Charley into a gallop and fled the area. Fletcher, determined not to pay the price for the stolen horse, ran back to the barn and quickly saddled a horse. He had a feeling the man was heading toward the Navy Yard Bridge.

David Herold had been surprised by the stableman suddenly running across the street and yelling at him. “Damn fool!” Herold cursed him and kicked the horse to urge him on even faster. He responded and Herold was easily away from the pursuing stableman. “That’s it,” he pronounced to himself. He was now determined more than at any time in his life to leave Washington City. He had no plans to return any time soon, if at all. His stomach sprang into life like moths fluttering around a candle. He would ride south and east to arrive at the Anacostia Bridge. He put Fletcher and his curses behind him and galloped down the street. He fled through the streets of Washington City efficiently, following a similar route as Booth. He slowed his horse as he neared the bridge and approached the picket at what he hoped would appear to be a casual walk.

“Who goes there?” Sergeant Cobb called out to Herold. He held his hand up to stop him from going by.

“My name is Smith,” Herold lied.

“Where are you heading to?”

“I am going home to White Plains,” Herold responded with the name of a town he knew well in Charles County.

“You can’t pass as it is after 9:00 o’clock. It is against the rules,” Cobb explained.

“How long have them rules been out?” Herold demanded, his voice rising.

“For some time, sir. Ever since I’ve been assigned to this post. How come you weren’t out of the city before this time of night?”

“I couldn’t very well do that. I stopped to see a woman on Capitol Hill,” Herold said and smirked and winked toward the Sergeant. Cobb looked up at Herold and considered the response. He was a bit surprised with this man’s candor and assumed the intimate detail was shared out of nervousness and, therefore, assumed it was an honest response.

“Well, if I were to allow you to pass, you could not return until sunrise,” Cobb responded. Herold felt a flood of relief course through him like rushing waters after a summer storm.

“I don’t plan on a’ comin’ back,” Herold said truthfully and walked on.

Cobb listened to the clopping of the horses on the low wooden drawbridge. Cobb and the other guard had not been talking too long when a third rider approached the bridge; this time at a gallop. It was John Fletcher in pursuit of the light roan horse, Charley.

“Did a man with no whiskers and in his twenties come by? He was ridin’ a roan horse,” Fletcher was breathless. He had pushed the horse hard to try to make up for the head start that Herold had on him.

“Yeah, I just let a man pass on a roan,” Sergeant Cobb answered. “Just a short time ago.”

“God! I must pass because he has my horse.”

“If I let you go across, you cannot come back until after sunrise,” Cobb explained.

“But I just need to retrieve my horse and return. I must get back to the stable and care for the rest of the horses,” Fletcher protested.

“That’s a rule, sir. You can’t come back until after sunrise.”

Fletcher looked out over the bridge stretching across the river, the farther end disappearing in the night. He slowly shook his head and tightened his mouth. “Damn it,” he said more to himself than to the Sergeant. He turned his horse and headed back into the city at a much slower pace than when he left it.

Booth sat on his horse, his left leg still hanging loose out of the stirrup. It was throbbing, and he could feel that it was swollen and pushing against the constraint of the boot. Booth looked from side to side in the dark, straining his ears for sounds of riders in the night. He wondered how much more time he’d have before the Army was called out and the cavalry began the inevitable pursuit of the killer of Abraham Lincoln. He shifted in the saddle, but there was no relief from the throbbing pain in his leg. The mare slammed her hoof down, impatient to be galloping again. She dragged her hoof in the dirt. Then he heard the distant sound of approaching riders—no it was a single rider. Booth gently pulled the reins to lift the horse’s head in case he needed to flee quickly. The hooves pounding the dirt grew louder and then slowed as the rider came over the hill. Booth suddenly felt uneasy and exposed. He had dropped the pistol and only had the Bowie knife as a weapon. He would get the carbine rifles from Mrs. Surratt’s tavern, but now he was essentially defenseless if he was about to be accosted by a Union officer.

“John? You there?” The rider called out. Booth exhaled. It was Herold.

“Davey, I am here,” he called out and prodded the horse to step out of the shadows. “Where are the other two?” Booth demanded as the other conspirator approached.

“I don’t think Tobacco did nothin’ and dunno where he is,” Herold answered.

“What about Seward?” Booth demanded of Powell’s effort to kill Seward.

“I think he killed Seward, but we got separated,” Herold lied.

“But he killed the Secretary of State?” Booth pressed the other.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think so. That’s what he said, a’ fore we got separated,” he repeated. “What ‘bout Lincoln? Did you kill ‘im?” Herold asked, because he was genuinely curious, but he also wanted to change the topic.

“He is dead. I shot him in the head,” Booth pronounced the deed in his deep baritone stage voice. Then he winced dramatically to ensure that Herold saw it.

“Are yeh shot, John?” Herold asked.

“No. But my leg’s broken. A Colonel was in the box with Lincoln and I had to fight him off after I made my way through tens of the tyrant’s friends and guards to get at him.” Booth embellished ranks and numbers in his rendition, building on the grandiosity of his deed. “He grabbed at me as I leapt from the box, my spur tangled in the flag and I fell funny. I think my leg’s broken, damn it!”

“Let’s go find a doctor,” Herold said.

“We have to go to Surrattsville and retrieve the shooting irons at the tavern,” Booth said, wincing once more.

“Oh, yeah. Well let’s go then,” Herold replied, and waited for Booth. Booth wrapped the fingers of his left hand into the horse’s mane. Before he prodded his horse to head down the road, he paused to listen once more for sounds of Powell’s horse on the road behind them. But there was only silence and the bone-white moon above him. Booth’s spirits sank a bit at not hearing Powell’s horse. He wasn’t disappointed about his friend’s potential capture. He simply wanted the assurance that two of the three targets had been killed that night. Nonetheless, Booth had killed the tyrant and delivered the South a victory that would reenergize the War and their struggle of freedom.

“Let’s go, Davey. I ‘spect two dead are better than none.” Booth pricked his spur to the horse’s side and the two started down the road towards Surrattsville.

Panic had begun to spread across Washington City from Tenth Street like a fever running rampant in a dying man. Word of Lincoln’s assassination was shared from house to house and street to street. Theatergoers at Ford’s had stopped at friend’s and family’s homes to tell them of the horrible event. They, in turn, ran over to their friends and family to tell them of the news. Meanwhile, neighbors and soldiers who had viewed the carnage at the Seward’s home had also begun to describe the wreckage to anyone who would listen. Soon, the two stories combined and grew until the city was anxiously awaiting confirmation that the entire Cabinet had been killed along with Ulysses S. Grant. Fear soon followed the news and citizens began to lock their doors and windows. Panic came shortly on the heels of fear as word spread that the murders were but a precursor to a Confederate attack on the city. Citizens looked about anxiously for some sign that the Union Army was in control of the city, but there was none in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The city streets were emptied except for F Street, outside Petersen’s house, where President Lincoln had been taken. There a growing crowd of people stood, nearly silent, except for brief breathless conversations that took place as the vigil began at the deathbed of Abraham Lincoln.

“Did you hear that Seward was attacked and killed?” One would whisper to the man next to him, whether he knew him or not.

“And Stanton as well.”

“They said the entire Cabinet was attacked, but Welles escaped.”

“Have you news of Grant’s condition? I heard he was shot while sleeping.”

Agitated citizens cleared the streets and locked their doors. Worried men looked over their shoulders to see if friend or foe had fallen into step behind them. An unruly crowd made their way to the Old Capitol prison, where thousands of Confederate prisoners were being held. They had heard that the rebel army was on their way to attack the guards and free the prisoners. With this force they could easily capture Washington and the war would suddenly take a horrific turn. When they arrived and found the guards safe and the prisoners in hand, the crowd became mob-like and grew angry and demanded to be let in to kill the prisoners for somehow aiding in Lincoln’s assassination.

Mothers held their children closer on this Good Friday night and men looked through the drapes at the streets outside, peering into the dark for the furtive Confederate soldiers. The President of the United States had been shot for the first time in history. The Secretary and Assistant Secretary of State had also been attacked. Suddenly, the security and confidence of the Union victory drained away in the darkness of night. In just a few short hours, the very foundation of the United States seemed to chip and crack and possibly crumble as the very head of Government had been decapitated. The citizens of the nation’s capital were left with questions and the fear of what the answers might be. With each passing minute the unknown was filled with stories of additional slain leaders and the specter of not only a leaderless country, but also a nation without a government. The hearts of citizens beat restless and mournful in the deep hours of the night.

When Lewis Powell had “skedaddled” away from the Seward’s home, he headed east. As he had lectured Herold on the need to have things well planned, he had secretly looked at a map and knew there was an alternative bridge to get him over the Eastern Branch and into southern Maryland. As he had fled from Lafayette Park, he had hoped that he was heading towards Benning Road, which would get him to a bridge north of the Navy Yard Bridge that he knew Booth and Herold both planned to take. Powell made his way across the city and found Benning Road with only a few stops to maintain his bearings. He was sweating, had lost his hat, and he felt very exposed without it. ‘What kind of a man rides around the city without his hat on?’ So far he was skedaddling without mishap, but he quickly saw that he had a problem. The bridge across the river and out of the city was gated! Powell pulled the horse up and sat there studying the gate. He cursed his poor luck.

Powell considered his options as he sat looking through the moonlight at the locked gate. He could head back into the city, try to find a room for the night and then ride to southern Maryland in the morning. That didn’t sit right with him though. You never go towards the enemy when they are making war preparations. Powell knew the city would be crawling with the Union Army and Cavalry now that he’d attacked Seward and Booth had shot the President. He didn’t even consider that Booth had not followed through with his plan to kill Lincoln. So at least two of the most powerful men in the nation had been attacked and the Army would be on high alert. Powell could find the road to Baltimore and head up there. He had friends in Baltimore who would help him. Or, he could just find a place off the road and sleep on the ground. He’d done it many, many times when he was with the Confederate Army. The last option kept him away from the city and the Union Army and offered him the comfort of a country setting. Powell knew that he’d be able to maneuver in the night much more easily in the country than he could the streets of Washington City that were so unfamiliar to him.

So Powell tapped the one-eyed horse with his heels, but she didn’t move. The damn horse was being stubborn again. He kicked her a bit harder with the heels of his boots, but she continued to stand there.

“Walk on,” he commanded and kicked her again. The mare stood as still as a stone. “Damn it. Walk on!” He yelled and sunk his heels into her flanks. The horse bolted and Powell barely held on. The mare thundered down Benning, then took a right onto Bladensburg Turnpike, going north. Powell had regained control of her, and was happy to exit the city with as much speed as possible. Now that they were getting out of the city, the houses were far apart. The trees quickly grew thick and dense. The bright moonlight created shadows and odd shapes in the dark.

As Powell was looking from side to side to make sure there wasn’t a group of soldiers hiding in the trees, the horse suddenly stopped short and dropped her head. Powell tried to keep his seat in the saddle, but the abrupt halt caught him unaware and he fell forward over the lowered head of the horse, flipping in the air. He found himself on the ground, flat on his back and slightly dazed. He lay there for a moment, then stood and brushed his hands. As he was cleaning himself up, the one-eyed horse turned and cantered down the road, back the way they had just come. Powell stood there, his hands hanging empty at his side, and watched her leave him alone on the the road..