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

He decided to continue heading north, now on foot. After a short walk, he saw a smaller road forking to the left. He took the fork, deciding if he was off the main roads, there was less likelihood of running in to the Union Army. Powell assumed the Army would have been called out and put on full alert by now if both the President and the Secretary of State had been killed. He knew that Port Tobacco was essentially a coward and had no real love for the Confederacy, so he assumed Andrew Johnson was safe. But Booth was a man of a different color. If Powell was a wagering man, he’d put two dollars down on Lincoln not being alive at this moment. The dirt on the road was always mucky as it never completely dried out before the next rain came.

Powell walked on the side of the road as much as possible to avoid the wetter patches. It was hard to place his attack on the Secretary of State into the context of his own life. He had been raised as a good Christian boy in the home of a Baptist minister, who was also a schoolmaster and farmer. All of the Powell boys went to war when the North tried to dictate to the South how they should run things. It wasn’t right for the Federal government to tell the states how to manage their own land and their own people. Once his two older brothers had enlisted, Lewis had snuck off at seventeen years of age to enlist in the Confederate army, too.

He realized that he was approaching a fort off to his right, so he took a road that went the opposite way, which turned out to be Bladensburg Road. Worrying that he would be discovered with blood on his coat, he took it off, rolled it into a ball and tossed it into a small wooded area. As he walked along, he came by another fort, Bunker Hill. It loomed out of the darkening night like a hulk on the ocean. It was a rectangular brick and earthenwork fortification. The air was cooling quickly and clouds were gathering as he walked

Powell kept his distance from the fort and took a small road south, ending up in Glenwood Cemetery. The gravestones of the cemetery dotted the hillsides like sheep arrayed in perfect symmetry. Ahead he could see a small monument rising in the moonlight, marking the resting place of a wealthy man and his family. The monument was carved with angels and horns. Powell thought it was obscene for a man to create such a thing just to try to retain a sense of glory about himself after he was dead. ‘I done earned my glory. I done earned it tonight,’ he thought to himself. But he had murdered an innocent man. He had not met him on the battlefield but had snuck into his room like a common criminal.

As he walked across the cemetery, he continued to fret that he would be discovered without his hat. He took off his shirt, draping it over a tombstone, and tore off one of the sleeves from his gray woolen undershirt. He took this and wrapped it around his head tying it behind. Tying cloth around your head was a makeshift hat of the Confederates who lost their proper hats in battle. He ran his hands over the hat in the darkness and adjusted it so it was comfortable and looked proper. He put his shirt and suit coat back on.

As he walked down a row of graves, he came upon an open gravesite. He stood looking down into the hole opening up before him. The clouds dimmed the moonlight so it didn’t penetrate to the bottom of the open grave. It was perfect blackness. Powell’s eyes strained to make out the bottom of the grave, but there was nothing there. It was an open hole with no end to it. The grave seemed to be gaping wider and wider and drawing him down into it. He imagined that if he fell forward into the grave he would never hit bottom. He would fall for an eternity. And he would wonder for that eternity if he had done right that night. If he had served his country like he told himself or if he had some how served a mere stage actor. But Mosby had given him the assignment and he was following orders. That would be his eternal conversation … and wondering if Seward had actually died. He stood there mute before the gaping mouth in the earth and realized his life was never to be the same.

There was a pickaxe stuck in the ground next to the dirt pile that had been dug to make the gravesite. There would be yet another funeral here tomorrow. Powell thought about how many people had been killed because of Lincoln and Seward and the entire administration. He was glad that Booth had killed him and he only hoped that Seward was dead as well. Powell grabbed the pickaxe and propped it on his shoulder. He would take the pickaxe with him. He now had both a weapon and a laborer’s tool. He would claim to be a hired hand. Powell headed to a copse and decided to settle in for the night. It had to be midnight or later.

The moon shined on John Wilkes Booth and David Herold as they galloped south towards Surrattsville. It was a small town in Prince Georges County, but it would be a friendly place for Booth and Herold, the actor had made sure of that. He had been to Surratt’s Tavern before with John Surratt. The widow had decided to lease the tavern to John Lloyd just a year and-a-half before while she tried to make ends meet by focusing on the boardinghouse in Washington City. Her son John had assumed the position of Postmaster for the town in place of his father John, Sr., until the government figured out that the boy, like his father, was a Southern sympathizer. When they did, John Surratt, Jr., quickly lost the job and income of Postmaster and Mary had no choice but to lease the tavern. Booth hoped that Lloyd, who tended to tipple throughout the day and was typically right smart in liquor at night, would be awake and ready to give them the rifles, field glasses, and whiskey, as he’d asked Mrs. Surratt to ensure that afternoon.

Galloping through the night did not lend itself to conversation. Booth had planned to relive the assassination by recounting it to Herold, but the man did not ride close enough to hear him. So Booth had relived the attack in his own mind over and again. With each reliving, he began to imagine it differently, more grand and more dramatic. ‘Our cause being almost lost,’ he thought, ‘something decisive and great had to be done. So I struck boldly, walking with a firm step through a thousand of his friends,’ morphing the theatergoers into a series of guards and pickets who were posted to guard the President. ‘And when I was stopped, I pushed on,’ changing the President’s footman into an armed guard in his bold imagination. ‘A Colonel,’ he embellished, ‘was at his side, but I did not allow this to stop me. I shot the tyrant, fought the Colonel off and then leapt to the stage. In the leaping, I broke my leg, but I have been riding these thirty miles with the bones tearing at my flesh. I rode past his pickets on the road leading out of Washington City.’ His mind raced back and forth over the story, reliving it, adding to it where he felt it was needed, and changing the actual details that didn’t quite suit him.

‘I can never repent the act,’ he thought. ‘I hated to kill, but our Country owed all of her troubles to him and God simply made me the instrument of His punishment. This Country is no longer what it was. The forced union of South and North is not what I have loved. I do not care to outlive my Country, but I will flee and fight with all that I have in me. I have done the very thing that Brutus was honored for and I will, in turn, be welcomed as a hero when I arrive in my Country. I struck for my Country and that alone. She groaned beneath this tyranny and prayed for its end. I cannot see any wrong except in serving a degenerate people. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may before God, but not to man.’ He looked up at a bank of clouds glowing luminescent and gray from the moon shining behind them as he turned these unrepentant thoughts over in his mind.

“It’s just over here,” Herold called to him over his shoulder, holding his hand up in case Booth didn’t hear him. They slowed their horses, Booth wincing as the change in pace sent waves of lancing pain up his leg, into his spine. They pulled up and walked their horses towards a small white tavern. The roof was slanted and there was woodpile stacked behind the tavern house.

“I cannot get off the horse, Davey. Get the whiskey and the carbines and let’s get on with it. Tell that drunkard Lloyd to hurry the hell up.” Booth rubbed the thigh of his left leg and watched Herold dismount. He took a pocket watch from his vest leaning back to get the moon to shine on its face. It was after midnight. They were keeping in pace with his escape plan.

The young man jumped onto the porch of the tavern, rapped on the door and then immediately went inside without waiting for an answer. Lloyd was sitting at the bar sipping a drink.

“Lloyd, fer God’s sake make haste and get them things,” Herold said to him by way of greeting. Lloyd looked at him briefly and then headed upstairs without saying a word. Herold went behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He poured a glass full for himself, downing it in two quick gulps. It burned, but the familiar warmth dulled the angst created by the night. He took the bottle with him and went out to give it to Booth.

Upstairs, John Lloyd had gone to his bedroom. He had laid out the package wrapped in brown paper from Mrs. Surratt along with two carbine rifles. Several weeks before, on the day of the failed attempt to kidnap Abraham Lincoln, David Herold had given him the two rifles and told him to hide them and they’d come back for them later. Lloyd had not felt comfortable keeping the rifles, so he had gone to an unfinished room in the house and hidden them between the joists and ceiling. When Mrs. Surratt had told him to have the shooting irons ready because someone would come for them that night, Lloyd had taken them out and laid them out in his bedroom to keep them safe and out of sight. He had been drinking all afternoon and most of the night. He was thoroughly drunk at this point. He had fallen asleep at about 8:00 but had awakened around midnight and gone down to the bar to get another drink as a sleep aid when Herold had knocked loudly, bursting into the tavern a bundle of nervous energy.

Lloyd carried the guns down to the bar and found it empty, so he went outside. There he found Herold standing on the porch, pacing. Outside, he saw a man sitting on a lighter colored horse with a smaller roan pony standing unmounted. He assumed the roan was Herold’s ride.

He saw the man on the horse tip a bottle up and realized that Herold had taken a bottle of whiskey from the bar. “Here,” he spoke for the first time and thrust the rifles at Herold. Lloyd also held out the field glasses wrapped in brown paper. Herold unwrapped the glasses and let the paper and string fall to the ground. He carried the glasses to Booth, whom Lloyd did not know, and lifted up one of the rifles.

“I cannot take the rifle, Davey. I won’t be able to hold it and hang on to the horse. I have a broken leg.” Booth made this last statement to Lloyd standing on the porch. Lloyd nodded his head mutely. Herold brought the rifle back and propped it against the wall of the tavern. He handed the near empty bottle back to Lloyd.

“Here. I owe you a couple dollars,” he said and handed Lloyd a single dollar coin. Lloyd looked vacantly down at the coin in his hand.

“I will tell you some news if you want to hear it,” Booth called from his horse as Herold remounted.

“I am not p’ticular,” Lloyd replied. His voice was thick from the alcohol and the words seemed a surprise to him as they came out of his mouth. “Use yore own pleasure about tellin’ it.”

“Well, I am pretty certain that we have assassinated the President and the Secretary of State.” Booth blurted and didn’t wait for a response from the tavern keeper, but sank his spurs into the tired mare and galloped off into the night. David Herold kicked the roan pony and trailed behind him. John Lloyd stood on the porch looking at the empty place where the midnight visitors had just been. He could smell the dust the horses had kicked up hanging in the air. He turned the sentence over in his hazy head and realized that no good was to come of this dark night. He scratched his head then turned and went inside to get something more to drink. He would go to sleep and not tell anyone of these men who had visited the tavern so late at night.

Back Parlor Government

Edwin Stanton entered Petersen’s house with Gideon Welles, Chief Justice Cartter, and General Meigs. He removed his hat and coat. The house felt small to him and the world now seemed concentrated into the three rooms of the first floor of the boardinghouse that were teeming with people. The men and a few women moved by him more slowly than he was accustomed to. There were but a few people huddled in the first room on the left and Stanton realized that one of them was Mrs. Lincoln. The three men stepped inside to briefly speak with her, while General Meigs slowly walked down the hallway in search of President Lincoln. She sat with Miss Harris at her side on a sofa. They were still dressed in evening gowns for the theater. It seemed such a normal scene, as if two friends had returned from the play and were talking in a room while their husbands were off enjoying cigars in the gentlemen’s room. As they entered, Clara Harris stood to speak with them. The three men stopped together. Miss Harris was a creature from a nightmare and each man stopped breathing for a moment. Stanton’s spine stiffened in surprise. Miss Harris was elegantly dressed with her hair pulled up and held in place with tortoise shell combs. But her lovely dress was heavily spattered across the front with dark brown specks that were smeared into brown smudges in places. Her delicate high cheekbones also were smudged. Stanton at first thought it was carelessness with make-up until he realized it was blood. The dull brown of dried blood covered her dress, smudged her face, and was in her hair. She was a walking nightmare.

“My dear girl, how are you?” Welles asked as they stepped closer.

“Mrs. Lincoln is distraught,” Clara said in a low voice so as not to be overheard. “I know that you must speak to her, but do not mention President Lincoln by name, I beg you. It will send here into a fit of wailing that is unbearable.” As she spoke the frantic look in her eyes belied the calm guise of her face.

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Welles replied, taking her hand and stroking it.

“Miss Harris, is there anything I can do to be of service for you?” Cartter asked her.

“Not for me, but for my fiancé. Major Rathbone was struck by the assassin and is bleeding as well, but the doctors are all occupied tending to President Lincoln.” As Clara spoke, she turned to face a corner of the room where Rathbone was sitting, holding his arm with his hand. He was as pale as chalk. The blood from his gashed artery still dripped from his arm to a puddle on the floor below.

“Yes, ma’am, I will see what I can do,” Cartter replied.

“Thank you so much, Chief Justice Cartter,” she replied and then went to sit next to Mrs. Lincoln. Stanton was the first to step to the First Lady. His deep bass voice broke the stillness in the room.

“Mrs. Lincoln, I am so sorry for the shock that has come to you and the nation on this night. No one feels the pain more deeply than you, I am sure.” Mary Lincoln’s body jerked at the booming voice above her. She flinched at the word “pain” and raised her eyes to Edwin Stanton bending down to her. Mary Lincoln had never trusted Edwin Stanton and disliked him intensely. She felt that he bullied and berated her through a stream of caustic notes lecturing her about nepotism and cronyism any time she asked if he might be able to appoint a relative or friend to a minor post somewhere in the War Department. She glared at Stanton through tear-stained eyes, then dropped her head to Clara Harris’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Lincoln, may God bless you,” Welles said gently, bending his tall and angular frame over the weeping First Lady.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cartter added weakly by his side.

With that done, the three men slowly stepped away from the sofa and walked out of the room, into the small foyer just as Major Eckert came through the front door. Eckert was the commander of the Telegraph Service that Lincoln and Stanton had expanded to every front and field of battle during the war to ensure they had near immediate communication with their generals in the field. Stanton had made sure to locate the head of the telegraph right outside his office in the War Department and reorganized the Telegraph Department so that it reported directly to him. Throughout the war, he had maintained strict control over which pieces of news on the war were released, when that occurred, and how the news was presented to the nation. He often routed orders from commanding generals through himself as well as all updates on battles raging in the field. He now planned to use control of the central nervous system of information to set the entire nation on alert after this series of coordinated attacks. Stanton looked at the burly man approaching him and quietly recollected Lincoln’s joke about Eckert breaking pokers over his arm. ‘Could you have stopped this from happening?’ He thought momentarily.

“Mr. Stanton, sir, this is sad news indeed,” Eckert said as he approached the War Secretary. “Sir, good evening” he greeted Chief Justice Cartter with a nod of the head.

“Have there been reports of any other attacks on the Cabinet or Vice President Johnson?” Stanton asked.

“No, sir, but the news is still getting out. General Augur has already put his garrisons on alert. I have ordered my men to form a relay between this house and the War Department so you can issue orders from here throughout the night. Assuming you wish to remain by the President.”

“Yes, Major. I do.”

“Mr. Stanton, I believe that this room here could serve as your War Department for the evening,” General Meigs called to the War Secretary. The General was pointing down the hallway to the open doorway of a room that was catty-corner to the room where President Lincoln had been taken. Stanton walked into the room and took it in. It was about the same size as the room where Mrs. Lincoln sat, but this room had a small bed, a couple of tables, and a washstand.

“Yes, General, I think you are right. This room will serve us well. Major, please make sure that this room is not disturbed. Mr. Cartter, if you are willing, I would like to have you remain here to help with the taking of testimony. Major, please send witnesses in to us one at a time as they arrive. Get a report from General Augur and Major O’Beirne.” General Meigs then quietly showed Stanton to the doorway of the room where the President lay. Stanton took a deep breath and turned to go see his President.

Throughout the war, Stanton had seen Lincoln more than any other Cabinet member. They worked closely together, reviewing the latest events of the war, discussing stratagems of war, and sitting up late into the night in his office across the hall from the telegraph office, awaiting news on the progress of major battles. This close working relationship often sparked envy and jealousy among other Cabinet members and made Stanton the brunt of personal attacks from political opponents. Stanton’s brusque and condescending approach to issuing orders to senators and enlisted men alike did not raise his esteem in many eyes. Even as he entered the Petersen House that night, word quickly spread that he had arrived. The immediate assumption was that Stanton would take command of the situation. Generals and Cabinet members alike deferred to him though they often hated him in their hearts.

At the same time that Stanton and Welles were leaving the horrific scene at Seward’s home and making their way to the Petersen House, Doctor Leale determined that he should make a full inspection of Lincoln’s body now that he was safely in a bed and would no longer be moved. He looked about the room and realized that there were too many in the room for him to conduct the inspection of the President with proper decorum. Once Mary Lincoln had been escorted to another room, he asked everyone except Doctor Taft to leave the room. Together, they cut Lincoln’s clothes away and tossed them in a pile on the floor between the bed and the wall. Once this was done, Leale carefully inspected Lincoln’s entire body and satisfied himself that there were definitely no other wounds on the President. Lincoln’s extremities were very cold and this caused Leale alarm that his circulation was slowing rapidly. As they began to cover his body, Leale and Taft stopped to marvel at the man’s physique.

“I do not know President Lincoln well,” said Dr. Taft, “and I had no idea that he possessed such a muscular physique. He is a man of unusual strength.”

“He certainly doesn’t look as if he is in his mid fifties,” Leale responded.

“I dare say that any other man would have died within ten minutes of such a wound as he’s received. His strength and fortitude will enable him to struggle on, but, God help us, there is no hope of recovery.” The two stood silently in the still room, looking down at the fallen leader. Lincoln’s breath rattled in his chest and brought them from their brief reverie. They quickly and silently set about covering him with the blankets so he would not become even more chilled. Leale stepped outside the room, gave orders for sinapisms to be brought from the hospital and for warm water bottles to be gathered to be put into bed with the President. He had already sent for Dr. Robert Stone, Lincoln’s family doctor and Dr. Joseph Barnes, the Surgeon General of the United States. Charles Leale awaited the arrival of these other two doctors.

“Would you like to examine the wound more closely, Dr. Taft?” Leale asked. The other doctor nodded and stepped over to Lincoln. Taking Lincoln’s head gently in his own hands, he cradled the head with his left and hand and carefully slid a finger into the open wound. The ball had passed too deeply into the President’s head for him to find it with his probing finger, though. The man’s head was heavy. The doctor held it firmly and continued to probe inside the wound with his finger, but he only found that he cleared away coagulants. Taft stood and wiped the blood and fluids from his hands with a towel.

“I believe we should administer some brandy, sir,” he said to Leale with the tone of a superior.

“Sir, I gave him brandy while he was still in the theater. I do not believe that he will swallow it now and I do not want to strangle him.” Dr. Taft gave a curt nod and left the room, annoyed to have his recommendation summarily dismissed by the young Army Surgeon. In the meantime, the sinapism was brought, already made, and Dr. Leale set about smearing the mustard plaster over Lincoln’s abdomen and chest and the anterior of his body to raise his body temperature. The water bottles were also brought in and Leale placed these under the blankets to keep the President’s body as warm as possible. Leale then asked for Mrs. Lincoln and the friends of the President to be allowed back into the room. Mary Lincoln came in and sat in a rocking chair next to the bed, facing her husband. At the sight of him, she burst into tears and buried her face in the blankets.

Dr. Taft came back into the room while Mrs. Lincoln continued to weep, slumped in a heap on the bedside. “Dr. Leale, I have consulted with Dr. Barnes, who has just arrived, and he concurs that administering brandy and water would be advisable,” Taft held up small bottles of both for Leale to see.

“I do not concur, but seeing that you have asked others to weigh in, then I request that you administer to him only a small amount so as not to strangle him if he does not drink it.” A small smile flashed across Taft’s lips as he set the two bottles onto a small table and then poured brandy and water into a glass.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Lincoln, but I need to give this to the President,” he said gently to the First Lady so she would sit up. He carefully lifted Lincoln’s head. Leale hovered close by his patient, anxious to see the result. As Dr. Taft poured a small amount of the warming liquid into Lincoln’s mouth, a gargling noise was heard.

“There is laryngeal obstruction, sir,” Dr. Leale said and stepped in between Taft and the President. The President coughed and sputtered with the brandy mixture in his throat. Leale turned the President’s head to the side to empty the liquid from his mouth and gently dabbed inside his mouth with a towel to absorb any further liquid in the back of his throat. Leale glanced over at Taft, annoyed with himself for having given in to the older Doctor’s wishes. Taft, for his part, simply stepped back as if a coughing attack brought on by his administration of brandy was part of the treatment. As this was going on, Dr. Stone, Lincoln’s family physician, and Dr. Barnes, the Surgeon General, arrived.

Dr. Leale reviewed the prognosis and treatment that he had administered with both Dr. Stone and Dr. Barnes who stood by his side. Taft, who hovered by the three physicians, nodded for emphasis.

“Well, sir, I believe that you have done all that you could and done all that was correct,” Dr. Barnes pronounced.

“Yes, I believe I would have done just as you have done,” Dr. Stone added.

“We have found that in keeping the wound unobstructed, it is able to leak and thereby reduce the compression on the brain. I recommend that course of action be continued. With that, sir, as you are the President’s family physician, I turn the patient over to your care,” Dr. Leale said. “But I will stay with him until he expires.” The two men nodded at each other and Dr. Robert Stone took over responsibility for the care of the President of the United States.

Much of this activity took place while Stanton was being briefed and issuing his initial orders from the room next to Lincoln’s in the Petersen House. It was just as the formal exchange of care for the patient was taking place that Stanton took a deep breath and walked into the small bedroom and turned to face Lincoln. As he walked into the room for the first time, several heads turned to look at him, among them Mary Lincoln. When she saw the despised Stanton entering, she arose and left the room without acknowledging the man. The President’s head was propped on several pillows. He was laying awkwardly at an angle across the bed. His face was sunken and gray. Both of his eyes were closed and his right eye was swollen and bulging outward, forcing the eyelid open so just a slit of the eyeball was visible beneath. Purple and blue mottling was forming around his right eye as well, as the damage from the bullet lodged behind it became more visible. The pillows beneath his head were damp and brownish from the oozing wound. Stanton looked down at his fallen leader. His mind went blank as he took in the blood, the paleness of the skin, and the bruising eyes. But when he heard the rattling breath of the President, like a heavy box being dragged over gravel, it immediately reminded him of the labored breaths of his beloved first wife on the night that she died. ‘Abraham Lincoln is going to die,’ he said to himself.