Authors: James L. Swanson
Manhunt
MANHUNT
The
TWELVE-DAY CHASE
for
LINCOLN'S KILLER
James L. Swanson
For my parents,
Lennart and Dianne Swanson
I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence ⦠that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that
all
should have an equal chanceâ¦. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? ⦠If it can't be saved upon that principle ⦠if this country cannot be saved without giving up on that principle ⦠I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it.
âPRESIDENT-ELECT ABRAHAM LINCOLN DURING
A SPEECH ON FEBRUARY 22, 1861, TEN DAYS
BEFORE TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE AS THE
SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
This man's appearance, his pedigree, his coarse jokes and anecdotes, his vulgar similes, and his policy are a disgrace to the seat he holds â¦
he
is ⦠the tool of the North, to crush out, or try to crush out slavery, by robbery, rapine, slaughter and bought armies ⦠a false president yearning for a kingly succession â¦
âJOHN WILKES BOOTH TO HIS SISTER AT A PRIVATE
HOME SHORTLY BEFORE PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S
REELECTION IN NOVEMBER 1864
Chapter One
- “I Had This Strange Dream Again Last Night”
Chapter Three
- “His Sacred Blood”
Chapter Four
- “We Have Assassinated the President”
Chapter Five
- “Find the Murderers”
Chapter Six
- “That Vile Rabble of Human Bloodhounds”
Chapter Seven
- “Hunted Like a Dog”
Chapter Eight
- “I Have Some Little Pride”
Chapter Nine
- “Useless, Useless”
Chapter Ten
- “So Runs the World Away”
P. S. Insights, Interviews & More â¦
A Conversation with James L. Swanson
James L. Swanson on His Next Book
Have You Read? More by James L. Swanson
“I CHALLENGE ANYONE TO BEGIN THE CHASE AND NOT BECOME COMPLETELY ENGROSSED.”
1. Map of Booth's Escape Route
2. Lincoln's Second Inaugural, March 4, 1865
4. The assassination of President Lincoln
6. Map of downtown Washington, D.C.
7. Fanny and William H. Seward
11. Booth portrait used in the manhunt
12. Luther and Lafayette Baker and Everton Conger
13. Garrett's Farm, April 26, 1865
14.
The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth
18. Touring wax portrait of the assassination
I
T LOOKED LIKE A BAD DAY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
. T
ERRIFIC
winds and thunderstorms had swept through Washington early that morning, dissolving the dirt streets into a sticky muck of soil, garbage, and horse droppings. Women, for their own safety, were advised to stay indoors. The ugly gray sky of the morning of March 4, 1865, threatened to spoil the great day. One block east of the Capitol Building, a patent lawyer and part-time photographer named William M. Smith set up his camera and pointed its lens at the temporary wood platform that had been hastily erected over the East Front steps. His job was to make a historic photographâthe first image ever taken during a presidential inauguration of the recently completed great dome. Smith adjusted his apparatus until his lens framed the panoramic, vertical view, from the low-lying plinth of Horatio Greenough's marble statue of George Washington on the lawn to the tip top of the dome, crowned by Thomas Crawford's bronze statue of “Freedom.” Abraham Lincoln had ordered that work on the dome continue during the war as a sign that the Union would go on.
Closer to the Capitol, and standing on another platform, Alexander Gardner set up his camera to photograph the ceremony. Gardner's large, glass-plate negatives captured not only images of the president, vice president, chief justice, and other dignitaries occupying the
stands, but also the anonymous faces of hundreds of spectators who crowded the East Front scene. One face among them stands out. On a balcony above the stands, standing near an iron railing, a young, black-mustachioed man wearing a top hat gazes down on the president. It is the celebrated actor John Wilkes Booth.
Abraham Lincoln rose from his chair and advanced toward the podium. He was now at the height of his power, with the Civil War nearly won. In one hand he held a single sheet of paper, typeset and printed in double columns. The foreboding clouds threatened another downpour. Then, reported Noah Brooks, journalist and friend of the president, the strangest thing happened: “Just at that moment the sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor, and flooded the spectacle with glory and light. Every heart beat quicker at the unexpected omen ⦠so might the darkness which had obscured the past four years be now dissipated.” The president's text was briefâjust 701 words.
“Fondly do we hopeâfervently do we prayâthat this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass awayâ¦. With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphanâto do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Subsequent events would soon change how witnesses recalled Lincoln's greatest day. To Noah Brooks, “Chiefly memorable in the mind of those who saw that second inauguration must still remain the tall, pathetic, melancholy figure of the man who ⦠illuminated by the deceptive brilliance of a March sunburst, was already standing in the shadow of death.”