The Day Lincoln Was Shot (21 page)

The city looked as though all of the people, in concert, had agreed to stay home until this hour. The sun was hesitant, but the air was warm and the wooden walks were crowded with women, many walking in pairs, their full skirts bobbing forward and back with each step. Buggies, surreys and gigs paraded the Avenue, and single-mount riders posted at slow trots and took in the sights. Bars were again crowded, and the underside of bristling mustaches sparkled with foam. The restaurants did a good business, for this was the supper hour. Later, the oyster houses along Maine Avenue would be catering to the trade because it was the custom, after a big dinner, to adjourn to an oyster house for seafood and drinks and leisurely conversation.

The President had finished a day's work. He had no more afternoon appointments and he got up slowly from his desk, put his fragile glasses in a case, and went to the little closet on the north side of the office to wash. He removed his black coat, pulled his cuffs loose from the links, and washed his hands. His face, if he bothered to look at it, was tired. He wet a brush and stroked it through his black scraggly hair.

Mrs. Lincoln wanted to go for a carriage drive. Well, maybe it was a good idea. He was happy and fatigued, and a relaxing drive could erase fatigue without mitigating the warm feeling that a great deal had been accomplished on this day. He was readjusting his cuffs when the Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana, walked into the office. He had been sent, he said, on a special errand by Secretary Stanton.

The President replaced his towel on a hook.

“What for?” Lincoln said.

Dana, a balding dandy whose long stiff beard jerked as he spoke, said: “Well, sir. Here is the Provost Marshal of Portland, who reports that Jacob Thompson is to be in that town tonight, and inquires what orders we have to give.”

Thompson, an ex-United States Senator from the state of Mississippi, had spent most of the war in Canada as the Confederate States of America representative. He had been a thorn in the side of the U.S. Government, and now he had crossed the border into Portland, Maine. He planned to take a steamer to Liverpool.

“What does Stanton say?”

“Arrest him.”

“Well,” the President said, closing the closet door. “No. I rather think not. When you have an elephant by the hind leg, and he's trying to run away, it is best to let him run.”

Dana thanked Mr. Lincoln, and hurried back to the War Department with the order. Stanton listened impatiently. For four years, he had waited for the day when he could lay his hands on the leaders of the rebellion and now the President wanted them to get away.

“Don't send any reply,” he said. And none was sent. Thus, if the Provost Marshal at Portland, in the absence of orders, took it upon himself to arrest Jacob Thompson, Stanton would have the rebel exactly where he wanted him and, at the same time, could not be accused of disobeying orders.

The marshal must have had some experience in politics. He permitted Thompson to get away.

Wilkes Booth had done a lot of walking this day. Now he would ride. He walked down the Avenue, and across the Mall to Pumphrey's Stable. His mare was ready. She was muscular and excitable. As the groom cinched the saddle under her
belly, she flattened her ears and tried to bite him. When the stirrup length had been adjusted, the groom slapped her flank and she jumped. The actor walked around her, an imposing figure himself in black hat and black, smartly tailored coat and black, tight-legged trousers. The tan boots were brightly polished and the spurs gleamed like gems. He examined the fit of the bridle and ran fingers under the edges of the light blanket beneath the English saddle. He walked her in a circle, watching her feet.

She was a good mare, solid, with a deep chest and nimble legs. He would have preferred the horse he had been riding for weeks, but the mare looked as though she had stamina, and, between Ford's Theatre and the far side of the Navy Yard Bridge, she was going to need every ounce of it.

He mounted and pulled on one rein. She turned around in her own length. Booth kicked his feet out of the stirrups and asked the stableboy to shorten both one more notch. He sat easily and well and the mare and her burden moved out of the stable lightly in an odor of leather and brandy.

The actor walked her awhile, up Sixth Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. Then, swinging left, he gave her a touch of the spurs and she quivered and went into a run. He pulled her down to a trot, pleased that she did not have to be urged to move fast. Booth was in the stream of carriages and horsemen moving up the Avenue. On the other side of the street, two more regiments of Union soldiers were coming into the city, moving to bivouac areas.

Where E Street meets the Avenue, Booth turned his mare at Grover's Theatre and cinched her to a hitching post. He went into the manager's office looking for Dwight Hess, but it was empty. He went upstairs to Deery's tavern and asked for a bottle of brandy and some water. Deery said that he had Booth's box seat for tonight and Wilkes told him that he would pick up the tickets later. He drank deeply and looked around
at the few men who played billiards. As he left, he spun a cartwheel coin on the bar.

Downstairs, the manager's office was still empty. John Wilkes Booth was ready to write another letter. He sat at the desk and withdrew paper and an envelope from the pigeonholes. The earlier letter left with his sister Asia would explain his motives, which had not changed, but that letter was designed to explain the capture of the President and the heads of the government. He needed a new one to explain murder.

What he thought about, no one knows. Across the envelope, he scribbled “Editor, National Intelligencer.” Now, he had to think more seriously in terms of his own death. He was well known to many thousands of people and there would be no difficulty in establishing his identity. If he should be mangled beyond recognition, a tattoo across the front of his left wrist said “J.W.B.”

He wanted no confusion about the perpetrator of this deed. The two most important factors in it—after the commission of the deed itself—were to let the world know that it was John Wilkes Booth who did it, and to let the world know why he did it.

The words, once begun, came swiftly to the skating pen. He had devoted time and effort, he wrote, to effect the capture of this man; now he found that he had to change his plans to give the South one more chance. He expected criticism of his act, but someday, when sectional anger had cooled, time would justify him.

Then Booth did a mean thing; an ignoble thing. Instead of signing it with his name alone, he decided to commit his friends, his fellow conspirators, to his deed. He wrote:

“J. W Booth—Paine—Atzerodt—Herold.”

He knew that this put the noose around their necks, and he felt no compunction. If the others withdrew from the plan, from this moment onward, they had been named as parties to
it and, if Booth killed the President, the others would hang for it. Had he been able to add to the list, in justice, the names of Arnold, O'Laughlin, John Surratt, Mrs. Surratt, there can be no doubt that he would have been no more solicitous about their welfare than he was of the others.

Booth sealed the letter, put it in his pocket, and went outside and started off down E Street. The next stop was to be Ford's Theatre.

The President sent word to Mrs. Lincoln that he would be at the War Department for a few minutes and, when he returned, would be ready to take a drive with her. She wanted to know if he would like to invite some friends along. He said no, “Just ourselves.”

Crook walked with him out to Pennsylvania Avenue and to the left, toward the War Department. They approached a group of celebrants on the walk, and it was obvious that these men were in the violent, argumentative stage of drunkenness. Crook had to jump ahead, to clear walking room for the President. After the two men had passed by, Mr. Lincoln said:

“Crook, do you know, I believe there are men who want to take my life.” This surprised the guard, because it was the first time that the President had initiated such a topic. “And I have no doubt they will do it,” he added.

“Why do you think so, Mr. President?”

“Other men have been assassinated. . . .” and the voice trailed off.

“I hope you are mistaken, Mr. President.”

“I have perfect confidence in those who are around me,” the President said firmly, no longer in reverie. “In every one of you men. I know no one could do it and escape alive. But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it.”

At the War Department, the President greeted Mr. Stanton with an expectant smile and asked if there was any news
from General Sherman. Stanton shook his head slowly. He too was waiting, with poor patience, for the last of the great good news. It hadn't come.

“I am looking for someone to go to the theater with me tonight,” Mr. Lincoln said. “Grant says that he cannot attend, and neither can you. May I have your man Eckert?”

He referred to Major Thomas T. Eckert, chief of the War Department Telegraph Office, a man who was big all over—not just in tallness—and who had an outsized chest and arms and even ears. He looked like a cartoon of an off-duty policeman. Eckert, emotionally, was a man who was a completely subordinate subordinate. Whenever, in the normal course of events, he was given an option of action, his eyes turned at once to his boss for a sign.

Stanton said that he was sorry, but that he had important work for Eckert that night. The President rubbed his fingers through his chin whiskers and said that he thought highly of Eckert as a bodyguard because once, when the major complained about the quality of a shipment of iron pokers, Lincoln had seen him take them, one after the other, and break them over his arm.

Mr. Stanton said that Eckert's work could not be put off. Besides, the nation was in a state of turbulence at the end of a long and bitter war and the President would do well not to be seen in public at a time like this. The War Secretary counseled again against attendance at the theater.

“Very well,” said Lincoln. “I shall take someone else, but I should have preferred to take Major Eckert because I have seen him break a poker over his arm.”

When they left the War Department, Crook walked beside the President again en route back to the White House. The guard noted that the drunks had gone. Mr. Lincoln got to talking about the theater party. He knew that Crook had heard what the Secretary of War had said.

“It has been advertised that we will be there and I cannot disappoint the people. Otherwise, I would not go.” They walked on. “I do not want to go.”

Back at the Executive Mansion, Congressman Samuel Shellabarger of Ohio was waiting. He wanted one of his friends appointed to the staff of the United States Army. Lincoln said he was reminded of when he was a young fellow. A lady in the neighborhood made shirts. An Irishman asked her to make one for him. She made it, laundered it, and gave it to him. When he put it on, he found it was starched all the way around instead of only in the collar, and he sent it back saying that he didn't want a shirt that was all collar. “The trouble with you, Shellabarger, is that you want the army all staff and no army.”

Young David Herold was in a hurry. He had expected to find Booth at Taltavul's or at Ford's Theatre and, missing him at both places, he dog-trotted down to Naylor's Stable on E Street. This was almost directly opposite Grover's Theatre. Wilkes had just left there and was now en route to Ford's Theatre.

At Naylor's David asked for a horse he had reserved earlier. The stable foreman, John Fletcher, was an Irishman who suspected that everyone thought he was “green” and was trying to “do” him.

“Until eight o'clock only,” said Fletcher.

“How much will it cost?” said Herold.

“Five dollars for the evening.”

“I heard it was four.”

“Five.”

“All right. Give me the roan mare.”

“I have a good mare for you.”

“No. I want the roan. The one I had before.”

Fletcher brought the roan out and gentled her to the
front of the stable. He got a saddle, but David didn't like it. Fletcher got another one, but the boy didn't like the stirrups. He wanted a flat English saddle and open metal stirrups. Also, he wanted a double-reined bridle. When he mounted the mare, he asked how late he could stay out.

“No later than eight,” John Fletcher said. “Nine at the most.”

Fletcher stood in the doorway and tamped tobacco into his pipe. He didn't like this boy. He didn't trust any of them. How many times even the best of them had stolen good animals on him, even when he had a deposit. Or, if they kept the animal after hours, they would drop it off at another stable and, in the morning, Fletcher had to make a tour of dozens of stables around the city to find the missing animal. Well, he'd give this boy until 9
P.M.
on the dot, and then he'd go out looking for him.

Booth arrived in front of Ford's Theatre and saw Maddox, the actor. Sitting his mare, Booth talked while Maddox stroked the horse's mane. Suddenly, Booth stopped the conversation and said: “See what a nice horse I have got? Now watch. She can run just like a cat.” He dug his spurs into the roan and, in a flash, was racing down toward the Avenue.

The President of the United States came out on the White House porch with Mrs. Lincoln. He studied the sky and buttoned his coat. They were using the barouche. The coachman helped Mrs. Lincoln into the carriage and, as the President followed, she said: “Would you like someone to come with us?” She had asked that before.

He got up in the carriage without assistance, settled himself at her side and tucked a blanket around both of them.

“No,” he said, with a twinkle of gallantry, “I prefer to ride by ourselves today.” He nodded to Francis Burns, the coachman, and the sparkling carriage started out of the gravel driveway. Two cavalrymen fell in behind the coach, but the President did not look back.