Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Part 15

Lewis Powell trots his horse toward the darkness on the edge of town. There he hides in a field and wonders if he will ever find a way out of Was.h.i.+ngton. Powell's thoughts then turn to President Lincoln and Vice President Johnson. They should be dead by now.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865 WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

10:15 P.M.

As John Wilkes Booth tiptoes into the state box and Lewis Powell knocks on William Seward??s front door, George Atzerodt, the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin of Vice President Andrew Johnson, is drinking hard, late for his date with destiny.

I f any man in Was.h.i.+ngton has incurred the wrath of the Confederacy, it is Johnson, the former governor of T ennessee, whom many southerners consider a rank traitor. Johnson's bitter words are seldom compatible with Lincoln's. So it is no surprise that his views on punis.h.i.+ng the South stand in stark contrast to Lincoln's lenience. "And what shall be done with the leaders of the rebel host? I know what I would do if I were president. I would arrest them as traitors, I would try them as traitors, and, by the Eternal, I would hang them as traitors," Johnson shouted from the steps of the War Department as recently as Monday night.

Like Johnson, Atzerodt the carriage painter is staying at Kirkwood House, on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Twelfth Street, four blocks from the White House and just one block from Ford's Theatre. He has pa.s.sed the time aimlessly since his meeting with Booth and the other conspirators, drawing attention to himself through the simple act of trying not to draw attention to himself.

At nine-thirty he visits Naylor's stable on E Street to pick up his horse. The owner knows George Atzerodt and his friend David Herold and does not care for either of them. Nevertheless, when a nervous, sweating Atzerodt asks if he'd like to get a drink, Naylor answers with a quick "Don't mind if I do." He is concerned about Herold, who rented a horse from him earlier that day and is long overdue. Naylor hopes that Atzerodt will disclose his friend's location after a drink or two.

They leave Atzerodt's mare and walk to the bar of the Union Hotel. Atzerodt, whom Naylor suspects has been drinking for some time, orders a stiff whiskey; Naylor chugs a tankard of ale. Atzerodt pays. They return to the stable after just one round, with Naylor none the wiser about Herold's location.

"Your friend is staying out very late with his horse," Naylor finally prods. Atzerodt has just handed him a five-dollar tip for boarding his horse.

"He'll be back after a while," Atzerodt glibly replies as he mounts the mare.

But Atzerodt is too wasted on alcohol to ride a straight line. He almost falls out of the saddle when the mare takes a sudden turn. On a hunch, Naylor decides to follow Atzerodt on foot. The trail, however, is only a block long. Atzerodt dismounts and ties the horse at a hitching post in front of Kirkwood House. Naylor waits across the street, just out of sight. When Atzerodt walks back out a few minutes later and trots the mare over toward Ford's Theatre, Naylor gives up the surveillance and returns to his stable.

Andrew Johnson, meanwhile, is behaving very much like a man waiting to be summoned. He eats an early dinner alone. He turns down a last- minute invitation to attend Our American Cousin. His a.s.sistant is out for the night, and Johnson has no one to talk with. So he goes up to his room and lies down on his bed, fully clothed, as if some great incident is about to occur and he needs to be ready to spring into action on a moment's notice. Johnson is a boorish man. Largely uneducated, he learned to read and write late in his life. A tailor by trade, he entered politics in his twenties and worked his way up to the Senate. He owes a lot to President Lincoln, who first appointed him the military governor of T ennessee and then chose him to run on the vice presidential ticket after Lincoln asked Hannibal Hamlin of Maine to step down. Hamlin was a hard-core northerner and Lincoln needed a southern presence on the ticket.

Up until this point, Johnson has had no power at all. He is simply a figurehead.

At ten-fifteen George Atzerodt is back inside Kirkwood House, getting thoroughly smashed in the bar. Truth be told, even more than when he tried to bow out a few days earlier, the German-born carriage painter wants no part of murder. A few floors above him, Johnson lies alone in his room. In his lifetime he will suffer the ignominy of impeachment and endure the moniker of "worst president in history." Andrew Johnson will not, however, suffer the far worse fate of death at the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin. For that, Johnson can thank the effects of alcohol, as a now very drunk George Atzerodt continues to raise his gla.s.s.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865 WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

10:15 P.M.

John Wilkes Booth takes a bold step out of the shadows, Deringer clutched in his right fist and knife in his left. He extends his arm and aims for the back of Abraham Lincoln's head. No one sees him. No one knows he is there.

Booth squeezes the trigger. Unlike the crazed Richard Lawrence, whose pistols misfired when he attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate Andrew Jackson, Booth feels his gun kick. The ball launches down the barrel as the audience guffaws at the play. Abraham Lincoln has chosen this precise moment to lean forward and turn his head to the left for another long look down into the audience. A half second later, he would have been leaning so far forward that the ball would have missed his skull completely. But the president is not so lucky. The man who has worried and fretted and bullied America back from the brink of disaster, holding fast to his faith in the Union at a time when lesser men argued that it should be dissolved, feels a split second snap of pain-and then nothing at all.

"The ball entered through the occipital bone about one inch to the left of the median line and just above the left lateral sinus, which it opened," the autopsy will read. "I t then penetrated the dura matter, pa.s.sed through the left posterior lobe of the cerebrum, entered the left lateral ventricle and lodged in the white matter of the cerebrum just above the anterior portion of the left corpus striatum."

The president's calvarium-or skullcap-will be removed with a saw. A surgeon will probe the exposed brain before slicing into it with a scalpel, using the path of coagulated blood to trace the trajectory of the ball. This will show that the ball entered behind the left ear and traveled diagonally across the brain, coming to rest above the right eye.

Y et the autopsy will be inconclusive. Four different doctors will examine the body. Each will have a different conclusion about what happened once the sphere of Britannia metal poked a neat round hole in Lincoln's skull and then pushed fragments of that bone deep into Lincoln's brain as it traveled precisely seven and a half inches before plowing to a stop in the dense gray matter.

At ten-fifteen on the night of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln slumps forward in his rocking chair. Mary Lincoln, lost in the play until this very instant, stops laughing. Major Henry Reed Rathbone snaps his head around at the sound of gunfire-a sound he knows all too well from the battlefield. He's had his back to the door, but in an instant he's on his feet, striking a defensive pose.

John Wilkes Booth drops the Deringer and switches the knife to his right hand. Just in time, for Major Rathbone sets aside his own safety and vaults across the small s.p.a.ce. Booth raises the knife to shoulder level and brings it down in a hacking motion. Rathbone throws his left arm up in a defensive reflex and instantly feels the knife cut straight down through skin and biceps to the bone.

Booth moves quickly. He steps to the front of the box, ignoring a stricken Mary Lincoln. "Freedom!" he bellows down to the audience, though in all the laughter and the growing confusion as to why the cast has added the sound of gunfire to the scene, his words are barely heard. Harry Hawk stands alone on stage, staring up at the state box with growing concern.

Booth hurls his body over the railing. Up until this point, he has performed every single aspect of the a.s.sa.s.sination perfectly. But now he misjudges the thickness of the ma.s.sive United States flag decorating the front of the box. He means to hold on to the railing with one hand as he vaults, throwing his feet up and over the edge, then landing on the stage like a conquering hero.

This sort of leap is actually his specialty. Booth is famous among the theatrical community for his unrehea.r.s.ed gymnastics, sometimes inserting jumps and drops into Shakespeare plays on a whim. During one memorable performance of Macbeth, his fall to the stage was several feet longer than the fall from the state box.

But Booth's right spur gets tangled in the flag's folds. Instead of a gallant two-footed landing on the stage, Booth topples heavily from the state box. He drops to the boards awkwardly, left foot and two hands braced in a b.u.mbling attempt to catch his fall.

The fibula of Booth's lower left leg, a small bone that bears little weight, snaps two inches above the ankle. The fracture is complete, dividing the bone into two neat pieces. I f not for the tightness of Booth's boot, which forms an immediate splint, the bone would poke through the skin.

Now Booth lies on the stage in front of a nearly packed house. His leg is broken. He holds a blood-smeared dagger in his right hand. The sound of gunfire has just ricocheted around Ford's. Major Rathbone is bleeding profusely from a severe stab wound. And just above him, slumped forward as if very drunk or very asleep, the president of the United States is unconscious.

Y et still n.o.body knows what happened. James Ford steps out of the box office and thinks Booth is pulling some crazy stunt to get attention.

Observers in the audience have heard the pop and are amazed by the sudden appearance of a famous matinee idol making a cameo on the stage right before their very eyes-perhaps adding some comical whimsy to this very special evening. Harry Hawk still holds center stage, his head turned toward Booth, wondering why in the world he would intrude on the performance.

Time stops for a second-but only one.

Then the a.s.sa.s.sin takes charge. "Booth dragged himself up on one knee," Hawk will later remember, "and was slas.h.i.+ng that long knife around him like one who was crazy. I t was then, I am sure, I heard him say, 'The South shall be free!' I recognized Booth as he regained his feet and came toward me, waving his knife. I did not know what he had done or what his purpose might be. I did simply what any man would have done-I ran."

Booth scurries to his feet and limps off the stage, "with a motion," observes one spectator, "like the hopping of a bull frog."

"Stop that man!" Major Rathbone screams from above.

"Won't somebody please stop that man!" Clara Harris echoes.

"What is the matter?" cries a voice from the audience.

"The president has been shot!" she shouts back.

The reverie is shattered, and with it all the joy of Was.h.i.+ngton's postwar celebration. The theater explodes in confusion. In an instant, the audience is on its feet. I t is a scene of utter chaos, "a h.e.l.l of all h.e.l.ls." Men climb up and over the seats, some fleeing toward the exits while others race to the stage, hoping to climb up into the box and be part of the action. Women faint. Children are trapped in the panic. "Water!" some yell, tending to the collapsed.

A former congressman yells something far more pointed: "Hang the scoundrel!"

Meanwhile, Booth pa.s.ses within inches of leading lady Laura Keene as he limps off the stage. William Withers, the orchestra leader with whomhe had a drink just hours earlier, stands between Booth and the stage door. Withers is paralyzed with fear, but Booth a.s.sumes he is intentionally blocking the way and slashes at him, "the sharp blade ripping through the collar of my coat, penetrating my vest and under garments, and inflicting a flesh wound in my neck," Withers will later testify.

Only one man is bold enough to give chase. Set carpenter Jake Ritterspaugh and Booth reach the stage door at the very same time. Booth thrusts the knife blade at him. Ritterspaugh leaps back. And in that instant, Booth is gone, squeezing through the door and hauling himself up into the saddle.

Rather than give Peanut John the s.h.i.+ny nickel the boy had hoped for, Booth kicks him hard and bludgeons him with the b.u.t.t of his knife.

"He kicked me! He kicked me!" the boy moans, falling to the ground.

At the same instant, yet another spontaneous torchlight parade blocks Booth's getaway on T enth Street. He swerves into the alley, spurs his horse down the cobblestones dividing two large brick buildings, and then turns onto F Street, completely avoiding the procession.

In an instant, John Wilkes Booth disappears into the night.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865 WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

10:20 P.M.

Booth slows the mare to a walk. Word is already spreading through Was.h.i.+ngton that the president has been shot. The news is shouted, breathlessly exclaimed, pa.s.sed from citizen to citizen, bonfire to bonfire. People aren't racing away from Ford's, they're racing to Ford's, to see for themselves if these wild rumors are true. Victory marches turn into mobs of the curious and scared, determined to fight their way to the theater.

When a drunk shouts into the night, "I 'm glad it happened!" a furious mob beats and kicks him unconscious, tearing off his clothes, and hauls his limp body to a lamppost for a lynching. I ronically, he will be rescued by the Union cavalry.

Now another troop of cavalry is summoned to Ford's and plunges recklessly through the throngs a.s.sembling outside. Inside, the crowd surges toward the stage, trapping small children in its midst, chanting all the while that Booth must be lynched. Laura Keene has the presence of mind to march to center stage and cry out for calm and sanity, but her words go unheeded. The crush against the stage is made worse as the news explodes into the street in front of Ford's Theatre. Pa.s.sersby rush inside to see for themselves, some of them hoping that Booth is still trapped inside but most just wanting a glimpse of the injured president.

Across town at Grover's Theatre, the patriotic celebration is in full swing. A young boy is reciting a poem when a man bursts into the theater and shouts that the president has been shot. As the crowd reacts in horror, a young soldier stands and yells for everyone to sit still. "I t's a ruse of the pickpockets," he says, explaining that thieves spread such disinformation to fleece the crowd as people rush for the exit.

The six hundred theatergoers take their seats once again. The boy onstage exits, his poetry reading complete. But he is back just seconds later, struggling to control his voice as he shares the horrific news that President Lincoln has, indeed, been shot. T ad Lincoln, the president's twelve-year- old son, is in the audience with a White House staffer. Stunned, he returns to the White House, where he collapses into the arms of the doorkeeper, shouting, "They've killed Papa dead! They've killed Papa dead."

Soon more bad news begins to spread: Secretary Seward has been a.s.saulted in his bed.

At Rullman's Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue, the bartender shouts out the mournful news that Lincoln has been shot. Mike O'Laughlen, the would- be conspirator who stalked the Grants last night, drinks in the corner. He is drunk again but still coherent enough to know in an instant that Booth is the killer-and that he must get out of town before someone implicates him, too.

In front of the Willard Hotel, the stable foreman John Fletcher is still seething that David Herold hasn't return the roan he rented earlier. At that very moment, Herold trots past. "Y ou get off that horse now!" Fletcher cries, springing out into the street and grabbing for the bridle. But Herold spurs the horse and gallops away. Acting quickly, Fletcher sprints back to his stable, saddles a horse, and races after him.

In the midst of all this, a lone rider galloping away from the chaos at Ford's would most certainly attract attention. So Booth guides the mare slowly up and down the streets and alleys of Was.h.i.+ngton, even as his veins course with adrenaline and euphoria, and pandemonium breaks out all around him. Despite his considerable celebrity, Booth blends in and proceeds unmolested through the streets. I t is Friday night, after all, a time when Was.h.i.+ngton comes to life. There are plenty of men trotting horses through town. I t's only when Booth finally nears the end of his three-mile journey to the Navy Yard Bridge that his fears about being caught force him to spur the horse and ride hard to freedom.

I t is ten forty-five when Booth pulls back on the reins once again and canters up to the wooden drawbridge by the Navy Yard-almost thirty long minutes since the Deringer did its deadly job. Booth approaches like a man confident that his path will go unblocked. "Where are you going, sir?"

cries the military sentry. His name is Silas T . Cobb, and his long and boring s.h.i.+ft will be over at midnight. He notices the lather on the horse's flanks, a sign that it's been ridden hard.

"Home. Down in Charles," Booth replies.

"Didn't you know, my friend, that it is against the laws to pa.s.s here after nine o'clock?" Cobb is required to challenge anyone entering or exiting Was.h.i.+ngton, but the truth of the matter is that the war has ended and with it the formal restrictions on crossing the bridge after curfew. He wants no trouble, just to finish his s.h.i.+ft in peace and get a good night's sleep.

"No," lies Booth. He explains that he's been waiting for the full moon to rise, so that he might navigate the darkened roads by night. And, indeed, a waning moon is rising at that very moment.

"I will pa.s.s you," Cobb sighs. "But I don't know I ought to."

"h.e.l.l, I guess there'll be no trouble about that," Booth shoots back. Ignoring the rule that horses be walked across the bridge, he trots the mare into the night.

Booth is barely across the Potomac when David Herold approaches Silas T . Cobb. He gives his name as just "Smith." Once again, after a brief discussion, Cobb lets him pa.s.s.

One more rider approaches Cobb that night. He is John Fletcher, the stable foreman who is following David Herold. Fletcher can clearly see Herold on the other side of the bridge, now disappearing into the Maryland night.

"You can cross," Cobb tells him, "but my orders say I can't let anyone back across the bridge until morning."

The Maryland countryside, with its smugglers and spies and illicit operatives, is the last place John Fletcher wants to spend the night. He turns his horse's reins back toward his stable, settling on the hope that Herold and the missing horse will one day make the mistake of riding back into Was.h.i.+ngton.

In fact, Fletcher will never see the horse again, for it will soon be shot dead, its body left to rot in the backwoods of Maryland-yet another victim of the most spectacular a.s.sa.s.sination conspiracy in the history of man.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865 WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

10:20 P.M.