“I ran beside him to the bed, imploring him to stop,” remembered the horrified daughter. “I remember pacing the room back and forth from end to end screaming.”13
Regaining his feet, George Robinson lunged at the attacker and wrestled with him on the bed. But the nurse was no match for the muscular assailant, and the brutal assault continued. Awakened by the screams and shouts, Augustus Seward rushed into the room, half-dressed and half-asleep.
I saw what appeared to be two men, one trying to hold the other; my first impression was that my father had become delirious, and that the nurse was trying to hold him. I went up and took hold of him, but saw at once from his size and struggle it was not my father; it then struck me that the nurse had become delirious and was striking about the room at random; knowing the delicate state of my father’s health I endeavored to shove the person I had hold of to the door, with the intention of putting him out of the room.14
“For God’s sake,” Robinson yelled frantically to Augustus as he fought for his life, “let go of me and take the knife out of his hand and cut his throat.”15
Realizing his mistake, Augustus now turned to help Robinson fight the attacker. “While I was pushing him he struck me five or six times over the head with whatever he had in his left hand,” said the son. “During this time he repeated . . . ‘I am mad, I am mad.’”16
At last, the two men wrestled the assailant out of the bedroom and over Fred Seward’s body. Bounding down the stairs, the man stabbed a messenger who was on his way up to help.17 Bursting out the door, the stranger finally fled into the night.
Inside the home, all was bedlam. Screams and shouts echoed from top to bottom. On the second floor, the hallway was awash in blood. When an ailing Frances Seward finally reached the scene, she was confused by what greeted her. “What is the matter?” cried the mother to her hysterical daughter.
“I remember running back, crying out ‘Where’s Father,’ seeing the empty bed,” wrote Fanny. “At the side I found what I thought at first was a pile of bed clothes—then knew that it was my father. . . . [He] seemed to me almost dead. But he spoke to me, telling me to send for surgeons & to ask to have a guard placed around the house.”18
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE LAST BULLET
JAMES FERGUSON WAS UPSET. The saloonkeeper had not paid good money for two tickets to simply sit all evening and watch a threadbare play that he knew almost by heart—he had come expressly to see with his own eyes the hero of the day, Ulysses S. Grant. Thus, while his female companion watched the play, for most of the night Ferguson’s restless eyes peered through opera glasses at the box directly across the theater from where he sat. Throughout the evening, the anxious bartender kept his vigil, supposing that Grant—known for his aversion of the limelight—would try to slip in unnoticed. But the hours had passed, and it was now the third act of a three-act play and still no victorious general.1
Nevertheless, as Ferguson stared across the way, his eyes had more than enough to feast on. There was, of course, the gaunt, bearded president, at times happy, at times pensive, and at other times, as now, leaning forward with his chin on his arms as they rested along the rail, absentmindedly watching the crowd and the orchestra below. There was also the first lady, animated as always, laughing at every silly pun and jest, looking innocently to her husband to see if he was enjoying the humor as well. Increasingly, though, Ferguson’s attention was focused on the peculiar and perplexing actions of John Wilkes Booth.
Even at that distance in the darkened theater, Ferguson recognized his friend and frequent patron. That very afternoon, the two had chatted about a swift horse Booth had just acquired.2 Hence, when the bartender saw the dapper young man leaning casually against the wall near the presidential box, there was no doubt in Ferguson’s mind who it was. But why an actor of Booth’s caliber and dramatic nature would lounge about the theater in his spare time watching a shallow, inane comedy was puzzling to Ferguson. Even more mystifying was why John Wilkes Booth, whose Southern sympathies were well known to everyone, would attend what amounted to a grand Union bacchanal here at Ford’s.
Across from Ferguson, in the rows of seats near the president’s box, others also began to feel that if Booth’s actions were not bizarre, they were, at the very least, annoying. Some did not recognize the famous actor and were disgusted at being forced to move during the height of the play that an inconsiderate boor might creep ever nearer the box.3
George Todd, a navy surgeon, was sitting nearby:
I heard a man say “there’s Booth,” and I turned my head to look at him. He was still walking very slow, and was near the box door, when he stopped, took a card from his pocket, wrote something on it, and gave it to the usher, who took it to the box. In a minute the door was opened and he walked in.4
“I had supposed him to be an ill-bred fellow who was pressing a selfish matter on the President in his hours of leisure,” recalled another man who watched Booth close the box door behind him.5
Across the way, James Ferguson now aimed his glasses more intently than ever on the box, wondering who it was within that Booth was on such intimate terms with.6 On stage, one of the play’s more humorous exchanges was taking place, and the audience watched keenly as Harry Hawk delivered his hackneyed lines:
Mrs. Mountchessington: I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society, and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you have been guilty. (Exit.)
Asa: Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man trap!
While waves of laughter echoed through the theater, James Ferguson kept his eyes focused on Abraham Lincoln. Although the president joined the crowd with a “hearty laugh,” his interest seemingly lay more with someone below.7 With his right elbow resting on the arm of his chair and his chin lying carelessly on his hand, Lincoln parted one of the flags nearby that he might see better.8
As the laughter subsided, Harry Hawk stood on the stage alone with his back to the presidential box.9 Before he could utter another word, a sharp crack sounded. As the noise echoed throughout the otherwise silent theater, many thought that it was part of the play. But, just as quickly, most knew that it was not.
“I stood with astonishment, thinking why they should fire off a pistol in ‘Our American Cousin,’” said William Withers.10 Around the startled conductor, the musicians glanced at one another in bewilderment.
“I at first thought it was accidentally discharged by some soldier or drunken man & looked around but saw no stir or excitement,” recalled army clerk Charles Sanford.11
In that startling split second, some imagined that a piece of scenery had fallen. Many arose with a fright, but quickly resumed their seats when others in the rear cried “Sit down!” “Down in front!”12
Of all those in the theater, James Ferguson was probably the first to comprehend. Still training his glasses on the box, waiting for Booth’s appearance, “I saw the flash of the pistol right back in the box,” said Ferguson. As he watched in confusion, the saloonkeeper saw the president instinctively throw up his right arm and Mary Lincoln reach for her husband’s neck. Then, in the swirl of blue smoke, Ferguson perceived a man standing behind them with both hands raised.13
Like everyone else, Helen Du Barry and her husband were startled by the sudden sound:
We. . . . look up at the President’s Box merely because that was the direction of the sound and supposing it to be part of the performance we all looked again on the stage—when a man suddenly vaulted over the railing of the box . . . then leaped to the stage—striking on his heels & falling backward but recovered himself in an instant. . . . We first thought it was a crazy man—when he jumped on to the stage we all jumped to our feet & stood spell bound.14
“I have done it. . . . The South is avenged!” yelled the pale, wild-eyed actor as he turned to face the audience. And then, raising a large, glittering knife above his head, in
a sharp, clear voice, he shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” Glaring at the crowd for a moment, the assassin then turned and stalked dramatically across the stage, still trailing a bit of torn flag on his spur.15
James Ferguson stared down at the stage, stunned and speechless:
As he came across the stage facing me he looked me right up in the face and it alarmed me & I pulled the lady who was with me down behind the bannister. I looked right down at him & he stopped as he said “I have done it,” and shook the knife.16
Frozen in his tracks, now sharing the stage with a knife-wielding maniac, Harry Hawk was perhaps the loneliest man in the world. “I recognized Booth as he . . . came toward me, waving his knife,” said the terrified actor. “I did not know what he had done or what his purpose might be. I did simply what any other man would have done—I ran.”17
As Booth disappeared dramatically behind the scenery, Joseph Stewart instinctively leaped from his seat near the stage and gave chase. Three times the 6'6" pursuer cried “Stop that man!” but all were too stunned to comprehend. At length, Stewart could only watch helplessly as Booth made his escape down the alley on a horse that had been waiting at the door.18
In the theater itself, had the audience been statues made of marble, they could not have been more quiet. “[T]here was a stillness of death,” wrote one of those in the crowd.19
“[I]t seemed as though we were all chained to our seats, perfectly thunderstruck,” said William Elmendorf.20
Behind the scenes, Laura Keene stood stunned and staring as if in a trance.21 In the ten or so seconds between the shot and the disappearance of Booth, an eternity seemingly elapsed. And then, from the box above came a piercing, blood-curdling shriek that seemed to echo throughout the hall forever.22 “Mrs. Lincoln was calling to the audience,” remembered one of the actors. “I did not know what she was trying to say, nor did the audience. She exclaimed incoherently rather than spoke in words.”23
While Mary stood shrieking, waving her arms back and forth, from the stunned crowd there was only utter silence.24 When Clara Harris soon appeared at the box rail and screamed out the horrible words, the spectators were at last jolted from their shock. Suddenly, there came the realization. As one, the startled audience members jumped to their feet, and a roar of screams and shouts erupted. While a few people rushed to the lobby, scores climbed over the footlights and poured onto the stage.25
What Laura Keene saw from her vantage on the stage defied description. From a joyous, festive theater full of happy people, the audience was transformed within a matter of seconds into a wounded beast. “The crowd went mad,” remembered Captain Oliver Gatch. “A wilder sight I never saw in battle, even.”26
The tumult, thought another horrified viewer, was as terrible as Dante’s description of hell.27 So explosive was the horrible sound that it was heard far beyond Ford’s. Across the street at the boarding house of William Petersen, George and Huldah Francis were just preparing for sleep. Recalled the husband:
Huldah had got into bed. I had changed my clothes and shut off the gas, when we heard such a terrible scream that we ran to the front window to see what it could mean. We saw a great commotion—in the Theater—some running in, others hurrying out, and we could hear hundreds of voices mingled in the greatest confusion. Presently we heard some one say “the President is shot,” when I hurried on my clothes and ran out, across the street.28
Inside Ford’s, the howl was deafening as the shouting, seething mass ran aimlessly about the building.29
“[A]nd then the deluge,” wrote Walt Whitman. “[P]eople burst through chairs and railings and break them up—there is inextricable confusion and terror—women faint—quiet, feeble persons fall and are trampled on—many cries of agony are heard—the broad stage fills to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd like some horrible carnival.”30
Stunned like everyone else, Laura Keene was first to regain her senses. Although the other actors and actresses ran wildly in circles, Laura, said an amazed observer, was “the only cool person there.”31 From the foot lamps, the actress raised her hands and at last quieted the crowd. Expecting that the woman was about to announce that the assassin had been captured, most of the frenzied people stood in breathless anticipation.
“For God’s sake have presence of mind and keep your place, and all will be well,” pleaded the actress.32
Surprised that no mention was made of a capture, the angry mob was more furious than ever. “Kill him! Shoot him! Lynch him!” came the bloodthirsty roar. “Burn the theater,” cried others.33 Again, in her familiar clipped tones, Laura begged the audience to stay calm. Her words were quickly drowned by a ferocious roar of “Booth! Booth! Booth!”34
“There will never be anything like it on earth,” witness Helen Truman wrote. “The shouts, groans, curses, smashing of seats, screams of women, shuffling of feet and cries of terror created a pandemonium that . . . through all the ages will stand out in my memory as the hell of hells.”35
“Strong men wept, and cursed, and tore the seats in the impotence of their anger,” Edwin Bates admitted.36
As the riot grew in intensity, and as many made a mad, terror-stricken stampede toward the exits, others suddenly realized that they were in mortal danger.37 Said one young lady:
The crowd behind us surged forward, and before long our party found itself wedged against the orchestra. As I was somewhat shorter in stature than those about me, my mother, fearing for my safety, undertook to lift me up on the stage; but the pressure from behind became so great that she was unable to extricate me. I might have been injured . . . but for the effort of a somewhat muscular man near by who . . . picked me up and literally threw me over the footlights upon the stage. I could not see the President, but I could see Mrs. Lincoln and hear her shrieks and moans, as well as the loud and turbulent cries of people all over the house. . . . [S]ome well-intentioned person, seeing me in the surging mass and anxious to put me out of harm’s way, lifted me into the box immediately beneath the one in which the stricken President lay.38
In the box above, Clara Harris was frantically screaming for both doctors and water. While Laura Keene raced for the latter, several surgeons rushed to assist. Because Booth had barred the door, for a moment the only way into the tiny room was up. “I leaped upon the stage, and was instantly lifted by a dozen pair of hands up to the President’s box,” said army surgeon Charles Taft.39 Another physician was “literally dragged” up and over the rail.40
When the door to the box was finally forced, twenty-three-year-old Charles Leale was one of the first to enter. What the doctor saw was staggering. Both Clara Harris and Mary Lincoln were hysterical, with the latter punctuating incoherent words with hair-raising shrieks. And everywhere—on the floor, on the walls, on the furniture. . . .41 Almost all the blood came from Major Rathbone, who had been stabbed while attempting to check the assassin’s escape. Dr. Leale:
He came to me holding his wounded arm in the hand of the other, beseeching me to attend to his wound. I placed my hand under his chin, looking into his eyes and an almost instantaneous glance revealed the fact that he was in no immediate danger, and in response to appeals from Mrs. Lincoln and Miss Harris . . . I went immediately to their assistance. . . . I grasped Mrs. Lincoln’s outstretched hand in mine, while she cried piteously to me, “Oh, Doctor! Is he dead? Can he recover? Will you take charge of him? Do what you can for him. Oh, my dear husband!” . . . I soothingly answered that we would do all that possibly could be done. While approaching the President, I asked a gentleman, who was at the door of the box, to procure some brandy and another to get some water.
As I looked at the President, he appeared to be dead. His eyes were closed and his head had fallen forward. He was being held upright in his chair by Mrs. Lincoln, who was weeping bitterly. . . . I placed my finger on the President’s . . . pulse but could perceive no movement of the artery. . . . [W]e removed him from his chair to a recumbent position on the floor of the box, and as I held his head and
shoulders while doing this, my hand came in contact with a clot of blood near his left shoulder. Remembering the flashing dagger in the hand of the assassin, and the severely bleeding wound of Major Rathbone, I supposed the President had been stabbed, and while kneeling on the floor over his head, with my eyes continuously watching the President’s face, I asked a gentleman to cut the coat and shirt open from the neck to the elbow.42
Another who entered the increasingly crowded box was William Kent:
[P]oor Mrs. Lincoln was crying, in, oh such tones, “My husband, my husband—my God, my God—he is dead.” I tried to quiet her, but to no purpose. . . . Laura Keen [sic] . . . came rushing into the box with a glass of water in her hand, and took our poor President’s head, from which the brains were then slowly oozing, into her lap, and tried to force some water into his mouth. . . . Our noble President lying there, his clothes hanging from his body in shreds—motionless and insensible—his precious life-blood staining the dress of the actress, and poor Mrs. Lincoln wild with grief.43
Amid the noise and horror, the small group of surgeons worked feverishly to save the life of the president. Dr. Leale:
I lifted his eyelids and saw evidence of a brain injury. I quickly passed the separated fingers of both hands through his blood matted hair to examine his head, and I discovered his mortal wound. The President had been shot in the back part of the head, behind the left ear. I easily removed the obstructing clot of blood from the wound, and this relieved the pressure on the brain.44
Although the pulse was faint, with the aid of artificial respiration Leale soon started the president’s heart beating again. Convinced that something more must be done if Lincoln was to live, the doctor then administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation:
I leaned forcibly forward directly over his body, thorax to thorax, face to face, and several times drew in a long breath, then forcibly breathed directly into his mouth and nostrils. . . . After waiting a moment I placed my ear over his thorax and found the action of the heart improving. I . . . then watched for a short time, and saw that the President could continue independent breathing and that instant death would not occur.45
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