The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  At the numerous prison camps in the North, helpless captives were especially vulnerable. “I thought we would all be shot,” remembered a rebel at Hart’s Island in New York. “We were not allowed to collect in groups and the guard was to shoot if we were seen talking together.”50

  South of Philadelphia, at Fort Delaware, artillery was trained on the prisoners with orders to fire if any rejoicing was observed. Understandably, far from celebrating the news, the starving, frightened inmates were cowed into silence.51 To forestall an indiscriminate massacre, twenty-two thousand prisoners at Point Lookout in Maryland passed a resolution condemning the assassination.52 Richard Ewell, John Marmaduke, and other general officers confined at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor did likewise.53 Similarly, with so many murderous eyes about, many prisoners, like their civilian counterparts, were extremely circumspect in their diary entries and letters to loved ones. “I am very anxious for the Assassin to be captured, and the case investigated,” one rebel prisoner at Johnson’s Island, Ohio insisted in a letter to his brother. “I am sure, the Government I have been fighting under, for 4 years, would not be guilty of such an outrage, it was a cold, bloody murder, and can never be countenanced by any Southern man.”54

  Despite precautions such as these, there was the widespread fear that a general slaughter of Confederate inmates would occur at Castle Thunder, Belle Isle, and Libby prisons in Richmond.55 In the military hospital at nearby City Point, wounded Yankees attacked an injured rebel for a reported anti-Lincoln comment.56 At Elmira, New York, a Confederate was hung up by his thumbs until he fainted for cheering Lincoln’s death. After a similar comment, another man at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas died from the same punishment.57

  Nowhere in the South was the violence greater than at Nashville. Emotions were so volatile and discipline so lax that for all practical purposes, rioting soldiers ruled the streets. Soon after word from Ford’s Theater reached the Tennessee capital, one man on Church Street was heard to say that he was “glad the damned abolition son of a bitch was dead; he ought to have died long ago!”58

  “Before the words had fairly left his lips,” said a bystander, “a soldier shot him through the heart, and plunging his bayonet into the falling body, pinned him to the ground!”59 Not only was the murderer allowed to go free after the deed, but an approving witness offered him a one hundred dollar reward.60 Another man, a federal captain, was overheard stating that Lincoln was the cause of the war. Soldiers nearby immediately jumped the officer, beat him savagely, then cut the bars and buttons from the victim’s coat.61 Numerous others in Nashville were treated like the two men above. “Every man that rejoiced over the news was doomed to death on the spot,” Sergeant Hamlin Coe recorded. “Some were shot, others bayoneted, others mauled to death.”62

  At night, rampaging soldiers swarmed through the streets beating and killing suspected Confederates and destroying their homes.63 Not satisfied with the damage already done, the rioters issued orders the following day directing that all houses and businesses in Nashville must display symbols of mourning—or face the consequences.64

  Elsewhere throughout the South the bloody purge and enforced mourning continued. Because most Southern women were already clad in “widow’s weeds” and their dwellings were draped in black, the color was an all too common sight.65 Nevertheless, to Sarah Morgan, nothing seemed more revolting than strongly secessionist New Orleans darkening itself further for the Yankee president. “[T]he more thankful they are for Lincoln’s death, the more profusely the houses are decked with the emblems of woe,” said the cynical young woman.66

  Noted one Union soldier on his march through rural Tennessee:

  evry thing ever in this Rebelious country is draped in mourning[.] Dwellings that their inmates are nown to be rebbles are draped in mourning[.] all along our ruut from Blue Springs over 300 mills we could see on the farm houses near and far the black crape swing.67

  When a large number of people were arrested and thrown into prison for failure to festoon their homes in black, the remaining residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi, quickly took their cue. At a meeting of citizens, it was decided not only to continue the mourning period for a full month, but also to solicit donations for a monument to Lincoln.68 Downriver at Natchez, Annie Harper’s family were fired upon and threatened with arrest for simply burning too many lights in their home. The Harpers were also warned about playing music during the mourning period.69 In Alabama, a home where young people were seen talking and laughing was searched and threatened with razing.70

  For many civilians in the occupied South, it was doubly mortifying to have been forced by federal bayonets to illuminate and celebrate their own defeat when Lee surrendered, then shroud their homes in mourning when their conqueror was killed.71 To save their lives and property, most in the defeated nation would understandably yield to force. For a very few, though, there was no compromise. Records the friend of one Southern woman:

  Every house was ordered to be draped in black, and where the rebel inmates refused, it was done for them. . . . A squad of Northern boys organized themselves into an inspection committee and went from street to street to see that no house was left undraped. When I suggested to Mrs. Stuart that she had better hang out something black and save trouble, she turned upon me and exclaimed passionately: “I’d rather die first. . . .”

  The committee . . . came down the street upon which Mrs. Stuart lived, and seeing the house undraped, halted before it. There was a dead silence for a few moments that was more ominous than curses would have been. The hoarse cries of “rebel sympathizers” broke from the crowd. The ringleader . . . stalked forward and pushed open the door without ceremony and demanded to know why the house was not draped. I sprang forward and stood between him and Mrs. Stuart and tried to explain to him that my husband had gone down the street to get us some black, and that as soon as it came I would hang it out. “Yes; but she must hang it up,” he cried, pointing threateningly at Mrs. Stuart. “Every damned rebel must this day kiss the dust for this dastardly act. She must do it herself. . . . It must be something of her own, too.”

  “What, I show a sign of mourning for Abraham Lincoln—I, who but for him would not be husbandless and childless today!” came from Mrs. Stuart’s lips.

  “Well, now, we’ll see about that,” he replied. “Come, boys,” he called to the squad without, “some of you hold this she-devil while the rest of us search her house for something black.”

  The front room, dining hall and kitchen downstairs and my bedroom upstairs yielded nothing, but when they entered Mrs. Stuart’s private room, just back of mine, I knew from the shouts of triumph that they had found something; but I was hardly prepared for the sight when a few minutes later they came rushing down the stairs waving with frantic gesticulations Mrs. Stuart’s long crape veil; the veil that she had worn as a widow for her husband . . . [and] her son.

  “Here, madame, we have found just the thing,” cried the leader, “and you yourself must hang it up, right in front, too, where all may see it, or, by George, your life won’t be worth a candle . . . !”

  She stared at them for a few seconds with eyes in which hate, horror and revenge strove for mastery. Then, with a mighty effort, she shook herself free from her captors and in a strangely calm voice said: “Give it to me, I will hang it up where you wish. Only leave the room, leave the premises; go across the street; you can see me from there; and you, madame,” she said, turning to me, “you go with them. . . .”

  We all crossed the street and looked anxiously at Mrs. Stuart’s front door. . . . Just then she came out on the veranda. I noticed she had changed her dress since we had come away. She was all in black—her best black; her mourning weeds. She carried a chair in one hand, while the crape veil was thrown over her shoulder and wound once about her neck. We all watched her intently. Her movements were slow and deliberate. She mounted the chair and . . . then she took the veil . . . and threw it through the opening, while at the same time she put somet
hing else through. What it was we could not tell at that distance, and then . . . she gave her chair a vigorous push with her foot and her body hung suspended in midair. Several seconds elapsed, in which we all stood as if frozen to the spot, staring at that dangling body across the street. Then, with a cry of horror . . . we rushed over. . . . [But] it was too late.

  Under the crape veil . . . with a strong cord firmly knotted about her neck, hung all that was mortal of that once proud southern woman.72

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IN DUNGEONS

  DREADFUL

  WHILE MUCH OF THE STARK HORROR and shock had lessened somewhat in the forty-eight hours following the assassination, the suspense in Washington was perhaps even greater than on the night of the murder. Rumors were rife. Most citizens felt that the full extent of the conspiracy was being withheld from a panicky public. Some believed that not only Lincoln, but most of his cabinet and many top political and military leaders had been killed as well.

  Such rumors, one observer admitted, “nobody deemed . . . impossible, or even unlikely.”1

  Worse, many felt it was only the beginning.2 Several strange men, strangely dressed, were reportedly seen lurking near the home of Chief Justice Chase.3 Ulysses Grant, normally indifferent to personal safety during four years of bloody war, now ordered sentinels to watch his door at night.4 “I shall only go to the Hotel twice a day for my meals and will stay indoors of evenings,” the general promised his wife, Julia.5 Formerly accessible to even the humblest of visitors, President Andrew Johnson was also surrounded by a wall of soldiers. Outside his hotel, scores of sentinels stood guard on the streets and adjoining lot. Inside the building, security was stiff, with several waves of officers probing visitors about their backgrounds.6

  Now that he was the highest authority in the land, Andrew Johnson’s worth and reputation rose dramatically. Many tried mightily to distance the president from his disaster of March 4. Some, the New York Times included, now insisted that Johnson was not drunk during the inaugural; on the contrary, he had suffered from poisoning by a would-be assassin.7 This theory was eagerly accepted by many.8

  Much like the president’s hotel, the home of William Seward was also heavily guarded. And like Johnson, the secretary of state received an unexpected boon from the attack. Because of the metal jaw brace he had worn since the carriage accident, the stab wounds, though grievous, had failed to sever the artery. Indeed, the slashing blade had inadvertently relieved the terrible inflammation and actually reduced the pain.9 No such luck blessed Seward’s son. With his skull fractured in two places, Frederick remained unconscious, in critical condition. The father, unable to speak, communicated his concerns by writing on a slate.10

  “Why doesn’t the President come to see me?” Seward silently asked well-wishers. “Where is Frederick—what is the matter with him?”11 The answers were always evasive. Finally, Edwin Stanton was selected to relay the terrible news. Sitting beside his friend, the secretary of war divulged all.

  “Mr. Seward was so surprised and shocked,” wrote a witness, “that he raised one hand involuntarily, and groaned.”12

  Bearing bad news was only one of Edwin Stanton’s many tasks. Indeed, for all practical purposes, Stanton was not only secretary of war but also acting head of state. As the hours at the Petersen House illustrated, while the rest of the U.S. government was largely paralyzed, Stanton alone kept his wits and continued with almost superhuman focus and energy. Despite the very real threat to him, despite a bewildering storm of false reports—the French had captured New Orleans, the British were invading from Canada, Philadelphia was on fire—despite the panic of nearly everyone else around him, Stanton stood like a rock. Not only did the secretary personally oversee hundreds of pages of testimony given mere hours after the assassination, but he also orchestrated the manhunt and issued huge rewards for Booth and several collaborators.13 Additionally, had it not been for Stanton’s iron hand in the hours and days following the assassination, much of Washington might have been burned by the furious mobs as they exacted revenge on Southern sympathizers.14 Terrible and bloody as the riots were, the outcome would have been infinitely worse had not Stanton deployed troops with orders of “shoot to kill.”

  “A mob raised then, even to destroy the houses of the fifty worst rebels in Washington, would not have been treated to blank cartridges or conciliatory speeches,” remarked a Boston reporter, “and everybody in Washington was well aware of the fact.”15

  After the initial crisis was passed, the secretary of war remained steadfast at his post, as if the fate of the nation rested upon his shoulders and his alone. “Many nights I worked with him until the morning dawn began to steal in at the windows,” General Henry Burnett reminisced, “and many nights I left the department at midnight or in the small hours of the morning completely worn out, and left him still there working.”16

  Despite his round-the-clock frenzy and his attention to a thousand details, so determined was Stanton to smoke out the conspiracy that he ordered a special performance of Our American Cousin in hopes of discovering some clue.17 Although this effort provided no new leads, hundreds of other items poured into the secretary’s office, including a bloody coat and a false mustache found near a cemetery.18 Because neither the time nor the manpower was available to cull the guilty from the innocent, Stanton ordered massive arrests. As a consequence, numerous excesses occurred.

  As if their horror were not already great enough, Laura Keene, Harry Hawk, and another actor were arrested in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, despite passes that had cleared them to leave Washington.19 John T. Ford, owner of the fated theater, was arrested four days after the assassination and jailed.20 “The horror of that week is indescribable,” recalled Ford of his vermin-infested cell.21 When the theater owner’s wife pleaded with Stanton to release her husband, she was “brutally repulsed.”22 Along with their boss, most employees at the theater were also imprisoned.23 Edman Spangler, a simpleminded carpenter and stagehand, was charged with complicity in the crime, even though his love of Lincoln was well known.24

  Already eyed suspiciously by religious zealots and termed the “devil’s work shop” where libertines and blasphemers consorted openly, the stage was an early and easy target following Booth’s magnum opus at Ford’s.25 “The dread word ‘theater,’” noted Clara Morris from Ohio, was suddenly enough to silence a room full of people.26 For reported disloyal comments, the treasurer of a New York theater was arrested and sentenced to six months in jail.27 A Philadelphia thespian was imprisoned for declaring that, assassin though he be, Booth had been a kind and honest man.28 Understandably nervous that the authorities were singling them out, fifty Philadelphia actors passed a resolution stating that all should not be judged for the act of one.29

  Because of Booth’s connection with virtually every American stage from Richmond to Leavenworth, theaters were closely watched. None received more attention, of course, than Ford’s. Soon after the military took control of the building, a suspicious character sporting a black mustache and red beard was seen crossing the stage. Attempts to corner the wraith-like figure proved fruitless, and the chase ended in a hopeless jumble of backdrops and scenery.30

  With nerves already on edge and with the taxed secretary of war breathing down their necks, detectives were quick to arrest anyone who was in the least “tainted” by Booth. Females on friendly terms with the assassin were swiftly rounded up. The actor’s private messenger boy was imprisoned. The hapless stable owner who had rented the horse Booth escaped on was hauled away.31

  In the madness of the moment, anyone and everyone was subject to arrest. A well-meaning man who had discovered outside of Ford’s some papers which had fallen from Lincoln’s pocket that night proudly reported his find to Stanton. With a wave of the secretary’s hand, the stunned citizen was tossed into prison.32 A wealthy woman whose only apparent crime was a violent temper and a proclivity to swear was locked up, as was her brother.33 For another luckless individual, a prominent chin,
a full mustache, and a large scar under his left ear were more than enough evidence for officials to take him away.34 Other unsuspecting victims, quietly at home one moment, found themselves in a dark, damp cell the next, simply because a neighbor felt there was “something funny” about them.35 Scores, perhaps hundreds, were thrown into Washington prisons because of some personal grievance.36 In his fever to unravel the conspiracy, Stanton could not be troubled with details. He would arrest everyone now, then sort them out later.

  Even the dead did not escape the secretary’s scrutiny. After a depressed ex-soldier killed himself while in prison, federal investigators looked into the man’s past for possible links to April 14.37 Another suicide victim was disinterred from a Baltimore grave, embalmed, then rushed to Washington, where the body was examined by government surgeons. Other than being “depressed and melancholy,” there seemed no connection between the corpse and the conspiracy.38

  Because of Stanton’s actions, within days of the assassination the prisons of Washington groaned with a harlequin assortment of suspects. “It was a rare mixture,” remembered prisoner Harry Ford, brother of the theater owner, “deserters, bounty-jumpers and prisoners of State, Governors, legislators and men of every station. . . . We were kept in close and solitary confinement.”39 Already in frail health, one prisoner begged a guard for food since he had not been fed in twenty-four hours. Tossing in an ear of corn, “as to a hog,” the guard growled: “Damn you! that’s good enough.” The man—whose only offense was a Democratic voting record—soon died.40 Asked why he was jailed and ironed, another prisoner shrugged: “I suppose because I won’t say what I don’t know.”41