The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  Since the assassination, thousands of tips and unsolicited advice had poured across the desks of Stanton, Andrew Johnson, and other government officials. “There are many intelligent persons who believe that Booth still lurks in some hiding place in Washington,” noted a New York newsman.24 Indeed, more than a few felt the assassin had never even left Ford’s Theater, but was ensconced in some hidden nook.

  “Perhaps he is in bed, with the cap and nightgown of a female, feigning sickness,” offered one citizen.25

  Some anonymous leads were designed to hinder pursuit, not help it. Ran one letter to the secretary of state’s office:

  Wishing to inform you as soon as possible that you and the God dam Yankee government, their detectives and M P searchers can save their selves the trouble and expences and perhaps also their lives—that any further search in unnecessary and will all avail nothing for Booth my dearest and best friend J W Booth is now safe forever. He is by now over 500 miles from Washington. . . . You Sonofabitch.26

  Himself seething with rage because Booth had not been snared, Yarnall Cooper felt he had a foolproof plan for netting the murderer. Writing to President Johnson, the Illinois farmer suggested that if seven rebel prisoners—preferably generals and colonels—could be executed each and every day, the assassin was sure to surrender. “Under this course I presume that the offender can be Recovered when all others will fail,” Cooper reasoned. “I am fully aware that no Reward will bring him fourth although there be Milllions offerd[.] I desire the Punishment of all traitors and midnight Assassins As all are in the Same category[.]”27

  Despite such “help” from around the nation, the government’s effort remained focused on southern Maryland and northern Virginia. With thousands of soldiers, civilians, and detectives scouring the area, the matter might have seemed simple. But it wasn’t. Not only was the area in question a region of dense woodlands and low swamps, but some of the strongest Southern sympathizers anywhere resided here. Additionally, even the enormous rewards that should have helped the hunt only hurt it by pitting private detectives against those of the government.

  “They would not work with us or give us any information they may have obtained,” wrote federal detective Luther Baker, cousin of the Secret Service chief. “They preferred rather to throw us off the trail, hoping to follow it successfully themselves.”28

  Nevertheless, bits of solid, accurate information did manage to surface. On the afternoon of April 24, it was learned from a reliable source that Booth was thought to be somewhere between the Potomac and Rappahanock rivers. Acting on the tip, Luther Baker, Lieutenant Edward Doherty, and detective Everton Conger, with over a score of horsemen from the 16th New York Cavalry, approached Port Conway on the latter stream.29 Luther Baker:

  I found a fisherman sitting at the door of his hut, whose name was Rollins. I asked him if a lame man had crossed the river there with [in] a few days. “Yes,” he replied, “and there was another man with him.” I showed him my photographs. He at once pointed to the pictures of Booth and Harold [sic] and said, “These are the men, but this,” referring to Booth, “had no mustache.” I cannot describe to you the thrill of intense satisfaction that came over me when I heard this statement. I was positive I had struck the trail; that I was the fortunate one among all the eager thousands engaged in the search.30

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  BLADE OF FATE

  HE LAY CARELESSLY IN THE GRASS, stretched out on the thick, soft carpet that felt like velvet. It was a bright and warm spring day in northern Virginia. Above, the young leaves of an apple tree gave cool shade, and the fragrance from the snowy blossoms filled the air with a sweet perfume. Around him, the little children watched in fascination. Their staring eyes followed the needle of the compass as it dutifully obeyed the metal blade. The broken leg, the crutch, the rough beard and tangled black hair, the tattoo “JWB” on the back of his hand, these no longer intrigued the children; instead, the amazing magic of “Mr. Boyd” and his strange instrument was all-absorbing.

  His eyes intently watched the faces of the children as their eyes in turn watched the needle. He studied their puzzled looks as they struggled to comprehend. He thought of himself as a child, and how he, too, had struggled to understand the mysteries of life. He thought about his current condition. And then, it all became clear. He understood. Suddenly, the riddle of man and his fate made sense. And he laughed. For the first time in eleven days, he actually knew pleasure and laughed aloud.1 With a world of hate all around, with death closing in, with eternal infamy now his certain fate, he laughed. These children, like little animals, knew nothing, cared nothing, for what he had been or would be, simply accepting him as he was here and now. No matter what they were later told, this is how their hearts would remember him. It had not really been so long ago, a score of years, when he was as they were now, naive, innocent, trusting.

  His earliest memories were of his father. The child worshiped the big, burly Englishman with his booming voice, his large flashing eyes, and the stories told of strange people and places. As the boy grew, his love did not lessen. Indeed, his admiration for his father increased “almost to idolatry.” The little son did not see the world-renowned Shake–spearean earning thunderous applause on a nightly basis; nor did he see the hopeless, shameless drunk who had once pawned himself off in a New York shop window simply to buy another drink.2 The little boy only felt that love which flowed unconditionally. He loved the father he knew.

  Of all the children, admitted older son Edwin, “John Wilkes was his father’s favorite.”3

  Perhaps the old man was subconsciously drawn to the pale, dark-haired child because he recognized in him the same restless spirit he possessed, or perhaps it was the surfeit of energy and the extreme passion for life they both shared.

  Little short was the boy’s love of his mother, though for different reasons. Like the father, Mary Ann, too, secretly favored the bold, impetuous son over the others.4 Unlike her husband, the mother was quiet, soft-spoken, and, to the little boy’s mind, deep and mysterious. And she had visions. Once, while sitting by the fireplace when her favorite was still a baby, the woman clearly saw words shine out from the flames; one read “blood,” another read “country,” and the last, “an avenging arm.”5

  On his thirteenth birthday, the boy’s parents officially married. The following year, soon after his father’s death, the devastated youth quit school for good and returned to the family home near Bel Air, Maryland.6 The “Farm,” as the Booths casually referred to the modest estate, was surrounded by a forest of large, ancient trees, which all but insulated it from the outside world.7 There the mother and her children lived a quiet, idyllic life. As vegetarians, the Booths considered their own animals, as well as those of the woods, simple extensions of their family.8 John, remembered sister Asia, was “very tender of flowers, and of insects and butterflies.”9 Thoughtful and considerate, kind in the extreme, the teenager loved everything that shared his world, it seemed, with one exception. He despised the sly predators of the neighboring farms that mercilessly stalked their prey and robbed the woods of music and beauty. Young Booth made it his mission to rid the area of prowling cats.10 As a child, his sole murderous urge was to destroy that which he considered evil and rescue that which he considered good.

  While life was generally peaceful on the Farm, there came an event that cast a dark shadow over the teenager’s life and was to affect him until the day he died. One afternoon, the boy ventured into the deep woods to have his fortune told by a gypsy. When the old woman sat the youth down and scanned his palm, her face froze in horror.

  Ah, you’ve a bad hand; the lines all cris-cras. It’s full enough of sorrow—full of trouble—trouble in plenty, everywhere I look. You’ll break hearts, they’ll be nothing to you. You’ll die young, and leave many to mourn you, many to love you too, but you’ll be rich, generous, and free with your money. You’re born under an unlucky star. You’ve got in your hand a thundering crowd of enemies—not one fr
iend—you’ll make a bad end, and have plenty to love you afterwards. You’ll have a fast life—short, but a grand one. Now, young sir, I’ve never seen a worse hand, and I wish I hadn’t seen it, but every word I’ve told is true by the signs. You’d best turn a missionary or a priest and try to escape it.11

  “[I]f it’s in the stars, or in my hand . . . how am I to escape it?” the startled young man asked. When she explained that the only course was to follow his fate, Booth grew frightened, then angry.

  “For this evil dose do you expect me to cross your palm?” he snapped.

  Booth did grudgingly pay the Gypsy but before he left the old woman had a final word: It was well she was no longer young and beautiful, else she would be compelled to follow his handsome face throughout the world, no matter his fate.12

  While Wilkes always laughed when he retold the story to friends, it was not the same carefree laugh of old. When he left the Farm several years later to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and seek the acclaim he so craved, the young man’s life was noticeably more melancholy, and although he remained fun-loving and unpretentious, even after he gained fame and fortune on the stage, his life was never the same. From the day the gypsy stared at his hand and frowned, the life of John Wilkes Booth became a balancing act between happiness and joy and sadness and sorrow.13

  And yet, on this beautiful spring day, April 25, 1865, the young man discovered the simple pleasure of watching the light in a child’s eyes when the mystery of the compass was revealed—how, like a man and his fate, the needle must follow the blade, no matter where it led.

  From all indications, it appeared as if the horrific conditions that had ruined the funeral ceremonies in Philadelphia would be repeated in New York City fourfold on the following day. As the train arrived in Newark, New Jersey—a town of less than twenty thousand—those on board were stunned.

  “It seemed as if it contained at least 100,000,” one passenger gasped. “Every spot that could contain a human being was filled.”14

  When the train reached the Hudson a short time later, the funeral car was ferried across the river to Manhattan Island. As the boat approached shore, the bells and chimes from a hundred buildings announced its arrival. Cannons also boomed. In a chilling harbinger of Philadelphia, one of the guns along the East River had several days earlier ignited prematurely. Two men who were in the process of ramming down another charge were blown to bits. Body parts were found on neighboring piers.15

  As the ferry finally reached the opposite shore, the hearse carrying Lincoln’s body joined the parade to City Hall. After the head of the cortege stepped off, it was hours before the rear of the procession even moved. Miles long, the parade was an enormous cross-section of New York’s labor, commerce, and industry. Clubs, unions, and guilds marched together in military order. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, journalists, clergymen, tailors, painters, carpenters, waiters, cigar makers, Freemasons, societies of Germans, Irish, Jews, and blacks, even the “Sons of Temperance” joined in step—everyone, it seemed, wanted to march and be counted. An estimated seventy-five thousand individuals participated in the procession, eleven thousand of them soldiers.16

  Impressive as these figures were, they were dwarfed by the incredible number of onlookers. Broadway resembled a vast living canyon swarming with people—in windows, on rooftops, in trees, up flagpoles. The sidewalks had long since been crammed tight with a dense mass of humanity that stood for hours in the hot sun, “boiling and sweating and suffering.” And yet, from the surrounding suburbs, tens of thousands more continued to pour in.17

  “Rushing and pushing, on they went, pell mell, as if their lives depended upon their success in witnessing the procession,” a disgusted witness wrote.18

  One of those elbowing and ramming his way through the crowd was a huge man with a tanned face.

  “Don’t walk over me,” shouted one of many outraged individuals he stepped on.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I must see the coffin,” the man said as he muscled forward.

  “Why must you see it.”

  “Because I love the man—he’s one of my craft, I must get through, two of my brothers have died in the same cause as Old Abe. I’ll never go back to the prairies till I see and bless his coffin.”19

  Of the estimated six hundred thousand to one million people in the crowd, few gained a clear view of the parade; some who did were dismayed by what they saw. Because the normally filthy streets had been scrubbed for the occasion, horses in the procession lost their footing and many serious accidents occurred. Also, with upward of one hundred bands in the cortege, each playing a doleful dirge, a dreary cacophony of tubas, horns, and drums continually oppressed the air.20

  “The music altogether was not well chosen and the procession was not well arranged,” grumbled one viewer. “It was straggled and spun out most tediously and lost all solemnity.”21

  Hours of heat and the hordes of angry, wailing infants also did little for the decorum or dignity of the occasion. Generally, there was a momentary lull in the din when the hearse finally passed by. Built to be something grand and imposing, the elaborate vehicle was really a rather “ill-looking and awkward affair,” thought one Boston reporter.22

  “Well, is that all that’s left of Ould Abe?” came a woman’s loud voice from a window above.

  “It’s more than you’ll ever be!” an angry voice shot back.

  “O, I’ve nothing against him,” the woman replied. “I never knew him or cared for him, but he died like a saint.”23

  “[I]t has lacked solemnity,” agreed one journalist who viewed the procession, “perhaps . . . from its very magnitude. The crowds in the streets were more curious than reverent, and very few hats were lifted as the remains passed.”24

  Upon reaching City Hall, the coffin was carefully carried within amid the sad, solemn dirge of a vast chorus.25 When the doors were opened for public viewing at 11 A.M., the people of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut swarmed about the building by the hundreds of thousands. Much as in Philadelphia, authorities were totally unprepared to deal with such crushing numbers. Completely overwhelmed, yet determined to maintain a semblance of order, policemen used their clubs freely and began beating line-crowders unmercifully.26 While there was no perilous gate to pass as in Philadelphia, those who managed to enter City Hall did so through the basement, and they thus found themselves feeling their way forward like moles through the darkened hallways.27

  For those fortunate enough to pass the coffin, the mere two or three seconds allowed offered scant opportunity to even satisfy curiosity, much less reflect on the dead president. All hoped that the man would appear as they imagined. And some even insisted, and said aloud, that Lincoln looked like “one asleep.” Many more, however, were horrified by what they saw. According to a writer for the New York Evening Post:

  President Lincoln lying in the coffin in the City Hall is but a sad reflection of him who so recently filled the President’s chair.

  Those who had thought that the embalmer’s art would have preserved his features to us almost unchanged, will be disappointed. Death will not be cheated of his dread ravages. The eyes of the dead President are sunken, his face is somewhat discolored, sallow about the lower part, dark around the eyes and cheeks; his lips are so tightly compressed that the mouth seems to be but a straight sharp line. It is not the genial, kindly face of Abraham Lincoln; it is but a ghastly shadow. The sunken, shrunken features give the impression that the coffin which encloses them is far too large.28

  “A face dark to blackness,” said another journalist, “features sharp to a miracle, an expression almost horrible in its un-nature. . . . [N]one could regard the remains with even a melancholy pleasure.”29

  Because it was rumored that, owing to decomposition, the casket would remain closed after leaving New York, the demand among the crowds for a final look became even greater. Although the body was photographed while in City Hall, this was against the express wishes of Mary Lincoln. As a consequenc
e, Secretary Stanton ordered the plates destroyed.30

  Just as in Philadelphia, guards were placed near the coffin to prevent mourners from touching and kissing the body. When some viewers made the mistake and tried, they were jerked back violently and collared. Like some urban sheep rancher, the city police superintendent stood nearby with his cane, ready to point out any individual he thought might prove troublesome. Another ridiculous feature of the funeral was caused by the placement of the coffin on a raised platform. As the crowds reached the top and filed past, each eye lingering to the last on the dead president, few saw the steps leading down. Overworked policemen were stationed nearby to catch the people as they tumbled forward.31

  With nightfall, tens of thousands who had smugly imagined that they would avoid the crush of the day crowd now arrived. As a consequence, the numbers waiting to enter City Hall actually increased.32 A reporter for the New York Times watched as the miserable hordes of “fagged-out men, toil worn women, and sleepy children” crept slowly, mindlessly forward. Adding to the crowd’s agony, continued the newsman, were those who “push and haul, elbow and knuckle violently at every opportunity” for no better reason than to gain and inch or two.33 When the police were inexplicably withdrawn later that night, street gangs and pickpockets circulated freely through the crowd, creating bedlam and causing near-riots. Though intended to be solemn and inspiring, a one-thousand-voice German choir that began chanting dirges at midnight only increased the misery. As a final exclamation mark on what even the charitable considered a “poorly conceived” ceremony, the festoons draped on City Hall caught fire and had to be ripped down.34

  When the doors were finally closed the following day, Lincoln’s face was literally coated with dust and dirt brought in by the estimated 120,000 viewers. The flowers strewn about the body were almost unrecognizable as such; even the colors were lost in the grime.35