The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE BAD HAND

  IN THE DARK MORNING HOURS OF APRIL 26, a column of cavalrymen drew up on the road just beyond the farm of Richard Garrett. Riding rapidly back along the line, Lieutenant Edward Doherty of the 16th New York ordered his men to draw their revolvers and move quietly through the gate. When the last trooper had passed in, the charge was sounded.1 In a matter of moments, the thundering advance had covered the short distance, and the lawn around the home was swarming with horsemen.

  “I was awakened by the violent barking of my dogs,” remembered old Richard Garrett. “I arose from my bed and went to the window, and found the house surrounded by armed forces. I drew on my pantaloons . . . without waiting to put on any other dressing.”2

  Caught up in the excitement, detective Luther Baker was also on the scene:

  I leaped from my horse to the piazza and was at the door in a moment rapping vigorously. A window near the door . . . was thrown up and an old man’s voice asked what was wanted. I stepped to the window, seized the man’s arm and said, “Open the door and get a light and be quick about it.” He opened the door, I went in and shut it. A moment more and the old gentleman appeared with a lighted tallow candle in his hand. I took the candle from him before he could think of objecting and said, “Where are the men who have been staying here for the last day or two?” “Gone to the woods,” said he.3

  “I want to know where these two men are that were here this afternoon,” growled Baker as he leveled his pistol at the old man’s head. “They are here, and if you don’t bring them, I’ll blow your brains out.”4

  When detective Everton Conger burst into the home, he, too, began screaming at Garrett and threatened to kill him. Given the terrifying bedlam of shouts, screams, curses, barking dogs, and cocked revolvers, the frightened old man, who only moments before had been sound asleep, was understandably “much excited.” Again and again Garrett stammered that the men had gone to the woods; they were uninvited strangers, he added, and he had nothing to do with them.5

  “I do not want any long story out of you; I just want to know where those men have gone,” shouted Conger.

  When Garrett once more mumbled the same story, Conger turned to one of his soldiers and told him to bring a rope.6 At this moment, John Garrett burst into the room.

  “Don’t injure father,” pleaded the son. “I will tell you all about it. The men did go to the woods last evening when some cavalry went by, but . . .”7

  The angry officers, which now included Lieutenant Doherty, swiftly turned their wrath on young Garrett. “I seized this man by the collar,” said Doherty, “and pulled him out of the door and down the steps, put my revolver to his head and told him to tell me at once where the two assassins were. He replied, ‘In the barn.’”8

  As Doherty ran toward the tobacco barn, jerking and threatening his prisoner every step of the way, another Garrett son appeared.9

  “Where are those men?” the officer shouted as he stopped and stuck his pistol into the young man’s ear.

  “They are in the barn,” Garrett quickly replied.10

  As his troops surrounded the building with orders not to fire, Doherty, along with Baker, Conger, and the two Garrett brothers, reached the barn door. Inside, the rustling of hay and voices were heard.11 After kicking at the door several times, the men saw in the glow of their candles that it had been padlocked.12 Taking the key from one of the brothers, Baker ordered the other Garrett to go in. Terrified, the young man begged for mercy. “They are desperate fellows, and are armed to the teeth,” he pleaded. With a deadly stare, the detective leveled his weapon.13 Baker continues:

  I now unlocked the door and told young Garrett to go in and get the men to surrender if he could, but at all events, bring out their arms. . . . I closed the door after him. There was a low conversation and we heard Booth say, “Damn you! You have betrayed me; get out of here or I will shoot you.” I now called to the men in the barn and said, “We sent this young man. . . . Give him your arms and surrender or we shall burn the barn and have a bonfire and a shooting match.” Soon Garrett came to the door and said, “Captain, let me out. I will do anything I can for you but I can’t risk my life in here. Let me out.” I opened the door; he came out with a bound.14

  “What do you want?” asked a voice from within.

  “I want you!” Baker shouted back.

  “Who are you, and what do you want of me?”

  “We are here to make you a prisoner,” replied the impatient detective. “We know who you are. I will give you five minutes to surrender. If you do not give yourself up in that time I will set the barn on fire.”

  After further probing, Booth realized once and for all that his end had come.

  “I am lame, with only one leg,” he said. “Give me some show for my life. Withdraw your men fifty yards from the door and I’ll come out and fight you.”

  “We didn’t come here to fight you, but to take you prisoner,” yelled Baker, “and we will take you dead or alive.”15

  “Give me a little time to consider,” begged Booth.

  “Very well, you can have two minutes.”

  Standing in the glow of the candles, Baker was soon made aware of how vulnerable he was when Booth yelled out that he could have shot him a half-dozen times already. “I have a bead drawn on you now, but I do not wish to do it,” said the actor.16 Startled, Baker and the others stepped away from the door. The two Garretts were ordered to hold the candles at the corners of the barn so that if those inside attempted a breakout, they could be seen by the waiting troopers. Baker also directed his men to kill the Garretts if a shot was fired from the barn.17

  “Those men are innocent,” cried Booth. “They do not know who I am.”18

  “Your time is up,” shouted Baker, “we shall wait no longer.”19

  Aiming his weapon at one of the Garretts, Everton Conger ordered the man to scoop up pine boughs and pile them at the rear of the barn.20 Hearing the noise at the corner of the structure, Booth turned sharply in that direction and threatened to open fire.21 Now overcome with fear, David Herold begged his friend to let him walk out and surrender.

  “You damned coward!” snapped the actor. “Would you leave me now! Go! go! I wouldn’t have you stay.”22

  When Herold reached the door, Booth shouted that his companion was innocent of all crimes.23 Ignoring the words, Lieutenant Doherty jerked the prisoner away from the door and bound him to a nearby locust tree.24 As soon as Herold had cleared the barn, noted a trembling William Garrett, the door was quickly shut “as if they feared a tiger might bounce out on them.”25

  Stepping from the shadows, a slightly built sergeant, perhaps the only man present this night who was neither frightened nor excited, asked several times for permission to enter the barn and bring Booth out. “I was not afraid to go in and take him,” said the sergeant later. “[I]t was less dangerous to go in and fight him than to stand before a crack exposed to his fire, where I could not see him, although he could see me.” The requests were denied.26

  Originally hoping to hold until dawn before he forced the issue, Lieutenant Doherty now relented at the urging of detective Conger.

  “I went around to the corner of the barn,” said Conger, “pulled some hay out, twisted up a little of it, about six inches long, set fire to it, and stuck it back through on top of the hay. . . . It was very light, and blazed very rapidly—lit right up at once.”27

  “I was at the door,” Luther Baker wrote, “and the moment the light appeared I partly opened it and peered in and could see Booth distinctly. He seemed to be leaning against the mow, but in the act of springing . . . toward the fire.”28

  Now crazed by the destruction of family property, one of the Garretts yelled for “Boyd” to surrender before the barn was consumed.29 “Don’t destroy the gentleman’s property,” Booth shouted back, “he is entirely innocent, and does not know who I am.”30

  “[Booth] . . . started forward as if to extinguis
h the fire,” continued Luther Baker. “An old table was nearby. He caught hold of it as though he would cast it, top down, on the fire to extinguish it, but the fire was too quick for him and he saw that this would not do.”31

  “The blaze lit up the black recesses of the great barn until every wasp’s nest and cobweb in the roof was luminous,” wrote another witness as he and others peeked through cracks.32

  Realizing it would be futile to fight the flames, Booth now knew he was left with only one option.

  “He dropped his arm, relaxed his muscles, turned around, and started for the door,” recalled Conger.33

  Returning to Luther Baker:

  About the center of the barn he stopped, drew himself up to his full height and seemed to take in the entire situation. . . . He forgot that he was lame; he stood erect and defiant, though one crutch was by his side. His hat was gone, his dark hair was pushed back from a high, white forehead; his lips were firmly compressed. . . . There was a carbine [in] one hand, a revolver in the other, a belt held another revolver and a bowie knife. I can give you no idea of the expression of the features. It was the ferocity of the tiger. It was the defiance of the lion, hunted to his lair. . . . Booth was standing under and within an arch of fire, curling, leaping, roaring, hissing. . . . Suddenly he dropped his remaining crutch, threw down his carbine, raised his revolver and made a spring for the door. In an instant there was a crack of a pistol. Booth fell forward.34

  Fearful that he was only stunned, Baker threw open the door and leaped on the body. Almost immediately, the detective could see that the man was indeed the murderer of Lincoln.

  “It is Booth sure,” Baker yelled excitedly to Conger.

  “He must have shot himself,” responded the detective.

  “No, I had my eye upon him every moment,” answered Baker, “but the man who did do the shooting goes back to Washington under arrest for disobedience of orders.”35

  Seeing that Booth was still alive, the men dragged the body outside away from the flames and placed it on the grass near an apple tree.36

  “Water was dashed into his face and we tried to make him drink, but he seemed unable to swallow,” said Baker. “Presently he opened his eyes and seemed to understand it all. His lips moved, and in a whisper he said, ‘Tell mother, tell mother . . .’”37

  In the meantime, a brief but earnest effort was made to remove valuables from the barn.

  “Save my property! Help put out the fire!” yelled one of the frantic Garretts as he and one or two others ran into the barn. The flames were too far advanced, though, and the men were quickly forced out.38

  Because of the intense heat, the wounded man was carried to the porch of the Garrett home. Once there, it was evident by the blood trail that Booth had been shot through the neck. The ball had severed much of the spinal cord, all but paralyzing the actor. It was also noted that the victim’s broken leg was “in splinters” and had turned black. Although Booth was obviously in critical condition, a doctor was sent for in the hope that the assassin might be brought back alive.39

  “Kill me! kill me!” Booth whispered hoarsely as he lay in terrible agony. Every few minutes the victim would convulsively gasp and his pulse would weaken. But then the heart would rekindle, and again the dying man would beg feebly, “kill me . . . kill me.”40 The females of the Garrett home, the mother and daughters, did what little they could. A mattress was carried out. Then a pillow.41 One of the young women dipped her handkerchief in water to moisten the actor’s lips.42

  “Tell my Mother I died for my country,” whispered Booth. “I did what I thought to be best.”

  “I again moistened his lips and he repeated the message to his mother,” said the girl.43

  The dark hours passed, and the terrible vigil on the porch continued. To the east, dawn began to filter through the trees. At what was once a tobacco barn, the embers had cooled sufficiently to allow souvenir-seeking soldiers to poke among the ruins. Booth’s crutches, mere pine limbs, were ashes, but the assassin’s pistols, though charred, were quickly snapped up.44 Tired, terrified, still tied to the tree, David Herold pleaded his innocence to any who would listen. Questioned first by Lieutenant Doherty, the frantic captive denied any knowledge of the wounded man.

  “You know well who it is,” shouted the officer.

  “No, I do not,” insisted Herold. “He told me his name was Boyd.”

  “It is Booth, and you know it,” snapped Doherty.

  “No, I did not know it; I did not know that it was Booth.”45

  Later, when a menacing private approached, the trembling captive begged for mercy. “Booth told me . . . that he was going to kidnap Lincoln,” pleaded the young man, “he didn’t tell me he was going to kill him.”

  “[W]hy did you help him to escape?” came the angry reply.

  “Booth threatened to kill me if I didn’t help him get away.”46

  When the crazed culprit pleaded with another man, insisting that he had nothing against the dead president and actually enjoyed “Mr. Lincoln’s jokes,” the outraged trooper drew his knife.

  “Shut up, or I’ll cut off your goddam head,” shouted the soldier.47

  Still furious at the disobedience of orders, Luther Baker asked Conger if he had found the man who fired the shot.

  “No, but I will,” growled the detective.48

  After narrowing down the suspects, Conger finally spotted the soldier walking across the front lawn.49

  “Why in hell did you shoot without orders?” demanded the angry detective.50

  Coming to attention and saluting, the strange little sergeant stared Conger in the eye for a moment, then pointed toward heaven.

  “Colonel, God Almighty directed me.”51

  Seeing at a glance that he was not dealing with a balanced mind, Conger shrugged and turned. “Well,” muttered the detective, “I guess He did or you couldn’t have hit him through that crack in the barn.”52

  Although a physician arrived at dawn, by that time Booth was beyond help, and the eyes once so full of dash and drama now assumed a glassy appearance.53 With his last bit of life, the actor whispered to see his hands one final time. When Luther Baker lifted the paralyzed arms, Booth stared for a moment at the palms—the same palms the old gypsy had gazed upon—then the arms dropped.

  “Useless, useless,” the dying man whispered sadly.54

  “These were the last words he ever uttered,” wrote a witness:

  As he began to die the sun rose and threw beams into all the treetops. . . . The struggle of death twitched and fingered in the fallen bravado’s face.—His jaw drew spasmodically and obliquely downward; his eyeballs rolled toward his feet, and began to swell; lividness, like a horrible shadow, fastened upon him, and with a sort of gurgle and sudden check, he stretched his feet and threw his head back and gave up the ghost.55

  Soon after his passing, Booth’s body was wrapped in an army blanket and placed in a wagon, and the jubilant cavalry column headed back to Washington. With his hands bound tightly and a rope looped around his neck, David Herold followed. The greatest manhunt in American history had come to an end.

  Somewhere on the way back to the capital, Boston Corbett pulled off the road and dismounted. Troubled by the detective’s stern rebuke, the trooper now knelt beside a tree and prayed—prayed that God might reveal whether he had indeed done right or wrong. After a short while, the little sergeant got to his feet and remounted, greatly relieved—God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, was not displeased. He was still smiling down on Boston Corbett.56

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE HATE OF HATE

  AT 9 A.M. ON APRIL 26, Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., was escorted by several detectives to the War Department for questioning prior to his confinement in the Old Capitol Prison. On the previous day, the eldest Booth brother had been arrested at the home of a relative in West Philadelphia. His nervous system already shattered by the narrow escape from Cincinnati and the abuse heaped upon his name, Booth was now “dumbfounded
” by this most recent development.

  “[I] wished John had been killed before the assassination, for the sake of the family name,” the actor admitted on his trip down to Washington.1

  Junius’s arrest was not simply because of his relationship to the assassin, but because the federal government felt he might have played an active role in the conspiracy. Mundane letters exchanged between the brothers weeks and months preceding the murder, as well as esoteric allusions, were now scrutinized and suddenly took on sinister significance. Simple scribblings that had been torn up and tossed away were fished out of spittoons by eager detectives in hopes they might provide a clue. Jottings on a scrap of paper, copied from the 49th Psalms, were quickly retrieved and carefully examined.2

  Another Booth brother, Joseph, also was jailed. So worried were government officials that he might somehow slip their net that even before the brother landed in New York, a cutter intercepted the ship that he was returning on from Australia.3 Even a Booth brother-in-law, John Clarke, was soon arrested. Already nervous over the future of his acting career—so much so that he demanded a divorce from Asia—Clarke now found himself accused of complicity in the assassination.4

  “Poor old country,” wrote Asia in the depth of depression, “she has seen her best days and I care not how soon I turn my back upon her shores forever.”5

  While the Booth family was being jailed, countless others also were imprisoned, most on the shakiest of evidence. “Fresh arrests are being made each day,” announced one excited journalist, as if reporting on a fisherman’s daily net.6

  Two brothers, a brother-in-law, dozens of friends, and hundreds of strangers still did not equal one assassin, however. In desperation, Washington authorities intensified their search in the capital itself. Some seriously advocated dismantling and demolishing every home and building in the city to uncover the murderer.7