The Darkest Dawn

by Thomas Goodrich

  Because of the startling circumstances surrounding her fall from power and the public’s love of Lincoln, many of Mary’s sharpest critics demonstrated a remarkable capacity to forgive, if not entirely forget, her past behavior. “Whatever indiscretions she may have committed in the abrupt transition from plainness to power are now forgiven and forgotten,” soothed one well-intentioned editor. “She and her sons are the property of the nation.”28 In numerous cities throughout the North, subscriptions were started to ease the widow’s financial load.

  This natural sympathy and willingness to forgive was short-lived. Unstable in the best of times, Mary now became completely and utterly unhinged. When not sobbing and moaning her loss, the former first lady was ranting and raving, accusing everyone from “that miserable inebriate,” Andrew Johnson, to mere messenger boys of complicity in her husband’s death.29 And of all Mary’s characteristics, her strident vindictiveness had abated not one jot, as when she learned of the arrest of the Confederate president.

  “The news of the capture of Davis, almost overpowers me!” she wrote to Charles Sumner. “In my crushing sorrow, I have found myself almost doubting the goodness of the Almighty!”30

  The woman, admitted one who knew her well, was now “crazier than she used to be.”31

  And thus, when the black-clad widow of Abraham Lincoln, “in a daze . . . almost a stupor,” finally vacated her home of the previous four years and journeyed to the railroad depot on a warm evening in May, and while the city was alive with the music and celebration of the Grand Review, “there was scarcely a friend to tell her good-by,” recorded Lizzie Keckley. “The silence was almost painful.”32 Indeed, only grudgingly did the Washington Evening Star devote five lines buried on a back page to the woman’s more-than-welcome departure. Even pickpockets fleecing the crowds at the Grand Review received more ink.33 Mary’s acerbic tongue, her fits of anger, rage, and jealousy, and her haughty, high-handed demeanor and imperious posturing while her husband had lived now came rushing home with a mighty vengeance after his death. Few noted the former first lady’s departure from Washington, and fewer still cared.

  For the tens of thousands of federal soldiers mustering out of the service in the capital following the Grand Review, the opportunity to see the sites they had heard so much about was overwhelming. Ford’s Theater drew most of the blue-clad tourists. Although it was now off limits to visitors, souvenir-seekers had earlier all but destroyed the famous box at the theater, cutting up the curtains one piece at a time and even peeling off the wallpaper.34 With memories all too fresh, many in Washington favored razing the building entirely. Though the fire was extinguished, one angry arsonist took it upon himself to do just that.35

  In contrast to Ford’s, at the home just across the street where Lincoln had died, William Petersen welcomed any and all into his house—at fifty cents a head.36 Despite what some considered an outrageous fee, thousands felt compelled to enter. Outside Willie Clark’s rented room, where the president had breathed his last, were placed a pillow and several slips, each smeared with dried blood. Inside the room, Lincoln’s shoes rested on a chair.

  “The same mattress is on my bed, and the same coverlid covers me nightly that covered him while dying,” Clark told his sister, and no doubt hundreds of gaping tourists as well.37

  Even with the hawk-eyed homeowner and his son watching for scavengers, the Petersens could not be everywhere at once. “[I]f they do not tear down the house by inches I shall be very much surprised,” laughed one observer.38

  At the homes of Mary Surratt, Secretary of State Seward, and others, the situation was much the same, as the desire for some souvenir of the assassination seemed insatiable.39 Even the Lincoln log cabin from Macon County, Illinois, uprooted and headed for display in Boston, had already been hacked of its doors and shutters.40 Indeed, hardly had the president’s body cooled when a booming industry sprang up involving relics related to Black Friday.

  Mere moments after the dead president was removed from the house, and before the clamorous hordes had entered, those in the Petersen home began cutting up the bloody shirt, sheets, and towels into smaller, more manageable pieces. Even the hair that surgeons had clipped to reveal the mortal wound were counted and divided one by one.41 Outside, a little boy was discovered rubbing white paper on the Petersen steps, then delicately placing each in his pocket. When asked by an onlooker what he was doing, the child’s answer was simple: “Don’t you see those dark stains on the board? It is the blood of the President, and I want to save it.”42

  So frenzied became the quest for anything associated with the assassination that even the screws on the coffin that had carried Lincoln from the Petersen home to the White House were stolen.43 When the rowboat used by Booth and Herold to cross the Potomac was hauled back to Washington, relic-hunters began chopping away so industriously that the craft had to be impounded.44 After nearly being lynched by a Washington mob, the Garretts were eventually cleared of any complicity with Booth, and they soon returned to their Virginia home. Quick to capitalize on the swarm of tourists visiting their farm, the family began selling boards purportedly from their bloodstained porch, as well as chips of Booth’s crutch and locks of his hair.45 Although Laura Keene and Clara Harris refused offers to buy their gowns, numerous blood-soaked dresses were sold nonetheless.46

  “I also send You Enclosed in this letter a piece of the Shirt Bosom worn By the President on the Night of his Murder,” wrote one excited young man. “I wish you to give a piece of it to Billy Denver and Tom Greene, I could Sell every inch of it for $5.”47

  “I have several relics of the awful event,” another man admitted to his mother. “Among them are a piece of the President’s collar stained with his blood and several pieces of the sheet and pillow case on which he died; these are also stained with his blood.”48

  As these typical letters indicate, so much clothing and blood was being peddled that to some it must have seemed as if a score of presidents had been shot at Ford’s and a hundred women had held their heads. Obviously, much claiming to be bona fide was fake. With men like P. T. Barnum offering one thousand dollars for the death pillow, however, and with hundreds more willing to pay from five to ten dollars for what they thought were patches of cloth stained by Lincoln’s blood, the market for assassination artifacts grew and grew, with no end in sight.49

  For those unwilling to gamble on the authenticity of relics, ever-ready vendors were on hand to hawk mourning badges, mourning rings, mourning shrines, mourning flags, and mourning mementos of every description. So great was the demand for some keepsake, even after Lincoln’s burial, that a “Depot for Mourning Goods” opened in Washington. “This house is now making a specialty of black goods,” announced a city newspaper, “and they are prepared to exhibit the largest and best selected stock.”50

  “I am going to have [a photo of Lincoln,] let it cost what it will,” said one determined woman, explaining in a sentence why the market was so strong.51

  One Washington attraction that drew tourists but did not charge a fee was the assassin of the assassin. Since his great feat, Boston Corbett had remained a popular, if curious, celebrity. Wherever the hero trod, people were sure to stop and stare and crowds were sure to follow. In keeping with his character, Corbett eagerly used his new notoriety to save souls and spread the Lord’s mighty message. Wrote the sergeant in one lady’s album: “Andersonville, the blackest spot on earth was made bright and glorious by the saving presence of God. His providence also was manifest in delivering me from that place, and making me the agent of His swift retribution on the assassin of our beloved President, Abraham Lincoln.”52

  So far had Corbett’s renown spread that Chicago was preparing a life-size photo of the little hero to exhibit at the upcoming Sanitary Fair.53 As Corbett soon discovered, though, fame had its price.

  Despite persistent requests to buy his pistol, Corbett refused, insisting that it was not his to sell. And so, someone simply stole it.54 Also, the sergeant be
gan receiving crank letters and hate mail. For the moment, Corbett was too preoccupied to trouble himself with death threats. Instead, he spent much of his time trying to secure his share of the reward money—of which he had not seen a cent—and using his sudden status to badger Edwin Stanton into granting him an early discharge from the army, a request the secretary refused.55 Soon, though, Corbett’s concern for his personal safety became all-consuming. Increasingly, the famous sergeant considered himself a “marked man,” imagining that mysterious men were dogging his trail—men who definitely were not interested in his autograph.56

  “My life has been threatened in a most blood-thirsty manner, but God is well able to protect me,” announced the hero in public.57 In private, however, Corbett began withdrawing from the limelight. When newspapers reported his murder near Baltimore, the sergeant saw it as a terrible portent and became even more neurotic.58 After pulling his new pistol on another sergeant who had angrily ordered him from a military stable, Corbett was court-martialed yet again. The defendant’s only alibi—”[I was] on the alert for anyone that might molest me”—was not good enough; he was convicted and received a reprimand.59

  With his revolver capped and ready for action, Corbett turned in each night with the weapon under his pillow, expecting a visit from either stealthy assassins, the ghost of John Wilkes Booth, or the devil himself. Because those individuals still seeking his signature could expect a pistol pointed at their heads and a lengthy examination, autograph-seekers became fewer and fewer.60 Delusions, self-mutilations, dementia, orders from God—Boston Corbett could now add chronic paranoia to his growing list of mental maladies.

  The slayer of Booth was not the only one to conjure plots. One month after the assassination, lurid minds saw them at every turn. Whether there was any substance to the reports was unimportant. Some people simply wanted to see such conspiracies, and see them they would.

  “The mob spirit is very rife, and what is more, it is encouraged by the authorities,” explained a St. Louis diarist. “These seem to profit eagerly of these occasions to overawe and silence the opposition.”61

  At Philadelphia and Annapolis, Maryland, fires that in normal times would have been shrugged off to carelessness were now the diabolical work of diehard rebels. As a result, innocent men were arrested. In California, a newspaper that had somehow survived the first purge of democratic journals did not survive the second. The editors were jailed.62 Because he was found in possession of “suspicious papers,” a New Haven, Connecticut, man was arrested and charged with aiding Booth, though no evidence existed.63 After attending Lincoln’s funeral in Springfield on Thursday, Dr. Francis Tumblety was accused of being a Booth conspirator on Friday.64 A self-proclaimed “Indian Herb Doctor,” Tumblety was considered a harmless quack by some, but many in the St. Louis medical establishment were, according to the culprit, “jealous of my increasing fame and practice.”65 Whatever, the stunned prisoner was hauled back to Washington and hurled into the Old Capitol Prison. Protested the doctor:

  It was a persecution worthy the dark epoch of the middle ages, or the bloody era of the French Revolution. . . . Myself and fellow-inmates . . . were prohibited looking from our bars upon the outer world. One day we were startled by the crash of martial music. . . . A lady, who was imprisoned for some political offense, or at least she was charged with such . . . , looked from the casement, when one of the lynx-eyed guards witnessing the breach of Old Capitol Prison discipline, raised his piece and fired, the bullet taking effect upon a brick, a few inches from the fair one’s head.66

  Although Tumblety was set free after a three-week stay, and others were similarly released, so many more were arrested that new prison space was always being added.67 In Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, in Sheffield, Massachusetts, in the mining camps of Nevada, and throughout the nation at large, the roundup continued.68 In such a chaotic climate of hatred, fear, and suspicion, even one month after the assassination opportunists found it a “soft snap” to inflame passions and eliminate personal or political foes.

  Meanwhile, as the purge continued apace, most of America’s attention was suddenly directed elsewhere—for much of the next two months it would be the all-absorbing focus of attention.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  THE LIVING DEAD

  ON MAY 10, 1865, THE SAME DAY that Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia, the “trial of the century” began in Washington. The site chosen for the event was the prison at the Old Arsenal, located on a point of land where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers joined. Prior to that day, the only momentous event to occur on this spot had come in 1814, after Washington was captured and burned by the British. With orders to raze the arsenal, one of the redcoats assigned the task made the mistake of tossing a torch into a dry well where a stash of powder had been concealed. The resulting explosion not only killed many of the troops nearby but also ignited an adjacent magazine. When the smoke had cleared, the area was strewn with arms, legs, heads, and other body parts.1

  Now, half a century later, the eyes of the nation were once again focused on this otherwise insignificant spit of land. Despite the arcane efforts of the Secret Service, rumors were already afloat that the assassin himself was buried beneath the prison floor.2 It was the large prison building itself, however, where attention was sharpest, for the structure not only would provide a seat to the trial and a home for the eight culprits charged in the conspiracy, but it would also be a place of execution should the verdicts prove guilty.

  A decade earlier, two common criminals had managed an escape from the prison, but there would be no possibility of that now. To preclude a rescue of the prisoners, on the one hand, or mob violence, on the other, thousands of troops were encamped in and around the arsenal grounds. Inside the massive stone and brick walls of the prison itself, more soldiers and sentries stood guard. On the nearby Potomac, menacing gunboats lay at anchor ready to sweep either shore with shot and shell. In all, there was enough firepower in the vicinity of the prison to repel an invading army. Nevertheless, nervous officials were not satisfied.

  Not only was each of the accused consigned to solitary confinement in a dark, dungeon-like cell but also the legs of all were fettered by chains, shackles, and heavy balls.3 The hands of the prisoners were likewise held rigidly in place by a brace of iron-bar handcuffs. As an additional precaution, the canvas hoods used earlier remained on the inmates’ heads night and day to foil any form of communication.4 Only when the accused were led into the courtroom were the torturous devices removed. In sum, admitted a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the prisoners “are already undergoing a living death.”5

  Nothing, it seemed, had been overlooked in the federal government’s effort to punish the prisoners and present to the public a show trial. And showy it was. The small number of court passes were naturally in great demand, “like opera tickets to a special performance,” thought one woman. Every day carriages filled with people pulled up to the prison, she continued, “the women dressed as if for a race day. One after the other of these gay parties passed in, laughing and chatting. . . . It had become a modish thing for society to drop in for a peep at the conspirators’ trial.”6

  The feature attractions, of course, were the seven men and one woman who were the defendants. Each day, as the culprits were brought into the courtroom, there was a hush of horror among those in the gallery. “Ladies of positions, culture and influence enough to be admitted sat about . . . with scowls and scorn, white teeth and scorching eyes,” remembered one observer.7

  Of the eight defendants, the four most deeply involved understandably drew the lion’s share of attention, not only among the public but also among members of the press. To feed the ravenous appetites of their readers, correspondents penned colorful, and often incredible, sketches of the accused. For his role in aiding the assassin’s escape, Booth henchman David Herold was cast in an especially loathsome light. Although the young man hailed from a prosperous, respected Washington family, one reporter reveal
ed that the son was “best known for his braggadocio style and vagrant habits.”8 Journalists and spectators alike were repulsed by Herold’s immaturity, unkempt appearance, and “vulgar face.” The defendant, said one disgusted preacher, “looks as if he had not a particle of mind, low, retreating forehead, vacant look.” Herold, concluded another viewer, was “more of a simpleton than a demon.”9

  As spiteful as the depictions of Herold were, they were nothing compared to that of George Atzerodt. “Spectators generally single out Atzerodt readily among the prisoners,” noted the Washington Evening Star:

  His face is a terrible witness against him. A villainously low forehead, pinched up features, mean chin, sallow complexion, snaky eyes of greenish blue, nasty twisted mustache, head sunk into his shoulders and crouching figure make up the disagreeable presentment of George A. Atzerodt.10

  “This fellow might safely challenge the rest of the party as the completest personification of a low and cunning scoundrel,” reflected newsman Noah Brooks. “It was observed that when any ludicrous incident disturbed the gravity of the court . . . Atzerot [sic] was the only man who never smiled.”11

  As with David Herold, more than one viewer commented on Atzerodt’s low and receding profile.12 “No forehead, shaggy[,] unkempt, with hair hanging loosely over his face,” sneered a revolted spectator. “I never saw a face more utterly vacant or so without a single redeeming feature.”13

  If Atzerodt had failed in his part of the plot to kill Andrew Johnson, most felt it was not, as he insisted, a change of heart, but rather simple cowardice that caused him to do so. In sum, said the New York Times, “George A. Atzeroth [sic] was a coward, mentally, morally and physically . . . , and he failed to make any one care a rap whether he lived or died.”14