Between 12 noon and 1:00 P.M., Booth stopped by the stables of James W. Pumphrey, where he made arrangements to rent a horse for his escape later that night. He told Pumphrey he would stop back around 4:00 P.M. that afternoon to pick up the horse. During his chat with Pumphrey, Booth said he was stopping by Grover’s Theatre to write a letter.19 The day before, Booth had paid a visit to Grover’s Theatre asking the manager, C.D. Hess, if he intended to invite the Lincolns to his theater to celebrate the rededication of Fort Sumter. Booth had already made up his mind to assassinate the president. All he needed was opportunity.
Hess told Booth he planned on inviting President and Mrs. Lincoln, but had not yet sent a message to the White House. By the time Hess’s invitation arrived, the Lincolns had already made arrangements to go to Ford’s.20 In either case, Booth was well acquainted with both of the theaters’ layouts and their owners. Either theater would serve his purpose.
Before going to Grover’s, Booth paid a second visit to Mrs. Surratt at her boardinghouse. At approximately 2:30 P.M., one of Mrs. Surratt’s boarders, Louis Wiechmann, returned from Howard’s Livery Stables, where he rented a buggy at Mary Surratt’s request. She needed to go to Surrattsville and asked Wiechmann if he would drive her there. She gave Wiechmann $10 and sent him to Howard’s to rent a buggy. On his return, Wiechmann found Booth and Mary Surratt standing by the fireplace in conversation. A few minutes later Booth left and Mary Surratt and Wiechmann rode down to Surrattsville.21
Mary carried a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string that had been given to her by Booth with instructions to deliver it to John Lloyd, the tavern keeper. It contained Booth’s field glass, although Mary later claimed she did not know what was in the package. She also carried a message from Booth. The message would send her to the gallows. She told Lloyd to “have those shooting irons ready that night,—there would be some parties call for them.”22 While Lloyd’s testimony would tighten the noose around Mary’s neck, it would prove controversial to those advocates of Mary’s innocence who pointed out that Lloyd was a drunk and spoke only to save his own neck. In short, he lied. But another condemned conspirator, George Atzerodt, corroborated Lloyd’s claim that Mary had told him to have the guns ready. In his statement made while imprisoned at the Arsenal, Atzerodt claimed, “Booth told me that Mrs. Surratt went to Surrattsville to get out the guns (two carbines) which had been taken to that place by Herold. This was Friday.”23 Atzerodt’s statement is devastating to claims of Mary’s innocence. Atzerodt could have only gotten such information from Booth himself sometime during their evening meeting in Lewis Powell’s room.
The fact that Booth came to Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse on the afternoon of April 14 with a package that he wanted Mary to carry to Surrattsville can only mean that he had visited her earlier in the day and learned of her plans to go to the tavern that very afternoon. How else would Booth know of her trip unless he had visited her earlier in the day? Whatever the reason for her trip that fateful afternoon, Mary gave Booth’s package to Lloyd, and the message that would help send her to the gallows.
At some point in the afternoon Booth stopped by the Kirkwood Hotel located on the corner of Twelfth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Early that morning George Atzerodt had registered at the Kirkwood under instructions from Booth. Atzerodt would be assigned the task of killing Andrew Johnson, who was staying at the Kirkwood until he could find more suitable quarters befitting a vice president. The fact that Atzerodt had registered at the Kirkwood Hotel at least three hours before Booth had learned that Lincoln would be attending Ford’s that night suggests that Booth had prior knowledge that the Lincolns would be attending a theater that evening. Which one of Washington’s several theaters was not clear, but the Lincolns usually attended Ford’s or Grover’s. April 14 was the anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces in 1861. Sumter’s rededication on April 14 was a day for national celebration. Extending an invitation to the president was good business.
While at the Kirkwood, Booth took a small card from his pocket and wrote out a terse message that he left with the desk clerk. The card read: “Don’t wish to disturb you; are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.” The clerk placed the card in the box of William A. Browning, personal secretary to Andrew Johnson. Browning returned from the capitol building to the Kirkwood House sometime around 5:00 P.M. to find the card in his box.24 Browning, who had met Booth on several occasions prior to his coming to Washington, assumed the card was meant for him, but after Lincoln was killed, believed it was intended for Johnson.25 Most authors have accepted Browning’s conclusion that the card was meant for Johnson and not for himself. Some even suggest that Booth was attempting to implicate Johnson in Lincoln’s assassination.26 This seems unwarranted by simple logic. If Booth intended for Atzerodt to murder Johnson, why would he try to implicate him in Lincoln’s murder? Booth was more than likely calling on Browning to find out Johnson’s schedule for that evening to facilitate Atzerodt’s assigned task. Booth was simply using Browning as his “locator.” Browning’s absence meant that Booth would have to take his chances that Johnson would be in his room that evening.
At 4:00 P.M. Booth ran into fellow actor John Matthews on Pennsylvania Avenue between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets. Booth was carrying the letter he had written earlier in the day at Grover’s and addressed to the editor of the National Intelligencer. According to Matthews’s testimony given two years later during the impeachment hearing on Andrew Johnson, Booth asked Matthews to deliver his letter to the Intelligencer the next morning unless he later told Matthews not to.27 This latter instruction was an important qualification suggesting that Booth was covering his bases in case the assassination did not take place. Matthews agreed without knowing its contents or Booth’s plan. It was a small favor for a good friend. When Matthews awoke on Saturday morning to find that Booth had murdered the president, he tore open the envelope and read the letter. Shocked by what he read, Matthews claimed to have reread the letter, carefully absorbing its contents. Alarmed that he might be implicated in some way with his good friend, Matthews immediately burned the letter and told no one about the incident.28 Sixteen years later he would attempt to reconstruct the letter from memory for an article published in the Washington Evening Star of December 7, 1881.
The letter that Matthews reconstructed is nearly identical to the “to whom it may concern” letter that Booth wrote in November of 1864 and left in the safekeeping of his sister Asia.29 It is not plausible that Matthews could have remembered the text of so long a letter sixteen years after he had read it. Historian James O. Hall concluded, correctly I believe, that Matthews probably used Booth’s “to whom it may concern” letter in reconstructing much of the National Intelligencer letter that he had destroyed.
While Booth and Matthews stood on the avenue chatting, an open carriage passed by carrying General and Mrs. Grant. Matthews later described the incident: “Why, Johnny, there goes Grant. I thought he was coming to the theater this evening with the President. ‘Where?’ he exclaimed. I pointed to the carriage; he looked toward it, grasped my hand tightly, and galloped down the avenue after the carriage.”30
Matthews’s account of Grant’s riding by in a carriage and Booth’s galloping after it squares with an account given by Horace Porter, Grant’s aide,31 several years later in which Porter told that a man strongly resembling Booth rode past the carriage looking intently at Grant. Julia Grant remembered the incident more vividly, having become alarmed by the man who looked into the carriage. She told of having lunch with General Rawlings’s wife and young daughter on the afternoon of April 14. Four men came into the dining room and sat opposite their table. Julia Grant noticed that one of the men kept staring at her. Both she and Mrs. Rawlings agreed there was “something peculiar about them.” Julia described the incident that occurred later in the day while riding with her husband to the train depot: “As General Grant and I rode to the depot, this same dark, pale man rode past us at a sw
eeping gallop on a dark horse—black, I think. He rode twenty yards ahead of us, wheeled and returned, and as he passed us both going and returning, he thrust his face quite near the General’s and glared in a disagreeable manner.”32
Booth’s whereabouts for the next few hours are not clear, but he stabled his horse behind Ford’s Theatre and probably had supper. Around 6:00 P.M. he returned to the theater. It was now dark as the actors had finished their rehearsal and were off to supper. Making his way to the box, Booth entered the vestibule and closed the outer door. He took a knife from his pocket and carefully cut a small square in the plaster wall just large enough to receive the end of a pine brace. He carried with him the upright section of a music stand that he had found back stage. He now placed one end of the piece of wood into the hole cut into the wall while placing the other end against the door. The effect was to brace the door so that anyone trying to push it open from the other side would only wedge the piece of wood more tightly in the wall. Satisfied with his work, he removed the stick, placed it on the floor by the molding where it wouldn’t be noticed, and cleaned up the small pieces of plaster.
By 7:00 P.M. he was at the Herndon House where he met with Powell, Atzerodt, and Herold to go over the final plan. Booth had stashed Powell at the boardinghouse after bringing him down from Baltimore. Atzerodt was missing and Booth sent Herold to get him at the Kirkwood Hotel and bring him to Powell’s room.33 With his team of assassins assembled, Booth went over each person’s assignment. Powell “would go up to Seward’s house and kill him.”34 Atzerodt was to kill Andrew Johnson in his room at the Kirkwood Hotel. Herold would accompany Powell as his street guide and then lead him out of Washington to a rendezvous point in Maryland. Booth reserved the president for himself. Whatever else happened that night, the president must die. The final countdown had begun.
CHAPTER TEN
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.
Hamlet, 2.2
Darkness had settled over the city cloaking its hidden recesses from prying eyes. The celebration of Lee’s surrender was marked by brilliant illuminations of most of the government buildings. Even the brightest lanterns, however, could not reach the back alleys where the city’s underclass roamed. It was Good Friday, a holy day reserved for the remembrance of man’s sin against God—but it was joy, not sin, that was on the minds of the people this glorious night. Jubilation was everywhere as the victors celebrated the joyous news of Lee’s surrender five days before.
At John Ford’s theater a special benefit performance was scheduled for America’s leading lady, Laura Keene. Miss Keene would receive the lion’s share of the house receipts as payment for her star performances on the stage. This night would prove to be especially lucrative for Miss Keene, who would play to a packed house. Earlier in the day word had been sent to the Evening Star and National Intelligencer that the president and his wife would attend the theater that evening. Handbills were printed announcing the special event.1 Among the guests would be Ulysses S. Grant, the hero of the hour. It would be an opportunity for the people to see the two great leaders together. Grant, however, would not attend.
It was a few minutes past 9:30 P.M. when Booth made his way up the narrow alley leading to the rear of Ford’s Theatre. The alley was known by the people who lived in the area as “Baptist Alley” from its long association with the church that had once occupied the structure. Booth moved slowly past several shacks that lined the passageway. The dim glow of candlelight leaking from one of the small shacks helped guide him as he quietly moved toward the rear of the building. A wooden door led from the rear of the stage into the alley. Reaching the door, Booth dismounted and gently tapped against its surface so as not to disturb the performance that was in progress. The door opened slightly and a man stepped outside. It was Edman Spangler, a stagehand who also worked as a carpenter-handyman around the theater.
Spangler was an old friend of the Booth family. In 1852 he worked as a carpenter in helping build the Booth home in Bel Air. Spangler now worked at the theater shifting scenery between acts. The two men whispered briefly. Booth asked Spangler to watch his horse while he went inside for a few moments. Although Spangler was busy with the play, he couldn’t refuse his charming friend. Once Booth entered the theater, however, Spangler would call for young Joseph Burroughs to watch the horse while he returned to his work behind the stage. Burroughs worked as a general do-all around the theater, passing out flyers, carrying messages, and selling peanuts to patrons. He had earned the name “John Peanuts.”2 Spangler turned Booth’s horse over to Burroughs who soon stretched out on a small bench that stood next to the building.
Stepping inside the rear of the theater, Booth took hold of a metal ring fastened in the floor and carefully lifted a trapdoor exposing a set of steps leading down into a basement beneath the stage. Descending the stairs, he felt his way across the dirt floor to the opposite side, where he came upon another set of steps. Climbing these he pushed open a second trapdoor that led back to the floor he had just been on, only now he was on the other side of the backstage area. In this way Booth was able to pass from one side of the stage to the other without being seen or interfering with the play in progress immediately in his front. The maneuver required a familiarity with the theater and the underground layout of the building.
Having passed to the other side of the stage, Booth made his way through a side door that led into a narrow alley. The alley ran between the theater and an adjoining saloon before emptying onto the sidewalk in front of the theater. Booth’s familiarity with the theater served him well. He was able to leave his horse at the rear of the building while making his way unnoticed to the sidewalk in its front. In this way, his horse was safely positioned in the rear of the building in readiness for a fast getaway.
It was a few minutes before ten o’clock and the play was near the halfway point. Booth checked the time and entered the saloon next door. Here he ordered a whiskey and water and, after bantering with the barkeep, left by the front door.3 Emerging onto Tenth Street, Booth turned to go into the theater. John Buckingham, the doorkeeper was standing in the doorway leading into the small lobby when Booth walked up. Booth nodded and asked Buckingham the time. He told Booth to check the clock located in the lobby of the theater.4 Buckingham was well acquainted with Booth and paid little attention as the famous actor came back out and then went back in again. After entering the theater the second time, Booth made his way to the stairs at the north end of the lobby that led up to the dress circle on the second floor.5
Arriving at the top of the stairs, Booth found the circle filled with people. Several persons were standing against the rear wall watching the play unfold on the stage below. Booth paused, leaned against the wall, and surveyed the scene. After a few minutes he began to make his way across the rear of the circle. Pausing a second time, Booth took in the surroundings. Near the far side of the circle a Union officer, Captain Theodore McGowen of the Veteran Reserve Corps, sat in a chair, arms folded laughing at the comedy below. Booth began walking toward the closed door. As he came closer to the box he found his path blocked by McGowen. The officer pulled his chair forward making room for Booth to pass. McGowen later recalled what happened:
Ford’s Theatre: Path of John Wilkes Booth as he moved from the rear alley of the theater to the presidential box and back out of the theater following his assassination of President Lincoln.
I was sitting in the aisle leading by the wall toward the door of the President’s box, when a man came and disturbed me in my seat, causing me to push my chair forward to permit him to pass; he stopped about three feet from where I was sitting, and leisurely took a survey of the house. ... He took a small pack of visiting-cards from his pocket, selecting one and replacing the others, stood a second, perhaps, with it in his hand, and then showed it to the President’s messenger, who was sitting just below him. Whether the messenger took the card into the box, or, after looking at it, allowed him to
go in, I do not know; but, in a moment or two more, I saw him go through the door of the lobby leading to the box, and close the door.... I know J. Wilkes Booth, but, not seeing the face of the assassin fully, I did not at the time recognize him as Booth.6
The “messenger” was Charles Forbes, personal valet and footman to the president. Forbes had accompanied the president and his party to the theater, taking a seat at the end of the row, which placed him closest to the outer door of the presidential box. Forbes scrutinized the card and then nodded indicating Booth could go into the box. The officer turned his attention back toward the actors on stage.7
Assigned as the president’s guard this particular evening was Officer John F. Parker, a member of the Washington Metropolitan Police Force. Parker was one of four officers assigned to guard the president around the clock. He was scheduled for night duty on April 14 and had reported to the White House where the man he relieved, William Crook, told him the president and Mrs. Lincoln were preparing to go to Ford’s Theatre. Parker proceeded ahead, arriving at the theater before the presidential party, and was there when the Lincolns arrived. He apparently saw them into the theater and to the box. After that it remains unclear just what Parker’s duties were or where he had gone.
One thing is clear, Parker was not stationed outside the box, and when Booth came, he did not have to pass a police guard. The only person who stood between Booth and the inner passage to the president’s box was Charles Forbes. Forbes was not a policeman and had no duties pertaining to the president’s personal safety, only to his comfort.
Having satisfied Forbes that his business was legitimate, Booth passed through the outer door and found himself standing in the vestibule of the two boxes. Booth’s first act was to take the piece of wood that he had secured earlier in the day from a music stand and wedge it between the outer door and the wall, securing one end into the notch he had cut into the plaster. The acute angle formed by the wall and the door ensured that no one would be able to push the door open from the outside. The door secure, Booth knelt on one knee and peered through the small hole cut just above the doorknob. He could make out the side of a rather large rocking chair directly opposite the door. Seated in the rocker was the president.
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