Booth faced the difficult choice of what to do next. If the doctor had betrayed him to the troops in Bryantown, Booth was a dead man. If they did not kill him on the spot at Mudd’s farm, then they would escort their captured prey back to Washington for a hanging. Instead of fleeing the farm immediately, they waited for the doctor’s return.
After 6:00 P.M., Mudd finally rode down the main road and made the turn toward the farm. He was alone and brought no cavalry. Booth’s judgment of Mudd’s character had been correct: He had not betrayed them.
Mudd could not hide his distress. He ordered Booth and Herold to leave his farm at once. Ignoring Mudd’s anger, Booth focused on the priceless news the doctor had brought back from Bryantown. The president was dead, and the fame was his! Less than twenty-four hours after the assassination, Dr. Mudd had just given Booth the first confirmation that he had killed Lincoln!
Booth might rejoice at the news of the tyrant’s death, but Mudd was angry and afraid. By coming there, Booth had placed Mudd and his entire family in great danger. Yes, Mudd had agreed to help Booth with the kidnapping of Abraham Lincoln, but no one had consulted him about murder! Now, by offering Booth his hospitality, he had unknowingly made himself an accomplice in the most shocking crime in all of American history — the murder of the president of the United States!
Mudd continued to insist that Booth and Herold leave his farm at once. But he was sympathetic to the assassin’s situation. He was no fan of Abraham Lincoln, the Union, or black people. Booth may have involved him and abused his hospitality, but not enough to make Mudd betray him. Mudd agreed that, as long as they left immediately, he would still help the assassins.
He would not return to Bryantown and report Booth’s whereabouts. He would hold his tongue and allow Booth a head start. If the soldiers came to question him, he would say only that two strangers in need of medical assistance stopped briefly at his farm. Then he would send the manhunters in the wrong direction.
Mudd gave Booth the names of two trustworthy local Confederate operatives, William Burtles and Captain Samuel Cox. Then Mudd explained the route to the next stop on their underground rebel railroad. They must travel southeast in a wide arc to avoid the troops in Bryantown. About two miles south, they would find the Burtles place. Cox’s farm was several miles further southwest, and from there they would be close to the Potomac River. Mudd also gave Booth the name of a doctor on the Virginia side in case his leg continued to trouble him.
David helped Booth climb onto his horse and handed him the crude crutches Mudd had made for him. Mudd, relieved by their leaving, watched them ride off until they vanished from sight.
It was around 7:00 P.M., fifteen hours since the assassins had arrived at Mudd’s door, and just under twenty hours since John Wilkes Booth had shot the president. As dusk faded to dark, Booth and Herold continued south, careful to watch for signs of cavalry. The pair had a long night’s ride ahead of them. But they had survived the first day undetected.
Although Dr. Mudd had shown Booth the route they must take, Booth and Herold got lost. They were fortunate to come upon a local man, Oswell Swann, half black, half Piscataway, who, for seven dollars, agreed to take them directly to Captain Cox’s place. Oswell Swann earned his pay this night. He guided them safely through the Zekiah swamp, with its muck, snakes, and wild, overgrown vegetation, to the doorstep of Captain Samuel Cox. It was after midnight April 16, Easter Sunday.
Back at Ford’s Theatre, the investigation was well under way. Stanton was determined to preserve the scene of the crime. He ordered the theater to be surrounded by a twenty-four-hour guard. He wanted photographs of the interior of the theater, to record exactly how it appeared at the moment of the assassination. Matthew Brady, who had photographed Lincoln many times, now photographed the scene of his murder. He captured the stage and its scenery as it was at the time of the assassination, the exterior of the president’s box, the approach to the box, and the outer door leading to the vestibule.
Easter Sunday 1865 would forever be known as Black Easter to those who lived through it. Abraham Lincoln’s murder transformed a time of rejoicing in the capital to a time of mourning. Across the country, ministers stayed up late Saturday night and by candle or lamp wrote out the final words of sermons they began composing as soon as they heard the terrible news of the president’s death.
In the early hours of Black Easter, Booth and Herold sought their salvation: not in a church, but at the door of a loyal Confederate. At the Cox house, Herold dismounted and knocked. Booth stayed on his horse under the cover of a tree in the yard. Cox poked his head out from a second-story window and asked, “Who’s there?” Herold refused to give his name, not sure if he could trust the captain. He said only that he was with a man who needed help.
Suspicious, Cox opened the door and looked over the worn-out, crazy-eyed man standing before him. The stranger seemed more like a boy than a man. The farmer looked around his yard. Booth dismounted with some difficulty and hobbled up the porch to the door. In great pain, he pleaded with Cox for help. It was there, by brilliant moonlight, that Cox saw the initials j.w.b. tattooed on the hand of the injured stranger. It was there the sweet-talking actor used his charms and talents to win over the man to his cause. Cox swung open the door and invited the fugitives into his home. To the nation, Black Easter dawned as a day of great mourning; to John Wilkes Booth, it began as a day of salvation.
Precisely what Booth told Cox on the front porch — and during the next few hours they spent together in the house — remains a mystery. The assassin of the president was in there, injured, desperate, and on the run from a manhunt. Given the unusual things Cox and his son were about to do for Booth, given Booth’s state of mind, there is little doubt that Booth confessed all to his hosts. Father and son saw the murderer and his accomplice and decided to help them. Cox helped them decide on their next move. He told Booth there was only one man who could get them safely across the Potomac River. That man was Thomas Jones.
They would summon Thomas Jones after sunrise the next morning. For now, it was too dangerous for Booth and Herold to remain at Cox’s farm. Instead, they would hide in a heavily wooded pine thicket some distance away. No one would search for them there, Cox reassured them, and it was unlikely any locals would happen to see them there. They were not to build a fire — someone might see it. In the morning, someone would come to them. That person would signal with a specific three-note whistle as he approached. They were to beware anyone who did not make that sound.
Booth and Herold ate the food Cox offered them, saddled up for the ride to the pine thicket, and rode off with Cox’s overseer as their guide. If their luck held, they would cross into Virginia sometime after nightfall, within twenty-four hours. If, that is, they could survive just one more day in Maryland.
Booth and Herold entered the pines, dismounted, and tied off their horses. Exhausted, the two men unrolled their blankets on the damp earth, laid down, and gazed up at the immense black sky decorated by countless points of twinkling light. It would be morning in a few hours. If Captain Cox’s word was true, it was safe to doze off until then.
The rising sun and chirping birds woke Booth and Herold early in the morning. Now they could do nothing but wait. Back at the farm, Captain Cox had to find out whether his friend would actually help Booth and Herold. He sent his son to fetch Thomas Jones right away.
Thomas Jones was a Confederate Secret Service veteran who had spent his entire life trailblazing through the fields, thickets, and forests of rural Maryland and navigating its streams, marshes, and rivers. During the war, he had ferried hundreds of men, and the occasional female spy, across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. He transported the Confederate mail between the two states and sent south fresh Union newspapers that provided information valuable to the Confederacy. Jones was a valuable and mysterious secret agent operating along the watery borders between Union an
d Confederate territory. The Union army had never caught him in action — he was a river ghost to the boys in blue uniforms. His knowledge of the river enabled him to calculate the best time to begin a trip across. They should leave a little before sunset, when the reflection in the water of the high bluffs near Pope’s Creek extended out into the Potomac until it nearly met the shadows cast by the Virginia woods. It would be difficult to spot a small rowboat floating in the river.
Jones’s service to the Confederacy had cost him a great deal. Suspected of disloyalty to the Union, federal forces arrested and jailed him for months at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington. When Jones went to the Confederate capital, Richmond, at the beginning of April 1865 to collect the money owed him by the Confederacy, he discovered that the army had evacuated the city and he went unpaid. He lost $2,300 owed to him for three years of service, along with all the money he had invested in Confederate bonds at the beginning of the war. All this meant Jones needed as much money as he could lay his hands on.
At Jones’s farm, the Cox boy told Jones his father wished to see him at once. “Some strangers were at our house last night,” the boy said. Jones’s eyes lit up. Could he mean the heroes who assassinated President Lincoln? The report excited Jones. The day before Jones learned from Union soldiers that Lincoln had been assassinated, and they had information that the assassins had traveled this way. Jones felt it in his bones: Captain Cox wanted to see him about something connected to the assassination!
Jones saddled up and accompanied young Cox to his father’s farm. Once he arrived, Captain Cox and Thomas Jones spoke casually for a few minutes until Cox could avoid the subject no longer.
“Tom, I had visitors about four o’clock this morning,” Cox revealed. “They want to get across the river.” He spoke in a whisper. “Have you heard that Lincoln was killed Friday night?”
Yes, Jones replied, telling Cox about what he had learned about the assassination from the Union soldiers.
Cox finally blurted out, “Tom, we must get those men who were here this morning across the river.” Then he told Jones everything about the late-night visit from Booth and Herold.
Jones was no coward. Four years of loyal, dangerous service to the Confederacy had proved that. But the war was over. Jones considered the situation. Then he made up his mind. “I will see what I can do,” he said. “I must see these men; where are they?”
Captain Cox told Thomas Jones that Booth and Herold had spent the night in the pine thicket. Lincoln’s killer was there now, waiting for someone to rescue him. Cox gave Jones the whistle code — a set of three notes — and cautioned him to approach the fugitives carefully. “They are fully armed and might shoot you through mistake,” he warned.
Alone, Jones rode toward his meeting with Lincoln’s assassins. At the edge of the thicket, he stopped, whistled the three notes, and waited. David Herold rose from the brush and aimed his Spencer carbine at him. The weapon was cocked and ready to fire. “Who are you, and what do you want?” demanded Herold.
Jones told Herold that Cox had sent him, and that he was a friend. Herold relaxed his grip on his gun and said, “Follow me.” He took Jones deeper into the pines, through thick undergrowth, to a man partly concealed by the brush. Jones, overcome by a mixture of thrill and fear, saw John Wilkes Booth for the first time. He later recalled that Booth was dressed in stained, dark clothes. Booth was very pale and his face bore signs of suffering.
Booth confided what Jones already knew: Booth had killed Lincoln. The assassin understood that the odds of escape were against him. He also vowed that he would never be taken alive. Jones was sure he meant it.
Jones proposed a plan. He would help Booth and Herold cross the Potomac River to Virginia, but they must leave it to him to decide when and how they would make the attempt. Patience was essential. Meanwhile, Jones would feed them and make preparations for their crossing.
Booth and Herold must not leave the pine thicket, make any noise, or do anything that might let anyone know they were there. Jones said that to cross the river they needed a dark night, smooth water, and deserted riverbanks. It would be best to wait for the departure of many of the soldiers and detectives who had already followed Booth south into Maryland. That might take days. And there would be no doctor for Booth until they crossed the river.
Jones persuaded the assassins that the best way to escape was to stop running and go into hiding. Manhunters were already nearby. Soon federal forces would join Lieutenant Dana and fan out across the part of Maryland Booth and Herold were in. They would remain in hiding and let the manhunters sweep through the county before they moved on.
Booth’s curiosity about public reaction to the assassination led him to make an additional request of Jones: Please bring some current Washington newspapers from the day Lincoln died or from today, the sixteenth. Despite his pain and exhaustion, the actor was eager to read about his deed in the papers.
Jones mounted his horse, maneuvered through the pine trees, and vanished from sight. Until Jones returned, Booth and Herold were on their own.
With his simple plan, Jones foiled the whole manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. A single Confederate agent, nearly penniless, had just frustrated the frantic pursuit by thousands of men being directed from Washington by Secretary of War Stanton.
Late on Easter morning, George Atzerodt showed up at the home of Hezekiah Metz, about twenty-two miles from Washington, in Montgomery County, Maryland, north of Charles County where Booth and Herold were. Atzerodt joined Metz and three of his guests for a midday meal. One of the guests had known him for years, and when Atzerodt arrived he teased him.
“Are you the man that killed Abe Lincoln?” The joke must have frozen Atzerodt in his tracks. Atzerodt laughed and said, “Yes.” He also confirmed for the guests that Seward’s throat had been cut, his sons attacked. Atzerodt, the slow-witted German, did not know it, but he had just sealed his fate. One of the guests would inform the local authorities of Atzerodt’s boast.
After dinner, Atzerodt, unaware that he had aroused the suspicions of the guest, traveled to the home of his cousin Hartman Richter, arriving after 2:00 P.M.
That day, Samuel Mudd considered his situation. At some point, probably soon, the soldiers or detectives would discover two things about him: He had visitors on assassination night and, even more damning, he had known ties to Booth. He did not wish to betray Booth, but too many people at Mudd’s farm had seen Booth and Herold for Mudd to keep the visit a secret forever.
Mudd solved his problem by sending his cousin George, a loyal Unionist and therefore above suspicion by the federal authorities, to town to report Booth’s visit to Mudd’s farm. The vague, secondhand report he would deliver would not likely cause the soldiers to leap into their saddles in pursuit of the two strangers. Through the afternoon and into the evening, Dr. Mudd awaited the arrival of the manhunters. But they did not come. In a stroke of good luck for Booth, for unknown reasons Samuel Mudd’s cousin George failed to ride into town to report the strangers to the cavalry. The delay gave Booth an additional lead over his pursuers.
In Washington, the manhunt had progressed little. John Wilkes Booth had assassinated the president almost forty-eight hours before, but the manhunters had no solid leads. Yes, the police, detectives, and officers had found a number of leads on Booth’s accomplices, but none led to Booth.
Hats, the Deringer pistol, abandoned knives, broken revolvers, jackets, one-eyed horses, bankbooks, mysterious letters, hotel registers, notes to vice presidents, trunks, rope, spurs, bridles, saddles, and eyewitness accounts were all fine clues that made the assassin seem very vivid and near. These would make good evidence at a criminal trial as proof of identity and guilt. The evidence already collected by April 15 confirmed that it was Booth who had shot Lincoln, and that he seemed to have several accomplices. The contents of Atzerodt’s room at the Kirkwood, plus Booth’s “Sam” letter,
suggested that the vice president had also been marked for death. The evidence pointed to Booth’s guilt, but not to how he planned to make his escape. Booth could be anywhere. Many false sightings across the country made the pursuit more difficult. With each passing hour, Booth’s trail grew a little colder. Soon he would disappear forever. Booth’s skill at avoiding the manhunters increased the government’s embarrassment over its failure to find him.
On the night of April 16, Stanton had no idea of John Wilkes Booth’s location or destination. Yes, it was probably Booth who gave the name Booth to Sergeant Cobb at the bridge and fled into Maryland. But where did he go after that?
(Previous page) The April 16 issue of the New York Herald confirmed the death of the president.
On Monday, April 17, Thomas Jones appeared to go about his business as usual. He did his chores and ate his usual breakfast. He grabbed some bread, butter, and ham, filled a flask with coffee, and stuffed everything into his pockets. He folded the newspapers and stashed them in his coat. He carried a basket of corn on his arm to throw off any Union troops he might encounter. If stopped and questioned, he could claim that he was on his way to feed his hogs, which ran free in the woods. A little before 10:00 A.M., Jones rode toward the pine thicket.
About a hundred yards from Booth’s camp, Jones dismounted, walked slowly, and whistled the secret signal as he came within earshot of the assassins. Booth and Herold welcomed him, and the food he brought, with open arms. Booth was especially eager to see the other treats Jones brought — the newspapers! At last, three long days after the assassination, he could read about his history-making actions and how they were reported to the nation. He must have delighted in reading the details of the assassination as reported in the papers, as though reading the reviews of a performance.
Chasing Lincoln's Killer Page 8