Leale leaned in close to the president’s face. He was still alive. Leale decided to give the president a few minutes to gather what strength he still possessed before undertaking a complete examination. At this moment of temporary repose, Leale seemed, for the first time, to take in his surroundings. He sniffed the moist and stifling air. There were too many people in the little room, raising the temperature and sucking the oxygen that Lincoln needed to live. Leale ordered the windows opened. Then he ordered everyone but doctors and friends of the president out. Still too many people. Leale asked all but the doctors to leave. Mary Lincoln remained and hovered over her husband. Dr. Leale prodded her gently. He explained that he and the other doctors must examine the president now. After that, she could return to his side. Mary agreed to leave the room and went to a sofa in the front parlor, where she remained throughout the night whenever she was not at the bedside. Alone with their patient, Leale, Taft, and King worked quickly, stripping Abraham Lincoln naked, head to toe.
Maunsell B. Field, assistant secretary of the treasury, pushed through the masses packed in front of the Petersen house and forced his way inside. The first person he saw, Clara Harris, told him that the president was dying but admonished him not to tell Mary Lincoln. It was obvious to everyone that Mary was coming apart and no one wanted to push her over the edge into total breakdown. Field entered the parlor and found Mary “in a state of indescribable agitation.” He heard her ask the same question “over and over again”: “Why didn’t he kill me? Why didn’t he kill me?” To Clara Harris, Mary Lincoln chanted another lament throughout the night. Whenever Mary laid eyes upon Clara’s crimson-streaked dress, she recoiled in horror. “My husband’s blood,” she moaned again and again. “My husband’s blood.” Clara chose not to correct her. It was not the president’s blood that soaked her dress, but that of her fiancé, Henry. And his supply was running low: “The wound which I had received was bleeding profusely, and, on reaching the house . . . feeling very faint from the loss of blood, I seated myself in the hall, and soon after fainted away, and was laid upon the floor. Upon the return of consciousness, I was taken to my residence.”
A few hundred feet away, Stanton’s carriage came to a standstill, unable to penetrate the crowd. The coachman simply could not drive the horses through the mob. Stanton decided that if they could not ride, they would walk. He opened the door and dismounted the carriage, joined by his passengers Secretary of the Navy Welles, Judge Cartter, and General Meigs. Eckert could not believe his eyes. Sitting in their carriage, elevated above the crowd, the officials were relatively safe, like passengers in a lifeboat riding atop a tumultuous sea. But on foot, in the dark, in the midst of thousands of people, anything could happen that night. Indeed, it already had. But now Stanton’s entourage, which included the two cabinet secretaries responsible for the entire, combined armed forces of the United States on land and at sea, headed into the mob and vanished from sight.
On the road south and east from Surrattsville, Booth and Herold had the road to themselves—they saw and were seen by no one. Although desperate to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Washington, they had to be careful to not ride their horses too fast or hard. They had a long way to go and could not risk having the horses break down during a prolonged and dangerous sprint. Booth had pushed his horse to the limit when he galloped through downtown Washington, but escaping Baptist Alley and putting that first mile or two between himself and Ford’s Theatre was vital. Once he left Lloyd’s tavern, he paced the animal more carefully.
Drs. Leale, Taft, and King scrutinized Lincoln’s entire body front and back for knife or gunshot wounds but found nothing other than the bullet hole in the head. During their examination they noticed that the president’s lower extremities—his feet and legs—were already getting cold. Lincoln’s eyes were closed. The lids and surrounding tissue were so filled with blood that to Dr. Taft they looked bruised, like someone had punched the president in the face. The doctors lifted the lid covering Lincoln’s left eye: the pupil was very contracted. They lifted the lid over the right eye: the pupil was widely dilated, and both pupils were totally insensitive to light—all signs consistent with a catastrophic, irreversible injury to the brain. On the doctors’ orders, a hospital steward from Lincoln Hospital, a nearby military facility, sprinted from the bedside and returned with hot water, brandy, blankets, and a large sinapism, or mustard plaster. Soon the surgeons covered the whole anterior surface of Lincoln’s body, from the neck to the toes, with mustard plasters to keep him warm. Then they covered him up to his chin with a sheet, blankets, and a coverlet. His breathing was regular but heavy, interrupted by an occasional sigh. They laid a clean, white napkin over the bloodstains on the pillow. They placed a small chair at the head of the bed, near Lincoln’s face. Now the president was ready for Mary to see him again. Leale sent an officer to the front parlor to inform her. She rushed to the bedroom and sat beside her husband. “Love, live but for one moment to speak to me once—to speak to our children.” Lincoln was deaf to her pleas.
With the president’s condition stable for now, or at least as stable as that of a dying man shot through the brain could be, Dr. Leale diverted his attention from medical to practical concerns. He sent messengers summoning Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s eldest son; Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes; Surgeon D. Willard Bliss at the Armory Square Hospital; Lincoln’s family physician, Dr. Robert King Stone; and the president’s pastor, the Reverend Dr. Phineas T. Gurley. He also sent a hospital steward in search of a special piece of medical equipment, a Nelaton probe. There was work to do inside Lincoln’s brain.
Secretary of War Stanton pushed through the crowd, clambered up the stairs of the Petersen house and rushed down the hall. The sight of the president shocked him. He did not need doctors to tell him what would happen: Abraham Lincoln was going to die, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. But he could do something: in the president’s absence, he could protect and defend the country.
Stanton took charge of the Petersen house and commandeered the back parlor, the one closest to the bedroom, as his field office. He made a quick executive decision. He would not return to the War Department tonight but instead would remain with the president. The Petersen boardinghouse was the War Department now. Edwin Stanton assumed that the Lincoln and Seward assassinations had exposed the existence of a devilish Confederate plot to kill the leadership of the national government, reverse the verdict of the battlefield, and, in one last desperate assault, win the Civil War. Stanton and his lieutenants assumed that all the cabinet heads had been marked for death tonight. And a rebel army might be advancing on Washington at this moment.
Stanton wanted his commanding general back in Washington immediately and ordered his aides to track down U. S. Grant. It was the first telegram issued from the ersatz War Department headquarters at the Petersen house.
April 14th 12 p.m. 1865 Washington DC
To Lt. Genl Grant
On Night Train to Burlington
The President was assassinated tonight at Ford’s Theatre at 10 30 tonight & cannot live. The wound is a pistol shot through the head. Secretary Seward & his son Frederick, were also assassinated at their residence & are in a dangerous condition. The Secretary of War desires that you return to Washington immediately. Please answer on receipt of this.
Thos. T. Eckert, Maj.
It occurred to Charles A. Dana, assistant secretary of war, that Grant might be in danger. The newspapers had advertised his appearance at Ford’s Theatre, and perhaps he, too, was on Booth’s death list. Dana sent a telegram to Philadelphia, warning the commanding general of assassins or sabotage on the railroad: “Permit me to suggest to you to keep a close watch on all persons who come near you in the cars or otherwise; also, that an engine be sent in front of the train to guard against anything being on the track.” Stanton rushed guards to the homes of all the cabinet secretaries to protect them from imminent assassination, if they were not dead a
lready. He ordered military units to take to the streets. At midnight Quartermaster General Meigs, who had ridden with Stanton to the Petersen house, dispatched an urgent message to Major General Christopher Columbus Augur (who signed his name “C. C.” for the obvious reasons), commander of the military district of Washington: “The Secretary directs that the troops turn out; the guards be doubled, the forts be alert; guns manned; special vigilance and guard about the Capitol Prison I advise, if your men are not sufficiently numerous, call upon General Rucker for assistance in furnishing guards.” The troops must maintain order and be ready for anything on this wild night. And clear away the mob from the street in front of this house, Stanton ordered. Soldiers tried to push back the insistent throng that pressed forward and obstructed Petersen’s staircase.
Stanton then turned to his second mission, launching an investigation that would ascertain what had happened at Ford’s Theatre and the Seward house. He was determined to apprehend the criminals. He set up around his table a three-member court of inquiry—Judge Abram B. Olin, attorney Britten A. Hill, and chief justice of the D.C. courts David K. Cartter—to question witnesses. The secretary of war made it clear that he was in charge. Later, when Vice President Johnson arrived at the deathbed, he remained in the background and chose not to assert himself. In the days ahead the new president left it to Stanton to bring Lincoln’s killer and his accomplices to justice.
Stanton had witnesses from Ford’s Theatre dragooned and brought before him. They spoke so fast that he recruited a legless Union army veteran who lived next door, James Tanner, to take it down in shorthand. One witness after another swore that it was Booth, John Wilkes Booth. Stanton barked orders by telegraph—his operators could wire news and orders all over the country—and soon telegraph lines across the nation were singing the same frequency: the president and the secretary of state have been assassinated. Messages went from the War Department to Baltimore, New York, and beyond. Search the trains. Guard the bridges. Watch for suspicious characters. Question witnesses. Identify suspects. Make arrests.
Stanton did not have time to write out every order and telegram personally on Petersen’s round parlor table. Soon the command structure took over as his trusted subordinates issued a blizzard of instructions. All through the first hours of April 15, the telegraph wires carried messages between Washington and commanders in the field. At 12:20 a.m., General James A. Hardie sent an order to the U.S. Military Railroad at Alexandria: “It is reported that the assassin of the President has gone out hence to Alexandria, thence on the train to Fairfax. Stop all trains in that direction. Apply to military commander at Alexandria for guard to arrest all persons on train or on the road not known. By order of the Secretary of War.”
At Winchester, Virginia, General Stevenson received an urgent message about the trains: “Have any trains reached Harper’s Ferry this morning? . . . [It] is possible that the assassins may endeavor to escape south through your lines at some point.” In a 1:00 a.m. telegram, Augur informed Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, commanding the Middle Military Division at Winchester, that he could spare no troops: “The President, Mr. Lincoln, was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre . . . and is now dying. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, was also stabbed in his bed, and is not expected to recover. I shall not be able to send cavalry as you ordered, as I wish to use them scouring the countryside for the assassins.” Around the same time Augur ordered General Gamble, commanding at Fairfax Court House, to “at daylight take your cavalry and scatter it along the river toward Leesburg to arrest and send in all suspicious persons; also along your whole line between it and Washington.”
At 1:10 a.m., April 15, Stanton sent a hurried telegram to John Kennedy, New York City’s chief of police, asking him to rush detectives to Washington: “Send here immediately three or four of your best detectives to investigate the facts as to the assassination of the President and Secretary Seward. They are still alive, but the president’s case is hopeless, and that of Mr. Seward’s nearly the same.”
Sometime between midnight and 1:00 a.m., George ATZERODT arrived at the Pennsylvania House. James Walker, a black employee whose job it was to “make fires, carry water, and to wait on gentlemen that come in late and early,” greeted him. Atzerodt was on a horse again, and he told Walker to hold the animal while he went into the bar to drink. When he emerged from the bar he rode away but returned on foot around 2:00 a.m. He wanted a bed and asked for room 51, where he had stayed in the past. Walker and the innkeeper, John Greenawalt, told him that his old room was occupied—he’d have to stay in 53, a room with several beds that he would have to share with other occupants. As George headed to his room Greenawalt told him to come back:
“Atzerodt, you have not registered.”
“Do you want my name?” He was reluctant to sign the book.
“Certainly,” Greenawalt replied.
The innkeeper thought that the German behaved oddly. “He hesitated some, but stepped back and registered, and went to his room. He had never before hesitated to register his name.”
After Atzerodt had settled into his room, another guest, Lieutenant W. R. Keim, climbed into the bed opposite his. They had a passing acquaintance, having shared room 51 a week or ten days ago. Keim mentioned the news: “I asked him if he had heard of the assassination of the President, and he said he had; that it was an awful affair.”
At 1:30 a.m., Stanton sent a telegram to Major General John A. Dix in New York. It contained the first details of the assassination:
Last evening about 10:30 p.m. at Ford’s Theatre the President while sitting in his private box with Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris and Major Rathbun [sic] was shot by an assassin who suddenly entered the box and approached behind the President. The assassin then leaped upon the Stage brandishing a large dagger or knife and made his escape in the rear of the theater. The Pistol ball entered the back of the President’s head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal. The President has been insensible ever since it was inflicted and is now dying.
About the same hour an assassin (whether the same or another) entered Mr. Seward’s house and under pretense of having a prescription, was shown to the Secretary’s sick chamber, the Secretary was in bed a nurse and Miss Seward with him. The assassin immediately rushed to the bed inflicted two or three stabs on the throat and two on the face. It is hoped the wounds may not be mortal my apprehension is that they will prove fatal. The noise alarmed Mr. Frederick Seward who was in an adjoining room & hastened to the door of his father’s room, where he met the assassin who inflicted upon him one or more dangerous wounds. The recovery of Frederick Seward is doubtful. It is not probable that the President will live through the night. General Grant & wife were advertised to be at the theater this evening, but he started to Burlington at 6 o’clock this evening.
At a cabinet meeting yesterday at which General Grant was present, the subject of the State of the Country & the prospect of speedy peace was discussed. The President was very cheerful & hopeful spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy, and the prospect of establishment of government in Virginia.
The members of the Cabinet except Mr. Seward are now in attendance upon the President. I have seen Mr. Seward but he & Frederick were both unconscious.
Soon the wires sang back with messages to Stanton from military commanders. We have received your news. We are obeying your orders. John Wilkes Booth could be heading anywhere: to Baltimore, the city where Lincoln was almost murdered in 1861, to his friends and old haunts there. To New York, disloyal capital of American commerce. Or farther north, to Canada, seat of operations for the Confederate Secret Service. Booth could be anywhere. The government would have to search for him everywhere. At 2:00 a.m., Major General Halleck, the army’s chief of staff, telegraphed General W. W. Morris, commanding the District of Baltimore: “Attempts have been made to-night to assassinate the President and Secretary of State. Arrest all persons who leave Washington to-night on any road or by water
, and hold them till further orders. In the meantime report as to each person arrested.” At 3:00 a.m., Stanton wrote out another telegram to General Morris from his post at the Petersen house: “Make immediate arrangements for guarding thoroughly every avenue leading into Baltimore, and if possible arrest J. Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. You will acknowledge the receipt of this telegram, giving time, & c. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War.” Before Major Eckert handed the order over to a messenger to run over to the War Department telegraph office, he added a quick postscript in his own hand, addressed to the operators: “Bates, Stewart, or Maynard: Rush this through and order the immediate delivery.” Despite Eckert’s demand, it took fifty-five minutes for the message to travel from Stanton’s table in the back parlor at the Petersen house into Morris’s hands in Baltimore. He wrote his response at 4:15 a.m.: “Your dispatch received. The most vigourous measures will be taken. Every avenue is guarded. No trains or boats will be permitted to leave.”
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