Manhunt

by James L. Swanson

  Or was he? There was something about young Willie Jett that Booth did not know. Had he known it, the assassin would have fled from this boy’s company faster than he had galloped away from Ford’s Theatre. Booth might have even shot him for it. On the surface, the thing seemed innocuous, even innocent. Neither Booth nor Jett knew it yet, but their meeting had set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the actor’s downfall.

  For now all was well and Jett led the caravan a few blocks to the Port Royal home of Randolph Peyton. Jett knew him and thought he would take them in. Before Jett approached the house, Booth asked him to continue the ruse and introduce him as a wounded Confederate soldier named James Boyd. Peyton’s two spinster sisters, Sarah Jane and Lucy, answered the door. Jett asked if they would be kind enough to give shelter for two nights to a wounded Confederate soldier and his brother. The Peytons agreed to take the strangers in, and Jett beckoned Booth to come forward. Booth hobbled inside and reclined on a chaise lounge. It was the first time he had stretched out on a piece of furniture since he napped on the upholstered, black horsehair sofa in Dr. Mudd’s front parlor. After a few minutes Sarah Jane called Jett aside. She wanted to speak to him alone in the parlor. On second thought, she explained, this man could not stay here. Her brother Randolph was away at his farm and would not be back tonight. It was not right, without their brother at home, to permit strangers to sleep in the same house with two unmarried women. Regrettably, Sarah Jane informed Jett, she must rescind her premature offer of hospitality. She hated to say no to a wounded Confederate soldier, but in her brother’s absence, she had no choice.

  Jett accepted the refusal graciously. Making a scene would do no good. He asked if the Peytons’ neighbors across the street, the Catlitts, might take in Mr. Boyd. Sarah Jane said she did not know. Jett elected to try but discovered that, like Randolph Peyton, Mr. Catlitt was not home. Sarah Jane made a helpful suggestion: “You can get him in anywhere up the road—Mr. Garrett’s or anywhere else.” Jett agreed to try. At around 1:00 p.m. he helped Booth rise from the Peytons’ chaise lounge and stand up on his crutches. As they walked outside, Jett called to their comrades: “Boys, ride on further up to road.” After putting Booth on Ruggles’s horse, the men doubled up on the two remaining animals, Herold riding behind Jett, and Ruggles behind Bainbridge.

  Three and a half miles away, Richard H. Garrett presided over his five-hundred-acre farm, Locust Hill. It was a happy time. His two eldest sons, both in Confederate service, had just come home from the war. The caravan of riders, pacing slowly from Port Royal to the southwest, arrived in the late afternoon. David Herold jumped off Jett’s horse as soon as they passed the gate, and loitered near the road with Bainbridge, who dismounted and gave his horse to Booth. Jett, Booth, and Ruggles rode on to the house. As he had with Miss Sarah Jane Peyton, Booth asked Jett to introduce him by his pseudonym. Willie Jett introduced himself to Mr. Garrett from the saddle and then presented James Boyd: “Here is a wounded Confederate soldier that we want you to take care of for a day or so: will you do it?”

  Garrett thought of his sons, who had returned safely just a few days ago. He would return that blessing with a kindness: “Yes, certainly I will.”

  Around three o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, April 24, John Wilkes Booth had found refuge for the night. And he had survived another day.

  Booth got down from Ruggles’s horse. Their mission accomplished, the Confederates wanted to push on. Jett and Ruggles bade the assassin a quick farewell—“we will see you again”—and trotted away from Locust Hill, leading Bainbridge’s riderless horse by the reins. Unbeknownst to Booth, Willie Jett had no intention of returning to Garrett’s farm or of ever seeing the assassin again. When Jett and Ruggles reached the gate, they reined their horses to a stop. Bainbridge mounted up and David Herold clambered on, riding double with him. Davey wanted to accompany them to Bowling Green to purchase, of all things, a new pair of shoes. He decided to spend the night with the young Confederates and rejoin Booth tomorrow, April 25, at Garrett’s farm.

  Almost like a jealous younger brother showing off, Herold boasted to Jett that he, too, had a tattoo, just like Booth. Indeed, Booth had only one, but Davey had two. He rolled up both coat sleeves above the elbow and displayed a heart and anchor on his right arm and his initials, “DEH,” on his left. Jett noticed that the “H,” although still legible, was blurry: during his idle time in the pine thicket Davy had rubbed it for hours, trying desperately to erase the identifying mark with friction and heat.

  The presence of Booth, Jett, and Ruggles in the Garretts’ front yard had provoked a dog’s bark, and the sound alerted John M. Garrett, one of Richard’s sons, who was lying down in an upstairs bedroom. John had joined the Confederate army at the beginning of the war in 1861, serving first in the Fredericksburg Artillery and then in Lightfoot’s Battalion. He was active for the duration until Lee’s surrender on April 9, when he returned to the family farm. Looking out the window a little after 3:00 p.m., he saw a man with two crutches, who was leaning on only one. The man was wrapped in a gray shawl and was standing near his father, while two men on horseback were talking. In a few minutes, the mounted men rode off, taking the lame man’s horse with them. John watched as his father and the stranger walked toward the house. It all seemed normal enough, and John Garrett returned to his bed.

  Booth and old man Garrett lounged on the front porch, which extended along the length of the house. In about half an hour, a little after 3:30 p.m., John Garrett came downstairs and walked out the front door to spend the evening with a neighbor. His father introduced him to James Boyd. Neither father nor son suspected that Boyd was anyone other than who he said he was—a simple Confederate veteran, making his way home.

  “Useless, Useless”

  Booth had been lucky. On April 24, the majority of the manhunters were still spinning their wheels in Maryland, uncertain whether their quarry had crossed the Potomac. Compared with the level of activity in Maryland, Virginia’s northern neck was still lightly patrolled. That was about to change.

  That morning, Major James O’Beirne had a telegram sent to the War Department telegraph office in Washington. It was this office that, on the night of the assassination, sent Stanton’s telegrams that broke the news to military commanders, and to the nation. It was this office that transmitted Stanton’s orders to begin the manhunt. And from this office came the news flash that the president was dead. Now, ten days later, Major Thomas Eckert, head of the telegraph office, received a message from Major O’Beirne that galvanized the manhunt. Two men, reported O’Beirne, had been seen crossing the Potomac on April 16. If those men were Booth and Herold, then Lincoln’s assassin had been in Virginia for the past eight days. This report required action.

  And Colonel Lafayette C. Baker just happened to be on the scene when the telegraph arrived. The notorious detective and War Department “agent,” and a favorite of Stanton’s, had been in town since April 16, in response to Stanton’s dramatic telegram summoning him from New York to join the manhunt and find the murderers of the president.

  Since his arrival his imperious, deceitful, and self-promoting demeanor had rubbed a number of the hunters the wrong way. He tried to steal other detectives’ leads and, without prior authorization, he had even issued a $30,000 reward proclamation of his own. He was snooping around the telegraph office when Eckert heard from O’Beirne. Baker read the message:

  PORT TOBACCO, MD., April 24, 1865 10 a.m. (Received 11 a.m.)

  Major ECKERT:

  Have just met Major O’Beirne, whose force had arrested Doctor Mudd and Thompson. Mudd set Booth’s left leg (fractured), furnished crutches, and helped him and Herold off. They have been tracked as far as the swamp near Bryantown, and under one theory it is possible they may be still concealed in swamp which leads from Bryantown to Allen’s Fresh, or in neck of land between Wicomico and Potomac Rivers. Other evidence leads to the belief that they crossed from Swan Point to White Point, Va., on Sunday morning,
April 16, about 9:30, in a small boat, also captured by Major O’Beirne. John M. Lloyd has been arrested, and virtually acknowledged complicity. I will continue with Major O’Beirne, in whom I have very great confidence. We propose first to thoroughly scour swamp and country to-day, and if unsuccessful and additional evidence will justify it, we then propose to cross with force into Virginia and follow up that trail as long as there is any hope. At all events we will keep moving, and if there is any chance you may rely upon our making most of it. Country here is being thoroughly scoured by infantry and cavalry.

  S.H. BECKWITH

  Baker seized the telegram, rushed back to his Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters across the street from Willard’s, and told his cousin, Detective Luther Byron Baker, the news.

  “We have got a sure thing,” Lafayette said, “I think Booth has crossed the river, and I want you to go right out.”

  “There are no men to go with me.”

  “We will have some soldiers detailed.” Lafayette begin writing a request for troops to General Hancock. “Is there no one in the office who can go with you,” he asked his cousin.

  “No one but Colonel Conger,” Luther replied.

  “Can he ride?”

  “I think so.”

  There was just one problem with O’Beirne’s clue. Yes, two men had been seen crossing the river on April 16. But they were not John Wilkes Booth and David Herold.

  Around the same time that Booth arrived at GARRETT’S farm, an unsuspecting young army officer in Washington, D.C., got swept up in the manhunt’s whirlwind. On the afternoon of April 24, capturing Lincoln’s killer was the last thing on the mind of Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty, a company commander in the Sixteenth New York Cavalry regiment. While others took up the frenzied pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, Doherty’s unit had not received orders to join the chase. Instead, he whiled away the time enjoying the spring afternoon: “I was seated, with another officer . . . on a bench in the park opposite the White House.”

  A messenger tracked him down, interrupting his leisure with an urgent, written message: “HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON / April 24, 1865 / Commanding Officer 16th New York Cavalry / Sir: You will at once detail a reliable and discreet commissioned officer with twenty-five men, well mounted, with three days’ rations and forage, to report at once to Colonel L. C. Baker, Agent of the

  Luther Baker, Lafayette Baker, and Everton Conger pose as manhunters for Harper’s Weekly.

  War Department, at 211 Pennsylvania Ave. / Command of General C. C. Augur.” Doherty’s commanding officer, Colonel N. B. Switzer, had annotated the order and assigned the mission to Doherty: “In accordance with the foregoing order First Lieutenant E. P. Doherty is hereby detailed for the duty, and will report at once to Colonel Baker.”

  Doherty rushed back to his barracks, ordered his bugler to blow “boots and saddles,” and he took the first twenty-six men who jumped to the call. Doherty wondered what this mission was about, but it was not the business of a lowly lieutenant to ask questions. He would find out soon enough, when he arrived at Baker’s headquarters. Within half an hour the lieutenant and his detail reported to Colonel Baker, who handed him freshly printed, paper carte-de-visite photographs of three men. Doherty failed to recognize two of them—they were standing poses and the faces were tiny—but the clearer image of the third man electrified him. It was John Wilkes Booth. He was going after Lincoln’s assassin!

  But not by himself, Lafayette Baker admonished him. He was to take two detectives with him, Lafayette’s cousin, Luther Byron Baker, and Everton J. Conger, a former cavalry colonel from the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry. Colonel Baker decided to stay behind in Washington, where he could continue to intercept telegrams and also safeguard his interest in the reward money. Colonel Baker gave Doherty his destination, and with that the twenty-six-man detachment of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry, accompanied by two detectives, began its pursuit of Lincoln’s assassin. Doherty led his men to the Sixth Street wharf, where they boarded the steamer John S. Ide—an unusual name that combined the assassin’s first name with an insinuation of the ides of March and Julius Caesar’s misfortune. The vessel plied the waters of Aquia Creek and landed at the wharf at Belle Plaine, Virginia, where the troops disembarked and traveled overland, south toward Fredericksburg. If they kept moving, the troopers of the Sixteenth New York would reach Port Conway, where Booth and Herold had crossed the Rappahannock, by tomorrow afternoon, April 25.

  No one in Washington was confident that the Sixteenth New York Cavalry was on Booth’s trail. And Stanton’s dramatic— and lucrative four-day-old proclamation of April 20 had still not resulted in Booth’s capture. The War Department issued a new proclamation on April 24. This one offered no additional rewards and appealed not to greed but to the patriotism of the black population of Washington, Maryland, and Virginia.

  THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

  APPEAL TO THE COLORED PEOPLE!

  HEADQUARTERS MIDDLE MILITARY DIVISION,

  Washington, D.C., April 24, 1865.

  To the colored people of the District of Columbia and of Maryland, of Alexandria and the border counties of Virginia:

  Your President has been murdered! He has fallen by the assassin and without a moment’s warning, simply and solely because he was your friend and the friend of our country. Had he been unfaithful to you and to the great cause of human freedom he might have lived. The pistol from which he met his death, though held by Booth, was fired by the hands of treason and slavery. Think of this and remember how long and how anxiously this good man labored to break your chains and to make you happy. I now appeal to you, by every consideration which can move loyal and grateful hearts, to aid in discovering and arresting his murderer. Concealed by traitors, he is believed to be lurking somewhere within the limits of the District of Columbia, of the State of Maryland, or Virginia. Go forth, then, and watch, and listen, and inquire, and search, and pray, by day and night, until you shall have succeeded in dragging this monstrous and bloody criminal from his hiding place. You can do much; even the humblest and feeblest among you, by patience and unwearied vigilance, may render the most important assistance.

  Large rewards have been offered by the Government, and by municipal authorities, and they will be paid for the apprehension of this murderer, or for any information which will aid in his arrest. But I feel that you need no such stimulus as this. You will hunt down this cowardly assassin of your best friend, as you would the murderer of your own father. Do this, and God, whose servant has been slain, and the country which has given you freedom, will bless you for this noble act of duty.

  All information which may lead to the arrest of Booth, or Surratt, or Harold, should be communicated to these headquarters, or to General Holt, Judge Advocate General, at Washington, or, if immediate action is required, then to the nearest military authorities.

  All officers and soldiers in this command, and all loyal people, are enjoined to increased vigilance.

  W. S. HANCOCK

  Major General U.S. Volunteers Commanding Middle Military Division

  Hancock had the text set in type, the crude layout evidence of the haste with which it was produced. Then he had his proclamation printed as one-page, letter-size handbills or broadsides, which were distributed by his men to the black people of Washington, D.C.; Maryland; and Virginia. Hancock’s instinct that Booth could not escape without encountering blacks was correct—the assassin had been seen by a number of them—and perhaps, Hancock reasoned, his call to action might inspire someone to hunt down Booth, or at least to inform on him.

  On the evening of April 24, before it got dark, Richard Garrett invited his guest inside for supper. Booth took pleasure in the old man’s genuine hospitality, so different from Dr. Stuart’s cold hand. No one at the Garrett table hurried him to wolf down his meal and get out of the house. Instead, Booth savored his leisurely supper and the friendly company and engaged the family in harmless small talk. John Garrett returned home after da
rk and found that Boyd was still at the table with his entire family—his father, Richard; and stepmother, Fannie; his younger brothers, William and Richard; three sisters; and Miss Lucinda K. B. Holloway, Fannie’s unmarried sister and the children’s live-in tutor. After supper Booth hobbled outside, sat on the wood front steps, and removed a pipe from one of his coat pockets. Could John Garrett spare some tobacco and a match? Booth wondered. In no time the assassin ignited a bowl of Virginia tobacco, cured in a local barn— perhaps the Garretts’ own, before they stopped drying the leaves there—and enjoyed his first smoke in days. Booth luxuriated in a blissful respite from the manhunt and found a temporary peace on the front porch of this quiet, remote Caroline County farmhouse, a satisfying meal settling in his belly, the sweet aroma of pipe tobacco pleasuring his senses.

  John Garrett suggested that they retire and invited Booth to share his room. Booth would sleep in a real bed tonight. Relying on his good, weight-bearing leg, he walked and half jumped up the stairs to the second floor. Booth stripped off his frock coat and unbuttoned his vest, exposing to Garrett a leather belt supporting two revolvers and a Bowie knife. Booth draped his clothes over a chair and unbuckled his pistol belt, which he hung over the headboard of one of the two beds in the room. The Garrett farmhouse might be a peaceful sanctuary, but the assassin wanted his weapons close by and within a quick arm’s reach while he slept. Who knew what trouble the night might bring?