A Night of Horrors: A Historical Thriller about the 24 Hours of Lincoln's Assassination

by Berry, John C.

  “How do you know this?” McDevitt asked the stranger.

  “If you want Booth, then go to Surratt’s on H Street. That’s all,” the stranger said and he turned and walked away.

  “Sir, I need to talk to you some more,” McDevitt called after the man. The husband grabbed the detective.

  “Do you need me any more? I need to get back home. My wife’s gonna be a wreck if I don’t get back home soon.” McDevitt stopped and looked at the couple, who had been of little help.

  “No, sir. Thank you, you are free to go.” But by the time McDevitt turned back to follow the stranger, he was gone. The detective peered through the dark and misty night, but he couldn’t make out where the man had gotten to.

  “Damn,” McDevitt cursed under his breath. He thought for a moment, because the name of Surratt seemed familiar. Then he recalled that Ferguson had mentioned that name when he’d asked the restaurant owner if he knew where Booth would try to hide. “Ask John Surratt,” was the answer Ferguson had given. McDevitt hurried back inside and shared the information with Clarvoe, his partner.

  “We’ve got to tell Richards and get over there tonight. Even right now!” McDevitt said. A. C. Richards was the Superintendent of the Washington City Police. The two detectives searched him out and shared what they’d learned and the potential connection between John Surratt and Wilkes Booth.

  “Take Bigley, Kelly, and Skippon and get over there now. If you have the faintest sense that there is some connection between that man and Booth, dismantle the floorboards if you have to. I want to know if there is something that’ll help us catch that bastard Booth.” McDevitt and Clarvoe gathered the other three policemen and headed to H Street in search of John Surratt.

  The five police officers arrived at 541 H Street, around two-thirty in the morning on April 15th. Wilkes Booth had taken his leave of Mary Surratt about five hours earlier, just before he headed over to Ford’s Theatre. The shades were pulled down on the windows of the white board house. The five men gathered beneath the falling rain and spoke in hushed voices.

  “Bigley, you stay here on the sidewalk and watch the front door in case someone tries to come out after we are inside.” McDevitt was in charge, giving orders. “Kelly, you go around and see if there is a kitchen entrance. You stay there and watch it. Skippon, you come in with me and John.” Kelly walked around the house, his boots sliding slightly in the mud of the street. After he’d gone around the corner, the three men quietly ascended the steps to the front door of Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse. McDevitt rang the bell as loudly as he could. He tugged at the rope again, longer and harder. He heard a window slide open above him.

  “Who is there?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “We are with the Washington City police. We must speak with John Surratt,” McDevitt answered.

  “John isn’t here. He isn’t in the country,” came the woman’s voice back down. It was Mary Surratt.

  “Ma’am come down at once and open this door,” McDevitt answered.

  “Very well, then,” Mary answered and pulled the window back down. They could hear her calling to someone inside the house. McDevitt gave another pull on the rope to the doorbell for good measure. There was a rapping from inside the door this time.

  “Who is there? Who is knocking at the door?” It was a man’s voice.

  “We are detectives with Washington City police and we have come to search this house for John Surratt and John Wilkes Booth,” McDevitt answered. “Open the door.”

  Louis Weichmann, who was close friends with John Surratt and had become acquaintances with John Booth over the past months, was at the door. This was the boarder who had accompanied Mary Surratt on her journey down to the tavern in Surrattsville earlier in the day to deliver the field glasses and have the rifles ready. He called up to Mrs. Surratt that the police were at the door and he was letting them in. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack. He was standing in his pants and had on his shirt, but it wasn’t buttoned. He was in socks, but did not wear any shoes. “They are not here,” Weichmann answered still holding the door only partially open.

  “Let us in anyway,” Clarvoe said harshly and pushed the door open. Weichmann stepped back, caught by surprise at the door being pushed open in his face.

  “I will go and bring Mrs. Surratt to you,” he said and walked up to her room. He knocked gently, but she was already opening the door, with her robe pulled tightly around her.

  “Mrs. Surratt, what do you think? There are detectives downstairs. They’ve come to search the house.”

  “For God’s sake! Do let them in, Mr. Weichmann.” Mrs. Surratt exclaimed as she stepped into the hallway and closed the door to her room behind her. “I expected the house to be searched.” She added as she walked past him and down to the front door. She found the detectives turning the jets up and looking around the sitting room. The fire had dwindled down during the night to just a bed of embers. Louis decided to go back to his room and get properly dressed, wondering why on earth Mrs. Surratt expected the house to be searched.

  Downstairs, McDevitt was asking Mrs. Surratt to take him to her son.

  “He’s not here. I just received a letter from him today that he is in Canada. It was dated from there as well. So you’ll not find him here.”

  “Is that so? Well, I’d like to see that letter. Where is Booth, the actor, then?” McDevitt demanded.

  “Mr. Booth is not here. I have no idea where he is.”

  “When did you see him last?” McDevitt asked her.

  “I tell you that Mr. Booth is not here and I don’t know where he is,” she evaded the question.

  “Ma’am you best awaken your boarders as we’ll be searching all of the rooms and talking to each one of them,” Clarvoe said stretching his hands to the embers for a little warmth.

  “Yes, sir,” she mumbled and left to knock on each of the doors.

  “So, John, don’t you think it a bit odd that the lady hasn’t even asked why we’re here? Why we want to talk to her son and this Booth character?” McDevitt asked his partner.

  “Maybe she already knows, Jamie,” Clarvoe responded with a wink that his partner could barely make out in the semi-dark house.

  The three detectives methodically searched each room and questioned each boarder. One after the other shared that John Surratt hadn’t been in the house for a couple of weeks and that Mrs. Surratt was happy to have received a letter from him that afternoon. When they got to Louis Weichmann’s room, he opened it wide and asked them to come inside. As they were looking through his things, he asked the detectives, “What is this all about, gentlemen? What is going on? What does the searching of this house mean?”

  “Do you pretend that you do not know what has happened?” Asked Clarvoe incredulously.

  “I assure you I have not heard anything. I do not have any idea why you are here or if something has happened what that might be.”

  “Then,” said John Clarvoe, “I will tell you. John Wilkes Booth has shot the President of the United States and John Surratt has attacked the Secretary of State.”

  “That can’t be!” Weichmann exclaimed, holding his hands up to the side of his head as if he were trying to drown out the loud noise of cannon fire.

  McDevitt plunged his hand into his overcoat and pulled out a black cravat and shook it in Weichmann’s face. “Do you see the blood on that, my good man? That is the blood of Abraham Lincoln.”

  Weichmann’s eyes suddenly burned as if smoke were pouring into them. He ran his fingers through his hair. But all that he could see were the laughing eyes of John Booth and the lucky smile of his friend John Surratt. He recalled the peculiar visits of other men—the odd German fellow and the one they referred to as Payne. He remembered the meetings in John Surratt’s room and the hushed voices late at night. He heard Mrs. Surratt’s voice saying ‘pray for my intentions’ earlier tonight and was now certain that the visitor late tonight had to have been John Booth.

  Weichmann suddenly
threw his hands into the air and said in a breathless voice, “My God, I see it all. I see it all.” He said it more to himself than to either one of the detectives. He followed the detectives down the steps to the parlor where Mrs. Surratt and each of the boarders had gathered. His head was pounding with the attempt to sort through the images flashing by in his brain. Could this be the house where the plot was hatched to kill President Lincoln and Secretary Seward? But John couldn’t have been the one who attacked Seward, because he was in Canada. He had read the letter himself that very day. So maybe all of this was a big mistake, a misperception. As he walked into the room, he went straight to Mrs. Surratt’s side.

  “Mrs. Surratt, what do you think, Booth has murdered the President,” Weichmann said as they entered the room.

  “My God, Mr. Weichmann, you do not tell me so.” She looked at him with a distant stare in her eye. Louis thought it would be inappropriate for him to mention that the detectives suspected her son of attacking the Secretary of State of the United States. He figured they’d tell her in their own good time.

  “I ask you again, madam, where exactly is your son?” Clarvoe pressed Mary Surratt once more.

  “I have told you that I do not know exactly where my son is.”

  “Isn’t it an odd thing for a mother not to know where her own son is?” The detective asked skeptically.

  “At times like these, sir, many mothers do not know the whereabouts of their sons,” she replied.

  “So is your son at war? I do not fancy him to be a soldier,” McDevitt interjected.

  “All I know is that he is in Canada. Or he was a week or so ago when he sent me the letter I received today.”

  “I can vouch that the letter was addressed from Canada,” Weichmann added.

  “Very well, you should all expect that we will return very soon. Do not leave the city,” Clarvoe said.

  Weichmann stepped into the small dining room, where Booth and Mary Surratt had spoken in quiet voices earlier that night. He relayed to them that John Booth had been there that afternoon and assured them that he would do all that was in his power to help with the investigation and apprehension of the murderers of the President and Secretary of State. The detectives left the Surratt Boardinghouse, tipping their hats to Mrs. Surratt.

  Once the men had left, Anna Surratt, Mary’s daughter, collapsed into her mother’s arms, weeping. She buried her face into her mother’s breasts and sobbed. She was horrified and fearful of what was about to happen to them. “Mama,” she hissed in a hoarse whisper looking up with running nose, “John Booth was here just an hour before he did the deed. I am afraid that it will bring suspicion on us, mama. It’ll end badly for us. Badly.” Then she buried her face in her mother’s breasts again and cried all the harder.

  At Petersen’s house, Colonel Ingraham, Provost Marshal of North Potomac arrived to share a letter that Lieutenant Tyrell had discovered among the papers recovered from John Booth’s trunk at the National Hotel. It was a letter from “Sam” dated March 27, 1865, just two weeks before. Edwin Stanton sat on the couch in the back room and read the letter. In it, Sam referred to a visit by Booth to Baltimore and then his departure for Washington.

  When I left you, you stated we would not meet in a month or so…. You know full that the Government suspicions something is going on there: therefore, the undertaking is becoming more complicated. Why not, for the present, desist, for various reasons, which if you look into, you can readily see, without my making any mention thereof.

  ‘What’s this?’ Stanton thought. ‘Government suspicious about an undertaking?’ He read on.

  I will be compelled to leave my home anyhow, and how soon, I care not. None, no not one, were more in favor of the enterprise than myself, and today would be there, had you not done as you have—by this I mean manner of proceeding.

  ‘The author of this letter is a conspirator,’ Stanton thought.

  Do not act rashly or in haste. I would prefer your first query, go and see how it will be taken in R----d , and ere long I shall be better prepared to again be with you. I dislike writing; would sooner verbally make known my views; yet your non-writing cause me thus to proceed.

  “Dear God,” Stanton said standing up. “He refers to Richmond. The damned rebels are in on this. By God, I knew that they were! And now here is the proof. Listen, ‘go and see how it will be taken in Richmond.’ The damned rebels. I’ll wager that Davis himself will hang for this. I’ll put the noose ‘round his neck myself.” Stanton rapped the letter with the back of his knuckles as he spoke. He quickly read through the rest of the letter and then perused the entire letter one more time, mumbling to himself the whole way through. He handed the letter back to O’Beirne when he had finished.

  “Make sure you keep this safe and with the rest of the evidence,” he cautioned. He saw a messenger walk by the door, heading to the room where Lincoln was. He seemed to be carrying something. “I think they have arrived with the probe and are going to explore the President’s wound. Excuse me,” he said and left the room.

  In the President’s room, Dr. Barnes, the Surgeon General, was leaning over the President’s head with a Nelaton probe. He, along with Doctor Leale and Doctor Stone, the President’s physician, had discussed the benefits of examining the wound to ensure that it was as serious as they all believed. A Nelaton probe was sent for because it had a porcelain ball at the end that would show marks when it came in contact with lead—thus revealing that they had probed to the very bullet that was lodged in the President’s brain. Barnes inserted the probe and gently moved it a depth of about two-and-a-half inches inside the President’s head when he came across an obstruction. Using the probe, he could tell that it had ragged edges and was probably a bone fragment that lay across the track of the ball. He applied pressure and was able to push the probe past it. He inserted the probe further until it was several inches into the brain when it came across another obstruction. This, he assumed, was the ball and removed the probe. Several in the room had turned away at the ghastly site of the doctor inserting a metal instrument several inches inside the head of the President of the United States. The doctors gathered around the probe and inspected it, but did not see any marks on the porcelain ball, indicating that the lead ball had still not been reached.

  Dr. Barnes reintroduced the probed and pushed another inch farther in and used the probe to feel a rounded shape. When he removed the probe this time, there were the distinct marks of lead on the tip. The doctors all nodded in agreement that they had touched the bullet. The lead ball had entered just behind the President’s left ear and traveled diagonally across the brain for some seven inches before it came to rest just behind the President’s right eye. When they had examined Lincoln’s body, they were all amazed at the man’s long ropey muscles. Though his height had stooped with the weight of the war and the future of the Constitution hanging in the balance, his frame was still lithe and strong. It was his unusual physical strength and the sheer force of his will that had kept him alive these five hours since he’d been shot. Anyone else would have died within the hour if not instantly, they each agreed. They turned to allow Mary Lincoln to pass by. She knelt down next to her husband. She had come in at least one time each hour throughout the night. Stanton stood towards the wall and looked at the back of Mary Lincoln’s head. He shook his head in pity for the lady. He knew that she would be friendless soon enough as the only reason people in Washington had abided her was because she was the President’s wife.

  The First Lady held her husband’s great hand in her own, making hers look childish in contrast. The tears sprouted again from her red and bleary eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. Her body began to shake and Mrs. Dixon, who had joined her to provide comfort, stood behind her, rubbing her back.

  “Why did they not kill me? Why is he here and I am not?” She asked the same agonizing questions again aloud. All eyes in the room turned away from the painful scene. A few stepped out of the room and went to the parlor that Mary had
just vacated. “Don’t leave me, Father. I need you. I do.” She whimpered and laid her face onto the open palm of her husband’s hand. As her crying and wailing faded momentarily to a slight whimper, Lincoln suddenly caught his breath and then the exhalation seemed to get hung inside of his lungs. There was a coughing sound followed by silence and then suddenly a loud gutteral noise emanated from deep within the man’s chest. Mrs. Dixon caught her breath it frightened her so much.

  Mary was horrified at the noises coming from her husband. She picked her head up and stared at him. Again, the exhalation came out with a guttural sound that sent shivers over her body.

  “My God!” She screamed it like she was being stabbed herself. She stood to her feet and pointed down at her stricken husband. “My God! What is happening! What is happening to my husband?” She looked from face to face crowded in the room. They all stared back in mute astonishment as the First Lady lost control of herself.

  “Don’t just stand there! Can’t you see that he is dying? Where is Taddy? Where is Taddy? We must get Taddy, that will help him. If he could just hear Taddy, then he’d be fine. Get Taddy,” she said over and over. Suddenly, she screamed, a loud piercing sound, and spun in a full circle, accusing everyone in the room. “I said get Taddy. You all are doing nothing and Taddy will help him! Taddy will save him!” Mrs. Dixon stepped up and put her arms around the First Lady.

  “Mary, shhh. It’s okay. Taddy is far too young to see his father like this. We’ve discussed this.” She patted Mary on the back like she was an infant.

  Stanton had pressed himself all the way to the wall when he heard Mary Lincoln erupt. He was mortified at this spectacle now playing itself out at the bedside of the President of the United States. He would not allow it.

  “Mrs. Dixon, it would be better if Mrs. Lincoln was in the other room, I believe,” he said from where he stood. Mrs. Dixon cast an icy glance his way and then turned her attention back to the First Lady. Mary screamed again and Mrs. Dixon shushed her, finally calming her and then quietly walked her to the parlor. Stanton took a few breaths and everyone felt the tension drain from the room. Lincoln’s breathing was quiet again. The doctors checked his pulse and noted that it remained weak but steady.