Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

by James L. Swanson

Booth’s note to Vice President Johnson appears in Rhodehamel and Taper “Right or Wrong,” page 146. There is some disagreement about whether Booth intended this note to be placed in Johnson’s mailbox, or in the one next to it, which belonged to Johnson’s private secretary, William A. Browning. For further discussion, see footnotes 1 and 2 on page 146 of Rhode-hamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong.”

  Spangler described his occupation as “stage carpenter” during his interrogation by the authorities after the assassination. He also recounted his conversation with Booth.

  For more on Booth’s pistol, see John E. Parsons, Henry Deringer’s Pocket Pistol (New York: William Morrow, 1952).

  Mary Surratt’s comments about the “shooting irons” appear in Lloyd’s testimony in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, and 125. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln, pages 85–87. Lloyd’s account of his intoxication appears in Poore, volume 1, at page 132. Also see Pitman, page 87.

  For background on the kidnapping conspiracy, see Edward Steers Jr., Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), pages 71–78.

  The alleged content of Booth’s letter to the National Intelligencer is highly controversial. Years after the assassination, Matthews claimed to have reconstructed the text from memory. It is more likely that he based his so-called recollections upon the text of Booth’s political manifesto discovered in the safe of the assassin’s sister. Despite the confusion about what Booth’s letter to the newspaper actually said, I am confident that Matthews was correct in remembering that Booth signed his coconspirators’ names to the incriminating document. For more on this, see Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong,” pages 147–153.

  Lincoln’s note to General Grant appears in Basler, Collected Works, volume 8, page 411.

  For more on Booth’s conspirators, see the following essays collected in Edward Steers Jr., ed., The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators: Laurie Verge, “Mary Elizabeth Surratt,” at pages lii-lix; Joan L. Chaconas, “John H. Surratt Jr.,” at pages lx-lxv; Edward Steers Jr., “George Atzerodt,” at pages lxvi-lxxi; Betty Ownsbey, “Lewis Thornton Powell, alias Payne,” at pages lxxi-lxxvii; Edward Steers Jr., “Samuel Alexander Mudd,” pages lxxxvi-lxxxix; Percy E. Martin, “Samuel Arnold and Michael O’Laughlen,” pages lxxxviii-xcvi.

  For more on Lewis Powell, see Betty J. Ownsbey, Alias “Paine”: Lewis Thornton Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1993). For more on John Harrison Surratt Jr., see Alfred Isacsson, The Travels, Arrest and Trial of John H. Surratt (Middletown, New York: Vestigium Press, 2003); and Mark Wilson Seymour, The Pursuit & Arrest of John H. Surratt (Austin, Texas: Civil War Library, 2000).

  For more on the kidnapping plot, see Steers, Blood on the Moon, at pages 71–78.

  Mary Lincoln’s account of the carriage ride comes from her November 15, 1865, letter to the artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter, published in Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Knopf, 1972), at page 283. Carpenter’s heroic oil painting of Lincoln reading the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet was the source for Ritchie’s famous engraving, one of the most beloved images in the Lincoln iconography. For the most recent use of Carpenter’s tableaux, see the dust jacket of Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. An account of the carriage ride also appeared in Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1866), at pages 292–293.

  Clara Harris’s memory of the carriage ride, and her comment on the arrival at Ford’s Theatre, come from her letter of April 29, 1865, describing the assassination. It can be found in Timothy S. Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), at pages 69–71.

  Ferguson’s comments appear in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 189–194. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, at page 76.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Clara Harris’s letter appears in Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot, at pages 69–71.

  For Booth’s Baptist Alley conversation with Ned Spangler, see Spangler’s statement after he was taken into custody. See John Debonay’s testimony in Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln, pages 105–106, and the statement of John Burroughs in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 225–228. Also see Pitman, page 75. There is some confusion about the proper spelling of Burroughs’s last name, and whether his nickname was “Peanut John” or “John Peanut.” Burroughs used the latter in his April 1865 statement to the authorities. Later, at the conspiracy trial, he said on May 16 that his nickname was “John Peanuts.” Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 230.

  Booth’s visit to the Star Saloon, and his choice of beverage, appear in the testimony of Peter Taltavul in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, at pages 179–180. Also see Pitman, Assassination of the President, at page 72, and Trial of John H. Surratt, volume 1, pages 157–158.

  Ferguson’s statement about Booth’s approach to the president’s box appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 190. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln, pages 76–77.

  Mary Jane Anderson’s “right wishful” alley sighting of Booth on the afternoon of April 14 is in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 236. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of the President, page 75.

  Assassination buffs will have surely noticed by now that, while I mention Lincoln’s valet or messenger Charles Forbes, I have omitted from the narrative one John Parker, the president’s so-called bodyguard. For three reasons, Parker does not appear in the narrative. First, he was not a “bodyguard” in the modern sense of the word. He was a police officer detailed to guard the Executive Mansion, as the White House was known during Lincoln’s administration, from theft and vandalism. Second, the Parker controversy detracts from the immediacy of the story. Many books on the assassination have concocted moments of high—and I argue false—drama by suggesting that if only Parker, who was at Ford’s Theatre, had not “abandoned” his post to get a drink, Booth would not have gained entry to the state box, and Lincoln would not have been murdered. Finally, the Parker issue is a red herring. Parker or no Parker, John Wilkes Booth would have been admitted to the box. Forbes admitted at least two people to Lincoln’s box that night, a messenger bearing military documents, and Booth. Had Parker been sitting near the entry to the box with Forbes, Parker would have done the same. For more on the Parker controversy, see Steers, Blood on the Moon, pages 103, 104, 116.

  Ferguson’s observation of Booth entering the box appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 190–191. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln, page 76.

  The last words that passed between Mary and Abraham Lincoln were preserved by Dr. Anson Henry, in a letter to his wife dated April 19, 1865, the same day as Lincoln’s White House funeral. The Henrys were old Illinois friends of the Lincolns living in Washington, and Mary Lincoln confided in a private conversation with the doctor the last words spoken by the president. Henry’s letter appears in Milton H. Shutes, Lincoln and the Doctors (New York: The Pioneer Press, 1933), page 132.

  For the complete dialogue from act 3, scene 2, see Taylor, Our American Cousin, pages 80–85.

  The exact time of Booth’s shot cannot be fixed, in part because no one knows the precise time that the performance began. Ford’s, like many theatres at the time, was somewhat casual about curtain time. Witnesses could not agree, and surviving testimony, letters, and oral history support multiple conclusions. Booth may have shot Lincoln as early as 10:13 or as late as 10:30 P.M. I suspect that the time was close to 10:15 P.M., but as late as 10:20 P.M. For a fuller discussion of this, and for a number of recollections from those at Ford’s Theatre, see Timothy S. Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995). Good
believes that Booth fired close to 10:30 P.M.

  David Donald describes the tough, Clary’s Grove boys in Lincoln, at pages 40–41, and Donald confirms, on page 568, that in the spring of 1865 Lincoln “continued to be a physically powerful man.”

  Ferguson’s description of Lincoln’s position at the moment he was shot appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 190–191.

  Major Rathbone reported that Booth shouted “Freedom.” Rathbone’s account of the assassination and knife attack appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 195–198. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of the President, at pages 78–79. Clara Harris also described the stabbing in her April 29, 1865, letter. See Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot, at pages 69–71.

  Witnesses disagreed about what Booth said, and where he said it. Booth later claimed that he cried “Sic semper” while standing in the box before he shot Lincoln, but Rathbone remembered only the word “Freedom.” During the manhunt Booth wrote in his makeshift diary: “I shouted Sic semper before I fired.” See Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong,” at page 154. Based on the available evidence, I believe that Booth said in the box and onstage the words I attribute to him in the narrative. For an extensive discussion, see Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot.

  Rathbone’s testimony on the barred door is in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, at page 195.

  Ferguson described Booth’s exultation to Stanton at the Petersen house on the night of the assassination, and James Tanner recorded his statement that Booth said “I have done it.” See Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot, at page 32. Later, at the trial, Ferguson neglected to mention “I have done it” in his testimony as published in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 197. The first words of Rathbone appear in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 197.

  Booth’s broken bone has become the subject of minor controversy. A handful of assassination buffs insist that Booth was not injured when he fell to the stage at Ford’s Theatre. Instead, they argue, not long after he crossed the Navy Yard Bridge, his horse slipped and fell on the roads outside Washington, breaking a bone in the actor’s left leg. Although a fascinating diversion, the issue of where Booth was injured, onstage at Ford’s between 10:15 and 10:30 P.M., or on the roads between the Navy Yard Bridge and Surrattsville sometime before midnight, is a tempest in a teapot in the story of the manhunt. However it happened, Booth’s broken leg made a visit to Dr. Mudd essential. I agree with Edward Steers that in this matter we should accept, along with other evidence, Booth’s own account of his injury, when he wrote: “In jumping broke my leg.” Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong,” at page 154.

  Seward’s carriage accident is covered in Glyndon G. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), at page 411.

  A number of accounts describe the events at the home of Secretary of State Seward. See Glyndon G. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pages 412–415; and Benjamin Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War (New York: Knopf, 1962), pages 396, 397. For Fanny Seward’s account of the attempted assassination of her father, I relied primarily upon her diary as featured in Patricia Carley Johnson, “I Have Supped Full of Horrors,” American Heritage, October 1959, volume 10, number 6, pages 59–65 and 96–101. An account by Sergeant Robinson appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 479–480. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of the President, pages 155–156. William Bell’s testimony appears in Poore, volume 2, page 130, and in Pitman, pages 154–155; Augustus Seward’s testimony is in Poore, volume 2, page 5, and in Pitman, pages 156–157; Dr. Tullio S. Verdi’s testimony appears in Poore, volume 2, page 100, and in Pitman, pages 157–158; and the testimony of Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes appears in Poore, volume 2, at pages 21 and 60, and in Pitman at page 157.

  Other valuable sources for the Seward attack include Dr. Tullio S. Verdi’s article, “The Assassination of the Sewards,” published in Republic magazine in July 1873 and reprinted in Frederick Hatch, ed., Journal of the Lincoln Assassination, volume 16, number 3, December 2003, page 46; Frederick Hatch, “I’m Mad! I’m Mad,” Journal of the Lincoln Assassination, volume 3, number 3, December 1989, pages 34–38; and Dr. John K. Lattimer, “The Stabbing of Lincoln’s Secretary of State on the Night the President Was Shot,” Journal of the American Medical Association, volume 192, number 2, April 12, 1965, pages 99–106. Dr. Lattimer also covers the Seward attack in his book, Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980).

  CHAPTER THREE

  Joseph B. Stewart’s account appears in Trial of John H. Surratt (Washington,

  D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1867), volume 1, pages 125–127, and in volume 2, pages 984–987. Mary Anderson’s description of the knife appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, page 237; and her account of Booth galloping away is on page 239. Mary Ann Turner’s account of the hoofbeats is in Poore, volume 1, at page 234.

  Booth’s command to John Peanut comes from Peanut’s statement, as does the description of the assassin’s blow to the head and kick.

  Sergeant Cobb’s account of his encounter with Booth at the bridge appears in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, pages 251–252. Also see Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln, pages 84–85. That Booth disclosed his real name, and his destination, the vicinity of Beantown, remains inexplicable.

  For this continuation of the events at the Seward house, see the Seward source notes in chapter 2.

  Sergeant Robinson’s letter requesting Powell’s knife is illustrated in Swanson and Weinberg, Lincoln’s Assassins, page 44. A period bronze casting of Robinson’s medal appears on the same page.

  Clara Harris’s description of the stabbing is in Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot.

  Dr. Leale’s account appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1909.

  The description of Laura Keene claiming center stage and beseeching the audience appears in John Creahan, The Life of Laura Keene (Philadelphia: The Rodgers Publishing Company, 1897), at page 27.

  Fletcher’s testimony about Atzerodt’s promise of a present is in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, volume 1, at pages 328, 331. Also see Trial of John H. Surratt, volume 1, at page 229. Fletcher’s pursuit of Herold and the horse is in Poore, volume 1, at pages 328–334. Also see Pitman, pages 83–84, and Trial of John H Surratt, pages 227–229. The exchange between Fletcher and Sergeant Cobb appears in Poore, volume 1, at page 329. Also see Pitman, page 84. Fletcher’s description of the horse is in Poore, volume 1, at page 332. Also see Pitman, at page 84.

  The Mrs. Ord episode is discussed in Donald, Lincoln, at pages 572–573.

  For more on Laura Keene, see Creahan, The Life of Laura Keene; Vernanne Bryan, Laura Keene A British Actress on the American Stage,1826–1873 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1997); and Ben Graf Henneke, Laura Keene: A Biography (Tulsa: Council Oaks, 1990).

  George Alfred Townsend’s description of Lincoln on the floor of the president’s box appears in his book The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1865), at page 10.

  Asia Booth Clarke’s derogatory comments about Lincoln’s choice of Good Friday entertainment appear in her memoirs, at page 99.

  John Lee’s testimony about the search of Atzerodt’s hotel room is in Poore, volume 1, at pages 63–66. Also see Pitman, Assassination of the President, page 144.

  Seaton Munroe’s comments appear in Creahan, The Life of Laura Keene, at page 28, and in Seaton Munroe, “Recollections of Lincoln’s Assassination,” North American Review, April 1896, pages 424–434.

  Bersch did paint his scene of Lincoln being carried across Tenth Street to the Petersen house. It is now in the collection of the National Park Service, and is illustrated in Victoria Grieve, Ford’s Theatre and the Lincoln Assassination (Alexandria, Virginia: Parks & History Association, 2001), at page 60. Sadly, at the time M
anhunt went to press, the Park Service had removed the painting from display at Ford’s Theatre, where it had hung for years.

  For more on Safford, see Steers, Blood on the Moon, at page 123, and Kauffman, American Brutus, at page 19.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For a description, based on period newspaper accounts, of how news raced through Washington by word of mouth after the fall of Richmond and Lee’s surrender, see Swanson and Weinberg, Lincoln’s Assassins, pages 9–11.

  Lincoln described his reliance upon Stanton with a magnificent tribute: “He is the rock on the beach of our national ocean against which the breakers dash and roar, dash and roar without ceasing. He fights back the angry waters and prevents them from undermining and overwhelming the land. Gentlemen, I do not see how he survives, why he is not crushed and torn to pieces. Without him I should be destroyed.”

  An account of how Stanton received the news of the assassination appears in Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, at page 396. For a discussion of the friendship between Lincoln and his Secretary of War, and how it grew at the president’s summer retreat, see Matthew Pinsker, Lincoln’s Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Also see Elizabeth Smith Brownstein, Lincoln’s Other White House: The Untold Story of the Man and His Presidency (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005). Thomas and Hyman give an account of Stanton’s evening prior to the assassination on pages 395–396.

  Seward’s boast, which Lewis Powell proved to the secretary to be tragically wrong, is from a July 15, 1862, letter to John Bigelow, and was published in Bigelow’s Retrospectives of an Active Life (New York: Baker and Taylor, 1909), volume 1, page 505. More conveniently for modern readers, the relevant passage is quoted in Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong,” at page 1.

  Thomas and Hyman describe how Stanton and Welles rushed to the Seward house, then to Ford’s Theatre: Stanton, pages 396–397. The navy secretary also described the events in his diary: Beale, Diary of Gideon Welles, volume 2, pages 283–286. Brief accounts can also be found in J. E. Buckingham, Reminiscences and Souvenirs of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Washington: Press of Rufus H. Darby, 1894), at pages 21–22, and, for details not available elsewhere, Moorefield Storey, “Dickens, Stanton, Sumner, and Storey,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1930, pages 463–465. The article recounts a long ago dinner attended by the four men during which Stanton described the wild night of April 14, 1865.