American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Arnold was not so sure he should have written this, but there was a lot he wanted to get off his chest. He finally mailed it, but only after thinking it over for a few days.5

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK on the morning of March 28, George Atzerodt and Marcellus Bailey walked into the Pennsylvania House, worn out and bedraggled. They had gone out the night before, after solemnly announcing to the manager, John Greenawalt, that they had to go away. Greenawalt figured he would never see them again. But here they were, looking half dead, and asking if Room 51 were still available. They took the key and dragged themselves up the stairs.

  Later that day they went to Baltimore in the company of a mutual friend, Walter Barnes. Bailey and Barnes took a room on High Street, very close to Mike O’Laughlen’s house. Their business there has never been discovered, and indeed the whole subject got lost in the post-assassination frenzy. But they stayed there until the assassination—long enough for the lady of the house to decide that they were a couple of drunken louts. Atzerodt checked in on them occasionally, but he couldn’t stay for long; he didn’t dare stray too far from Booth.6

  George Atzerodt rarely left Washington after mid-March, but not because Booth considered him indispensable. More likely, he just wanted to watch him closely. Atzerodt was often drunk, and he was reckless when in his cups. Indeed, Booth probably never knew the worst of it. Atzerodt had boasted of having friends who could make him rich. He talked about Surratt’s travels, and he even showed Brooke Stabler a letter Surratt had written him from New York. Several times he seemed on the verge of telling a secret, but each time, his face squeezed into a broad, sly grin, and he said that he was only joking. He even told his sister Katherine—the wife of a federal marshal—that he would soon get rich or die on the gallows. Neither Booth nor Surratt could control such a person, but they could neutralize the damage. They fed Atzerodt false information, and sometimes questioned his sanity.7

  By the end of March, David Herold was coming regularly to the Pennsylvania House, often staying for three or four hours at a time. He and Atzerodt had known each other casually for years, and they got along well. They went to the circus together, to the “leg shows” at Canterbury Hall, and, of course, to bars. They were kindred souls—pranksters with a passion for fun and a gift for underachievement. Both had been teased as children and had used humor to disarm their tormentors. Neither had outgrown the habit, or the immaturity; a bout of flatulence might have them chuck-ling intermittently for half an hour.8

  BOOTH OFTEN STOPPED at the Surratt boardinghouse, and he was always welcome there. The residents all liked him, and each visit was a special treat to the ladies, who brushed and primped whenever he was announced. Atzerodt was received less ceremoniously, but he was there just as often. Both had business with John Surratt, but frequently spoke with Mrs. Surratt when John was away. 9

  Contrary to the common understanding, though, Mary Surratt’s house was not the conspirators’ primary meeting place, nor did they all live there. Herold had been there only once, and Powell stayed there just twice. Arnold and O’Laughlen had never been inside the place. The conspirators typically met at stables, and Booth was known to show up at Howard’s as often as six times a day. He checked in on Atzerodt at the Pennsylvania House, and Arnold and O’Laughlen at Rullman’s Hotel, but he never called them together at Mrs. Surratt’s.

  John Surratt was seldom at his mother’s house. He made his Richmond-to -Montreal run every thirty-five days or so, and he generally stayed in Southern Maryland the rest of the time. His mother claimed she wanted him to stay away from Washington. As she later told investigators, “I thought it better for him to be in Maryland than here, where there were restaurants and bad company. I thought it was not the place for a boy.” 10

  MICHAEL O’LAUGHLEN WANTED OUT of the conspiracy, but he couldn’t just walk out. Booth was a lifelong friend, and he would be devastated if any hard feelings came between them. So on March 30, he went up to Hookstown to seek advice from Sam Arnold. Both men had gone through the same inner struggle, and in fact Arnold had just taken three days to mail that heartfelt letter to Booth. But unlike O’Laughlen, he had an easy way out. John “Wickey” Wharton, a friend of his father’s, needed a clerk for his sutler’s store outside Fortress Monroe. If Arnold got the job, it would take him a long way from Washington. Then, should anything come of Booth’s scheme, he might be in the clear—that is, as long as Booth destroyed that letter.

  After talking with each other, Arnold and O’Laughlen were more anxious than ever about Booth’s plans. O’Laughlen suggested they both go to Washington. Booth still owed him five hundred dollars, and it would be a little easier to ask for it if Arnold were there for moral support. So they took the next train out, and when they arrived in Washington, they saw George Atzerodt at the B&O station. Atzerodt told them that Booth wanted to resurrect his scheme. The president was expected to show up at Ford’s Theatre that very night, he said, and they were planning to abduct him there.

  That news sent Arnold and O’Laughlen hurrying to the National Hotel in a full panic. But Booth hastened to put their minds at ease. They were not going to capture Lincoln that night, or any other night, for that matter. The plot was finished. John Surratt had gone to Richmond, and the president was out of town. Booth was going back to the stage, and had no intention of reviving the conspiracy. Relieved, Arnold asked what they should do with the pistols, and Booth said they could keep them, sell them, or do whatever they wanted with them. He had made this easy for them, and almost as an afterthought, Arnold mentioned that letter, and said that he hoped Booth would destroy it. Booth assured him he had nothing to worry about.

  Arnold knew better. The goal might be different, but the plot had not been abandoned. It would go on without him, and that was a frightening thought. His incriminating letter could still be used against him—by Booth on the one hand, or by the government on the other. Either way, he was in trouble. And though Booth promised to destroy that letter, Arnold could hardly have missed his unspoken message: We’re not going to hurt each other, are we? He took the next available ship to Fortress Monroe.11

  THE PRESIDENT AND MRS. LINCOLN had just been there the previous week. The Lincolns had stopped at Fortress Monroe on the way to visit General Grant at City Point. Grant had already begun a major thrust against the enemy, and he was optimistic that the war would be over soon. A series of assaults had dislodged Lee’s army from its trenches near Petersburg, and by April 2, the Confederates would no longer be able to protect their capital. The Appomattox campaign was under way.

  Booth was depressed over the news, and family visits had demoralized him even more. There was always a palpable tension between him and Edwin, who gloated over the North’s success and taunted his brother with charges of false patriotism. Though they tried to avoid open warfare in the presence of their mother, Mary Ann was not fooled. The whole business saddened her, and she opened her heart in a letter to John Wilkes.

  New York

  March 28th

  My dear boy

  I have just got yours. I was very glad to hear from you, & hope you will write often. I did part with you sadly—& I still feel sad, very much so. June has just left me. he staid as long as he could. I am now quite alone. Rose has not returned yet—I feel miserable enough. I never yet doubted your love & devotion to me—in fact I always gave you praise for being the fondest of all my boys—but since you leave me to grief, I must doubt it—I am no Roman Mother I love my dear ones, before Country or any thing else.

  Heaven guard you is my constant prayer.12

  Mary Ann was resigned to an unhappy future. She knew that John Wilkes would throw himself, heart and soul, into a last-ditch effort to save the Confederacy. It would be a futile gesture, and possibly a fatal one. But she never imagined the enormity of his plans.

  In hindsight, it should not have come as a surprise. Even as a child, John Wilkes had dreamed of glory. His role models were the heroes and martyrs of history, brought to life in the
poems of Byron, the books of Plutarch, the plays of Shakespeare, Schiller, and Payne. They were no mere foot soldiers; they were giants, immortalized by the teachings of the elder Booth. With all the odds against them, they had fought to the death in a last-ditch effort to stave off tyranny.

  There were Democrats now who called for the same kind of hero. Lincoln, to them, was Caesar in need of a Brutus. Indeed, the parallels were often noted. Caesar won his own civil war by the use of self-declared powers. He instituted martial law, and argued its necessity for as long as the war lasted. But when the fighting stopped, the tyranny did not, and thus ended the Roman republic.

  The president’s opponents did not mince words. “Let us also remind Lincoln,” said one speaker at a New York rally, “that Caesar had his Brutus and Charles the First his Cromwell. Let us also remind the George the Third of the present day that he, too, may have his Cromwell or his Brutus.” The same warning was sounded in public assemblies, on editorial pages, and in the halls of Congress. As one senator said, “Is this an American Congress or a Roman Senate in the most abject days of the Roman empire? . . . How much more are we to take?”

  Booth believed it was pointless to take any more. He was convinced that most people wanted Lincoln out of office, yet the election process had failed to remove him. There was only one option left, and Booth must have hinted at it during the Gautier’s meeting. When Arnold wrote, “I would prefer your first query ‘go and see how it will be taken in R——d,’ ” “it” was the change of plans—a change that affected the whole nature of the conspiracy. Though Booth dared not say it, his plot to seize the president had become a conspiracy to kill him.13

  It would not happen any time soon. The Lincolns were still at City Point, and the president himself had no immediate plans to return. The war was going extremely well, and when Richmond was finally taken, Abraham Lincoln wanted to see the fruits of victory with his own eyes.

  FROM SOMEWHERE IN NEW YORK, John Surratt wrote to Atzerodt and instructed him to sell the horses he had been keeping at Howard’s. Atzerodt was not the best person for the job, though. Too many stablemen had seen those horses before, and they had all been told that Booth or Surratt owned them. So eventually Booth had to get involved. At the beginning of April, he and Atzerodt took the horses to Nailor’s Stable, at Fourteenth and E streets, across from Willard’s, and asked to board them indefinitely. Booth told Fletcher, the stableman, that both horses belonged to him. He was going to Philadelphia, he said, and he wanted Atzerodt to sell them in his absence.14

  ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 3, Confederate forces evacuated Richmond, fleeing to the south and west ahead of pursuing troops. They set tobacco warehouses and railroad bridges on fire as they left, and unexpectedly, a change in wind direction sent flames sweeping through the commercial district. By the time federal troops arrived, more than eight hundred buildings had been destroyed. The leading symbol of Southern culture and power had become a ruin.

  Mrs. Surratt must have been frantic with worry. Her son spent a great deal of his time in Richmond, and indeed, he was on his way there the last time she saw him. But at about half past six on the evening of the third, John Surratt arrived at the boardinghouse unfazed and apparently unaware of recent developments. He was surprised to hear that the rebel capital had been abandoned. “I saw Benjamin and Davis in Richmond,” he told Weichmann, “and they told me it would not be evacuated.” Surratt went straight upstairs to change his clothes. He asked if anyone in the house could exchange some gold for greenbacks. John Holohan changed some of his money, but neither he nor anybody else could match the two hundred dollars Surratt was carrying. After taking a quick meal in his room, Surratt went downstairs to bid his mother goodbye. He said that he was going to Canada and had to leave right away. Mrs. Surratt pointed out that another draft had been called, and he had neglected to finish paying for an exemption. He said he wasn’t worried about the draft, but would take care of it.15

  THE FALL OF RICHMOND was just one part of a bleak picture in the final days of the Confederacy. The fight against hunger became a war in itself, and the Davis government pulled out all the stops to feed its armies, then in full retreat. There was said to be plenty of food in the direction of their march, but it was so far ahead of them that they might have to surrender before they could reach it. Crops were abundant in or near the occupied lands of Virginia, but foraging there was a dangerous business, and the Confederate government was compelled to offer enormous bounties to anyone willing to do it at the risk of capture. Nevertheless, people did what they could. Citizens poached from U.S. Army stores, and Mosby sent hundreds of Rangers down the Northern Neck in search of provisions.16

  GEORGE ATZERODT FINALLY SOLD one of Booth’s horses. Though John Greenawalt had misgivings, he bought the smaller animal for $140. Atzerodt, who once boasted of his rich friends, now admitted that poverty had forced him to let the horse go so cheaply. From now on, Booth would have to rent horses. Though he still owned the one-eyed horse, he apparently had no intention of riding it. As John Surratt said, it had a tendency to pull up and freeze in its tracks—not the kind of animal one would choose for a quick getaway. 17

  BOOTH WAS IN NEWPORT, Rhode Island, when Richmond fell. That morning, he and Lucy Hale checked in to the Aquidneck House on Pelham Street. After signing the register as “J. W. Booth and Lady, Boston,” they went out for a walk, and were gone for hours. They returned in dismal spirits, and Booth told the desk clerk that the lady was not feeling well. He asked that a dinner be sent up to their room, but they were gone before it was delivered. Something had caused an abrupt change in their plans, and they left for Boston on the next available train.18

  MARY LINCOLN HAD LEFT her husband in City Point and was back in Washington when two White House policemen came to her with a request. Joseph Shelton and John F. Parker were about to be drafted, and hoped that their service in the Executive Mansion would exempt them. Ideally, they would have liked to have a note from the president, but since he was out of town, they appealed to Mrs. Lincoln for help. She obligingly sent two notes to Provost Marshal O’Beirne.19

  Though the White House was secure, not so the president. On hearing that Richmond had fallen, Lincoln insisted on having a look at the rebel capital. He and a small entourage, including his young son Tad, set out in Admiral Porter’s flagship, the Malvern, on a journey that tested the nerves of everyone but, apparently, the president himself. Wrecked ships and dead horses often blocked their path, and several times they transferred to successively smaller boats in order to get past the obstructions. By the time Lincoln finally reached the city, he was in the admiral’s launch—literally, a rowboat—with only Tad and a few naval officers. His marine detachment had been left behind, and six navy oarsmen formed his escort through the streets of the enemy capital. The place had never been swept for sharpshooters, and at six feet four inches, Abraham Lincoln was an easy target. But fate spared him, at least for now.20

  ON APRIL 5, Secretary of State Seward met with a serious accident near his home in Washington. He and his family were going out for a drive when they stopped to pick up a friend of his daughter Fanny. When Henry, the driver, stepped down to open the door, the horses jumped and the carriage lurched forward. Frederick reached out to grab the reins, but missed and fell to the ground, injuring himself. Suddenly the team bolted and headed down Vermont Avenue at breakneck speed. Secretary Seward tried to jump out when the horses slowed for the turn onto H Street, but he misjudged the turn and was thrown violently to the pavement. Bystanders carried him home unconscious, his face bruised and swollen beyond recognition. His jaw was broken in two places, and his right arm had snapped just below the shoulder.21

  JOHN SURRATT CHECKED IN to the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal. He signed the hotel register as “John Harrison,” though Confederates knew him as Charley Armstrong. By the time Surratt arrived on the morning of April 6, operatives here had heard all about Richmond’s collapse. Neither Jefferson Davis nor his armies had surrendered, t
hough, and until they did, the war was still on. Gen. Edwin Gray Lee, in charge of the Canadian operation, no longer had enough people to cover his assignments, so when Surratt came to him with some dispatches, Lee offered him a spying mission. The government was contemplating a raid on the Elmira prison in New York, and Lee needed someone to survey the place beforehand. Surratt jumped at the chance. He had tried to catch up with Booth on the way to Montreal, but when he stopped at Edwin’s house in New York, John Wilkes was not there.22

  Booth was still in Boston. After dropping Lucy off with friends, he went to see Edwin, who had just begun an engagement in the Boston Theatre. Rehearsals were under way for Hamlet when Booth went backstage and crept up behind actress Rachel Noah. “Hello, little girl!” he whispered. “They tell me you’ve been getting married since I saw you.” He seemed in a playful mood, and Rachel chatted with him while she waited for her cue. She asked when he was going to act again, and he said that he had grown tired of all those months on the road. He might play again, but only in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.

  When the rehearsal was over, he went to his brother’s dressing room for a talk. Edwin’s dresser was a black man from Richmond, and John Wilkes addressed him first. “Well, Jim, Richmond has fallen at last. What do you think of it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Poor Richmond!”

  “Sorry, you rascal?” said Edwin. “You ought to be glad; it has been a great blessing to mankind that it has fallen.” John Wilkes would not take the bait, and for once, he left without a fight. He had come all the way from Washington, and his business with Edwin was over in a few minutes. We have never learned what it was.