American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Log of the U.S.S. Juniper, National Archives. Though many authors have accepted Jones’s recollection that Booth crossed on the twenty-first, contemporary evidence suggests otherwise. The calendar in Booth’s diary is marked “On Poto[mac]” for April 20. Henry Woodland said that Jones was gone from noon on April 20 to dawn on the twenty-first (LAS 6:451); William R. Wilmer, of Port Tobacco, reported that two men, one answering the description of Booth, had been seen in Nanjemoy on the twentyfirst. For the other side, see William Tidwell, “Booth Crosses the Potomac: An Exercise in Historical Research,” Civil War History 36 (April 1990): 325–33.

  Chapter 15: “I must fight the course”

  The funeral train has been the subject of several books, the latest and perhaps most comprehensive being The Lincoln Funeral Train by Scott D. Trostel (Fletcher, Ohio: Cam-Tech Publishing, 2002).

  This entry appears to have been written at the Indiantown farm, near Nanjemoy, on April 23. Original is in the Lincoln Museum, Ford’s Theatre.

  Townsend, Life, Crime and Capture, 55. Lafayette C. Baker repeated this passage verbatim, and without attribution, in The History of the United States Secret Service, 492.

  Dr. Samuel Mudd in LAS 2:1028; Sarah F. Mudd in a sworn affidavit, July 6, 1865, in Ewing Family Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress; John F. Hardy in Poore, 2:435–36. Hardy was with Mudd at the time. He counted twenty-eight horses outside.

  Stanton’s declaration was published in The Baltimore Sun, April 24, 1865, 1; Allen and Kirby in M-619, 455:609.

  RG 393, Part 1, entry 2778, Letters sent regarding Secret Service, Department of Missouri, 559:203; The St. Louis order is in M-473, 89:42; RG 393, Part 1, entry 2778, 559:207–9.

  Spangler statement in the John T. Ford Papers, Maryland Historical Society, MS 371; similar content is in another statement, published in the Harrisburg Daily Telegraph, June 24, 1869.

  Log of the Ella for April 23 showed her passing the Casko, the Jacob Bell, the Resolute, and the Juniper in this vicinity. Commander Foxhall Parker to Gideon Welles, O.R. I:5, 559; Lt. Cdr. E. Hooker to Parker, ibid.; loophole: O.R. I:46 (3) 818. Lincoln’s original blockade had been lifted, but was effectively reinstated after the assassination.

  Quesenberry in LAS 5:557–59; New York Herald, May 4, 1865. I am deeply indebted to several of Mrs. Quesenberry’s descendants, particularly Nicholas Payne and Betty Houghton, for genealogical information and photographs. Alice Yturbide regained custody of her son, and kept him at Rosedale, the house in which she and her sister Elizabeth had been born. During a more recent international custody dispute, seven-year-old Elian Gonzalez stayed in the same house. Louise Mann Kenney, Rosedale (Washington, D.C. Youth for Understanding, 1989), 51; Just before the assassination, Gen. Lew Wallace went to Texas on Lincoln’s behalf to study the Mexican situation. Wallace and others were determined to start a war with Mexico, having annexation in mind. Herold in LAS 4:462, and John M. Garrett in M-619, 457:506; Wallace, Autobiography, 812–46; Andrew F. Rolle, The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 9. Most of the ten thousand Confederate exiles who went south ended up in Mexico. Maximilian was defeated and put to death in 1867. Juaristas slaughtered many of those Confederate mercenaries.

  William Bryant in LAS 4:95–97.

  The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 23–25, 1865; Details about the second funeral-related death were not given in the papers. Phillips Brooks House Association, Columbia Encyclopedia; A. V. Allen, ed., Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks (Boston: n.p., 1900).

  Burnett’s letter books appear in LAS reel 1.

  Bryant in LAS 4:95–97; Stuart family information comes primarily from the doctor’s papers in the Alderman Library, University of Virginia, and from the kind help of descendants, especially Courtney McKeldin, Eugenia Thirkield, Julia Lindsay, and Rosemarie (Mrs. Richard Stuart) Hunter; Mosby’s men were dispersed over a wide area, and they tended to surrender piecemeal, as word of their commander’s wishes reached them. The colonel himself was holding out for guidance from federal authorities. See Ulysses S. Grant to Stanton, April 17, 1865, in O.R. I:46 (3) 817–18; Hunter’s comments in Grinnan Family Papers, Mss1 G8855a 179–86, Virginia Historical Society; Dr. Stuart did not identify all his visitors by name, but they were probably S. T. Stuart, Major Hunter, and the doctor’s daughters Ada (widow of Lt. Col. William Randolph), Rosalie (Mrs. S. Turbeville Stuart), and Margaret (fiancée of Major Hunter). It is possible that his daughter Julia Jones and son Richard Henry Jr. were also present. In a letter to Century Magazine in 1895, someone signing himself “E.G.D.G.” claimed to have been present, and says that Dr. Stuart was away at the time of Booth’s visit. Elise Skinner, who identified herself as a Stuart cousin, also claimed to have been present. T. C. DeLeon, Belles, Beaux and Brains of the Sixties (New York: G. W. Dillingham Company, 1907), 251.

  Stuart in LAS 6:206–10. The doctor did not say who asked him about his neighbors, but I assume Herold did the talking. Lucas in LAS 5:145–47.

  The Baltimore Sun, April 27, 1865, 1.

  William Lucas in LAS 5:145–47.

  The officers’ car, which followed the United States in line, was also ferried across by boat. Information on Peter Relyea comes from family clippings, copies of which are in the Surratt House library, and from clippings in the Abraham Lincoln Scrapbook, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. The photograph issue was not finally decided until May 1, when Stanton ordered Dix to comply with the original order. M-473, 89:145–46, 177, 220; The New York Times, April 25, 1865.

  O’Callaghan in M-619, 456:514; DeAngelis in M-619, 456:523; O’Beirne and Beckwith affidavits, in RG 233, claims file HR39A–H4.1; M-619, 458:449.

  Wood in LAS 7:368; Hall in LAS 4:139–40. Years later, a story was told that when the cavalry searched Tudor Hall, a daughter of William Heuisler’s, who had been renting the place from the Booths, defiantly told them that John Wilkes would have been welcomed there. However, Thomas Hall described the search as fruitless, and he said that Heuisler “nearly came to blows” with Booth over politics. See Ella V. Mahoney, Sketches of Tudor Hall and the Booth Family (Bel Air, MD: Franklin Printing Co., 1925), 50.

  Rollins in M-619, 457:552–54, and in LAS 6:79–80; Jett in LAS 5:88–92; This was the first time the fugitives mentioned Orange Court House. This town was about sixty miles away, and just beyond it was Gordonsville, an important railroad hub still in Confederate hands. Evidently, Harbin recommended that Booth find his way there; Though Jett said Booth had used the alias “James William Boyd,” most of the earliest sources claim he was calling himself “John William Boyd.” People often use their correct first name in order to avoid slipping up, and in different places along the escape, Booth and Herold were doing exactly that. Jett in Poore, 1:311. Jett did not serve with Mosby, as often claimed. His story is given in G. W. Beale, A Lieutenant of Cavalry in Lee’s Army (Boston: The Gorham Press, 1908), 230. Beale knew Jett well; For information on the Gouldman family, I am indebted to my good friend Harold M. Gouldman, Jr., whose grandfather shared a room with Jett on April 25; At the end of the war, former Confederates were examined to determine which form of amnesty, if any, would apply in their cases. Each was required to obtain a certificate from the examining officers.

  Doherty entry in the Army List, 1815–1900, 285. The Annual Report of the Adjutant General gives April 22 as the date of his promotion, retroactive to April 3; Doherty in M-619, 456:274 and 456:284; Schneider in M-619, 456:286. The order for men was copied into M-619, 456:273. The detachment consisted of two sergeants, seven corporals, and seventeen privates.

  Herold said that as soon as he identified himself to Jett, “he gave me a book and asked my signature.” I have assumed Jett would have wanted Booth’s as well. In the New York Herald, May 4, 1865, William N. Walton said that Herold copied something on a paper he took from Booth. Walton had just come from retracing the escape with members of the 16th New York. They had been ordered to collect evidence, and this po
em seems to fit that description, though it was never marked or identified. It was discovered by the present writer, and is published here for the first time. LAS 7:661; The handwriting is Booth’s, and the second part is consistent with Herold’s, though the only known example of his writing is a signature in LAS 4:433; Herold statement in LAS 4:467; Rollins in LAS 6:80–81. Incidentally, the lines “I could not love thee, dear, so much / Loved I not Honor more” were taken from “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars,” by Richard Lovelace (1618–57).

  Jett in LAS 5:94–98.

  Richards told this to Colonel Olcott, who recounted it in a memo to Colonel Burnett on April 25. LAS 2:129; Kelly and Clarvoe were already gone: LAS 3:323.

  Jett in LAS 5:94–98; Herold in LAS 4:467; A deed dated September 17, 1846, described a 517-acre tract that included “Locust Hill.” Caroline County land records, Liber 45, folio 293. Cecilia Fleetwood Garrett was living with an uncle in Lexington, Missouri; Mary Elizabeth Garrett was teaching school in South Carolina; and Julia Garrett died in infancy. John Muscoe “Jack” Garrett served in the Fredericksburg Artillery, and was traded to the Caroline Artillery on April 15, 1864, in exchange for a wounded soldier. William Henry Garrett served in the latter unit. The Gouldman-Jett conversation was recounted by Henry C. Bell in a letter to Finis L. Bates, December 20, 1914, in E. H. Swaim Papers, Georgetown University. Bell interviewed George Jesse Gouldman and his mother several times, and his own recollection was certified by a son of Jesse’s.

  Records of Massachusetts General Hospital, 1857; RG 94, Entry 112, Order Book of the 16th New York Cavalry, Special Order 32, January 31, 1865, announced the promotion of Corbett, retroactive to March 1, 1864; Frederick H. Dyer, Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, 1380; I am indebted to Steven G. Miller for sharing his unsurpassed knowledge of the regiment’s history.

  According to Lucinda Holloway, “Mr. Boyd” offered an opinion that the killer had only wanted notoriety. However, her account was not written until many years later. L.K.B. Holloway, “An Eyewitness Account of the Death of John Wilkes Booth,” manuscript in the Confederate Museum, Richmond. See also Jack Garrett in M-619, 457:502.

  Luther Byron Baker in M-619, 455:669–70. Baker said that other people in King George County had already pointed them in the direction of Port Conway. However, nobody else on the expedition recalled meeting such people. William McQuade in M-619, 456:237; David Baker in M-619, 456:245; Abram Snay in M-619, 456:219; Charles Zimmer in M-619, 456:234; The split tactic is mentioned by Doherty in M-619, 456:276; Capt. Wilson’s orders: Baker in M-619, 455:669. Baker claimed that an old man said Booth and Herold had crossed the previous day. Doherty said it was a black man, and Rollins mentioned the presence only of Dick Wilson, who was an African American. Doherty in M-619, 456:276; Sources also disagreed on who mentioned Jett’s courtship of Izora Gouldman. Baker claimed they heard it from some ladies at a “house of entertainment” ten miles down the road, while Doherty attributed it to Mrs. Rollins. The latter makes more sense, as they were hell-bent for Bowling Green long before they saw the ladies mentioned by Baker. Doherty, ibid., frame 277; Baker and Conger in M-619, 455:676.

  Jack Garrett in M-619, 457:507–9; Herold in LAS 4:467–69; At the suggestion of Mrs. Rollins, the cavalry pretended to have William Rollins under arrest. Rollins in M-619, 457:559 and Baker in M-619, 455:674; Details of the Star Hotel encounter are given by Conger in Poore, 1:313, and M-619, 455:726, and by Baker in M-619, 455:677.

  Richard H. Garrett claim in Committee of Claims, RG 233; Jack Garrett in M-619, 457:514–17; Herman Newgarten in M-619, 456:227; Conger in Poore, 1:314. 31. Jack Garrett in M-619, 457:515; L. B. Baker, 680; Conger in Poore, 1:314; Lewis Savage in M-619, 456:224; Oliver Lonkey in M-619, 456:222; John Winter in M-619, 456:229; Godfrey Hoyt in M-619, 456:236.

  Herold in LAS 4:470; Jack Garrett in M-619, 457:519–20. This whole sequence is compressed in Garrett’s account. He remembered being in the barn for just a brief word with Booth, while Baker and Conger recalled ordering the fugitives several times to give themselves up to Garrett.

  Will Garrett in M-619, 457:530–31; Conger in Poore, 1:315; Herold in LAS 4:470–71; Baker in M-619, 455:680; John Winter in M-619, 456:231.

  Herold in LAS 4:470–71; Baker in M-619, 455:681; Boston Corbett in M-619, 456:256. In nearly all of the soldiers’ accounts, the fire starts only seconds before Booth was shot. However, Conger himself stated, “At 1:30 A.M. we set fire to the barn, and Booth was shot at fifteen minutes past three A.M.” It is hard to square this with Conger’s assertion, on the very next page, that he set the fire after Herold surrendered. Adding to the mystery is an experiment I once undertook to resolve this issue. In September 1996, I enlisted the help of cavalry reenactors and burned down a genuine Civil War–era tobacco barn. We duplicated the Garrett farm conditions as best we could, starting at 1:30 A.M. on a relatively still night. Though we eventually resorted to using gasoline, our barn took about twenty minutes to get a noticeable flame going; Everton Conger in M-619, 455:726; Boston Corbett, M-619, 456:257.

  Young Lillian Garrett remembered Herold being taken out, and she thought it looked painful, being tied with his back to a tree. Philadelphia Press, December 4, 1881; Conger in M-619, 455:728; Corbett in M-619, 456:258; Conger in M-619, 455:729.

  Conger in Poore, 1:317–18; Baker in M-619, 455:684–86.

  Chapter 16: “These people around here contradict each other so much”

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 130–31; New York Tribune, April 28, 1865, 1. L. B. Baker thought Booth kept the shavings to start a fire. Surratt Trial, 320; The Tribune’s favored treatment might have had something to do with its Washington bureau chief, Aaron H. Byington, who was a particular favorite of Stanton’s. The actresses pictured were Fanny Brown, Alice Gray, Helen Western, and Effie Germon. For many years, authorities left the name of Miss Hale unspoken; It was Dan Bryant who commissioned his musical director, Dan Emmett, to come up with a new “walk-around” for the end of his show. Emmett’s “Dixie” became an instant success. Richmond Dispatch, March 19, 1893; Effie Germon also earned a footnote in history. She spent much of the spring of 1865 posing for her brother-in-law, Constantine Brumidi, as he painted the interior of the Capitol dome. Her face can be seen on the allegorical figure at the right hand of George Washington. My thanks to the woman (raised in the Germon family) who first tipped me off to the story; my apologies for misplacing her name. Beckwith in M-619, 458:449; Wells to Augur, April 26, 1865, in M-619, 458:424.

  Corbett turned down as much as $100 for the pistol, saying it didn’t belong to him. The Baltimore Sun, April 28, 1865, 2. It was stolen from him within days, and has never been seen since. Corbett, quoted in The Lincoln Log, December 1975.

  Log of the U.S.S. Montauk in RG 24, National Archives. Burial suggestions: A. S. Lathrop to Stanton, April 27, 1865, in Stanton Papers, reel 9. The photographs were used to make woodcut drawings for the illustrated newspapers, and they have since disappeared. Baker’s statement is in M-619, 455:666, and Conger’s is in M-619, 455:725. The medical specimens are still on display at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A small piece of thoracic tissue is in the Mutter Museum in Dr. Woodward’s hometown of Philadelphia. The excision of chest and neck samples caused a lot of comment, and Marine Private Henry Landes, standing nearby, wrote in his diary that the head and heart had been cut out. My thanks to his great-grandson, Joseph Landes, for a copy. The Boston Advertiser reported the same thing on May 3, and this became a general understanding for years.

  A report on Booth’s neck wound is in the Catalogue of the Surgical Section of the United States Army Medical Museum, specimens 4086 (third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae) and 4087 (spinal cord section). The accession cards refer to the carbine wound, but the official descriptions given in the Medical and Surgical History of the War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), first surgical volume, p. 452, refer to a pistol ball. Dr. Barnes gave an imprecise report, saying only that “a gun sho
t wound” was found in the neck. Barnes to Stanton, April 27, 1865, in Record Group 94, entry 623, file D, Treasure Room of the National Archives.

  Freckling was described by May in LAS 4:360 and in his personal recollections of the autopsy, now in the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. A Washington reporter described the blood settling “in the lower part of the face and neck.” Evening Star, April 27, 1865, 2; Initials on the hand: Charles Dawson in LAS 4:353; Jett in LAS 5:92; Richard Baynham Garrett to Gen. A. R. Taylor, 1907, published in “An Interesting Letter About the Death of John Wilkes Booth” (Peoria, Illinois: Oakwood Lincoln Club, 1934), 10, courtesy of William Hallam Webber; Emory Parady, of the 16th New York Cavalry, mentioned them in a letter to his parents, April 28, 1865, courtesy of Steven G. Miller; Sgt. Joseph Hartley, of the marine guards, also remembered the initials. His letter on that subject is in the Marine Corps Historical Center Library, Washington Navy Yard. My thanks to the sergeant’s great-grandson, John Hartley, for this information.

  Seaton Munroe in The North American Review 162 (March 1896): 431. See also LAS 4:356. Gideon Welles asked Commodore Montgomery for a report on who had been allowed to view the body, and whether hair was taken. M-149, 80:442–43; Stone’s reply said that no orders had been issued with regard to the corpse, and that the hair was cut by an assistant to the surgeon general. Commodore Montgomery confirmed that his orders referred only to the prisoners, not the corpse. RG 45, Washington Navy Yard papers, Commandant’s Letters to the Secretary of the Navy, documents 194, 195. Pvt. Marcus Conant, of the 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, took a portion of the splint from Booth’s leg, and it is now in the collection of Dr. John K. Lattimer. A lock of hair was clipped by Marine Sgt. John M. Peddicord, whose grandson kindly showed it to the author in 1995. See Roanoke, Virginia, Evening News, June 6, 1903, 3.

  Creation of Judge Advocate General position: 12 Stat. 598; records summary for Record Group 153, p. 327, National Archives; Herold in LAS 4:442. Contrary to recent statements, Herold never denied that the man killed in the Garrett barn was Booth. He mentioned him by name ten times in the verbatim transcript of this interview. Evening Star, April 27, 1865, and January 5, 1907; The penitentiary had been shut down in 1862, and its prisoners sent to New York. The old building was then absorbed into the arsenal for storage purposes. Stebbins originally ordered Sgt. Joseph Campbell to bury Booth under the stone floor of a prison cell. Hours later, Campbell reported that the ground was too hard there, so the major found a more practical site in a storage room. Suzanne Deitrich, a great-granddaughter of Major Stebbins’s, provided these details. Besides Sergeant Campbell, only one other member of the burial detail has been identified: Corporal Florin Harbach. Coincidentally, a great-great-grandson of Harbach’s commanded the same military installation (now Fort Lesley J. McNair) in the 1990s. My thanks to Vincent H. Harbach.