v1.1.1 / chapter 88 of 93 / 01 sep 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* The fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender was a great satisfaction to Lincoln, the culmination of all he had worked for. He didn't have long to enjoy the satisfaction, however, since John Wilkes Booth shot and mortally wounded him on 14 April 1865. The assassination, along with a brutal attack on Secretary of State Seward, put Washington in a frenzy, and resulted in a massive manhunt for Booth and his accomplices.
In the meantime, rebel resistance continued to crumble away. Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Confederate government was on the run, but with the surrender of Joe Johnston's forces in North Carolina there was little real hope of carrying on the struggle.
* Even before Lincoln went to bed after his return to Washington DC on 9
April, he received a telegram from General Grant that read:
GENERAL LEE SURRENDERED THE ARMY OF
NORTHERN VIRGINIA THIS AFTERNOON
ON TERMS PROPOSED BY MYSELF.
The war was all but over. The next day, Monday 10 April, cannons boomed
salutes over Washington DC, and the partying started again, though at a more
restrained level: Washingtonians were wearying of it and cold rain dampened
enthusiasm. Still, there were crowds about, and they cheered Tad Lincoln
when he waved a captured Confederate flag, obtained by War Secretary Stanton
at the President's request, from a White House window.
On the evening of 11 April, a crowd assembled in front of the White House while brass bands played and fireworks burst in the sky. The crowd set up a chant of: "LINCOLN! LINCOLN!" The President eventually appeared on a balcony, and the crowd went wild, drowning him in cheers and applause. After the crowd quieted down, Lincoln addressed them. Although it might have seemed an occasion for a rousing and trivial speech to celebrate the occasion, instead of amusing the spectators he delivered a long and somewhat abstract speech on the details of Reconstruction that were clearly on his mind; the speech fell a little flat. John Wilkes Booth was in the crowd, accompanied by Lewis Paine. Booth told Paine, reflecting on Lincoln's comments about black emancipation: "That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make." The two men pushed their way out of the crowd.
The Radicals were not happy with Lincoln's speech, since the President proposed terms of Reconstruction they found much too lenient. The next day, 12 April, Lincoln received a number of letters criticising him. The news about his authorization of a meeting of the Virginia legislature had got out, and that wasn't popular either, with some of Lincoln's own cabinet secretaries complaining loudly. One of Lincoln's reasons for allowing Justice Campbell to assemble the legislature was to end the fighting in Virginia, but Lee had done that himself on 9 April. The matter had become a liability, and so Lincoln wired General Weitzel in Richmond to tell him to revoke the assembly.
* If Lincoln was upbeat, John Wilkes Booth was in despair over the fall of the Confederacy. All his schemes seemed to be falling down, and he was drinking much more heavily than was his custom. On 13 April, the wheels began to turn again on his conspiracy. General Grant, once again the hero of the hour, came to Washington that morning and checked into a suite at Willard's Hotel. He settled in with his wife and one of his sons, and then left to for business at the War Department. An enthusiastic crowd gathered around him, and the general had to be escorted by police.
After reviewing paperwork at the War Department, Grant left to visit the President. Lincoln liked the theater and liked to take prominent guests to performances. He invited Grant and his wife to accompany him and Mary Lincoln to a show the following evening.
Grant remembered the way Mary Lincoln had abused his wife Julia at City Point and wasn't enthusiastic about taking the President up on the offer. Grant and his wife were also eager to leave town for Burlington, New Jersey, where his other children were attending school. However, Grant did not want to offend Lincoln. Grant sought advice from War Secretary Stanton -- something of an odd choice since Stanton wasn't a model of tact himself. Stanton didn't like the President visiting the theater, since it seemed to make him much too convenient a target. Stanton suggested to Grant that if he turned down the President's invitation, Lincoln might well stay home.
John Wilkes Booth was aware that the President liked to take high-profile guests to the theater, and felt certain that Lincoln would take Grant out on the town. There were two performances in progress: OUR AMERICAN COUSIN, playing at Ford's Theater, and ALLADIN, OR THE WONDERFUL LAMP, at Grover's. OUR AMERICAN COUSIN had been around the circuit more than once and was a bit weary, but ALLADIN was a new work, and would be accompanied by a preliminary display of fireworks.
Booth guessed that Lincoln would choose ALLADIN, and checked out Grover's on the afternoon of the 13th. He asked the theater manager if he meant to invite the President to a performance, and the manager replied that he did. Booth left, and made the rounds to notify his remaining accomplices that it was time to act. There was no longer any thought of kidnapping the President. Booth intended to kill him.
* On 11 April 1865, Lincoln and his wife were entertaining Ward Lamon and a few other friends in the Red Room of the White House. The conversation came around to dreams. According to Lamon, the President commented that the Bible often mentioned dreams, particularly as a way by which God and angels communicated with their human servants. Lincoln concluded the remark on a note of skepticism: "Nowadays, dreams are regarded as very foolish, and are seldom told, except by old women and young men and maidens in love."
Mary Lincoln pressed her husband on the matter. Didn't he believe in dreams? He replied he did not, though he had suffered a nightmare a few nights previously that had troubled him. Mary Lincoln pressed him further on the matter, and though he replied that he regretted mentioning the matter, he went on to describe the dream to put the matter to rest.
In his dream, he said, "there seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs." He had to search through the White House to find the source of the noise. "I kept on, until I arrived in the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully."
"'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers?"
"'The President,' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin!'"
None of the people who were listening to the story had anything to say in response. Finally Mary Lincoln said: "That is horrid. I wish you had not told it." The President replied: "It was only a dream, Mary. Let us say no more about it and try to forget it."
* 14 April 1865 seemed like an ordinary day at the White House. Lincoln had breakfast with his wife and their son, Robert, who was on leave from his duties on Grant's staff. Robert had been present on the porch of the house at Appomattox when Lee had surrendered his army, and had obtained one of Lee's cartes de visites. The President inspected it and commented: "It is a good face. It is the face of a noble, brave man. I am glad the war is over at last."
Mary Lincoln also mentioned that she had obtained tickets for a performance of ALLADIN, but had decided that she wanted to see OUR AMERICAN COUSIN instead. Lincoln replied that he would deal with the matter. He spent most of the rest of the morning receiving visitors, though he did take time that morning to send a messenger to reserve the presidential box at Ford's Theater for the evening performance of OUR AMERICAN COUSIN.
A cabinet meeting was scheduled for 11:00 AM, with General Grant to attend. He arrived after most of the cabinet had assembled, to be greeted with a round of applause when he entered. Secretary of State Seward was not present, since he was still unable to move due to his injuries.
Everyone at the cabinet meeting was anxious for news from General Sherman, who was in North Carolina and expected to soon receive the surrender of Joe Johnston and his forces. Lincoln told the cabinet that he'd sometimes dream of standing on the deck of a ship moving towards a faraway shore, and invariably some great event had happened the next day. He told them: "I had this strange dream again last night, and we shall, judging from the past, have great news very soon." Apparently Lincoln took dreams a little more seriously than he had claimed.
The men discussed what should be done with the defeated Confederates. Lincoln commented: "I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country; open the gates; let down the bars." He made waving motions with his hands. "Shoo; scare them off; enough lives have been sacrificed."
The cabinet also discussed plans for the reconstruction of the South. Secretary Stanton had written up proposals at the request of the President, suggesting interim military governments in the conquered states until they could govern themselves again. Lincoln said: "We can't undertake to run state governments in all these southern states. Their people must do that, though I reckon that at first some of them may do it badly."
The meeting ended at 02:00 PM. General Grant stayed behind to give the President his regrets that General and Mrs. Grant would not be able to accompany them to the theater that night.
* John Wilkes Booth spent the day putting his plans in motion. Always fastidious about his appearance, one of the first things he did was get a haircut. He had an appointment with destiny and wanted to look his best.
Booth dropped by Ford's Theater and found out, somewhat to his surprise, that the President and, so it was believed, General Grant and their wives would be attending the performance of OUR AMERICAN COUSIN that night. Booth attended to a few details and made contact with his conspirators.
One of the details, which would become very important later, was to ask Mary Surratt, who ran a boardinghouse and was the widowed mother of John Surratt, to deliver a package for him to John Lloyd, who ran a tavern that the Surratt family had once owned in Surrattsville, Maryland. Mary Surratt had no knowledge of the conspiracy and no idea of what was in the package. He also checked out the presidential box at Ford's Theater to consider the best way of entering and making his attack. Finally, that evening, about 08:00 PM, he held a meeting with Lewis Paine, George Adzerodt, and David Herold. Paine was assigned to assassinate Secretary of State Seward, while Atzerodt was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson. Herold was to guide Paine and help him escape.
* That afternoon, the President ate a quick lunch with his wife, and met with Andrew Johnson. The President had not been happy with Johnson for various reasons, but Lincoln found it difficult to hold a grudge; they talked for about 20 minutes. When the meeting was over, Lincoln shook Johnson's hand and called him "Andy".
He attended to other business. He saved a deserter from a firing squad, saying: "I think the boy can do us more good above ground than under ground." He then met a black woman named Nancy Bushrod, a soldier's wife, who could not care for her children because her husband had not been paid. Although a soldier blocked her way, Lincoln brought her in, listened to her plea, assured her that the matter would be attended to by the next day, and sent her off with a bow.
After completing his business, he went on a carriage ride with Mary Lincoln, and on returning met with Illinois Governor Richard Oglesby and Illinois Senator Richard Yates. This was a social call, not business, since the men were old cronies of the President from his Illinois days. He read parts of a book by the humorist Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby to amuse them, and the three men had such a good time that Mary Lincoln finally had to sent word that dinner was waiting.
The couple ate dinner with Robert Todd Lincoln, and Mary asked him if he wanted to go to the theater with them. He begged off, saying he tired. However, Mary had invited a young engaged couple, 28-year-old Major Henry Reed Rathbone and 20-year-old Clara Harris, daughter of Senator Ira Harris of New York, and they accepted.
After the dinner, the President was detained by other visitors, and the couple didn't make it to Ford's Theater until about 08:30 PM, having had to stop to pick up Major Rathbone and Miss Harris on the way. They were met there by John Parker, a Washington policeman who was one of the Presidential bodyguards. The play was already in progress, but it was paused to allow the cast and the audience to acknowledge the presidential party as they were seated.
* John Wilkes Booth arrived at the back alley behind Ford's Theater sometime after 09:30 PM. He asked Ned Spangler to hold the reins of his horse. Spangler said he could not stay in the alley, but asked a handyman named Joseph Burroughs, known as "Peanut John" because he had started out at the theater selling peanuts, to hold on to the horse.
Booth made his way into the theater. After getting a drink in the saloon connected to the theater to steady his nerves, and wandering around a bit indecisively for some time, just after 10:00 PM, Booth made his way to the Presidential box.
There was no guard on the door. John Parker was not around, and indeed would not show up again publicly until the next morning, when he arrived at the police station with a drunken prostitute under arrest. Why he was absent remains a mystery, but some have speculated that the President simply told him to go enjoy himself after he had escorted the party to the box. The President did not worry much about security and was generally kindly to the hired help. In any case, Parker was not disciplined for his absence.
While the actors below went through a scene in OUR AMERICAN COUSIN that was guaranteed to get a laugh, Booth slipped into the box, walked up behind Abraham Lincoln, and shot him in the back of the head with a derringer at point-blank range. Major Rathbone got up to grapple with Booth, who slashed Rathbone across the arm to the bone with a knife. Breaking free, Booth jumped out of the front of the box. It was 12 feet (3.7 meters) to the stage, and one of Booth's spurs caught on draperies as he jumped. He landed badly, breaking the smaller of his ankle bones, the fibula, in his left leg.
The audience fell into confusion, not knowing if something was wrong or if this was part of the performance. Booth got to his feet, waved the bloody knife around, and cried: "Sic semper tyrannis! (Thus always to tryants!)" He hopped across the stage as Major Rathbone cried out: "Stop that man!" -- and Mary Lincoln screamed. One of the actors on the stage, Harry Hawk, hastily got out of the way of Booth and the flashing knife, a moment later realizing: "My God, that's John Booth!"
Hawk's caution was prudent. The agitated Booth went for the backstage door; he shoved an actress out of the way and badly slashed the theater's bandleader, who wasn't quick enough to avoid him. Booth went into the alley, knocked down Peanut John, snatched up the horse's reins, and rode off.
* There was now wild uproar in the theater. There was a young surgeon in the audience named Dr. Charles A. Leale, and he made his way to the presidential box. He gave Rathbone's wound a quick looking-over to make sure the officer was not in immediate danger, then looked over the President, who was not breathing. Leale quickly found the wound in the back of Lincoln's head. Another young doctor, Charles Sabin Taft, was hoisted by the audience into the front of the box, and assisted Leale in providing artificial respiration to the President. They managed to get him breathing again, but Leale knew it was hopeless: "The wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."
Two other doctors showed up and a number of soldiers, and they decided to move him to a bed. Leale said the President would not survive being carried to the White House, six blocks away, and so they simply trusted to finding someplace to put him as they carried him out. There was a rooming house across the street, and one of the rooms was occupied by a War Department employee named Henry Safford. On hearing the commotion and finding out that the President had been shot, Safford ran down the stairs of the boarding house with a candle and called out to the group carrying the President: "Bring him in here!"
They put the wounded man in the best room in the boarding house, which was normally occupied by William Clark, a Massachusetts soldier who worked for the Quartermaster Department. Clark was out celebrating that night, so they put him on Clark's bed. It was much too short for the lanky Lincoln, but they laid him out as best they could.
* The crowd on the street was wild and dangerous. A man who expressed satisfaction at hearing the President was shot was badly beaten and nearly lynched. The police managed to break up the mob and saved the man's life. Major Henry Rathbone did marry Clara Harris in 1867, but he never forgot the night of the assassination. He never forgave himself for failing to protect the President, eventually descending into madness. In 1894 he murdered Clara, and later died in a mental institution.
* Lewis Paine was a determined and dangerous man, and he made his attack on Secretary of State Seward at almost the same time Booth moved against Lincoln.
Paine was guided to Seward's mansion on Lafayatte Street, across from the White House, by David Herold, though Herold did not stay. Paine walked up to the door and rang the bell, and the door was opened by William Bell, a black servant. Paine said he was delivering a packet of medicine and said he had to deliver it to Secretary Seward personally. Bell said that Seward shouldn't be disturbed, but Paine simply pushed his way into the house. One of Seward's sons, Frederick Seward, came out of his room to see what the matter was, and confronted Paine as the intruder came up the stairs.
Paine repeated his story to Frederick Seward, who replied that his father was sleeping and should not be disturbed. Paine asked him to check, and he did so, revealing what room Secretary Seward was sleeping in. Frederick returned and repeated that his father was not to be disturbed.
Paine seemed to accept this, saying: "Very well, sir, I will go." He turned around to go back down the stairs, and then spun back, whipped out a Navy revolver, pointed it at Frederick, and pulled the trigger. The pistol didn't go off. Paine then threw himself with a roar at Frederick Seward and beat him with the revolver, smashing him against the banister and fracturing his skull in two places. However, Frederick refused to let go of Paine.
William Bell ran out in the street, crying out: "Murder! Murder!" Secretary Seward was being attended in his sickroom by his adolescent daughter Fanny and a convalescing Army private, George F. Robinson, who was acting as a nurse. Robinson opened the door to see what was going on, only to be greeted by the crazed Paine, who had finally broken free of Frederick Seward. Paine slashed Robinson across the forehead, broke into the room, shoved Fanny out of the way, and began slashing at Secretary Seward.
Robinson got up and grappled with Paine, who slashed him repeatedly. Another of Secretary Seward's sons, Major Augustus Seward, was sleeping in a nearby room and was roused by the commotion. He went into his father's bedroom to see what was going on, and on finding Robinson wrestling with Paine, joined in the struggle to receive a number of slashes for his trouble. Paine kept chanting: "I'm mad! I'm mad!" -- as he fought with the men.
Paine apparently judged that with more people arriving he would be quickly overwhelmed, so he finally broke loose, fled out the room, and leaped down the stairs. Seward's messenger, who had also been roused by the action, got in the way and was stabbed. Paine made it outside to his horse, and then rode away, trying to appear to be in no particular hurry. However, he ran into William Bell, who had returned with a group of soldiers, and spurred his horse into a gallop to escape into the dark.
Augustus Seward and the badly cut-up Private Robinson attended to William Seward, worrying that he was dead. However, he opened his eyes and said, clearly: "I am not dead. Send for a surgeon, send for the police, close the house." All of the injured men survived. However, the health of William Seward's wife was not good, and the shock of the whole nightmare was too much for her. She died two months later. Fanny Seward was not very healthy either, and died the next year.
* As for George Atzerodt, who was to assassinate Andrew Johnson, to no real surprise he didn't have the nerve to even try. For the lack of anything better to do, he simply got drunk. He was stumbling around the streets about 11:00 PM when he saw cavalry charging by, and decided to get out of the center of the town as fast as he could.
By this time, Booth and David Herold had fled the city as well. Booth came charging up to Navy Yard Bridge at about 10:45 PM. The bridge was closed at night and guarded, but as a skilled actor Booth had no trouble talking his way through. He even identified himself as John Booth, then indicated that he was on his way to southern Maryland after running an errand in Washington DC.
David Herold rode up ten minutes later, identified himself as Smith, and was similarly passed through. Herold caught up with Booth not far out of town, and they rode for Surrattsville and the tavern owned by John Lloyd. They arrived about midnight and roused Lloyd, who had been drinking heavily, and picked up a carbine and field glasses sent there earlier by the conspirators. The field glasses had been in the package Booth had asked Mary Surratt to deliver to Lloyd.
Booth's broken ankle was paining him greatly, and he and Herold rode to Bryantown, where there was a physician that Booth knew, named Dr. Samuel Mudd. They woke Mudd out of bed at about 04:00 AM. Mudd cut the boot off of Booth's leg, set his broken ankle, and otherwise tended to the actor's injury. The fugitives remained there until the afternoon. Mudd later claimed that he had learned the authorities were after the two men, and that he ordered them to leave. In any case, the two rode into Zekiah Swamp, a wild place of bogs and thickets where pursuit would be difficult. Unlike Booth and Herold, Lewis Paine didn't go far. He holed up in a patch of woods about a mile from the Navy Yard Bridge, and remained there in hiding.
* After being carried to William Clark's bed, the President was visited by doctors and high officials who packed the little room. He did not know they were there, since he did not regain consciousness and the doctors knew he never would.
Up to 16 doctors visited the room that night. They all knew there was nothing they could do, in fact they were amazed he was still breathing. Other visitors included Navy Secretary Gideon Welles and War Secretary Edwin Stanton, and Senator Charles Sumner brought Robert Todd Lincoln to the room as well.
Mary Lincoln was naturally distraught and grew wild during the night. Secretary Stanton ordered her to removed and kept out of the room. As dawn approached, the President began to fail noticeably, and at 7:22 AM on 15 April 1865, the doctors pronounced him dead. At 10:00 AM, Chief Justice Chase administered the oath of office of president of the United States to Andrew Johnson. Johnson was not able to move into office for some time, however, since Mary Lincoln hysterically accused him of complicity in her husband's murder and refused to give up the White House to him.
* Lincoln's body was taken to the White House on 15 April, and on 18 April, as he lay in state, 25,000 visitors passed through to see him one last time. The funeral ceremony was at noon the next day, with four ministers presiding. Mary Lincoln was too distraught to attend, and only Robert Todd Lincoln was there to represent the family. Memorial services were conducted that same day all over the Union.
After the service, the coffin was taken by a hearse to lie in the Capitol rotunda, down streets lined with black bunting and followed by 40,000 mourners. On 21 April, Lincoln's body was put on a special train for Springfield, Illinois, along with the disinterred remains of his son Willie. The trip back to Springfield was an occasion for national mourning unparalleled in the nation's history to that time. The train made many stops, with the coffin removed for funeral processions in some major cities. While the two coffins were carried in a special railroad car, the other cars and the locomotive were switched several times to allow different railroad companies to participate. The body was finally put to rest in Springfield on 4 May. The coffin was carried through the streets on an ornate hearse that had been loaned by the mayor of Saint Louis. Springfield was so packed that finding accommodations was impossible.
Mary Lincoln never really recovered from the blow, which was followed by another in July 1871, when Tad died after an illness, leaving Robert Todd as her only surviving son. She grew so erratic that Robert Todd hired Pinkerton detectives to keep an eye on her, then had her declared insane and committed to a mental institution in 1875. She was released after about a year, and finally died in 1882. She had spent her last months remaining in a darkened room, dressed in black widow's clothes.
* On the night Lincoln was shot, Secretary Stanton did not spend much time by the wounded President's side. Instead, Stanton went into action in a neighboring room, taking control to ensure there was no breakdown in authority, and to ensure the security of the city. Washington DC was sealed off, guards were posted to protect high officials from further attacks, and military forces and fire brigades were placed on alert.
Even before the President's death, Stanton had received written testimony clearly identifying John Wilkes Booth as the assassin. The city's military commander, General Christopher Auger, and the police chief, A.C. Richards, were also collaborating to catch Booth, and had identified further suspects, including George Atzerodt, David Herold, John Surratt, and other acquaintances of Booth's.
In the dark hours of the morning, Washington detectives moved in on Mary Surratt's boardinghouse, with the intent of arresting John Surratt and, possibly, John Wilkes Booth himself. Neither of the two men were there. They did, however, run into Louis Weichmann, a War Department clerk who was a friend of John Surratt's. Weichmann had been observing the strange comings and goings of John Wilkes Booth and his gang over the past weeks and had become increasingly suspicious. Weichmann clearly feared that he would be implicated in the plot, and the police found his reaction to the news of the assassination a little forced and suspicious.
However, they judged Mary Surratt's surprise to be unforced and genuine. She said she had seen Booth the day before, but hadn't seen her son John for two weeks and had no idea where he was. This was almost certainly true, since John Surratt was in New York State, gathering intelligence on a local Union prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate agents. On hearing the news of the assassination and that the Federals were looking for him, he fled to Canada and remained in hiding for almost two years.
After sunrise, Weichmann went to the police and told them everything he knew, and within days he was in Montreal, helping to hunt for John Surratt. Surratt actually spotted Weichmann on the streets of Montreal and immediately went underground.
On Monday, 17 April, the Washington police began to arrest everyone they knew who was an associate of Booth's, picking up Ned Spangler, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlin. Just before noon, the police raided Mary Surratt's boardinghouse and arrested Mary Surratt, her daughter, her niece, and a boarder. Then, while the women were packing up their things, somebody rang the doorbell. The police answered and met a big fellow in work clothes and carrying a pickaxe. He said he had been hired by Mary Surratt to dig a gutter, but Mrs. Surratt said she neither knew the man nor had arranged for anyone to dig a gutter.
The police arrested the man, and found papers on him identifying him as Lewis Paine. He had decided to give up his hiding place in the woods and seek refuge at the boardinghouse. They hauled him off to the police station, and later that day Secretary Seward's servant William Bell identified Paine as the man who had attacked the secretary. Paine would later express deep regret at having gone to the boardinghouse and having incriminated Mrs. Surratt.
Before dawn on Thursday, 20 April, police broke into a house near Germantown, Maryland, owned by Hartman Richter, a cousin of George Atzerodt. They found Atzerodt in bed, sleeping off a binge, and carted him off. They had been led to the house by a tip from John Atzerodt, George's brother, and a deputy on the staff of the provost marshal in Baltimore.
Dr. Samuel Mudd had passed the news of Booth's passage through his house to Dr. George Mudd, a cousin and a good Unionist, who agreed to pass it on to Federal authorities. This was apparently a way of deflecting guilt from himself while giving Booth time to get away. On 24 April the authorities decided to arrest Samuel Mudd anyway.
The principal male prisoners -- Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, Ned Spangler, Lewis Paine, and George Atzerodt -- ended up in the holds of the monitors MONTAUK and SAUGUS, at anchor in the Washington Navy Yard, where they were heavily manacled and even hooded. Mary Surratt ended up in the Carroll Annex of the Old Capitol Prison and was kept under considerably more civilized conditions.
* Booth and Herold were still on the run, getting some cautious assistance from understandably nervous Confederate sympathizers and -- after crossing the Potomac into Virginia on a small boat on 22 April -- Confederate citizens who were generally as or even more nervous. Union soldiers were all over the landscape, busily hunting for the two men.
On 24 April, Booth and Herold managed to get across the Rappahannock at Port Royal. After some further wanderings, the two fugitives ended up spending the night of 25 April in a barn owned by a Richard Garrett, who was sympathetic to their troubles.
However, in the dark hours of the morning of 26 April, a Federal cavalry detail under a Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty descended on the Garrett farm. His party included two of Colonel Baker's detectives. The Union troopers had actually been led to the area by a false report of a sighting that coincidentally had put them right on the trail of Booth and Herold, and information provided by locals sent them to the Garrett farm. Garrett refused to cooperate even when a cavalryman shoved a pistol in his face, but when the Yankees tied a rope around his neck and began to string him up, Garrett's son Jack volunteered the information that Booth and Herold were sleeping in the barn.
The troopers surrounded the barn and told the two fugitives to surrender. Herold did, hysterically protesting that he was innocent; the soldiers told him to shut up and tied him to a tree. Booth, in contrast, was defiant, theatrical to the last. When one of the troopers set the barn on fire, Booth got up and limped to the barn door, to be shot through the neck by a revolver wielded by a Sergeant Boston Corbett. Corbett was an odd sort, a reformed alcoholic turned religious zealot, who had gone so far as to castrate himself after a moment of temptation. He claimed he had shot Booth because it appeared the fugitive was getting ready to shoot it out with the cavalrymen. Whatever the case, the bullet had severed Booth's spine. He lived until about 7:00 AM, muttering "useless, useless" a few times until he faded away.
The cavalrymen took Herold and Booth's body back to Washington. Corbett was under arrest, since the troopers had been under strict orders to bring Booth back alive, but Secretary Stanton had become so frustrated with the drawn-out pursuit that it was no longer much concern to him if Booth was dead or alive, as long as he was caught. Corbett would not be punished, and in fact Secretary Stanton played him up as a hero.
On the early morning hours of 27 April, Herold and Booth's body were taken to the monitor MONTAUK. Herold was locked up in the hold, and when day came an autopsy was conducted on the body in order to confirm its identity. After the autopsy, a woman who was a Confederate sympathizer and who had managed to get on board the monitor tried to take a lock of Booth's hair. She was caught and the lock of hair was taken away from her. Secretary Stanton was informed of the incident, and he ordered the body secured and disposed of discreetly, to prevent any use of the dead assassin for mementos. Booth's body was taken from the monitor on a rowboat that afternoon, and that night it was buried in a wooden rifle case under the floor of a room in the Washington Old Penitentiary, a former Federal prison now being used as a storage building for the Washington Arsenal. No marking was left to show where Booth had been buried.
The male prisoners were also taken to the Old Penitentiary from the two monitors that night, and Mary Surratt would join them a day or two later. Stanton moved quickly to set up a court to pass judgement on them. He pressed for a military court, in the interests of ensuring swift conviction and punishment rather than a fair trial. Other Administration officials found this a dubious exercise, and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, who never had much use for Stanton in the first place, found the whole business "exceedingly repugnant". Even President Andrew Johnson had concerns about the propriety of the matter, but after obtaining legal advice, on 1 May Johnson called for the formation of a military tribunal to try the accused.
* On the evening of Monday, 10 April 1865, on hearing rumors of Lee's surrender and the approach of Stoneman's cavalry from the west, the Confederate government went on the run again, heading south on the railroad from Danville, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina. They moved out just in time, since Stoneman's cavalry burned a railroad bridge on the route only hours after the train carrying the Confederate officials had passed over it.
The train rolled into Greensboro the next morning, Tuesday 11 April. There was no welcoming committee: North Carolinans had never been all that enthusiastic about the Confederacy, and the citizens worried that the presence of the Confederate government in the town would provoke the Yankees into reprisals later. Beauregard was already there, having arrived on the evening of the 10th, and was residing uncomfortably with his staff in some boxcars.
The general briefed Davis on the situation to the south and judged it hopeless. Davis wouldn't accept it, insisting to Beauregard's astonishment that the war could be carried on, and sent a wire to Joe Johnston in Raleigh to come to Greenville to determine how best to carry out that task.
Johnston arrived Wednesday morning, 12 April. Before leaving Raleigh on Tuesday, North Carolina, the day before, North Carolina Governor Zeb Vance had warned Johnston that Davis was "a man of imperfectly constituted genius" who "could absolutely blind himself to those things which his prejudices or hopes did not desire to see." Johnston was only too aware of Davis's limitations, but general was still startled when he and Beauregard met with Davis and found him absolutely determined to carry on the struggle.
The conference was very tense, but Davis himself managed to at least suspend the confrontation by saying that War Secretary Breckinridge would soon arrive to confirm if Lee had in fact surrendered, and adjourned the meeting until then.
Beauregard and Johnston were certain that the cause was completely lost. They were more right than they knew. With Lee's surrender, the Confederacy was caving in everywhere. On the same day, 12 April, Wilson and his cavalry rode unopposed into Montgomery, Alabama, and Canby occupied Mobile, which the CSA had abandoned during the night. Sherman was marching on Raleigh and would enter it the next day, 13 April. Stoneman was rampaging through North Carolina and could have easily snatched up the Confederate government if he had known where it was. Instead, Stoneman's cavalry contented themselves with burning railroad bridges to cut escape routes, while they captured Confederate arsenals and stockpiles.
Breckinridge rode in to Greensboro on horseback that Wednesday evening. He spoke with Johnston to verify that Lee had in fact surrendered, and Johnston said that continuation of the war would be "the greatest of crimes."
At 10:00 AM on the morning of Thursday, 13 April, Johnston and Beauregard met again with Davis, who was accompanied by much of his cabinet. Breckinridge had already reported on Lee's surrender. Davis replied that he didn't think that was a fatal blow, and asked Johnston what he thought of matters. Johnston told him exactly what he thought, in terms that Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory found "almost spiteful". Johnston said the people had lost the will to fight, the government had no more resources to carry on the struggle, and his men were deserting. He concluded: "We may perhaps obtain terms which we ought to accept."
Davis listened impassively, fidgeting with a piece of paper. He said: "What do you say, General Beauregard?" Beauregard gave the obvious answer: "I concur in all General Johnston has said." Davis reluctantly authorized Johnston to speak with Sherman.
* Davis spent Good Friday, 14 April 1865, the day Booth put a bullet into President Lincoln's head, preparing to flee on horseback to Charlotte with his cabinet come the following morning. He still wanted to carry on the struggle, if he could only find soldiers who still wanted to fight.
That was now very unlikely, with Confederate resistance flickering out everywhere. In a formal ceremony that Good Friday, General Robert Anderson raised a Union flag over Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, the same flag that he had taken down exactly four years previously to the day.
On that same Friday, Joe Johnston sent a message from his headquarters in Hillsboro, North Carolina, to Sherman in Raleigh, 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the south, asking for terms of surrender. Sherman was delighted to get the message, since it would not only spare his men further marching and North Carolina further destruction, but it would restrain Johnston's men from dispersing and taking up guerrilla warfare.
Sherman, ravager of Georgia and South Carolina, now felt it was time to extend a helping hand, not merely because Lincoln had indicated that was his wish, but because Sherman saw it as just as well. A few weeks later Sherman would tell John Rawlins: "The South is broken and appeals to our pity. To ride the people down with persecutions and military exactions would be like slashing away at the crew of a sinking ship."
Sherman replied to Johnston that he would extend same terms to Johnston as Grant had extended to Lee. The message reached Johnston on Easter Sunday, 16 April.
The two generals met about five miles (eight kilometers) south of Hillsboro on Monday, 17 April. Sherman was bearing a telegram in his pocket that informed him that Lincoln had been murdered, which for the moment the general had kept a secret, swearing the telegrapher to silence. Sherman feared his men would burn Raleigh to the ground, and that just for starters.
This was the first time Sherman and Johnston had met, but they knew enough of each other to assume a quick familiarity. They went to the house of local farmer named James Bennett and ask him if they could use the house for a meeting. Bennett agreed, and two generals went inside to talk, leaving their staffs outside.
When they were alone together, Sherman handed Johnston the telegram. The rebel general broke out in a sweat when he read it, and when he was finished denounced the assassination as "the greatest possible calamity to the South." He said that he hoped Sherman wouldn't think the Confederate government was behind the assassination. Sherman was unable to reassure him, replying that Lee or the other officers of the CSA were above such things but that Jefferson Davis and the other political leaders were not. That was hardly an unreasonable judgement, given the activities of Confederate agents in the North over the past year or so.
The two generals then went on to terms of surrender. The terms were basically known in advance and agreeable, but Johnston then threw the discussion into confusion, not by balking but by going too far, suggesting that the two generals discuss a comprehensive peace. Sherman immediately dug in his heels. He clearly didn't have the authority to discuss such matters and doubted that Johnston did either.
Johnston told Sherman that it was true that he didn't have authority over all the Confederate armies, but War Secretary John Breckinridge could give orders that bound all the generals of the South. Johnston felt he could get in touch with Breckinridge easily enough and have him join the discussion. Sherman replied that he didn't have authority to deal with a Confederate cabinet secretary, but in a clever legalism Johnston replied that Breckinridge was also still a Confederate major general, since he had not formally resigned his commission. This was a useful if somewhat absurd loophole, Sherman was agreeable, and the two generals parted cordially.
Sherman then went back to Raleigh, ordered his men back to their camps, issued a document telling the troops that the President had been assassinated, making clear that the Confederate States Army had taken no part in the business. The soldiers felt savagely vindictive but remained under control.
* Sherman arrived at the Bennett farmhouse first on the morning of 18 April, with a bottle of bourbon in his saddlebag. Johnston and Breckinridge arrived, Sherman offered them a drink, and they gratefully accepted. Breckinridge, tired from being on the road, was greatly revived by the drink, and haggled at such length and cleverness with Sherman that the Union general had to protest: "See here, gentlemen, who is doing this surrendering, anyhow? If this thing goes on, you'll have me sending a letter of apology to Jeff Davis!"
In order to make sure he was on firm ground, Sherman began to write up a document that he titled "A Memorandum or Basis of Agreement". Concentrating on writing the document, he took a break to get a drink of bourbon, forgetting to offer a drink to the two Confederate generals. Breckinridge looked offended, but Sherman, his mind focused on his work, was oblivious as he completed the document.
The "Memorandum" specified the restoration of the Union; unrestricted amnesty with the full rights of American citizenship granted to those who had been rebels; recognition of existing Southern state governments as long as they took an oath of allegiance; establishment of Federal courts in the rebel states; and of course the disbanding of all Confederate armies, with their arms stored in state arsenals. They signed the agreement, and parted.
Sherman and Johnston were upbeat, but Breckinridge was a foul mood, telling Johnston: "General Sherman is a hog! Yes sir, a hog! Did you see him take that drink by himself?!" Johnston tried to reassure him that Sherman had simply been absent-minded, but Breckinridge would not be pacified.
* Sherman sent the agreement north. On 24 April, Grant himself came in secret to Raleigh with the response: it wouldn't do. The memorandum had said nothing about the status of black people in the reconstructed South; using state arsenals to store rebel arms meant that if Southerners wanted another go at rebellion, they would be able to get their hands on guns again; and for the moment, the mood in Washington was far from forgiving. Secretary of War Stanton was infuriated, thinking for some mad reason that Sherman, who hated politics and disliked politicians, was lobbying for the 1868 presidential nomination. Grant was tactful and said nothing about any particular personal attacks to Sherman.
Sherman had been having second thoughts himself and the rejection of the memorandum came as no real surprise. Sherman immediately sent a message to Johnston, saying the memorandum had been rejected, and all that could be offered in its place was the same terms as were given Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. Johnston had 48 hours to comply or military operations against him would be resumed. Johnston was of course disappointed, but the terms offered him were basically generous, if not as comprehensive as he would have liked. He wired Breckinridge, who ordered him to not surrender and to fall back towards Georgia. Johnston had heard enough of this sort of nonsense, replied to Breckinridge that the suggestion was "impracticable", and met again with Sherman at the Bennett farmhouse on 26 April to accept the terms of surrender.
Grant was still in Raleigh, but did not attend since he did not want to override Sherman's authority. Sherman graciously threw a supply of ten days' rations for Johnston's troops in with the deal. Johnston was impressed, telling Sherman that "the enlarged patriotism manifested in these papers reconciles me to what I had previously regarded as the misfortune of my life -- that of having to meet you in the field."
They parted and never met again, and 30,000 Confederate troops laid down their arms. Sherman's men were unsurprisingly happy about their victory, Johnston's depressed at their defeat. When some of the rebel soldiers under Beauregard's command in Greensboro heard about Lincoln's assassination, they started to celebrate. Beauregard, who rarely lost his temper, was furious: "Shut those men up! If they won't shut up, have them arrested! Those are my orders!"
Sherman was apprehensive that the rejection of the broad settlement drawn up by him and Johnston would mean the dispersal of Confederate forces into guerrilla bands. However, events were showing this concern was exaggerated. On 21 April, on hearing of Lee's surrender, John Mosby had disbanded his Rangers, and later applied for parole. It was granted, and he went back to his law practice more or less undisturbed, as if he had never been the one of Union Army's most infuriating annoyances. Mosby's actions were a sign of things to come.
Although Grant had been careful not to tell Sherman about Secretary Stanton's attacks, they got into the papers, and Sherman found out that not only had Stanton accused him of political ambitions -- it was enough of an insult to Sherman for someone to even think the general had any use for politicians -- but had even wildly suggested that Sherman had been bribed by the rebels. Sherman was unsurprisingly furious, and the anger filtered down through the ranks. The troops gathered up newspapers with the stories in them and made bonfires.
* In the meantime, the loose ends of the war were beginning to be tied up. On 22 April, Confederate States Navy Lieutenant Charles W. Read, 24 years old and an experienced veteran of rebel naval actions, including a cruise on the raider FLORIDA, decided to take the fast gunboat WEBB down the Red River and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, where he planned to take on blockaders and Yankee transports.
Read and his crew spent the next few days dodging Federal gunboats and made it south of New Orleans, until on 26 April they ran into the big US Navy steam sloop RICHMOND, blocking their escape. Taking on such a monster with a little gunboat was suicide, and so Read grounded and burned the WEBB. He and his crew were quickly rounded up. The Yankees paraded Read through New Orleans, but the rebels were soon paroled. That was the last combat action of the Confederate States Navy in American waters. Other flotillas hauled down the rebel flag over the next few weeks and their crews were paroled. As discussed in the next chapter, that left the Confederate high seas raider SHENADOAH carrying on the fight alone into summer.
The winding down of the fighting did not put a stop to the tragedies of the war. On 27 April, the day after Read grounded and burned the WEBB, the steamship SULTANA, traveling up the Mississippi crammed with released Federal prisoners going back home, blew her boilers and sank. The actual number of dead was uncertain, ranging from about 1,200 to 1,800, but even the lowest number made it the worst inland maritime disaster in American history and one of the biggest maritime disasters of all time.
