THE LIFE, CRIME, AND'CAPTURE
JOH1N WILKES BOOTH,
Wrrf A FULi SKETOC OF TmXl
Conspiracy of which he was the Leader,
PURSUIT, TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF IS ACCOMICES&
,, BY GEORGE ALFRED TOWN]END,
J!,
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PUB L ISHE R-8. 
EXPLANATORY.
On  year ago the writer of the letters which follow,    ed 
Battle Field of Waterloo. In looking over many relie of the combat
preserved in the Museum there, he was particularly interested in the files
of journals contemporary with the action.  These contained the Duke.of
Wellington's first despatch announcing the victory, the reports of the sub
ordinate commanders, and  the current gossip as to the episodes and
hazards of the day.
The time will come when remarkable incidents of these our times
will be a staple of as great curiosity as the issue of Waterloo.  It is an
incident without a precedent on this side of the globe, and never to be
repeated.
Assassination has made its last effort. to become indigenous here.
The public sentiment of Loyalist and Rebel has denounced it: the world
has remarked it with uplifted hands and words of execration.  Therefore,
as long as history shall hold good, the murder of the President will be a
theme for poesy, romance and tragedy.  We who live in this consecratd
time keep the sacred souvenirs of Mr. Lincoln's death in our possession;
and the best of these are the news letters descriptive of his apotheosis,
and the fate of the conspirators who slew him..
I represented the World newspaper at Washington during the whole
of those exciting weeks, and wrote their occurrences fresh from tho
mouths of the actors.
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PREFATORY.
It has seemed fitting to Messrs. DIOK & FITZGRALD to reprodce
the World letters, as a keepsake for the many who received them kindly.
The Sketches appended were conscientiously written, and whatever em.
bellishments they may seem to have grew out of the stirring events,-not
out of my fancy.
Subsequent investigation has confirmed the veracity even of their 
speculations. I have arranged them, but have not altered them; if they
represent nothing else, they do carry with them the fever and spirit of
the time.  But they do not assume to be literal history: We live too
close to the events related to decide positively upon them. As a brochure
of the day, -nothing more, - I give these Sketches of a Correspondent
to the public.
G. A. T.
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6 
TIE LI FE, CI M  AND CAPTURE
op
JOHN WILKES BOOTH.
LETTER 1.
THR'URDZI'.
Some very deliberate and extraordinary movements were made by&
handsome and extremely wellressed young man in the city of Vashin
ton last Friday. At about half-past eleven o'clock A. M., this person, whose
name is 3. Wilkes Booth, by profession an actor, and recently engac7ed in
oil speculations, sauntered into Ford's Theater, on Tenth, between Eazid
F streets,. and exchanged greetings with the man at the boxoffiee. In the
nversation which ensued, the ticket agent informed Booth that a box was
taken for Mr. Lincoln and General Grant, who were expected to visit the
theater, and contribute to the benefit of Miss Laura Keene, and satisfy the
curiosity of a large audience. Mr. Booth went away with a jest, and a
litly.spoken "Good afternoon." Strolling down to Pumphreys' stable,
o. C street, in the rear of the National Hotel, he engaged a saddle horse,
a high.strung, fast, beautiful bay mare, telling Mr. Pumphrcys that he
shu I d call for her in the middle of the afternoon.
From here he went to the Kirkwood Hotel, on the corer of Pennsyl
nia avenue and Twelfth street, where, callingfor a card and a sheet of notepaper, he sat down and' wrote upon the first as follows:
F~~~~~ Mr fni.....n:
J. W. BOOM
To this message, which was sent up by the obliging clerk, Mfr. Johnson
responded that he was very busily engaged.  MIr. Booth smiled, and turn.
ing to his sheet of note-paper, wrote on it. The fact, if fact itis, that he had
been disappointed in not obtaining an examination of the VicePresidents
apartment and a knowledge of the Vice-Presider.''s probable whereabouts
the ensuing evening, in no way affected his composure.  The note, the contents of which are unknown, was signed and sealed within a few moments
Booth arose, bowed to an acquaintance, and passed into the street.  HIis
elegant person was seen on the avenue a few minutes, and was withdrawn
Into tohe Metropolitan Hotel.
At 4 P. M., he again appeared at Pumphreys' livery stable, mounted the
mare he had engaged, rode leisurely up F street, turned into an allet be 
6      Tno Life, Crity, and Captulr of Kohl % Wlk*# Boot.
tweon Ninth and Tenth streets, and thence into an alley reloading to the
rear of Ford's Theater, which fronts on Tenth street, between E  and F
streets. IHere he alighted and deposited the mare in a small stable off the
alley, which he had hired some time before for the accommodation  of a
saddle-horse which he had recently sold. Mr. Booth soon afterward retired
from the stable, and if4 supposed to have refreshed himself at a neighboring
bar-roornm.
At 8 o'clock the same evening, President Lincoln and Speaker Colfax
sat together in a private room at the White House, pleasantly conversing
General Grant, with whom the President had engaged to attend Ford's
Theater that evening, had left with his wife for Burlington, New-Jersey, in
the 6f o'clock train.  After this departure Mr. Lincoln rather reluctantly
determined to keep his part of the engagement, rather than to disappoint
his friends and the audience.  Mrs. Lincoln, entering the room and turn                 ~~~~~~~~oir,    h a l seiu g         di
ing to MIr. Colfax, said, in a half laughing, half serious war,  "Well, Afr.
Lincoln, are you going to the theater with me or not?'   "I suppose I
shall have to go, Colfax," said the President, and the Speaker took his leave
in company with Mfajor Rathbone, of the Provost-Mfarshal General's office,
who escorted Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris, of New.-York.   Mr.
and Afrs. Lincoln reached Ford's Theater at twenty minutes before 9
o'clock.
The house was filled in every part with a large and brilliantly attired
audience. As the presidential party ascended the stairs,and passed behind
the dress circle to the entrance of the private box reserved for them, the
whole assemblage, having in mind the recent Union victories, arose, cheer  ed, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and manifesting every other-accustomed
*  ign. of enthusiasm.  The President, last to enter the box, turned before
Scene of the Assassaination.
<DOOaR 
., 
c~~~,
I President's Position.   A  The course of  the Assassin after the MKurder.  12
Movable partition not in use on the night of the Assassination. D Door through which
the Assassin looked in taking aimr. a Closed door through which pistol ball wa fired.
0
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doing so, and bowed a courteous acknowledgrnment of hi. reptlo.  At
the moment of the President's arrival, Mr. Hawks, one of the aors, per.
forming the well-known part of Dundreary, had exclaimed: "This re minds me of a story, as Mr. Lincoln says." The audience forced him,
after the interruption, to tell the story over again. It evidently pleased
Mr. Lincoln, who turned laughingly to his wife and made a remark which
was not overheard.
The box in which the President sat consisted of two boxes turned into
one, the middle partition being removed, as on all occasions when a state
party visited the theater.  The box was on a level with the dress circle,
about twelve feet above the stage. There were two entrances-the door
nearest to the wall having been closed and locked; the door nearest the
balustrades of the dress circle, and at right angles with it, being open and
left open.after the visitors had entered. The interior was carpeted, lined
with crimson paper, and furnished with a'sofa covered with crimson velvet,
three arm chairs similarly covered, and six cane-bottomed chairs. Festoons of flags hung before the front of the box against a background of lace.
President Lincoln took one of the armchairs and seated himself in the
front of the box, in the angle nearest the audience, where, partially screened from observation, he had the best view of what was transpiring on the
stage.  Mfrs. Lincoln sat next to him, and Miss Harris in the opposite a.gle
nearest the stage.  Major Pr,athbone sat just behind' Mrs. Lincoln and Miss
[larris. These four were the only persons in the box.
The play proceeded, although "Our Amrerican Cousin," without Mr.
Sothern, has, sincc that gentleman's departure from this country, beenjustly esteemed a very dull affair.  The audience at Ford's, including Mfrs.
Lincoln, seemed to enjoy it very much. The worthy wife of the President
leaned forward, her hand upon her husband's knee, watching every scene
in the drama with amused attention.  Even across the President's face at
intervals swept a smile, robbing it of its habitual sadness.
About the beginning of the second act, the mare, standing in the stable
in the rear of the theater, was disturbed in the midst of her meal by the
entrance of the young man who had quitted her iri the afternoon   It is
presumed that she was saddled and bridled with- exquisite care.
laving completed these preparations, Mr. Booth entered the theater by
the stage door; summoned one of the scene shifters, Mr. John Spangler,
emerged through the same door with that individual, leaviing the door open,
and left the mare in his hands to be held until he (Booths should return.
Booth who was even more fashionably and richly dressed than usual, walked thence around to the front of the theater, and went in.  Ascending to
the dress circle, he stood for a little time gazing around upon the audience
and occasionally upon the stage in his usual graceful m, nner.  He  was
subsequently observed by Mr. Ford, the proprietor of the theater, to be
slowly-elbowing his way through the crowd that packed the rear of the
dress circle toward the' right side, at the extremity of which was-the box
where Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and their companions were seated.  Mr. Ford
casually noticed this as a sllghtly extraordinary symptom of interest on
the part of an actor so familiar with the routine of the theater and the play.
The curtain-had arisen on the third act,.Mrs. Mountchesnngton and Asa
Trenchard were exchanging vivacious stupidities, when a young man, so
precisely resembling the one described as J. Wilkes Booth that he is as.
serted to be the same, appeared before the open door'of the President's
box, and prepared to enter.
The servant who attended Mr. Lincoln said politely, #this is the Presi
no -Nufodir.
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8    -.f'e, Crime and Captur. of! Joh  Wilk, Bo,tA.
dent's box, sir, no one is permitted to enter."  "I am a senator," respond
ed the person, "Mr. Lincoln has sent for me;"  The attendant gave way,
and the young man passed into the box.
As he appeared at the door, taking a quick, comprehensive glance at the
interior, Major Rathbone arose.  "Are you aware, sir," he said, courteous
ly, " upon whom you are intruding? This is the President's box, and no
one is admitted."  The intruder answered not a word.  Fastening his eyes
upon Mr. Lincoln, who had half turned his head to ascertain what caused
the disturbance, he stepped quickly back without the door.
With)ut this door there was an eyehole, bored it is presumed on the
afternoon of the crime, while the theater was deserted by all save a few
mechanics.  Glancing through this orifice, John Wilkes Booth espied in a
moment the precise osition of the President; he wore upon his wrinkling
face the pleasant embryo of an honest smile, forgetting in the mimic scene
the splendid successes of our arms for which he was responsible, and the
history he had filled so well.
The cheerful interior was lost to 3J. Wilkes Booth.  He  did not catch
the spirit of the delighted audience, of the flaming lamps flinging illumination upon the domestic foreground and the gaily set stage.  He only cast
one furtive glance upon the man he was  to slay, and thrusting one hand
in his bosom, another in his skirt pocket, drew forth simultaneously his
deadly weapons.  His right palm grasped a Derringer pistol, his left a dirk.
Then, at a stride, he passed the threshold again, levelled his arm at the
President and bent the trigger.
A  keen quick report and a puff of white smoke,-a close smell of
powder and the rush of a dark, imperfectly outlined figure,-and the
President's head dropped upon his shoulders: the ball was in his brain.
The movements of the assassin were from henceforth quick as the light
The Theatre and its SurrouidLngs.
rGnI'
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1 X,
A PtlJge fehool   B Herndon House.  a Only vaant lot communieating with the
Alley.   D Only alley outlet to F street.  R Bank.   X Resta ura.  a   Tewspa,}
Office. if Model House. I House to which the President was taken. K Acey
throng},tnick the Murderer esoaped.
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ning, he dropped Ms pistol on the floor, and drawing a-bowiekife, struck
Major Rathbone, who opposed him, ripping through his coat from the
shoulder down, and inflicting a severe flesh wound in his arm. He leaped
then upon the velvet covered balustrade at" the front of the box, between
Mrs. Lincoln and Miss Harris, and, parting with both hands the flss that
drooped on either side, dropped to the stage beneath.  Arising and turig
full upon the audience, with the knife lifted in his right hand above his
head, he shouted "Sic. temper tyranni-Virginia is avenged!"  Another
instant he had fled across the stage and behind the scenes.  Col uel J
j 11'       _'- -
PAROUE'
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ST_AIRS
ii iB —     - i
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K C'.
t Mise Ivuy  teene's Position.. D  Movable partion wall not In plon  m               a.
P Position of the President.   X  Flats.   B  Dark P        s-Poas    of   a.
I  Exit, or Stae Door.    "   Entrance to Box.    000 Entzaot               oDrms c
Position of Booth's IIorse.
B. Stewart, the only person in the audience who seemed to comprehend the
deed he had committed, climbed from his seat near the orchestra to the
stage, and followed close behind.' The assassin was too fleet and too deperate, that fury incarnate, meeting Mr. Withers, the leader of the orchs
tra, just behind the scenes, had stricken him aside with a blow that fortunately was not a wound; overturning Miss Jenny  Gourlay, an ac,es
who came next in his path, he gained, without further hindrance, the back
door previously left open at the rear of the theater; rushed through it;
leaped upon the horse held by Mr. Spangler, and without vouchsafing that
9
27h Nurdr.
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10     T  Lfife, Cme, andl C(pt ure   of AohA  Wlke. Booth.
persons word of information, rode out through the alley leading into F
street, and thene tepidly away.  His horse's hoofs might  almost have
been heard anlid the silence that for a few seconds dwelt in the interior of
the theater.
Then Mirs. Lincoln screamed, Miss Harris cried for water, and the full
ghastly truth broke upon all-" The President is murdered!"  The scene
that ensued was as tumultuous and terrible as one of Dante's pictures of
hell.  Some women fainted, others uttered piercing shrieks, and cries for
veng,eance and unmeaning shouts for help burst from the mouths of men.
Miss Laura Keene, the actress, proved herself in this awful time as equal
to sustain a part in real tragedy as to interpret that of the stage.  Pausing
one moment before the footlights to entreat the audience to be calm, she
ascended the stairs in the rear-of Mr. Lincoln's box, entered it, took -the
dying President's head in her lap, bathed it with the water she had brought,
and endeavoured to force some of the liquid through the insensible lips.
The locality of the wound was at first supposed to be in the breast.  It
was not until after the neck and shoulders had been bared and no mark
discovered, that the dress of Miss Keene, stained with blood, revealed where
the ball had penetrated.
This moment gave the most impressive episode in the history of the
Continent.
The Chief  tagtistrate of thirty. millions of people-beloved, honored,
revered,-lay in the pent up closet of a play-house, dabbling with his
cred blood the robes of an actress.
As soon as the confusion and crowd was partially overcome, the form
(if the Piesident was conveyed from the theater to the residence of Mr.
Peterson, on the opposite side of Tenth street. Here upon a bed, in a
little hastily prepared chamber, it was laid and attended by Surgeon  General Barnes' and other physicians, speedily summoned.
In the meanwhile the news spread through the capital, as if borne on
tongues of flame.  Senator Sumner, hearing at his residence, of the affair
took a carriage and drove at a gallop to the White House, when he heard
where it had taken place, to find Robert Lincoln and other members of
the household still unaware of it.  Both drove to Ford's Theater, and
were soon  at the President's bedside.  Secretary Stanton and the other
members of the cabinet were:at hand almost as soon. A vast crowd, surg  ing up Pennisylvania avenue toward Willard's Hotel, cried, "The Presi.
dent is shot!"  "President Lincoln is murdered."  Another crowd sweep  ing down the avenue met the first with the tidings, "Secretary Seward has
been assassinated in bed.".Instantly a wild apprehenision of an organized
conspiracy and of other murders took possession of the people. The shout
"to arms!" was. mingled with the expressions of sorrow and rage that ev  e'rywhere filled the air.  "Where is G:,neral Grant?" or "where is Secret
ary Stanton!"  "Where  are the rest of the cabinet?" broke from thous.
ands of lips.  A conflagration of fire is not half so terrible as was the
zonflagration of passion'that rolled through the  streets and houses of
i  Washington ori that awful night.
The attempt on the life'of Secretary Seward was perhaps as daring,' if
not, so dramatic; as the assassination of the President.  At 9:20 o'clock a
man, tall, athletic, and dressed in. light coloured clothe3, alighted from a
horse in front of Mr. Seward's residence in Madison place, where the secre.
tary was tying, very feeble from his recent injuries. The house, a solid
three-story brick building, was formerly the old Washington Clubhouse.
Leaving his horse standing, the stranger rang at the door, and informed the
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aeant who admitted him that he desired to see Mr. Seward.  The  ervmnt
responded that Mr. Seward was very ill, and that no visitors were admitted.
" But I am a messenger from Dr. Verdi, Mfr. Seward's physician; I have
a prescription which I must deliver to him myself." The servant still de.
murring, the stranger, without further parley, pushed him aside and ascended the stairs. Moving to the right, he proceeded towards Mr. Seward's room, and was  about to enter it, when Mr.  Frederick Seward
appeared from an opposite doorway and demanded his business.   He
responded in the same manner as to the servant below, but being met with
a refusal, suddenly closed the controversy by striking Mr. Seward a severe
and perhaps mortal blow across the forehead with the butt of a pistol. As
'the first victim fell,1 Major Seward, another and younger son of the secretary,
emerged from his father's room. Without a word the man drew a knife
and struck the major several blows with it, rushing into the chamber as he
did so; then, after dealing the nurse a horrible wound across -the bowels,
he sprang to the bed upon which the secretary lay, stabbing him once in
the face and neck.  Mr. Seward arose convulsively and fell from the bed to
the floor. Turning and brandishing his knife anew, the assassin fled from
the room, cleared the prostrate form of Frederick Seward in the hall, descended the stairs in three leaps, and was out of the door and upon his
horse in an instant.  It is stated by a person who  saw him mount that,
although he leaped upon his horse with most unseemly haste, he trotted
away around the corner of the block with circumspect deliberation.
Around both the house on Tenth street and the residence of Secretary
Seward, as the fact of both tragedies became generally known, crowds soon
athered so vast and tumultuous that military guards scarcely sufficed to
keep them from the doors.
The room to which the President had been conveyed is on the first floor,
at the end of the hall.  It is only fifteen feet square, with a Brussels carpet, papered with brown, and hung with a lithograph of Rosa Bonheur's
"Horse Fair," an engraved copy of Iferring's "illage Blacksmith," and
two smaller ones of " The Stable" and "The Barn Yard," from the same
artist.  A table and bureau, spread with crotchet work, eight chairs  and
the bed, were all the furniture.  Upon this bed, a lbw walnut four-poster,
lay the dying President; the blood oozing from the frightful wound in his
bead and staining the pillow. All that the medical skill of half a dozen
accomplished surgeons could do had been done to prolong a life.evidently
ebbing from a mortal hurt.
Secretary Stanton, just arrived from the bedside of Mr. Seward, asked
Surgeon;General Barnes what was Mir. Lincoln's' condition.  "I fear, Mr.
Stanton, that there is no hope."  "0, no, general; no, no;" and the man,
of all others, apparently strange to tears, sank down beside the bed, the
hot, bitter evidences of an awful sorrow trickling through his fingers to the
floor.  Senator Sumner sat on the opposite side of the bed, holding one of
the President's hands in his own, and s6bbing with kindred grief.  Secretary WVelles stood at the foot of the bed, his ace hidden, his frame shaken
with emotion. General Halleck, Attorney-General Speed, Postmaster.
Generil Dennison, M. B. Field, Asistant Secretary of the Treasury, Judge
Otto, General Meigs, and others, visited the chamber at times, and then
retired. Mrs. Lincoln-but there is no Leed to speak of her. Mrs. Senator Dixon soon arrived, and remained with her through the night.  All
through the night, while the horror-stricken crowds outside swept  and
gathered along the streets, while the military and police were patrolling
and weaving a cordon around the city; while men were arming and ask
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12     ThA  Life, Crime, aid Capture of!ron Witket Booth.
Ing each other, "What victim next?'" while the telegraph was ending the
news from city to city over the continent, and while the two assassins
were speeding unharmed upon fleet horses far away-his chosen friends
watched about the Jeath-bedc of the highest of the nation. Occasionally
Dr. Gurley, pastor of the church where Mr. Lincoln habitually attended,
knelt down in prayer.  Occasionally Mrs. Lincoln and her sons, entered, to
find no hope and to go back to ceaseless weeping.  Members of the cabi
net, senators, representatives, generals, anid others, took turns at the bed side.  Chief-Justice Chase remained until a late hour, and returned in the
morning.  Secretary McCulloch remnained a constant watcher until 5 A. M.
Not a gleam of consciousness shone across the visage of the President up
to his death-a quiet, peaceful death at last-which came at twenty-two
minutes past seven A.' K. Airound the bedside at this time were Secreta ries Stanton, Welles, Usher, Attorney-General Speed, Postmaster-General
Deniuson, M. B. Field, Assistant Secratary of tfhe Treasury, Judg,e Otto,
Assistant  Secretary of the Interior,  General Halleck, General  Meigs,
Senator Sumner, F. R. Andrews, of New-York, General Todd, of Dacotah,
John Ihay, private secretary, Governor  Oglesby, of Illinois, General
Farnsworth, Mls. and M iss Kenny, Mliss IIt ris, Captain Robert Lincoln,
son of the President, and Drs. E.. WV. Abbott, R. K. Stone, C. D. Gatch.
Neal tlall, and Leiberirman.  Rev. Dr. Gurley, after the &vent, knelt with
all around in prayer, and then, entering the adjoining room where were
gathered MIrs. Lincoln, Captain Robert Lincoln, Mr. John Hay, and others,
prayed again.  Soon after 9 o'clock the remains were placed in a tempora ry coffin and conveyed to the White House under a small escort.
In Sece:etary Seward's chamber, a similar although not so solemn a
cene prevailed; between that chamber and the one occupied by President
Lincoln, visitors alternated to and fro through the night.  It had been
early ascertained that the wounds of the secretary were not likely to prove
mortal. A wire instrument, to relieve the pain which he- suffered from
previous injuries, prevented the knife of the assassin from str;king too deep. MIr. Frederick Seward's injuries were more serious. His forehead
was broken in by the blow from. the pistol, and up to this hour he has re.
mained perfectly unconscious. The operation of trepanning.the skull has
been performed, but little hope is had of his recovery.  M.ajor Seward
will get well.  Mir, IIansell's condition is somewhat doubtful.
Secretary Seward, who cannot speak, was not informed of the assassina tion of the President, and the injury of his son, until yesterday. He had
been worrying as to why Mir. Lincoln did not visit him.  "Why does'nt
the President come to see me " he asked with his pencil.  " Where is
Frederick -what is the matter with him?"   Perceiving the nervous ex citmenet which these doubts occasioned, a consultation was had, at which
it was finally determined that it would be best to let the secretary know
the worst.  Secretary Stanton was chosen to tell him.  Sitting down be.
side Mr. Seward's bed, yesterday afternoon, he therefore related to him a
full account of the whole affaiir.  Mr. Seward was so surprised and shocked
that he raised one hand involuntar!!y, and groaned. Such is the condition
of affairs at this stage of the terror.  The pursuit of the assassins has com menced; the town is full of wild and baseless rumors; much that is said
is stirring, little is reliable. I tell it to you as I get it, but fancy is more
prolific than truth: be patient!
Tke facts above had been oolleoted by Mr. Jerome B. Btllson, before my  arival
~ In Washington: the arrangement of them il my own.]
.AI
.6
11, i., -, 
h.    Obw iet in  Wathinium..
IL ETTER  II.
wr_. OMEQUX,  NT WAm_o0N.
cWAHrMTOb, April 19, (Evening).
The mo   slgtifi cant and most creditable celebration ever held in W
mgton has just transpired. A good ruler has been followed from his home
to the Capitol by a grand cortege, worthy of the memory  and of the
nation's power.  As description must do injustice to the extent of the di.
play, so must criticism fail to sufficiently commend its perfect tastefulness
Rarely has a Republican assemblage been so orderly.  The funeral of Mr.
Lincoln is something to be remembered for a cycle.  It caps all eulogy
upon his life and services, and was, without exception, the most represents
tive, spontaneous, and remarkable testimonial ever rendered to the remains
of an American citizen.
The night before the funeral showed the probable character of the cortege.
At Willard's alone four hundred applications by telegraph for beds were
refused.  As many as six thousand persons spent Tuesday  night in the
streets, in depots and in outbuildings.  The population of the city this
morning was not far short of a hundred thousand, and of these as many as
thirty thousand walked in procession with Mr. Lincoln's ashes.
All orders of folks were at hand.  The country adjacent sent in hay wagons, donkey-arts, dearborns.  All who could slip away from the army
came to town, and every attainable section of the. UJnion forwarded
mourners. At no time in his life had Mr. Lincoln so many to throng
about him as in this hour, when he is powerless to do any one a service.
For once in history, office-seekers were disinterested, and contractors and
hangers-on human. These came, for this time only, to the capital of the
republic without an axe to grind or a curiosity to subserve; respect and
grief were all their motive.  This day was shown that the great public
heart beats unselfish and reverent, even after a dynasty of plunder and
war.
Thd arrangements for the funeral were made by Mr. Harrington, Assist.
antSecretary of the Treasury, who was beset by applicants for tickets.
The number of these were reduced to six hundred, the clergy getting sixty
and the press twenty.  I was among the first to pass the White House
guards and enter the building.
Its freestone columns were draped in black, and all the windows were
finerecal. The ancient reception-room was half closed, and the famous
East room, which is approached by a spacious hall, had been reserved for
the obseq'uies.  There are none present here but a few silent attendants of
the late owner of the republican palace.  Deeply ensconced in the.white
satin stuffing of his coffin, the President lies like one asleep.  The broad,
high, beautiful room is like the varnished interior of a vault. The fres coed ceiling wears the nati6nal shield, some pointed vases filled with flowers
and fruit, and three emblakonings of gilt pendant from which are shrouded
chandeliers. A purplish gray is the prevailing tint of the ceiling. The
cornice is silver white, set off by a velvet crimson. The wall paper is gold
and red, broken by eight lofty mirrors, which are chastely margined with
black and faced with fleece.
Their imperfect surfaces reflect the lofty catafalque, an open canopy of
solemn alapaca, lined with tasteful satin of creamish lead, looped at the
curving roof and dropping to the four corners in half transparent tapestry.
Beneath the roof. the half light shines upon a stage of fresh and fragrant
. is
46
v 
14       2'h  Lif, Crime, and Captur. of JoAn Wsilk.#  Booth.
flowers, up.bating a long, high coffin.  White lawe of pure silver pendant
from  the border throws a mild shimmer upon the solid silver tracery
hingea and emblazonings. A cross of lilies stands at the head, an anchor
of roses at the foot. The lid is drawn back to show the face and bosom,
and on the coffin top are heather, precious flowers, and sprigs of green.
This catafalque, or in plain words, this coffin set upon a platform and
canopied, has around it a sufficient space of Brussels carpet, and on three
sides of this there are raised steps covered with black, on which the
honored visitors are to stand.
The fourth side is bare, save of a single row of chairs some twenty in
number, on which the reporters are to sit.  The odor of the room is fresh
and healthy; the shade is solemn, without being oppressive. All is rich,
simple, and spacious, and in such sort as any king might wish to lie.
Approach and look at the dead man.
Death has fastened into his frozen face all the character and' idiosyncrasy
of life.  lie has not chalnged one line of his grave, grotesque countenance,
nor smoothed out a single feature.  The hue is rather bloodless and leaden;
but he was alway sallow. The dark eyebrows seem abruptly arched; the'
beard, which will grow no more, is shaved close, save the tuft at the short
small chin. The mouth is shut, like that of one who had put the foot
down firm, and so are the eyes, which look as calm as slumber. The collar
X short and awkward, turned over the stiff elastic cravat, and whatever
energy or humor or tender gravity marked the living face is hardened into
its pulseless outline. No corpse in the world is better prepared according
to appearances.  The white satin around it reflects sufficient light upon the
tacoe to show us that death is really there; but there are sweet roses and
early magnolias, and the balmiest of lilies strewn around, as if the flowers
had begun to bloom even upon his coffin.  Looking on uninterruptedly!
for there is no pressure, and henceforward the place will be thronged with
gazers who will take from the s~ight its suggestiveness and respect. Three
years ago, when little Willie Lincoln died, Doctors Brown and Alexander,
the embalmers or injectors, prepared his body so handsomely that the
President had.it twice disinterred to look upon it.  The same men, in the
{bame way, have.made perpetual these beloved lineaments.  There is now
no blood in the body; it was drained by the jugular vein and sacredly pre.
served, and through a cutting on the inside of the thigh'the empty blood vessels were charged with. a chemical preparation which soon hardened to
the consistence of stone.  The long and bony body is now hard and stiff,
so that beyond its present position it cannot be moved any more than the
arms or legs of a statue.  It has undergone many changes.  The scalp has
been removed, the brain taken out, the chest opened and the blood emptied.
All that we see of Abraham Lincoln, so cunningly contemplated in this
splendid coffin, is a mere shell, an effigy, a' sculpture.  He lies'.in sleep,
but it is the sleep of marble. All that made this flesh vital, sentient, and
affectionate is gone forever.
The officers present' are Generals Hunter and Dyer and two staff cap.
tains.  Hunter, compact and dark and reticent, walks about the empty 
chamber in full uniform,his bright buttons and sash and sword contrasting
with his dark blue uniform, gauntlets upon his hands, crape on his arm and
'blade, his corded hat in his hands, a paper collar just apparent above his
velvet.tips, and n6w and then he speaks to Captain Nesmith or Captain
Dewes, of General IHarding's staff, rather as one who wishes comp any tham
one who has anything to say. His two silver stars upon his shoulder shine
dimly in the draped apartment.. He was one of the first in the war'to
I.
I 
Tu Ob0uwies at Waski sm.
urg, the m e    which Mr. LUncoln aferward adopted.  The aid * -k
to and fro, selected without reference to any association w     ith the la t 
ident. Their clothes are rich, their swords wear mourning, they go in
silence, everything is fimereal.  In the  deeply-draped mimors strae
mirages are seen, as in the coffin scene of "Lucretia Borgia," where all the
dusky perspectives bear vistas of gloomy palls.  The upholsterers ma,ke
timid noises of driving nails and spreading tapestry; but save ourselve%
and these few watchers and workers, only the dead is here.  The White
House, so ill-appreciated in common times, is seen to be capacious and elgant-no disgrace to the nation even in the eyes of those foreign folk of
rank who shall gather here directly.
As we sit brooding, with the pall straight before us, the funeral guns are
heard indistinctly booming from the far forts, with the tap of drums in tho
serried street Without, where troops and citizefs are form'ng for the grand pro
cession. We see through the window in the beautiful spring day that the
grass is brightly. green; and all the trees in blossom, show us through tnhei
archways the bronze and marble statues breaking the horizon. But there
is one at an upper window, seeing all this through her tears, to whom the
beautiful noon, with its wealth of zephyrs and sweets, cani waft no gratula
tion.  The father of her children, the confidant of her affection and ambi
tion, has passed from life into immortality, and lies below, dumb, cold
murdered. The feeling of sympathy for Mrs. Lincoln is as wide-spread at
the regret for the chief magistrate. Whatever indiscretions she may havy
committed in the abrupt transition from plainness to power are now for
given and forgotten.  She and her sons are the property of the nation
associated with its truest glories and its worst bereavement. By and by
the guests drop in, hat in hand, wearing upon their sleeves waving crape.
and some of them slip up to the coffin to carry away a last impression of
the fading face.
But the first accession of force is that of the clergy, sixty in number.
They are devout looking men, darkly attired, and have come from all the
neighboring cities to represent every denomination. Five years ago these
were wrangling over slavery as a theological question, and at the beginning
of the war it was hard, in many of their bodies, to carry loyal resolutions
To-d(y there are here such sincere mourners as Robert Pat.ison, of the
Methodist church, who passed much of his life among slaves and masters.
He and the rest have come to believe that the President was wise and
right, and follow hint to his grave, as the apostles the interred on calvary.
All these retire to the south end of the room, facing the feet of the
corpse, and stand there silently to wait for the coming of others.  Very
soon this East room is filled with the representative intelligence of the
entire nation. The governors of states stand on the.dais next to the head
of the coffin, with the varied features of Curtin, Brough, Fenton, Stone,
Oglesby and Ingraham. Behind them are the mayors and councilmen of
many towns paying their last respects to the representative of the source
of all municipal freedom. To their left are the corporate officers of Washington, zealous to make this day's funeral honors atone for the shame of the
assassination.  With these are spr'nkled many scarred and worthy soldiers
who have borne the burden of the grand war, and stand before this shape
they loved in quiet civil reverence.
Still further down the steps and closer to the catafalque rest the familiar
faces r,f many of our greatest generals-the manly features of Augur,
whose blood I have seen trickling forth upon the field of battle; the open
almost hardllqq cntour of Halleck, who has often talked of seiges and
a 
16.     ~ife, Crme, ad Capture, of JoAn Wslke* Boot.
campaigns with this homely gentleman who is going to the grave.   laem
are mtmy more bright stars twinkling in contiguous shoulder bars,; but sit,
ting in a chair upon the beflowered carpet is Ulysses Grant, who has lived
a century in the last three weeks and comes to-day to add the luster of his
iron face to this thrilling and saddened picture. He wears white gloves and
sash, and is swarthy, nervous, and almost tearful, his feet crossed, his
square receding head turning now here now there, his treble constellation
blazing upon the left shoulder only, but hidden on tlie right, and l seem to
read upon his compact features the indurate and obstinate will to fight, oh
the line he has selected, the honor of the country through any peril, as if
he had sworn it by the slain man's bier-his statefellow, patron, and
friend. Here also is General McCallum, who has seamed the rebellious
South with military roads to send victory along them, and bring back the
groaning and the scarred. These and the rest are grand historic figures,
worthy of.all artistic depiction. They nave looked so often into the mortar's mouth, that no bravo's blade'can make them wince. Do you see the
thin-haired, conical head of the viking Farraguf, close by General Grant
with many naval heroes close behind, storm-beaten, and every inch Americans in thought and physiognomy?
What think the foreigtl  ambassadors of such men, in the light of their
own overloaded bodies, where meaningless orders, crosses, and ribbons
shine dimly in the funeral light?  These legations number, perhaps, a hun.
dred men, of all civilized races,-the Sardiiiian envoy, jetty-eyed, towering
above the rest. But they' are still and respectful, gathered thus by a slain
ruler, to see how worthy is the republic he has preserved.   Whatever
sympathy these have for our institutions, I think that in such audience they
imust have been impressed -with the futility of any thought that either one
citizen right or one territorial inch can ever be torn from the United-States.
Not to speak disparagingly of these noble guests, I was struck with the
superior facial energy of' our own public servants, who were generally
lariger, and brighter-faced, born of that aristocracy which took its patent
from Tubal Cain, and Abel the goatherd, and graduated in Abraham Lincoln.  The  Haytien minister,. swarthy and  fiery-faced, is conspicu6us
among these.
But nearer down, and just opposite the catafalque so that it is perpendicular to the direction of vision, stand the central powers of our'govern
ment, its President and counsellors. President Johnson is facing the middle
of the coffin upon the lowest step; his hands are crossed upon his breast,
his dark clothing just revealing. -his plaited shirt, and upon his fiull, plethoric,
shaven face, broad and severely compact, two telling gray, eyes rest under
a thoughtful brow, whose turning hair is. straight and smooth.  Beside him
are Vie-Presidenrt Hamlin, whom he succeeded, and Ax-Governor King, his
most intimate friend, who lends to the ruling severity of the place a half
Falstaffian episode.  The cabinet are behind, as if arranged for a daguer.
reotypist, Stanton, short and quicksilvery, in long goatee and glasses, in
stunted contrast to the tall and snow-tipped shape of Mr. Welles with the
rest, practical'and attentive, and'at their side is Secretary Chase, high, dignified, and handsome, with folded arms, listening, but undemonstrative, a
half-foot higher than any spectator, and dividing with Charles Sumner, who
is near by, the preference for manly beauty in age. With Mr. Chase are
other justices of the Supreme Court, and to their lef, near the feet of the
corpse, are the reverend senators, representing the oldest and the newest
states-splendid faces, a little worn with early and later toils, backed up
by the high, classical features of Colonel Forney, their secretary. Beyond 
4
I   Obcfuqua t  WatAingo.
are the representatives and leading officials of the various deA rtm,
with a few odd folk like George' Francis Train, exquisite as ever, and, for
this time only, with nothing to say.
Close by the corpse sit the relatives of the deease, plain, honest
hardy people, typical as much of',he simplicity of our institutions as of
Mr. Lincoln's self-made eminePce. No blood relatives of Mr. Lincoln
were to be found.. It is a singular evidence of the poverty of his origin,
and therefore of his exceeding good report, that, excepting his immediate
family, none answering to his name could be discovered. Mrs. Lincoln's
relatives were present, however, in some force.  Dr. Lyman  Beecher Todd,
General John B. S. Todd, C. M. Smith, Esq., and Mr. N. W.  Edwards,
the late President's brother-in-law, plain, self-made people were here and
,were sincerely affected. Captain Robert Lincoln sat during the services
with his face in his handkerchief weeping quietly, and little Tad his face
red and heated, cried as if his heart would break.  Mrs. Lincoln, weak,
worn, and nervous, did not enter the- East room nor follow the remains.
She was the chief magistrate's lady yesterday; to-day a widow bearing
only an immortal name. Among, the neighbors of the late President, who
came from afar to pay respect to his remains, was one old gentleman who
left Richmond on Sunday. I had been upon the boat with him and heard
him in hot wrangle with some officers who advised the summary execution
of all rebel leaders.  This the old man opposed, when the feeling against
him became so intense that he was compelled to retire.  lie counselled
mercy, good faith, and forgiveness. To-day, the men who had called him a
traitor, saw him among the family mourners, bent with grief. All these
are waiting in solemn lines, standing erect, with a space of several feet between them and the coffin, and there is no bustle nor unseemly curiosity,
not a whisper, not a footfall-only the collected nation looking with cwed
hearts upon eminent death.
This scene is historic I regret that I must tell you of it over a little
wire, for it admits of all exemplification.   In this high, spacious, elegant
apartment, laughter and levee, social pleasantry and refined badinage, had
often held their session. Dancing and music had made those mirrors thrill
which now reflect a pall, and where the most beautifuil women of their day
had mingled here with men of brilliant favor, now only a very few, brave
enough to look upon death, were wearing funeral weeds.  The pleasant
face of Mrs. Kate Sprague looks out from these; but such scenes gain little
additional  power by beauty's presence.  And this wonderful relief was
carved. at one blow by John Wilkes Booth.
The religious services began at noon. They were remarkable not only
for their association with the national event, but for a tremendous political
energy which they had.  While none of the prayers or speeches exhibited
great literary carefulness, or will obtain perpetuity on their own merits,
they were full of feeling and expressed all the intense concern of the
country.
The procession surpassed.in sentiment, populousness, and sincere good
feeling, anything of the kind we have had in America. It was several miles
long, and in all its elements wag full and tasteful. The scene on the avenue
will be alway remembered as the only occasion on which that great thoroughfare was a real adornment to the seat of government. In the tree tops, on
the house tops, at all the windows, the silent and affected crowds clustered
beneath half.mast banners and waving crape, to reverentially uncover as
the dark vehicle, bearing its rich silver-mounted coffin, swept along; mot,
toWes of reos Ad homage were on many edifices, and singularly some of
2
17
I 
i8   I no Lil,- C~jvm and Captpe of Johx We'  go. 
them were taken tfrom the play of Richard MI., which was the murderer 
favorite part. The entire width of the avenue was swept, friom curb to
curb, by the deep lines.
The chief excellence of this procession was its representative nature. All
classes, localities and trades were out.  As the troops in broad, straight
eolumns, with reversed muskets, moved to solemn marches, all the guns on
the fortifications on the surrounding hills discharged hoarse salutesguna
which the arbiter of war whom  they were to honor could hear no longer.
Every business place was closed.  Sabermen swept the street of footmen
and horsemen.  The carriages drove two abreast.
Not less than five thousand officers, of every rank, marched abreast with
de cortege.  They were noble looking men with intelligent faces, and rep.
J esented the sinews of the laud, ard the music was not the least excellent
stature of the mournful display. About thirty bands were in the line, and
aese played all varieties of solemn marches, so that there were continual
ad mningling strains offuneral music for more than three hours.  Artillery,
consisting of heavy brass pieces, followed behind. In fact, all the citizen
virtues and  all the military enterprise of the country  were evidenced.
Never again, until Washington becomes in fact what it is in name, the chief
city of America, shall we have a scene like this repeated-'the grandest pro.
cession ever seen on this continent, spontaneously evoked to celebrate the
foulest crime on record.  If any feeling of gratulation could arise in so Cla
mitous a time, it would be, that so soon afiter this appalling calamity the
nation calmly and collectedly rallied about its succeeding rulers, and showed
in tie same moment its regret for the past and its resolution for the future.
To me, the scene in the White HIouse, the street, and the capitol to-day,
was the strongest evidence the war afforded of the stability of our institu.
tions, and the worthiness and magnanimous power of our people.
The cortege passed to the left side of the Capitol, -and entering the great
gates, passed to the grand stairway, opposite the splendid dome, where the
coffin was disengaged and carried up the ascent. It was posted under the
bright concave, now streaked with mournful trappings, and left in state,
watched by guards ofofficers-ith drawn swords. This was a wonderful spetacle, the man most beloved and honored in the ark of the republic. The
storied paintings representing eras in its history were draped in sable,
through which they seemed to cast reverential glances upon the lamented
bier. The thilling scenes depicted by Trumbull, the commemorative canvases of Leutze, the wilderness vegetation of Powell, glared from their seperate pedestals upon the central spot wl'here lay the fallen majesty of the
country. I-ere the prayers and addresses of the noon were rehearsed and
the solemn burial service  read.  At night the jets  of gas concealed
in the spring of the dome were lighted up, so that their bright reflection
upon the frescoed walic hurled masses of burning light, like marvelous
haloes, upon the little box where so much that we love and honor rested on
its way to the grave. And so through the starry night, in the fane of th$
great Union he had strengthened and. recovered, the ashes of. Abraham
Lincoln, zealously guarded, are flow reposing. The sage, the citizen, the
patriot, the man, has reached all the eminence that life can give the worthy
or the ambitious. The huited fugitive who struck through our heaits to
slay him, should stand befrde his stately bier to see.how powerless are
bullets and blades to take the real life of any noble man I
I 
-C
n*x f
LETTER III.
IIDllKUDE,.
WA,smOIow, April  sth.
JustIoe 1  atisfied, though blinder vengeance may not be.  While the
illustrious murdered is on the way to the shrine, the stark corpse of his
murderer lies in the shambles.  The one died quietly, like his life; the
other died fighting, like his crime. And now that over all of them the
darkness and the dew have descended, the populace, which may not be all
satisfied, may perhaps be calmed. No triumphal mourning can add to the
President's glory; no further execration can disturb the assassin's slum  bers.  They have gone for what they were into history, into tradition, into
the hereafter both of men and spirits; aud what they were may be in part
concluded.  Mr. Lincoln's career passes, in extent, gravity, and eventful
association, the province of newspaper biography; but Booth is the hero
of a single deed, and the delineation of him may begin and be exhausted
in a single article.  I have been  at pains, since the day of the President's
obsequies, to collect all valid information on the subject of his assassin,
in anticipation of the latter's capture and drawn. Now that these have
been consummated, I shall print this biography.
The elder Booth in every land was a sojourner, as all his fathers were
Of Hebrew descent, and by a line of actors, he united in himself that.strong
Jewish physiognomy which, in its nobler phases, makes all that is dark and
beautiful, and the combined vagrancy of all men of genius and all men of
the stage. Fitful, powerful,- passionate, his life was a succession of vices
and triumphs. He mastered the intricate characters of dramatic literature
6v intuition, rather'than by study, and produced them with a vigor and
vividness which almost passed the depicting of real life. The stage on
which he raved and fought became as historic as the actual decks of battle
ihips, and his small and brawny figure c.mes down to us in those parox
ysms of delirious art, like that of Harold, or Rt'chard, or Prince Rupert.
He drank'to excess, was profligate but not generous, required but not r
liable, and licentious to the bounds of cruelty. He threw off the wife of
his bosom to fly from England with a flower-girl, and, settling in Baltimore, dwelt with his younger -companion, and brought up many children,
while his first-possessed went down to a drunken and broken-hearted death.
He himself, wandering westward, died on the way, errant and feverish,
even in the closing moments.  His widow, too conscious of her predeces
sor's wrongs, and often-taunted with them, lived apart, frugal and discreet,
and brought her six children up to honorable maturity. These were
Junius Brutus, Edwin Forrest (though he drops the Forrest for professional
considerations), John Wilkes, Joseph, and the girls'.. All of the boys are
known to more or less of fame; none of them in his art has reached the
renown of the father; blltone has sent his name as far as that of the great
laywright to whom they were pupils; wherever Shakspeare is quoted,
John Wilkes Booth will be named, ahfid infamously, like that Hubert in
"King John," who would have murdered the gentle Prince' Arthur.
It may not be a digression here'to -ask what has become of the children
of the weird geniusI have sketched above.. Mrs. Booth, against whom
calumny has had no word to say, now resides with her daughters in Nineteenth street, New. York.  John S. Clarke dwells in princely style in Phil
&delphia, with the daughter whom he married; he is the business paitner
of Ecdwin BSooth, and they r  likely to beoome as powerful managers a
it 
7L..e Lie, Crimp, and Captur o.f John  Ws tk  Booth.
they have been suoce"ful " stars."  Edwin Booth, who is said to have the
most perfect physical head in America, and whom the ladles call the beau
ideal of the melancholy Dane, dwells also on Nineteenth street. He hab
acquired a fortune, and is, without doubt, a frankly loyal gentleman. He
could not well be otherwise from his membership in the Century Club
where literature and loyalty, are never dissolved.  Correct and pleasing
without being powerful or brilliant, he has led a plain and appreciated
career, and latterly, to his honor, has been awakening among dramatic
authors some emulation by offering handsome compensations for original
plays.  Junius Brutus Booth, the oldest of them  all, most resembles in
eature his wild and wayward father; he is not as good an actor as was
Wilkes, and kept in the West, that border civilization of the drama; he
now lies, on a serious charge of complicity, in Capitol Hill jail.  Joseph
Booth tried the stage as an utility actor and promptly failed.  The best parl
he ever had to play was Orson in the "Iron Chest," and his discomfiture
was signal; then he studied medicine but grew discouraged, and is now ip
Calitornia in an office of some sort.  A son of'Booth by his first wife be
came a firstclass lawyer il Boston.  He- never recognized the rest of the
family.  Wilkes Booth, the third son, was shot dead on Wednesday for
attempting to escape from the consequences of murder. Such are the
people to whom one of the greatest actors of our time gave his name and
lineaments. But I have anticipated the story:
Although her family was large, it was no.t. so hard sailing with Mrs. Ro
salie Booth as mav be inferred.  Her husband's gains had been variably
reat, and they owned a farm of some value near Baltimore.  The boy#
fad plain but nct sufficient schooling, though by the time John Wilkes
..w unjpin  and Junius were making some little money and helping
the amily.  IVVilkes was sent to a better school than they, where he
made some eventful acquaintances. One of these won his admiration as
much in the playground as in subsequent life upon the field of battle; this
was Fitzhugh Lee, son of the great rebel chieftain.  I have not heard that
-,    Lee ever had any friendship  or young Wilkes, but his port and name
were enough to excite a less ardent imnagination-the son of a soldier al.
ready great, and a descendant of Washington.   Wilkes Booth has often
spoken of the memory of the young man, envied his siuccess, and, perhaps,
boasted of more intimacy than he ever had. The exemplars of youiig
Wilkes, it was soon seen, were anything but literary. He hated school
and pent-up life, and loved the open air. lie used to' stroll off to fish,
though that sort of amusement was too sedentary for his nature, but went
on fowling jaunts with enthusiasm. In these latter he manifested that fine
nerve, and certain eye, which was the talk of all his associates; but his
greatest love was the. stable.. He learned to ride with his'first pair of
boots, and hung around the grooms' to beg permission to take the nags to
water. -He grew in later life to be both an indurated and a graceful
horseman.  Toward'his mother and sisters he was affectionate without
being obedient.  Of all the sons, Wilkes was the most headstrong in-doors,
and the most contented away from home. He had a fitful gentleness
which won him forgiveness, and of one of his sisters he was particularly
fond,' but none had influence over him.  Hle was seldom contentious, but
obstinately bent, and what he'willed, Ibe did in silence, seeming to discard
sympathy or confidence.  As i boy he was.never bright, except.in a boy's
sense; that is, he could run and.leap well, fight when challenged, and gen
erally fell in with the sentiment of the crowd.  He therefore alade mLany
IV 
m
.    27   Jurd'  2,
companion, amA hi early days all poassed betwan Baltimore city and t
sdj4aent farm.          -.,
l have heard It  aid uas the only evidence of Booth's ferocity In those
early times that he was always shooting cats, and killed off almost the
entire breed in his neighbourhood.  But on more than one occasion he ran 
away from both school and home, and once made the trip of the Ches
peake to the oyster fisheries without advising anybody of his family.
While yet very young, Wilkes Booth became an habitue at the theater.
His traditions and tastes were all in that direction. His blood was of the
stage, like that of the Keans, the Kembles, and the Wallacks. He would
not commence at the bottom of the ladder and climb from round to round,
nor take part in more than a few Thespian efforts. One night, however, a
young actor, who was to have a benefit and wished to fill the house, re  solved for the better purpose to give Wilkes a chance.  He announced
that a son of'the great Booth of tradition, would enact the part of Rich  mond, and the announcement was enough.  Before a crowded place, Booth
played so badly that he was hissed.  Still holding to his gossamer hopes
and high conceit, Wilkes induced John S. Clarke, who was then addressing
his sister, to obtain him a position in the company of the Arch Street
Theater at Philadelphia.
For eight dollars a week, Wilkes Booth, at the ag, rf twenty-two, con  tracted with William Wheatley to play in any piece er part'for which he
might be cast, and to appear every day at rehearsal. Ie had to play the
Coutrier in Sheridan Knowles's "Wife' on his first night, with five or ten
little speeches to make; but such was his nervousness that he blundered
continually, and quite balked the piece. Soon afterward he undertook the
part of one of the Venetian comrades in Hugo's "Lucretia Borgia," and
was to have said in his turn —
' Madame, I am Petruchio Pandolfo;" instead of which he exclaimed:
"Madame, I am  Pondolfio Pet-, Pedolfio Pat-s  Pantuchio Ped-;
damn it I what am I?"
The audience roared, and Booth, though full of chagrin, was compelled
to laugh with them.
The very next night he was to play Dawson, an important part in
Moore's tragedy of "The Gamester."  He had bought a new dress to wear
on thitns night, and made abundant preparation to do himself honor. He
therefore invited a lady whom he knew to visit the theater, and witness his
triumph.  But at the instant of his appearance on the stage, the audienc
rem' embering the Petruchio Pandolfo of the previous nigh, burst into
laughter, hisses, and mock applause, so that he was struck dumb, and
stood' rigid, with nothing whatever to say.  Mr. John Dolman, to wh.
Stukely h3 played, was compelled, therefore, to strike Dawson entirely out
of the piece.
These occurrences nettled Booth, who'protested that he studied faithfully
but that his want of. confidence ruined him. Mr. Fredericks the stage
manager made constant complaints of Booth, who by the way, did not
play' under his full name, but as Mr. J. Wilkes-and he bore the general
reputation of having no promise, and being a careless fellow.  He ass
ciated freely with such of the subordinate actors as he liked; but being,
through Clarke, then a rising favourite, of better connections, might, had
he chosen, advanced himself socially, if not artistically.  Clarke was to
have' a benefit one evening,'and to enact, among other things, a mock
Richnard III., to which he allowed Wilkes Booth to.play a real Richmond.
On  this onion, for the first time, Booth showed sonle energy, and
21
' -,  ,,AN.4%                                                  0,i -.                     ll,,.,                                             v,,,,.I I 11 I.. I., 11, 
, ~Lfe, C'nme, and Captur of' JoAn Wko.ootA.
obtain some applause. But, in general, he was stumbling and worthless
I myself remember, on three oonsecutive nights, hearing him trip up and
receive suppressed hisses. He lacked enterprise; other young actors, in.
stead of waiting to be given better parts, committed them to memory, in
the hope that their real interpreter might not come to hand. Among these
I recall John McCullough, who  afterwards became  qSuite a celebrated
actor.  He was getting, if I correctly remember, only six dollars a week,
while Booth obtained eight. Yet Wilkes Booth seemed too slow or indifferent to get on the weather side. of'such chances.  He still held the part 
of third walking gentleman, and the third is always  the first to be walked
off in case of strait, as was Wilkes Booth.  He did not survive forty
weeks engagement, nor make above three hundred dollars in all that time.
The Kellers arrived; they cut down the company, and they dispensed with 
Wilkes Booth.  He is remembered in Philadelphia by his failure as in the
world by his crime.
About this time a manager named Kunkle gave Booth' a salary of twenty
dollars a week to go to the- Richmond Theater. There he played a higher
order of parts, and played them better,,winning applauses from the easy
provincial cities, and taking, as everywhere the ladies by storm.   I have
never wondered why many actors were strongly predisposed toward the
South. There, their social status is. nine times as big as with us. The hos.
pitable, lounging, buzzing character of the southerner is entirely consonant
with the cosmopolitanism of the stage, and that easy" hang-up-your-hatativeness," which-is the rule and the demand in Thespianship.  We place
actors outside of society, and execrate them because they are there. The
South took them into affable fellowship, and was not ruined by it, but be
loved by the fraternity. Booth played two seasons in Richmond, and left
in some esteem.
When the John Brown raid occured, Booth left the Richmond Theater
for the scene of'strife in a picked company with which he had affiliated for
some time. From his connection with. the militia on.this occasion he was
w6nt to trace his fealty to Virginia. He was a non-commissioned. officer,
and remained at Charleston till after the execution, visiting the old pike
man in jail, and his company was selected to form guard around the scaf.
fold when John Brown went, white-haired, to his account. There may be
irL this a consolation for the canonizers of the first arm-bearer between
the sections, that one whose unit swelled the host to crush out that brave
old life, took from the scene inspiration enough to slay a merciful President
in his unsuspecting leisure.  Booth never referred to John  Brown's death
in bravado; possibly at that gallows began some such terrible purpose as
he afterward consummated.
It was close upon the beginning of the war when Booth resolved to
transform himself from a stock actor to a "star."  As many will read this
who do not understand such distinctions,-let me preface it by explaining
that a "star" is. an actor who belongs to no one theater, but travels from
each to all, playing a few weeks at a time, and sustained in his chief char
acter by the regular or stock actors.  A stock actor is a good actor, and a
poor fool. A star is an advertisement in tights, who grows rich and cor
-.rupts the public taste. Booth was a star, and being so, had an agent. The
'/agent is a trumpeter' who goes on before, writing the impartial notices which
you see in. the editorial columns of country papers and counting noses at
the theater doors.  Booth's agent w.  one Matthew Canning, an exploded
Philadelphia lawyer, who took to managing by passing the bare and J.
Wilkes no longe', but our country's rising. tragedian. J. Wilkes Booth,
-                                               -. -;.'..       ..,..                       - -.,, -- - - e 
23
opened In Montgomery, Alabama, in his father's cons ted part of Rieard
17z.  It w   very different work between reeeiving eight dollars a week
and getting half the gross proceeds of every performance.  Booth kept
nortliward when his engagment was done, playing in many cities such
parts as Romeo, the Corstcan Brothers, and Raphael in the" Marble HearS,t
in all of these he gained applause, and his journo., eastward, ending in eas
ern cities like Providence, Portland, and Boston was a long suecess, in part
deserved. In Boston he received especial commendation for his enactment
of Richard.
I have looked over this play, his best and favori'te one, to see how ecow
ly the career of the crookback he so often delineated resembled his own.
How like that fearful night of Richard on Bosworth field must hav
been Booth's sleep in the barn at Port Royal, tortured byghosts of victims
all repeating.
"When I was mortal my anointed body
By thee was punched full of deadly holes:
Thiak.on the Tower and me I Despair and die I"
Or this, from some of Booth's female victims:
" Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow I
I that was washed to death with fulsome wine;
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death:
To-Miorrow in the battle thisnk on me; despair iad dio  "
These terrible conjurations must have recalled how aptly the see s
often rehearsed by Booth, sword ini hand, where, leaping from his bed..
eries in horror:
"Give me another horse I bind up my wounds I
Have mercy, Jesu I Soft! I did but dream.
Oh I coward conscience how thou dost afflict me I
The'lights burn blue.  It is now dead midnight 
Cold, flareful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear Ibyself? there'is ione eise by:
Is there a murdererherel  No l-Ye  I-I am I
Then fly,-"what fromt myselft
*       *       *       *       *       ** 
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale
And every tale condemns me for a villain I -
Perjury, perjury in the highest degree:
Murder, stern murder in the direst degree:
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guity I guit I
By thee starring engagments, Booth made incredible imra   y         s
book, for one single season, showed earnings dsposited in bank of twenty
two odd thousand dollars.  In New York he did not get a hearing, exet
at a benefit or two: where he played parts not of his selection.  in Philf
delphia his earlier failure predisposed the people to discard him, and they
did. But he had made enough, and resolved to invest his winnings, The
oil fever had just begun; he hired an agent, sent him to the western dis tricts and gave him discretionary power; his investments all turned out
profitable.
Booth died, as far as understood without debts. The day before the mur  der he paid an old friend a hundred dollars which he had borrowed two days
previously.  He banked at Jay Cook's in  Washington, generally; but
turned most of his funds -into stock and other matters.   e gave eighty
dollars eight month's ago for a part investing with others in a piece of
*
Mh Miirderr.,
acasI, -...., -,w -r........A. ewe.....A — 4zA  
24      The l~e, Ori,e, and Capture of Joan edke. Booeth.
western oil land. The oertificate for this land be gave to his sister. Just
before,he died his agent informed him that the share was worth fifteen
thousand dollars. Booth kept his accounts latterly with great regularity,
and was lavish as ever, but took note of all expenditures, however irregu.
lar. He was one of those men whom the possession of money seems to
have energized; his life, so purposeless long before, grew by good fortune
to a strict computation with the world. Yet what.availed so sudden refor.
mation, and Of what use was the gaining of wealth, to throw one's life so soon
away, and leap from competence to-hunted infamy.
The beauty of this man and his easy confidentiality, not familiar, but
marked by a mild and even dignity, made many women impassioned of
him. He was licentious as men, and particularly asactors go, but not a set
ducer, so far as I can learn. I have traced one case in Philadelphia where
a young girl who had seen him on the stage became enamored of him.
She sent him bouquets, notes, photographs and all the accessories of an
intrigue. Booth, to whom such things were common, yielded to the girl's
importunities at last and gave her an interview.  Hie was surprised to find
that so bold a correspondent was so young, so fresh, and so beautiful.  He
told her therefore, in pity, thle consequences of pursuing him; that he en.
tertainled no affection for her, though a sufficient desire, and that he was a
man of the world to whom all women grew fulsome in their turn.
"Go home," ke said, "and beware of actors.  They are to be seen, not
to be known."
The girl, yet more infatuated, persisted.  Booth, who had no real vir tue except by scintillations, became what he had promised, and one more
soul went to the isles of Cyprus.
In Montgomery, if I do not mistake, Booth met the woman from whom
he received a stab which he carried all the rest of his days.  She. was an
actress, and he visited her. They assumed a relation creditable only in La
Boheneme, and were as tender as-love without esteem can ever be. But, after
a time, Booth- wearied of her and offered to say  "good by."  She re.
fused-he treated her coldly; she pleaded-he passed her  by.
Thien, with a jealous woman's frenzy, she -drew a knife upon him  and
stabbed him in the neck, with the intent to kill him.  Being muscular, he
quickly disarmed her, though he afterward suffered from the wound poign antly.
Does it not bring a blush to our faces that a good, great man, like he who
has died-our President —-should have minet his fate from one so inured to
a life of ribaldry I  Yet, only such an one could have been found to mur.
der Abraham Lincoln.
The women persecuted Booth more than he followed them.  He was
waylaid by married women in every provincial town or city where he
played.  His face was so youthful, yet so manly, and his movements so
graceful and excellent, that other than the coarse and errant placed them.
selves in his way. After his celebrated Boston engagement, women of all
ages and degrees pressed in crowds before the Tremont House to see him
depart.  Their motives were various, but whether curiosityor worse, ex.
hibiting plainly the deep intfluence which Booth had upon the sex. He
could be anywhere easy and gentlemanly, and it is. a matter of'wonder that
with the entry which he had to many well-stocked homes, he did not make
hospitality mourn and' friendship find in his visit shame and ruin. I have
-ot space to go into the millionth catalogue of Bo6oth's intrigues, even if
,his journal permitted further elucidation of so banned a subject.  Most 
.s Mure*r.fr
of his aherents of this elmas were, like Helneds Polish virgfn ad he we
very popular with those dramatic ladies-few, I hope and know, in their
profession-to whom divorce courts are superluous.  His last pemanent
acquaintance was one Ella Turner, of Richmond, who loved him with all
the impetuosity of that love which does not think, and strove to die at the
tidings of his crime and fight. Happy that even such a woman did not die
associated with John Wilkes Booth. Such devotion to any other murderer would have earned some poet's tear.  But the daisies will not grow a
whole rod from his grave.
Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's
~crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record should
have dared to die for fame I Victory would have been ashamed of its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau.
I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year,
on first setting out in. life, before getting into a transaction of the kind spe.
cified.  For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a con
siderable sum of money, and it happily occurred just as he was to quit the
city. He had many quarrels and narrow escapes through his license, a
husband in Syracuse, N.Y., once followed him all the way to Cleveland to
avenge a domestic insult.
Booth's paper "To Whom it may Concern" was not his only attempt
at influential composition. He sometimes persuaded himself that he had
literary ability; but his orthography and pronunciation were worse than
his syntax.  The paper deposited with J. S. Clarke was useful as showing
his power to entertain a deliberate purpose.  It has one or two smart pas.
sages in it-as this:
"Our once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of
heaven.
In the passages following there is common sense and lunacy:
"I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as
this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make
me happy, where my profession alone has gained me an income of more
than twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my great personalambitios
in my profession has such a great field for labor.  On the other hand, the
Sout have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I
have no friends, except beneath thi sod; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the former for the
latter, besides my mother' and sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they
so widely differ with me in opi.nion) seems insane; but God is my
judge.
Now, read the beginning. of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were
his words of his coming infamy.  If he expected so much for capturingthe
President merely, what of our execration at slaying him I
"Right or wrong, God judge me, not man.   For be my motive good or
bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemhation of the North.
"I love peace more than life.  Have loved the Union beyond exp_'on.
For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to
break,' and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer woula
be a crime..  All hope for peace it dead.  My prayers have proved as idle
as my hopes.'God's will be done.  I go90 to see and share th  bitter
end."
To wait longer would be a crime.  Oh! what was the crime not to wait!
Hlad he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his ma,
25 
26     The Life, Crime, and aphe of/ John Wilkes Buo.
ory might have been hidden.  The end had come when he appeared t  make
of benignant victory a quenchless revenge.   One more selet'on fom his
apostrophe will do.  It suggests the manner of his death:
"They say that the South has found tCat'last ditch' which the Nortb
have so long derided.  Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will.
proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same'ditch' by her side."
The swamp near which he died may be called, without unseemly pun-&
truth, not a bon mot-the last ditch of the rebellion.
None of the printed pictures that I have seen do justice to Booth. Some
of the cartes de visite get him very nearly. He had one of the finest vital
heads I have ever seen. In'fact, he was one of the best exponents of vital
beauty I have ever met. By this I refer to physical beauty in the Mediciaa
sense-health, shapeliness, power in beautiful poise, and seemingly more
powerful in repose than-in energy. His hands and feet were s'zable, not
small, and his legs were stout and muscular, but inclined to bow like his
father's.  From the waist up he was a perfect man; his chest being full
and broad, his shoulders gently sloping, and his arms as white as alabaster,
but hard as marble.  Over these, upoii a neck which was its proper column,
rose the cornice of a fine Dorie face, spare at the jaws and not anywhere
over-ripe, but seamed with a nose of Roman model, the only relic of his
halfJewish parentage, which gave decision to the thoughtfully stern sweep
of two direct, dark eyes, meaning to woman snare, and to man a search warrant, while the lofty square forehead and square brows were crowned with
a weight of curling jetty hair, like a rich Corinthian capital.  His profile
*was ea,gleish, and afar his countenance was haughty.  He seemed throat
full of introspections, ambitious self-examinings, ey-strides into the future,
as if it withheld him something to which he had a right. I have since won dered whether this moody demeanor did not come of a guilty spirit, but
all the Booths look so.
Wilkes spoke to me in Washington for the first time three weeks before
the murder.  His address was winning as a girl's, rising in effect not from
what he said, but from how he said it.  It was magnetic, and I can des cribe it therefore by its effects alone. I seemed, when he had spoken, to
lean toward this man. His attitude spoke to me; with as easy familiarity
*as I eever observed he drew r ear and conversed.  The talk was on sc
trite things that it did not lie a second in the head, but when I left him it
was with the feeling that a most agreeable fellow had passed by.
The next time the name of Wilkes Booth recurred to me was like the
pistol shot he had fired. The right hand I had shaken murdered the father
of the country.
Booth was not graceful with his feet, although his ordinary walk was
plea sat  enough. But his arms were put to artistio uses; not the baser
ones like boxing, but all sorts of fencing, manual practice, and the hand log of weapons.
n his dress, he was neat without being particular.  Almost any clothes
could fit him; but he had nothing of the exquisite about him; his neck
'ties and all such matters were good without being gaudy.  Nature  had
done much for him. In this beautiful palace an outlaw had builded his
fire, and slept, and plotted, and dtreamed.
I have heard it said that Booth frequently cut his adversaries upon the
stage in sheer wantonness or bloodthirstiness.  This is a mistake, and is
attributable to his father, the elder Booth, who  had the madness of con
founding himself with the character. Wilkes was too good a fencer to
make ugly gashes; his pride was his skill, not his awkwardness. Once 
* I                nurg.
he wuas playing with John McCullough in the Ant ast oif aRiaral'
hey were fighting desperately.  Suddenly the prouieoe on the hilt of
Mulough'stsword flew offand cut the owner deeply in the forehead.
Blood ran down McCullough's faoe, though they continued to struggle, and
while, ostensibly, Booth was imitating a demon, he said in a half whisper:
a Good God, John, did I hurt you?"
And when they went off the stage, Booth was white with far that he had
gashed his friend.
As.an actor, Booth-was too energetic to be correct; his conception of
Richard was vivid and original, one of the best that we have had, and he
came nearer his father's rendering of the last act than any body we have
had. His combat scene was terrific. The statement that his voice had
ailed has no valid foundation; it was as good when he challenged the
cavalry-mer to combat as in the best of his Thespian successes.  In all
acting that required delicate characterization, refined conception or careful ness, Booth was at sea. But in strong physical parts, requiring air read ing and. an abundance of spring and tension, he was much finer than hearsay
would have us believe.
His Romeo was described a short time ago by the Washington Itell.
gencer as the most satisfactory ot all renderings of that fine character.  He
played the Corsican Brothers three weeks on a run in Boston.  He played
Pescara at F'rd's Theater-his last mock part in this world-n to- morrow (Saturday) night, six weeks ago.
He was fond. of learning.and reciting fugitive poems.   is favorite piece
was "The Beautiful Snow," comparing it to a lost purity. He  has be'en
known by gentlemen in this city to recite this poem  with fine efect, and
cry all the while.  This was on the principle of " guilty people sitting at a
play." His pocketbook was generally full of little selections picked up
at random, and he had considerable delicacy of appreciation.
Or the morning of the murder, Booth breakfasted with Miss Carrie Bean,
the daughter of a merchant, and a very respectable young lady, at the
National Hall.  He arose from the table at, say eleven o'clock.  During
the breakfast, those who watched him say that he was lively, piquant. and
self-possessed as ever in his life.
That night the horrible crime thrilled the land. A period of crippled
fight succeeded.  Living in swamps, upon trembling hospitality, upon
hopes which sank as he leaned upon them.  Booth passed the nighcs in
erilous route or broken sleep, and in the end went down like a bravo,
but in the eyes of all who read his history, commanding no respect for his
valor, charity for his motive, or sympathy for his sin.
The closing scenes of these terrible days are reserved for a  wond
paper.  Much matter that should have gone into this is re ta    for 66
present.
Sn
*,,   -    w..,,:.  A,    ^ -   is           -E -    -D, -r-   -              4..   M. 
28'M  Life, Cbir, and Capture of JoAs W'slke,#B..
LETTER  IV.
THE A hSSAUB8  DOATK.
WASHIOTOW, April    8. M
A hard and grizzly face overlooks  me as I write.  Its inconsiderable
forehead is crowned with turnirg sandy hair, and the deep concave of it.
long insatiate jaws is almost hidden by a dense red beard, which can
not still abate the terrible decsion of the large mouth, so well sustained
by searching eyes of spotted gray, which roll and rivet one.  This is the
face of Lafayette Baker coonael and chief of the secret service.  He  has
played the niost perilous parts of the war, and is the capturer of the late
President's murderer.  The story that I am  to tell you, as he and his
trusty dependents told it to me, will be aptly commenced here, where the
net was woven wnieh took the dying life of Wilkes Booth.
When the murder occured, Colonel Baker was absent from Washing.
ton. IIe returned on the third morning, and was at once besought by Se.
retary Stanton to join the hue and cry against the escaped Booth. The
sagacious detective found that nearly ten thousand cavalry, and one-fourth
as many policemen, had been meantime scouring without plan or compass,
the whole territory of Southern Maryland.  They were treading on each
other's heels, and mixing up the thing so. conifoundedly, that the best
place for the culprits to have gone would have been in the very midst of
their pursuers.  Baker at once possessed himself of the little the War
Department had learned, and started immediately to take the usual deteotive measures, till then neglected, of offering a reward and getting out
photographs of the suspected ones.  He  then dispatched a few chosen
detectives to certain vital points, and awaited results.
The first of these was the capture of Atzeroth.  Others, like the taking
of Dr. Mudge, simultaneously occured.  But the district supeeted being
remote from the railway routes, and broken by no telegraph station, tlhe
colonel, to place himselfnearer the theater of events, Ordered an opera tor, with the necessary instrument, to tap the wire running to Point
Lookout, near Chappells Point, aild send him prompt messsages..
iche same steamer which took down the operator and two detectivLs
brought back one of the same detectives and a negro.  This negro, taken
to Colonel Baker's office, stated so positively that he had seen Booth and
another man cross the Potomac inii a fishing boat, while he was looking down
upon them from a bank, that the colonel. was at first skeptical; but when
examined the negro answered so readily and intelligently, recognizing the
men from the photographs, that Baker knew at last thathe had the true scent.
Straightway he sent to General Hancock for twenty-five men, and while
tne order was going, drew down his coast survey-maps.  With that quick
detective intuition amounting almost to inspiration, Se cast upon the pro.
bable route and destination of the refugees, as well as the point where he
would soonest strike. them.  Booth, he knew, would not keep along the
coast, with frequent deep rivers to cross, nor, indeed, in any direction
east of Richmond, where he was liable at any time to cross our lines of
occupation; nor, being lame, could he ride on- horseback, so as to place
himself very far westward of his point of debarkation in Virginia. But he
would travel in a direct course from Bluff point, where he crossed to East emrn Tennessee, and this would take him through Port Royal on the Rap  pahannock river, in time to be intercepted there by the outgbing cavalry men. 
When, therefore, twenty-five men, under one Lieutenant Dougert, ar.
rived at his office door, Baker placed the whole under control of hi for mer lieutenant-colonel, E. J. Conger, and of his cousin, Lieutenant L B.
Baker-the first of Ohio, the last of New-York-and  bade them go with
all dispatch to Belle Plain on the Lower Potomac, there to disembark, and
scour the country faithfully around Port Royal, but not to return unless
they captured their men.
Conger is a short, decided, indomitable, courageous fllow, provincial in
his manners, but fully understanding his business, and collected as a house.
wife on Sunday.
Young Baker is large and fine-looking-a soldier, but no policeman
and he deferred to Conger, very properly, during most of the events
succeeding.
Quitting Washington at 2 o'clock P. m. on Monday, the detectives and
cavalrymen disembarked at Belle Plain, on the border of Stafford county,
at 10 o'clock, in the darkness. Belle Plain is simply the nearest landing
to Fredericksburg, seventy miles from Washington city, and located upon
Potomac creek. It is a wharf and warehouse merely, and here the steamer
John S. Ide stopped and made fast, while the party galloped off in the darkness.  Conger and Baker kept ahead, ridingup to farm-houses and questioning the inmates, pretending to be in search of the Maryland gentlemen belonging to the party. But nobody had seen the parties described, and, after
a futile ride on the Fredericksburg road, they turned shortly to the east,
ind kept up their baffled inquiries all the way to Port Conway, on the Rappahann~ck.
On Tuesday morning they presented themselves at the Port Royal ferry,
and inquired of the terry-man, while he was taking them over in squads of
seven at a time, if he had seen any two such men. Continuing their in
quiries at Port Royal, they found one Rollins a fisherman, who referred
them to a negro named Lucas, as having driven two men a short distance
toward Bowling Green in a wagon.  It was found that these men answered
to the description, Booth having a crutch as previously ascertained..
The day before Booth and Harold had applied at Port Conway for the
general ferry-boat, but the ferryman was then fishing and would not desist
for the inconsiderable fare of only two persons, but to their supposed
good fortune a lot of confederate cavalrymen just then came along. who
threatened the ferryman with a shot in the head if he did not instantly
bring across his craft and transport the entire party.  These cavalrymen
were of Moseby's disbanded command, returning from Fairfax Court
House to their homes in Caroline county.  Their captain was on his way
to visit a sweetheart at Bowling Green, and he had so far taken Booth inder
his patronage, that when the latter was haggling with Lucas for a team, he
offered both Booth and Harold the use of his horse, to ride and walk alasnately.
In this way Lucas was providentially done out of the job, and Booth
rode off toward Bowling Green behind the confederate captain on one and
the same horse.  -
So much learned, the detectives, with Rollins for a guide, dashed off in
the bright daylight of Tuesday, moving southwestward through the level
plains of Carol4ne, seldom stopping to ask questions, save at a certain half way house, where a woman told them that-the cavalry party of yesterday
had returned minus one man. As this was far from circumstantial, the
party rode along in the twilight, and reached Bowliag Green at elever
o'clock in the night.
no A x'#.Doaa.
29 
30     PT, life.    Ce,C',,, an    Capture of John Whke# Boota.
This is the court-house town of Caroline county- small and spattred
place, having within it an ancient tavern, no longer used for other than
lodging purposes; but here they hauled from his bed the captain aforesa.d,
and bade him dress himself. As soon as he comprehended the matter he
became pallid and eagerly narrated all the facts in his possession. Booth,
to his knowledge, was then lying at the house of one Garrett, which they
had passed, and Harold had departed the existing day with the intention of
rejoining him.
Taking this captain along for a guide, the worn out horsemen retraced,
though some of the men were so haggard and wasted with travel that they
had to be kicked into intelligence before they could climb to their saddles.
The objects of the chase thus at hand, the detectives, full of sanguine pur
pose, hurried the cortege so well along that by 2 o'clock early morning, all
halted at Garrett's gate. In the pale moonlight three hundred yards from
the main road, to the left, a plain old farmhouse looked grayly through its
environing locusts.  It was worn and whitewashed, aud two-storied, and its
half-human windows glowered down upon the silent cavalrymen like watching owls. which stood as sentries over some horrible secret asleep within.
The front of this house looked up the road toward the Rappahannock,- but
did not face it, and on that side a long Virginia porch protruded, where, in
the su-ammer, among the honeysuckles, the humming bird flew like a visible
odor.  Nearest the main road, against the pallid gable, a single-storied
kitchen stood, anid there were three other doors, one? opening upon the porch,
one in the kitchen gable, and one in the rear of the farmhouse. -
Dimly seen behind, an old barn, high and weather-beaten, faced the
roadside gate, for the house itself lay to the left of its own  lane;  and
nestling beneath the barn, a few long corn-cribs lay with a cattle shed at
hand.   There was not a swell of the landscape anywhere in sight.  A plain
dead level contained all the tenements and structures.  A worm fence
stretched along the road broken by two battered gate posts, and between
Plan of Garrett's House.
"3~~~~~~-                 -J?,
Ii..L
~~~~~~~~~~~~~.'1-.-..,  
."q —MAI  RAD              o 
.H e-..
FKN C E
'_~~~~~~~A,-  1  o
A Door through which the dying man was bronught. B Corner at which the bam ws
&red -  0 Spot in the barn on which Booth stood.   D Point where Corbett fired. A
t'orob where Booth died.   G Door at Wlich Lixteutenant Baker knocke    H Shed,.
KAtchen.
u
!7.
f0
PIoY 
-;
The AHi08 Di d
omad nd. the house, the lane was crossed by a second  e   and 
Th. farm-house lane, passing the houw front, kept straight on to the barn,
though a-second carriage track ran up to the porch
It was a homely and primitive scene enough, pastoral as any farm boy's
birth-place, and had been the seat of many toils and endearment   Young
wives had been brought to it, and around its hearth the earliest cries of
infants, gladdening mothers' hearts, had made the household jubilant till
the stars came out, and were its only sentries, save the bright ligt'q - its
window-panes as of a camp-fire, and the suppressed chorusses (f the
domestic bivouac within, where apple toasting and nut cracking and coun try games shortened the winter shadows. Yet in this house, so peaceful by
moonlight, murder had washed its spotted hands, and ministered  to its
satiated appetite.  History —present in every nook in the broad young
world-had stopped to make a landmark of Garrett's farm.
In the dead stillness, Baker dismounted and forced the outer gate;
Conger kept close behind him, and the horsemen followed cautiously.  They
made no noise in the soft clay, nor broke the all-foreboding silence any where, till the second gate swung open gratingly, yet even then nor hoarse
nor shrill response came back, save distant croaking, as of frogs or owls,
or the whizz of some passing night-hawk.  So they surrounded the pleas
ant old homestead, each horseman, carbine in poise, adjusted under the
grove of locusts, so as to inclose the dwelling with a circle of fire.  After
a pause, Baker rode to the kitchen door on the side, and dismounting, rap
ped and halloed lustily. An ola man, in drawers and night-shirt, hastily
indrew the bolts, and stood on the threshold, peering shiveringly into the
darkness.
Baker seized him by the throat at once, and held -a pistol to his ear.
Who-who  is it that calls me?"  cried the old man.  "Where  are the
men who stay with you?" challenged Baker.  "If you prevaricate you are
a dead man!"  The old fellow, who proved to be the head of the family,
was so overawed and paralysed that he stammered, and shook, and said
nota. word.  "Go light a candle," cried Baker, sternly, "and  be quick
about it." The trembling old man obeyed, and in a moment the imperfect rvs flared upon his whitening hairs and bluishly pallid face.  Then
the question was repeated, backed up by the glimmering pistol, "where
are those men?" The old man held to the wall, and his knees smote each
other.  "They are gone," he said.  "We hav'n't got them in the house.
I assure you that they are gone." Here there were sounds and whisp.ings in the main building adjoining, and the lieutenant strode to the door.
A  ludicrous instant intervened, the old man's modesty outran his terrar.
"Don't go in there," he said, feebly;'-there are women undressed in
there."' Damn the women," cried Baker; "what.if they are undressed?
We shall go in if they haven't a'rag." Leaving the old man in -mute
astonishment, Baker bolted through the door, and stood in an assemblage
of bare arms and night robes. His loaded pistol disarmed modesty of its
delicacy and substituted therefor a seasonable terror. Here he repeated
his summons, and the half light of the candle gave to his face a more than
bandit ferocity. They all denied knowledge of the strangers' whereabouts.
In the interim Conger had also entered, and while the household and its
invaders were thus in weird tableaux, a young man appeared, as if he had
risen from the ground.  The muzzles of everybody turned upon him in a
second; but, while he blanched, he did not lose loquacity   "Father,"'
said, "we had better tell the truth about the matter.  Those men whom
..;t
31
I 
32     AT    s re, Cim., and Capture of JoAn Wilke# BootSA.
you seek, gentlemen, are in the barn, I know. They went there to slape'
Leaving one soldier to guard the old man-and the soldier was very glad
of the job, as it relieved him of personal hazard in the approaching combat
-all the rest, with cocked pistols at the young man's head, followed on to
the barn. It lay a hundred yards from the house, the front barndoor
facing the west gable, and was an old and spacious structure, with floors
only a trifle above the ground level.
The troops dismounted, were stationed at regular intervals around it,
and ten yards distant at every point, four special guards placed to co(m.
mand the door and all with weapons in supple preparation, while Baker
and Conger went direct to the portal. It had a padlock upon it, and the
key of this Baker secured at once.  In the interval of silence that ensued,
the rustling of planks and straw was heard inside, as of persons rising
from sleep.
At the same moment Baker hailed:
" To the persons ir this barn.  I have a proposal to make; we are about
to send in to you the son of the man in whose custody you are found.
Either surrender to him your arms and then give yourselve  up, or we'll set
fire to the place.  We mean to take you both, or to have a bonfire and a
shooting match."
No answer came to this of any kind.  The lad, John M. Garrett, who
was in deadly fear, was here pushed through the door by a sudden opening
of it, and immediately. Lieutenant Baker locked the door on the outside.
The boy was heard to state his appeal in under tone.  Booth replied:
"Damn you. - Get out of here.  You have betrayed me."
At the same time he placed his hand in his pocket as for a pistol. A
remonstrance followed, but the boy slipped quickly over te reopened por
tal, reporting that his errand had failed, and that he dared not enter again.
All this time the candle brought from the house to the barn was burning
close beside the two detectives, rendering it easy for any one within to
have shot them dead. This observed, the light was cautiously removed,
and everybody took care to keep out of its reflection. By this time the
crisis of the position was at hand, the cavalry exhibited very variable in clinations, some to run away, others to shoot Booth without a summons, but
all excited and fitfully silent.  At the house near by-the female folks were
seen collected in the doorway, and the necessities of the case provoked
prompt conclusions. The boy was placed at a remote point, and the sum
mons repeated by Baker: 
"You must surrender inside there.  Give up your arms and appear.
There is no chance for escape.  We  give you five minutes to make up
your mind."
A bold, clarion reply came from within, so strong as to be heard at the
. house door:
"Who are you, and what do you want with us'?"
Baker again urged: "We want you to deliver up your arms and become
our prisoners."
" But who are you I" hallooed the same strong voice.
Baker.-" That makes no difference.  We  know who you are, and we
want you. We have here fifty men, armed with carbines and pistols.
You cannot escape."
There was a long pause, and then Booth said:
"Captain. this is a hard cuase, I swear. Perhaps I am being taken by my
own friends." No reply from the detectives.
Booth-" Well, give us a little time to consider."
I
I
I
-1 
ta ~q                                    4.4gn0 ~'~fOlt IPJZ'.qan
*1 
a 
T2h.A'Mmf.'aa
Bakr -"Very well.  Take time."
Here ensued a long and eventful pause   What tF         g  memoie  i
brought to Booth, we can only guess.  In this little interval he made  the
resolve to die. But he was cool and steady to the end. Baker, after a
lapse, hailed for the last time.
"Well, we have waited long enough; surrender your arms and come
out, or we'll fire the barn."
Booth answered thus: "I am but a cripple, a one-legged man   With draw your forces one hundred yard from the door, and 1 will come. Give
me a chance for my life, captaini. I will never be taken alive."
Baker-" We did not come here to fight, but to capture you.  I say
again, appear, or the barri shall be fired."
Then with a long breath, which could be heard outside, Booth cried in
sudden calmness, still invisible, as were to him his enemies:
"Well, then, my brave. boys, prepare a stretcher for me."
There was a pause repeated, broken by low discussions within between
Booth and his associate, the former saying, as if in answer to some remon strance or appeal, "Get away from me.  You are a damned coward, and
mean to leave me in my distress; but go, go. I don't want you to stay.
I won't have you stay." Then he shouted aloud:
"There's a man inside who wants to surrender."
Baker —" Let him come, if he will bring his arms."
Here Harold, rattling at the door, said: "Let me out; open the door;
I want to surrender."
Baker-" Hand out your arms, then."
Harold-" I have not got any."
Baker-" You are the man that carried the carbine yesterday; bring A
out."
Harold-" I haven't got any."
This was said in a whining tone, and with an almost visible shiver.
Booth cried aloud, at this hesitation: "He hasn't got any arms;  they ame
mine, and I have kept them."
Baker-Well, he carried the carbine, and must bring it out"
Booth-" On the word and honor of agentleman, he has no arms with
him.  They are mine, and I have got them." 
St this time Ilarold was quite up to the door, within whispering di
tance of Baker.  The latter told him to put out his hands to be handcuffed,
at the same time drawing open the door a little distance. Harold thrust
forth his hands, when Baker, seizing him, jerked him  into the night, and
straightway delivered him over to a deputation of ca           valrymen. The
fellow began to talk of his innocence and plead so noisily that Conger
threatened to gag him unless he ceased.  Then Booth made his last appe,
in the same clear unbroken voice:
"Captain, give me a chance.  Draw off your men and I will fight them
singly. I could have killed you six times to-night, but I believe you to be
a brave man, and would not murder you, Give a lame man a show."
It was too late for parley.  All this time Booth's voice had sounded from
the middle of the barn.
Ere he ceased speaking, Colonel Conger, slipping around to the rear,
drew some loose straws through a crack, and lit a match upon them. They
were dry and blazed up in an instant, carrying a sheet of smoke and flame
through the parted planks, and heaving in a twinkling a world of light and
heat upon the magazine within. The blaze lit up the black recesses of the
great barn till every wasp's nest and cobweb in the roof was luminous,
....~~~~~~~
M6 
6  The Life, Crime and Capture of JoAhn Wilk#  oothA.
finging streaks of red and violet across the tumbled farm gear in the orner, plows, harrows, hoes, rakes, sugar mills, and making every separategrain in the high bin adjacent, gleam like a mote of precious gold.  They
tinged the beams, the upright columns, the barricades, where clover and
timothy, piled high, held toward the hot incendiary their separate straws
for the funeral pile. They bathed the murderers retreat in beautiful illumination, and while in bold outline his figure stood revealed, they rose like
an impenetrable wall to guard from sight the hated enemy who lit them.
Behind the blaze, with his eye to a crack, Conger saw Wilkes Booth standing upright upon a crutch.  IJe likens him at this instant to his brother
Edwin, whom he says he so much resembled that he half believed, for the
momeit. the whole purtsuit to have been a mistake.   At the gleam of the
fire Wilkes dropped his crutch, and, carbine in' both hands, crept up to the
spot to espy the incendiary and shoot him dead. His eyes were lustrous
like fever, and swelled and rolled in terrible beauty, while his teeth were
fixed, and he wore the expression of one in the calmness before frenzy.  In vain
he peered with vengeance in his. look; the blaze that made him visible concealed his enemy. A second he turned glaring at the fire, as if to.leap
upon it and extinguish it, but it had made such headway that this was a
filtile impulse and he dismissed it. As' calmly as upon the battle field a
veteran stands amidst the hail of ball arid shell, and plunging iron, Booth
turned at a man's stride, and pushed for the door, carbine in poise, and the
last resolve of death, which we name despair, set on his high, bloodless
forehead.
As so he dashed, intent to expire'not unaccompanied, a disobedient ser
geant at an eye-hole drew upon him the fatal bend.  The barn was all
glorious with conflagration and in the beautiful ruin this outlawed  man
strode like all that, we know of wicked valor, stern in the face of death.  A
shock, a shout, a gathering up of his splenidid figure as if to overtip the
stature God gave him, and John Wilkes Booth fell headlong to the floor,
lying there in a heap, a little life remaining.
"Hfe has shot himself!" cried Baker, unaware of the source of the report,
and rushing in, he-grasped his arms to guard against any feint or strategy.
A moment convinced him that further struggle with the prone flesh was
useless.  Booth did not move, nor breathe, nor gasp.  Conger and two serggeants now entered, and taking up the body, they bore it in haste.from the
advancing flame, and laid it without upon the grass, all fresh with heavenly
dew.
"Water," cried Conger, " bring water."
When this was dashed.into his face, he revived a moment and stirred his
lips.  Baker put his ear close down, and heard him say:
'"Tell mother-and die-for my country.
They lifted him again, the fire encroaching in hotness upon them and
placed him on the porch before the dwelling.
A mattrass was brought down, on which they placed him  and propped
his head, and gave him water and brandy.  The women of the household,
joined meantime by another son, who had been found iri one of the corn
cribs, watching as he said, to see that Booth and Harold did not steal the
horses, were nervous, but prompt to do the dying man all kindnesses,
although waived sternly back by the detectives.  They dipped a rag in
brandy and water, and this being put between Booth's teeth he sucked it
greedily. When he was able to articulate again, he muttered to Mr. Baker
the same words, with an addenda.  "Tell mother I died for my country.
.1 thought- I did for the best." Baker repeated this, saying at the same tiumt
k 
D%* Asmsit?&'. Di.e
' Booth, do I repeat it correctly."  Booth nodded his         By this time
the grayness of dawn was approaching'; moving figures  nquisitively cow
ing near were to be seen distinctly, and the cocks began to crow gutturally,
though the barn was a hulk of blaze and ashes, sending toward the'zenith
a spiral line of dense smoke.  The women became importunate that the
troops might be ordered to extinguish the fire, which was spreading toward
their precious corn-cribs. Not even death could banish the call of interest.
Soldiers were sent to put out the fire, and Booth, relieved of the bustle
around him, drew near to death apace.  Twice he was heard to say, " kill
me, kill me."  His lips often moved but could complete no appreciable
sound. He made once a motion which the quick eye of Conger understood to mean that his throat pained him.  Conger put his finger there,
when the dying man attempted to cough, but only caused the blood at his
perforated neck to flow more. lively.  lie bled very little, although shot
quite through, beneath and behind the ears, his collar being severed on both
sides.
A soldier had been meanwhile despatched for a doctor, but the route and
return were quite six miles, and the sinner was sinking fast. Still the
women made efforts to get to see him, but were always rebuffed, and all
the brandy they could find was demanded by the assassin, wrho motioned
for st:ong drink every two minutes. He made frequent desires to be turned over, not by speech, but by gesture, and was alternately placed upon his
back, belly and side. His tremendous vitality evidenced itself almost
miraculously.  Nowand then his heart would cease to throb, and his pulses.
would be as cold as a dead man's. Directly life would begin anew, the
face would flush up. effulgently,.the eyes open and brighten, and soon re lapsing, stillness reasserted, would again be dispossessed by the same mag
nificent triumph of man over mortality.  Finally the fussy little doctor
arrived, in timie to be useless. Hle probed the wound to see if the ball
were not in it, and shook his head sagely.and talked learnedly.
Just at his-coming Booth had asked to have his hands raised and shown
him.  They were so paralyzed that he did not know their location. When
they were displayed he muttered, with a sad lethargy, "Useless, useless."
.These were the last words he ever uttered.  As he began to. die the sun
rose and threw beams into all the tree-tops.  It was of a man's height when
the struggle of death twitched and fingered in the fading bravo's face. His
jaw drew spasmodically and obliquely downward; his eyeballs rolled to ward his feet, and began to swell; lividness, like a horrible shadow, fast ened upon him, and, with a sort of gurgle and sudden check, he stretched
his feet and threw his head back and gave up the ghost.
They' sewed him up in a saddle blanket. This was his shroud; too like
a soldier's. Harold, meantime,. had been'tied to a tree, but was now re leased for the march. Colonel Conger pushed on immediately for Wash.
ii'gton; the cortege was to follow.  Booth's only arms were his carbine.
knife, and two revolvers.  They found about him bills of exchange, Canada
money, and a-diary.  A venerable old negro living in the vicinity had the
misfortune to possess a horse.  This horse was a relic of former genes
tions, and showed by his protruding ribs the general leanness of the land.
Ilie moved in an eccentric amble, and when put upon his speed was genes ally run backward.  To this old ne,ro's horse was harnessed a very shaky
and absurd wagon, which rattled' like approaching dissolution, and each part
of it ran without ally connection or correspondence with any other part It
had no tail-board, and its shafts were sharp as famnine;'and into this mnimicry
el a vehicle the murderer was to be sent to the Potomac river, while the 
38       TA# Life, Crime, and  Caphtre of John  Wstke# Booth.
man he bad murdered was moving in state aecross the mourning continent.
The old negro geared up his wagon by means of a set of fossil harness, and
when it was backed to Garrett's porch, they laid within it the discolored
corpse. The corpse was tied with ropes around the legs and made fast to.'
the wagon sides. Harold's legs were tied to stirrups, and he was placed in
the centre of four murderous looking cavalrymen.  The two sons of Gar  rett were also taken along, despite the sobs and petitions of the old folks and
women, but the rebel captain who had giren Booth a lift, got oftl amidst the
night's agitations, and was not rearrested.  So moved the cavalcade of re  tribution, with death in its midst,.along the road to Port Royal.  When
the wagon started, Booth's wound till now scaecely dribbling, began to run
anew.  It fell through the crack of the wagon, dripping upon the axle, and
spotting the road with terrible w'afers. It stained the planks, and soaked
the blankets; and the old negro, at a stoppage, dabbled his hands in it by
mistake; he drew back instantly, with a shudder  and stifled expletive,
"Gor-r-r, dat'11 never come off in de world; it's murderer's blood."  He
wrung his hands, and looked imploringly at the officers, and shuddered
again: "Gor-r-r, I wouldn't'have dat on me fur tousand, tousand dollars."
The progress of the team was slow, with frequent danger of shipwreck
altogether, but toward noon the cortege filed through Port Royal, where
the citizens came out to ask the matter, and why a man's body, covered
with sombre blankets, was going by with so great escort.  They were told
that it was a wounded confederate, and so held their tongues. The little
ferry, again in requisition, took them over by squads, and they pushed'from
Port Conway to Bell Plain, which they reached in the middle of the after
noon.  All the way the blood dribbled from the corpse in a slow, incessant,
sanguine exudation.  The old niegro was niggardly dismissed with two
paper dollars.  The dead man utitied and cast upon the vessel's deck, steam
gotten up in a little whilei and the broad Potonmac shores saw this skeleton
ship flit by, as the bloody sun- threw gashes and blots of unhealthy light
along the silver surface.
All the way associate with the-carcass, went Harold, shuddering' in so
grim  companionship, and in the awakened fears of his own approaching
ordeal, beyond which it loomed already, the g(;ssamer fabric of a scaffold.
He tried to talk for his own exoneration, saying he had ridden, as was his
wont, beyond the East Brancel, and returning, found Booth wounded, who
begged him to be his companion.   Of his crime he knew nothir.g, so help
him  God, &c.  But nobody  listened to him.   All interest of crime,
co)urage, and retribution centered in the dead flesh at his feet. At Wash.
iPgton, high and low turned out to look on Booth.  Only a few were permitted to see his corpse for purposes of recognition.  It was fairly' preserved, though on one -side of the face distorted, and looking blue-1ikl
death, and wildly bandit-like, as if bearen by avenging winds.
Yesterday the Secretary of War,'without instructions of any kind, corm
mitted to Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, of the secret service, the stark corpse
of J. Wilkes Booth.  The secret.service never fulfilled its volition more
secretively.  "What have you lone with the body?" said I to Baker.
"That is known" he answered, "to only one man living besides myself.
It is gone. I will not tell you where. The only man ho knows is sworn
to silence.   Never till the great trumpeter comes shall the grave of
Booth be discovered."  And this is'true.  Last night, the 27th of April, a
small row boat received the carcass of the murderer; two men were in it,
they carried the body off into the darkness, and out of that darkness it will
never return. In the darkness, like his grcat crime, may it remain forever,
I 
XA Solusm. of as ac.
unimpalpable, invible, nondescript, condemned to that worse than dame
tion,-annihilation   The river.ottom  may ooze  about It laden  with
great shot and drowning manacles. The earth may have opened to give it
that silence and forgiveness which man will never give its memory. The
fishes may swim around it, or the daisies grow white above it; but we
shall never know.  Mysterious, incomprehensible, unattainable, like the
dim times through which we live and think upon as if we only dreamed
them in perturbed fever, the assassin of a nation's head rests somewhere
in the elements, and that is all; but if the indignant seas or the profaned
turf shall ever vomit his corpse from their recesses, and it receive humane
or Christian burial from some who do not recognize it, let the last words
those decaying lips ever uttered be carved above them with a dagger, to
tell the history of a young and once promising lif -selk!  elet!
LETTER V.
A SOLUTION OF THE CONSPIOY.
The annexed Letter, which has been cavillcd at, as much as oopled,'i a rationale''
the Conspiracy, combined from the Government's own officers.  When it was writte n  h
was believed to be true: the evidence at the trial has confirmed much of it: I reprint it
to show how mem's ingenuities were at work to account for the oonoeption and progress
of the Plot.]
WAsariTov, May 2.
Justice and fame are equally and simultaneously satisfied.  The President is not yet in his sarcophagus, but all the conspirators against his life,
with a minor exception or two, are in their prison cells waiting for thel
halter.
The dark and bloody plot against a good ruler's life is now so fully un
raveled that I may make it plain to you. There is nothing to be gained
by further waiting; the trials are proceeding; the evidence is mountain
high.  Within a week the national scaffold will have done its work, and
be laid away forever.' This prompt and necessary justice will signal the
last public assassination in America. Borgia, and Medici, and BrinvilUiers,
lhave left no descendants on this side of the world.
The conspiracy was both the greatest and the smallest of our cycle.
Narrowed in execution to a few, it was understood and connived at by a
multitude.  Ofie man was its head and heart; its accessories were  so Gus
merous that the trouble is not whom to suspect, but whom not accuse.
Damning as the result must be to the character of our race, it must be
admaitted, in the light of facts, that Americans are as secretive and as
skillful plotters as any people in the world. The Rye House plot, never
tully understood; the many schemes of Mazzini, never fastened upon him
sufficiently well for implication, yield in extent, darkness'and intricacy, to
the republican plot against the President's life and those of his coun'selors.
The police operations prove that the late murder,as not a spasmodio
and fitful crime, but long premeditated, and carried to consummation with
as much cohesion and resolution as the murder of Allossandro de Media
or Henri Quatre.
I have been accused of cannonizing Booth. Much as I denounce and de.
Irecate his crime-holding him to be worthy of all execration, and so
-.eped in blood that the excuses of a eentiry will fiail to lift him out of
31) 
40       The Lisf, Crim,, and Capture of John Wilke  BooA..
the atmosphere of common  felonsI still, at every new developement,
stand farther back in surprise and terror at the wonderful resources and
extraordinary influence of one whom I had learned to consider a' mere
Thespian, full of sound, fury, ard assertion.
Strange and anomalous as the facts may seem, John Wilkes  Booth
was the sole projector of the plot-against the President which culminated
in the taking of that good  mnan's life.  He had rolled under his tongue
the sweet paragraphs of Shakspeare- refering to Brutus, as had his father so
well, that the old man named one son Junius Brutus, and the other John
Wilkes, after the wild English agitator, until it became'his ambition, like
the wicked Lorenzino de MIedici, to stake his life upon one stroke for fame,
the murder of a ruler obnoxious to the South.
That Wilkes Booth was a southern man from the first may be accounted
for upon grounds of interest as well as of sympathy.  It is insidious to find
no higher incentive than.appreciation, bus on the stage this is the first and
* last motive; and as Edwin Booth made his success in the North and re mained steadfast, Wilkes Booth was most truly applauded in the South,
and became rebel.  A false emotion of'-gratitude, -as well as an impulse
of mingled waywardness and gratitude, set John Wilkes's face from the
first toward  the  North, and  he burned  to  make  his name  a part
of history, cried into famrne by the applauses of the South.
He hung to his bloody suggestion with dogged inflexibility, maintaining
only one axiom above all the rest-hat wha-te ver minor parts might be en.
acted-Casca, Cassius, or what not-he was to be the dramatic Brutus, ex.
cepting that assassin's'negativeness. Int other words,.the idea was to be his
own, as well as' the crowning blow.
Booth shrr.nk at first from murder, until another and less dangerous res.
olution failc4.  This was no less than the capture of the President's body,
and its detention or transportation to the South.  I do not rely on this as.
serltionii upon his sealed letter, where he avows it; there has been found upon
a street within the city limits, a house belonging to one MIrs. Greene; mined
and furnished with underground apartme'nts,. manacles and all the accessor.
ies to private imprisonment.. Here the President, and as many as could
. be gagged and conveyed away with him, were to be concealed in the event
of failure to run them into the confederacy. Owing to his failure to group
around him as many men as he desired, Booth abandoned the project of
kidnapping; but the house was discovered last week, as represented, ready
to be blown up at a moment's notice.
It was at this time that Booth devised his triumphant route through the
South. The dramatic element seems to have been never lacking in his
design, and with all his base purposes he never failed to consider some sub
sequent notoriety to be enjoyed. He therefore shipped, before the end of
1864, his theatrical wardrobe from Canada to Nassau.  After the commis.  sion of his crime he intended to reclaim it, and " star" through the South,
drawing money as much by his crime as his abilities.
When Booth began "on his own responsibility," to hunt for accomplices,
he found his theory at fault, The bold men he had dreamed of refused to
join him in the rash attempt at- kidnapping'the President, and were too
conscientious to meditate murder.  All those who presented themselves 
were military men, unwilling to be subordinate to a civilian, and a mere
play-actor, and the mortified bravo found himself' therefore compelled to
sink to a pettv rank in the plot, or to make use of base and despicable
assistants.  Htis vanity found it easier to compound with the second alter
native than the first. 
i blut,tso of t Coo.  o
Here began the first resolve, which, in its mere animal estate,     may
name courage. Booth found that a tragedy in real life could no more be
enacted without greasy-faced and knock-kneed supernumeraries than upon
the mimic stage.  Your "First Citizen,*' who  swings a stave for Maro
Antony, and drinks hard porter behind the flies is very like the bravo of
real life, who murders between his cocktails at the nearest bar. Wilkes
Booth had passed the ordeal of a garlicky green-room, and did not shrink
from the broader and ranker green-room of real life. He assembled
around him, one by one, the cut-throats at whom his soul would have re
volted, except that he had become, by resolve, a cutthroat in himself.
About this time certain gentlemen in Canada began to be unenviably
known. I abstain from giving their names, because unaware of how fiar
they seconded -this crime, if at all. But they seconded as infamous things,
such as cowardly raids from neutral territory into the states, bank robbings,
lake pirating, city burning, counterfeiting, railway sundering, and the im
portation of yellow fever into peaceful and unoffending communities. I
make no charges against those whom. I do not know, but simply say that
the confederate agents, Jacob Tompson, Larry McDonald, Clement Clay,
and some others, had already accomplished enough villainy to make Wilkes
Booth, on the first of the present year, believe that he had but to seek an
interview with them.
lie visited the provinces once certainly, and three times it is believed,
stoppintig in Montreal at St. Lawrence Hall, and banking four hundred and
fifty-five dollars odd at the Ontario, bank.  This was his own money.   I
have myself seen his bank-book with the single entry of this amount.  It
was found in the room of Atzerott, at Kirkwood's Hotel. From this visit,
whatever encouragement Booth received, he continued in systematic cor respondence with one or more of those agents down to the commission of
his crime. I dare not say hotr far each of these agents was implicated.
My personal conviction is that they were neither loth to the murder nor
astonished when it had been done. They had money with discretion from
the confederacy, though acting at discretion and outside of responsibility,
and always, at every wild adventure, they instructed their dupes that each
man took his life in his hand on every incursion into the north.' So Beale
took his, raiding on the great lakes. So Kennedy took his, on a midnight
bonfire-tramp into the metropolis.  So took the St. Albans raiders their
lives in their palms, dashing into a peaceful town.  And if these agents
entertained Wilkes Booth's suggestion at all they plainly told him that he
carried his life in his dagger's edge, and could expect from them neither
aid nor exculpation.
Some one or all of these agents furnished Booth with a murderer.  -The
fellow Wood or Payne, who stabbed Mr. Seward and was caught at MIs.
Surratt's house in Washington. Hle was one of three Kentucky brothers,
all outlaws, and had himself, it is believed, accompanied one of his brothers,
who is known to have been at St. Albans on the day of the bank-delivery.
This Payne, besides being positively identified as the assassin of the
Sewards, had no friends nor haunts in Washington.   Ile was simply a dis patched murderer, and after the night of the crime, struck northward of
the frontier, instead of southward in the company of Booth.  The proo4
of this will follow in the course' of the article.
While I assert that the Canadian agents knew Booth and patted his back,
oalUing him, like Macbeth, the "prince of cut throats," I anim equally cer  tain that Booth's project was unknown in Richmond.   No word, nor writ,
ten!ine.-Po clue of ary,ort has been found attaching Booth to the contester
41 
42      2le Lije, Crime, and Captre of  ohn Wilkes Booth.
ate authorities.  The most that can be urged to meet prepoaterous claims
of this sort is, that out of the rebellion grew the murder; which is like
attributing the measles to the creation of man, But Mlebonald and his
party had money at discretion, and under their control the vilest fellows
on tne continent. Their personal influence over those errant ones amount ed to omnipotence. Most of the latter were young and sanguine people,
like Beale an.d Booth; their plots were made up at St. Catharine's, Toronto,
Lnd Montre 1, and they have maintained since the war began, rebel mail
routes between Canada and Richmond, leading directly passed Washington.
If Booth received no positive instructions, he was at any rate adjudged
a man likely to be of use, and therefore introduced to the rebel agencies
in and around Washington. Doubtless by direct letter, or verbal instruce.
tion, he received a password to the house of Mrs. Surratt.
Half applauded, half rebuffed by the rebel. agents in Canada, Booth's
impressions of.his visit were just those which would whet him soonest for
the tragedy. His vanity had been fed by the assurance that success depended upon' himself alone, and that as he had the resp(o.sibility he would.
absorb the fame; and the method of correspondence was of that dark and
mysterious shape which powerfully operated upon his dramatic temperament.
What could please an actor, and the son of an actor, better than. to min.
gle as a principal in a real conspiracy, the aims of which were pseudopatriotic, and the end so astounding that at its coming the whole globe
would reel. Booth reasoned that theancient world would not feel more
sensitively the death of Julius Cesar than the new the sudden taking off
of Abraham Lincoln.
And so he grew into the idea of murder.  It became his business thought
It was his recreation and his study. Ite had not worked half so hard for
histrionic success as for his terrible graduation into an assassin. Hle had
fought often on'the boards, and seen men die in well-imitated horror, with
flowNing, blood upon his keen sword's edge, and the strong stride of mimio
victory with which he flourished his. weapon at the closing of the curtain.
He embraced conspiracy.like an old diplomatist, and found in the woman
and the spot subjects for emulation.
Southeast of Washin'gton stretches a tapering peninsula, composed of
. four fertile counties, which at the remote.tip make Point Lookout, and do
not contain any town within them of more than a few hundred inhabitants.
Tobacco has ruined the land of these, and slavery has ruined the.people.
Yet in the beginning they. were of that splendid stock of Calvert and Lord
Baltimore, but retain today only the religion of the peaceful founder.  I
mention it is'an exceptional and remarkable fact, that every conspirator in
custody is'by education a Catholic. These are our most loyal citizens else.
where, but the western shore of Maryland is a noxious and pestilential place
for patriotism. The county immediately outside of the District of Columbia,
to the south, is named Prince Gorgia's and the pleasantest village of this
county, close to Washington, is called Surrattsville.  This. consists of a
few cabins at a cross-road, surrounding a fine old hotel, the master whereof,
giving the settlement his na-m, left the property to his *ife, who for a long
time carried it on with indifferent success. Having a son and several
daughters, she moved to Washington soon after the beginning of the war
and let the tavern to a trusty friend-one John'Lloyd.. Surrattsville has
gained nothing in patronage or business from the war, except that it became
at an early date, a rebel postoffice.  The great secret mail from Matthias
Creek, Virginia, to Port Tobacco, struck Surrattsville, and thence headed 
.A  olimt" of M Myat".
off to the east to Washington, going meanderingly nortLh. Of this'
route Mrs. Burratt was a manageress; and John Lloyd, when he rentd
her hotel, assumed the responsibility of looking out for the mail, as well
the duty of making Mrs. Surratt at home when she chose to visit him.
So Surrattsville only ten miles from Washington, has been throughout
the war a sect of conspiracy.  It was like a suburb of Richmond, reaching
uite up to the rival capital; and though the few Unionists on the peninsula
knew its' reputation well enough, nothing of the sort came out until the
murder.
Treason never found a better agent than Mrs. Surratt. She is a large,
masculine, self-possessed female, mistress of her house, and as lithe a rebel
as Belle Boyd or Mrs. Greenhough. She has not the flippanhtry and menace
of the first, nor the social power of the second; but the rebellion has found
no fitter agent.
At her country.tavern and Washington' home Booth was made welcome,
and there began the muttered murder against the nation and mankind.
The acquaintance of Mrs. Surratt in Lower Maryland undoubtedly suggested to Booth the route of escape,.and made him known to his subse
quent accomplices. Last fall he visited the entire region. as far as
Leonardstown, in St. Mary's county, professing to be in search of land but
really hunting up confederates upon whom he could depend. At this time
he bought a map, a.fellow to which I have seen among Atzerott's effects
published at Buffalo for the rebel government, and marking at haphazard
all the Maryland villages, but without tracing the highroads at all. The
absence of these roads, it will be seen hereafter, very nearly misled Booth
during his crippled flight.
It could not but have struck Booth that this isolated part of Maryland
ignorant and rebel to the brim, without telegraph or railways, or direct
stage routes, belted with swamps and broken by dense timber, afforded
extraordinary opportunities for shelter and escape. Only the coast survey
had any adequate map of it; it was ultima thule to all intents, and treason
might subsist in welcome upon it for a thousand years.
When Booth cast around him for assistance, he naturally selected those
men Whom he could control. The first H.iat recommended himself was one
Harold, a youth of inane'and plastic character, carried away by the example
of an actor, and full of execrable quotations, going to show that he was an
imitator of the master spirit both in text and admiration. This Harold
was a gunner, and therefore versed in arms; he had traversed the whole
lower portion of Maryland, and was therefore a geographer as well as a
tool.  His friends lived at every farmhouse between WVashington and
Leonardsville, and he was respectably enough connected, so as to make his
association creditable as well as useful.
Harold,. whose picture I have seen, is a dull-faced, shallow boy, smoothhaired, and provincial; he had no money nor employment, except that he
clerked for a druggist a while, until he knew Wilkes Booth, who looked at
him only once, and bought his soul for a smile.  Harold was infatuated by
Booth as a woman by a soldier. Ile copied his gait and tone, adopted his
opinions, and was unhappy out of his society. Booth gave him money,
mysteriously obtained, and together they made the acquaintance of young
John Surratt, son of the conspiratress.  Young Surratt does not appear to have been a puissant spirit in the
scheme; indeed, all design and influence therein was absorbed by Mrs.
Surratt and Booth.  The latter was the head and heart of the plot; Mrs.
S'irratt was his anchor, and the rest of the boys were disciples to Iscariot
s
'43 
4    T    e Lfife, iOne, and Capture of/ John  Wilkes Booth.
and Jezebel. John Surratt, a youth of strong Southern physiognoDIy,
beardless and lanky, knew of the. murder and connived at it.  " Samn
Arnold and one McLaughlin were to have been parties to it, but backed
out in the end.  They all relied upon Mrs. Surratt, and took their " uep"
from Wilkes Booth.
The conspiracy had its own time and kept its own counsel.  Murder
except among the principals, was seldom mentioned except by genteel im
plication. But they all publicly agreed that Mir. Lincoln ought to be shot,
and that the North was a race of fratricides. Much was said of Brutus,
and Booth repeated heroic passages to the delight of Harold, who learned
them also, and wondered if he was not born to greatness.
In this growing darkness, where all rehearsed cold-hearted murder,
Wilkes Booth grew great of stature.  lie had found a purpose consonant
with his evil nature and bad influence over weak men; so he grew moodier,
more vigilant, more plausible By mien and temperament he was born to
handle a stiletto.  WVe have no face so markedly Italian; it would stand
for Cmsar Borgia any day in the year. All..the rest were swayed or per.
suaded by Booth; his schemes were three in order:
1st. To kidnap the President and'Cabinet, and run them South or blow
them up.
2(d. Kidnapping failed, to murder the President and the rest and seek
shelter in the confederate capital.
3d. The rebellion failed, to be its avenger, and throw the country into
consternation, while he escaped by the unfrequented parts of Maryland.
When this last resolution had been made, the.plot was both contracted
and extended.  There were made two distinct circles of confidantsthose
aware of the meditated murder, and those who might shrink from murder,
though willing accessories for a lesser object. Two colleagues for blood
were at once accepted-Payne and Atzerott.
The former I have sketched; he is' believed to have visited Washington
once before, at Booth's citation; for the murder was at first fixed for the
day of inauguration. Atzerott was a fellow of German descent, who had
led a desperate life at Port Tobacco, where he was a house-painter.  He
had been a blockade-runner across the Potomac, and a mail-carrier.
When Booth and Mirs. Su'rratt broke the design to him, with a suggesti'a
that there was wealth in it, he embraced the offer at once, and bought a
dirk and pistol.  Payne also came from the North  to Washington, and,
as fate would have it, the President was announced to appear at Ford's
theater in public. There the resolve of blood was reduced to a definite
moment.
On the night before the crime Booth found on whom he could rely.
John'Surratt was sent northward by his mother on Thursday.  Sam
Arnold and McLaughlin, each of whom was to kill a cabinet officer, grew
pigeon-livered and ran away.  Harold true to his partiality, lingered
around Booth to the end; Atzerott went so far as to take his knife and
pistol to Kirkwood's, where President Johnson was stopping, and hid themiu
under the bed. But either his courage failed, or a trifling accident'e.
rang,ed his plan.  But Payne, a professional murderer, stood "game," and
fought his way over prostrate figures to his sick victim's bed.  There was
great confusion and terror among the tacit and rash conspirators on Thur&
y night.  They had looked upon the plot as of a melodrama, and found
to their horror that John Wilkes Booth meant to do murder.
Six weeks before the murder, young John Surratt had taken two  splen
did "peating carbines to Surrattville and told John Lloyd to secret them. 
A Su of  da yst".
ri'  latter made a hole in the wainotting aid   pended them  fiorm
strings, so that they fell within the plastered wall of the room below. On
,he very afternoon of the murder, Mrs. Burratt was driven to Surrattsville,
and she told John Lloyd to have the carbines ready because they would
be called for that night. Harold was made quartermaster, and hired the
horses. He and Atzerott were mounted between 8 o'clock and the time
of the murder, and riding about the streets together.
The whole party was prepared for a long ride, as their spurs and gaunt
lets show.  It may have been their design to ride in company to the Lower
Potomac, and by their numbers exact subsistence and transportation; but
all edifices of murder lack a corner stone. We only know that Booth ate
and talked well during the day; that he never seemed so deeply involved
in' oil," and that there is a hiatus between his supper here and his appearance at Ford's theater.
Lloyd, I may interpolate, ordered his wife a few days before the murder
to go on a visit to Allen's Fresh.  She says she does not know why she
was so sent away, but swears that it is so. Harold, three weeks before the
murder, visited Port Tobacco, and said that the next time the bo) s heard
of him he would be in Spain; he added that with Spain there was no extradition treaty.  He said at Surrattsville that he meant to make a barrel of
money, or his neck wouild stretch.
Atzerott said that if Ihe ever came to Port Tobacco again he would be
rich enough to buy the whole place.
Wilkes Booth told a friend to go to Ford's on Friday night and see the
best acting in the world.
At Ford's theater, on Friday night, there were many standers in the
neighborhood of the door, and along the dress circle in the direction cf thi
private box where the President sat.
The play went on pleasantly, though Mr. Wilkes Booth an observer of
the audience, visited the.stage and took note of the positions. His alleged
associate, the stage carpehter, then received quiet orders to clear the pi
sage by the wines from the prompter's post to the stage door. All this
time, Mr. Lincoln, in his family circle, unconscious of the death that crowded fast upon him, watched the pleasantry and smiled and felt heartful of
gentleness.
Soddenly there was a murmur near the audience door, as of a man
speaking above his bound. He said:
"Nine o'clock and forty-five minutes!"
These words were reiterated from mouth to mouth until they passed the
theater door, and were heard upon the sidewalk.
Directly a voice cried, in.the same slightly-raised monotone:
"Nine o'clock and fifty minutes-!"
This also passed from man to man, until it touched the street like a
shudder.
"Nine o'clock and fifty-five minutesJ" said the same relentless voide
after the next interval, each of which narrowed to a lesser span the life o
the good President.
Ten o'clock here sounded, and conspiring echo said in reverberation:
"Ten o'clock!"
So like a creeping thing, from.  Ip to lip, went:
" Ten o'clock and five minutes."
(An interval.)
"Ten o)'clock and ten minutes I"
At this instal Wilkes Booth appeared in the door of the theater, ad
413
I ,, 
t(     AL.e ZV*, Crinw, and Oapture of JoAn Withy Boo9.
the men who had repeated the time so faithfully and so ominously  catters
at his coming, as at some warning phantom.  Fifteen minutes  afterwrv   s
the telegraph wires were cut.
All this is so dramatic that I fear to excite a laugh when 1 write it. But
it is true and proven, and I do not say it but report it.
All evil deeds go wrong.  While the click of the pistol, taking the
President's life, went like a pang through the theater, Payne was splling
blood in Mr. Seward's house from threshold to sick chamber.  But
Booth's broken leg delayed him or mnade him lose his general calmness
and he and Harold left Payne to his fate.
I have not adverted to the hole bored with a gimlet in the entry door
of Mir. Lincoln's box, and cut out with a penknife.  The theory that the
pistol-ball of Booth passed through this hole is exploded.  And the stage
carpenter may have to answer for this little orifice with all his neck.  For
when Booth leaped from the box he strode straight across the stage by
the footlights, reaching the prompter's post, which is immediately behind
that private box opposite Mr. Lincoln.  From this box to the stage dotor
in the rear, the passage-way leads behind the ends of the scenes, and is
generally either closes up by one or more withdrawn scenes, or so narrow
that only by doubling and turning sidewise can one pass along.  On this
fearful night, however, the scenes were so adjusted to the murderer's design that he had a free aisle from the foot of the stage tothe exit door.
Within fifteen minutes after the murder the wires were severed entirely
around the city, excepting only a secret wire for government uses, which
leads to Old Point. I am told that by this wire the government reached
the fortifications aroinrd Washington, first telegraphing all the way to Old
Point, and then back to the outlying forts.  This information comes to me
from s) many creditable channels that I must concede it.
Payne, having, as he thought, made an end of Mr.  Seward-which
would have  been the case  but for Robinson, the nurse-mounted his
horse, and attempted to find Booth.  But the town was in alarm, and he
galloped. at once for the open country, taking as he imagined, the proper
road for the East Branch.  He rode at a killing pace, and when  near
Fort Lincoln, on the Baltimore pike, his horse threw him headlong. Afoot
and bewildered, he resolved to return to the city, whose lights he could
plainly see; but before doing so he concealed himself some time, and
-made some almost absurd efforts to disguise himself.  Cutting a cross
.ection from the woolen undershirt which covered his muscular arm, he
made a rude cap of it, and threw away his bloody coat. This has since
been found in the wo6ds, and blood has been found also on his bosom and
sleeves.. He also spattered himself plentifully with mud  and clay, and,
taking an abandoned pick from the deserted intrenchments near by, he
struck at once for Washington.
By the providence whieh always attends murder, he reached Mrs. Sur.
ratt's door just as the officers 9f the government were arresting her.
They seized Payne at once, who hid an awakward lie to urge in his de fense-that he had come there to dig a trench. That night he dug a trench
deep and broad enough fqr both of them to lie in forever.  They washed
lihis hands, and found them soft and womanish; his pockets contained
tooth and nail brushes and.a delicate pket knife.  All this apparel co sorted ill with his assumed character.  He is, without doubt, Mr. Seward'.
attempted murderer.
Coarse, and hard, and calm, Mrs. Surratt shut up her house after the
murder, and waited with her daughters.till the officers carn.. She was im 
A Bongs of &U.Mv,#.
per,urbble, id rebuked her girls for weeping, and would have gone to
i11 like a statue, but that in her extremity, Payne knooked at her door.
.11 had come, he said, to dig a ditch for Mrs. Surratt, whom he very well
knew. But Mrs. Surratt protested that she had ever seen the man at all,
and had no ditch to clean.
"How fortunate, girls," she said, "that these officers are here; this
man might have murdered us all."
Her effrontery stamps  her as worthy of companionship  with Booth.
Payne has been identified by a lodger of Mrs. Surratt's, as having twice
visited the house under the name of Wood. The girls will render valuable testimony in the trial.  If John Surratt were in custody the links would
be complete.
Atzerott had a room almost directly over Vice-PresidentJohnson's. He
had all the materials to do murder, but lost spirit or opportunity.  He rn
away so80 hastily that all his arms.and bagcgage were discovered; a tremendous bowie-knife and a Colt's cavalry revolver were fouand between the
mattresses of his bed.  Booth's coat was also found there, showing conspired flight in company, and in it three boxes of cartridges, a map of
Maryland, gauntlel- for riding, a spur and a handkerchief marked with the
name of Booth's mother-a mother's souvenir for a murderer's pocket!
Atzerott fled alone, and was found at the house of his uncle in Montgomery county. I do not know that any instrument of murder has ever made
me thrill as when I drew this terrible bowie-knife from its sheath.  Major
O'Bierno, of New-York, was the instigator of Atzerott's discovery and
arrest.
I come now to the ride-out of the city by the chief assassin and his dupe.
Harold met Booth immediately after the crime in the next street, and
they rode at a gallop past the Patent Office and ever Capitol Hill.
As they crossed the Eastern branch at Uniontown, Booth gave his propel
name to the officer at the bridge. This, which would seem to have been
foolish, was, in reality, very shrewd.  The officers believed that one of
Booth's accomplices had given this name in order to put them out of the
real Booth's track. So they made efforts elsewhere, and so Booth got a
stark  At midnight, precisely, the two horsemen stopped at Surrattsville,
Booth remaining on his nag while Harold descended and knocked lustily at
the door. Lloyd, the landlord, came down at once, when Harold pushed
past him into the bar, and obtained a bottle of whiskey, some of which he
gave to Booth immediately.  While Booth was drinking, Harold went up
stairs and brought down one of the carbines. Lloyd started to get the
other, but Harold said:
"We don't want it; Booth has broken his leg and can't carry. it."
So the second carbine remained in the hall, where the officers afterward
found it.
As the two horsemen started to go off, Booth cried out to Lloyd:
"Do you want to hear some news I"
"I don't care much about it," cried Lloyd, by his own aount.
"We have murdered," said Booth, "the Pres:dent and Secretary ot
State!"'
And with this horrible confession, Booth and Har)old dashed away in the
midnight, across Prince George's county.
On Saturday, before sunrise, Booth and Harold, who had ridden all night
without stopping elsewhere, reached the house of Dr. Mudd, three miles
from Bryantow. They contracted with him  for twenty-five dollars in
greenbacks to set the broken leg. Harold, wh~ know Dr. Mudd, intrc.
a
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6 
~48          Life, Crime, and Capture of JoAn Wilke BootA.
duoed Booth under another name, and stated that he had fallen from his
horse during the night.  The doctor remarked of Booth that he draped the
lower part of his face while the leg was being set; he was silent, and in
pain. Having no splits in the house, they split up an old-fashioned wooden
lbaId-box and prepared them.  The doct)r was assisted by an Englishman,
who at the same time began to hew out a pair of crutches.  The inferior
bone of the left leg was broken vertically across, and because vertically it
did not yield when the crippled man walked upon it.
The riding boot of Booth had to be cut fi'om his foot.; within were the
words "J. WVilkes."  The doctor says he did not notice these, but that
visual defect may cost him his neck.  The two men waited around the house
all day, but toward evening they slipped their horses from the stable and
rode away in the direction of Allen's Fresh.
Below Bryantown run certain deep and slimy swamps, along the belt of
these Booth and Harold p:.ked up a negro named Swan, who volunteered
to show them the road for two dollars; they gave him five more to show
them the route to Allen's Fresh, but really wished, as their actions intimated, to gain the house of one Sam. Coxe, a notorious rebel, and probably
well advised of the plot.  They reached the house at midnight.  lt is a
fine dwelling, one of the best in Mfaryland.  And after hallooing for some
time, Coxe came down to the door himself. As soon as he opened it and
beheld who the strangers were, he instantly blew out a candle he held in his
hand, and without a word pulled them into the house, the negro remaining
in the yard.  The confederates remained in C,xe's house till 4 A. M., during
which time the negro saw them drink and eat heartily; but when they reappeared they spoke in a loud tone, so that Swan could hear them, against
the hospitality of Coxe. All this' was meant, to influence the darkey; but
their motives were as apparent as their words. He conducted them three
mniles further on, when they told him  that now they knew the way, and
giving, him five dollars more-making twelve in all-told him to go back.
But when the negro, in the dusk of the morning, looked after them as he
receded, he saw that both horses' heads were turned once more toward
Coxe's, and it was this man, doubtless, who harbored the fugitives from
Sunday to Thursday, aided, possibly, by such neighbors as the Wilsons and
.Adamses.
At the point where Booth crossed the Potomac the shores are very shallow, and one must wade out some distance to where a boat will float.  A
white man came up here with a canoe on Friday, and tied. it by a stone
anchor.  Between seven and.eig,ht o'clock it disappeared, and in the afternoon some men at work inf Virginia, saw Booth and Harold land, tie the
boat's rope to a stone, and fling it ashore, and strike at once across a
ploughed field for King George Court house.'Many folks entertained them
without doubt, but we positively hear of them next at Port Royal Ferry,
and then at Garrett's farm.
I close this artiole with a list of all who were at Garrett's farm on the
death of Booth.
1. E. J. Conger,  Detectives.
2. Lieut. Baker,  Detectives.
3. Surgeon from Port Royal,
4. Four Garrett daughters.               *
5. Harold, Booth's accomplice,
Soldiers.-Company' H, Sixteenth New-York Volunteer Cavalry, Lie.
enlant Ed. P. Doherty commandming: Corporals A. Neugarten, J. Walye
f. liornisby: Privates J. Mellington. D..Barker, E. Parelays, W. Mock. 
h Demtcve BAw.
- Corporals -immer (Co. C), M. Taenaek; Privatea  L Pardian,
J. eiyers, W. Burnn, F. Meekdank, G. Haich, J. Raien, J. Kelly, J.
Samger (Co. M), G. Zeichton, -Steinbury, L. Sweech (Co. A), A. Sweech
(Co. ), F. Diacts; Sergeant Wandell; Corporals Lannekey, Winacky
Sergeant Corbett (Co. L).
Sergeant Corbett, who shot Booth, was the only man of the command
belonging to the same company with LIeutenant Doherty, Commandant.
LETTER VI.
THE DETECTIVEB' 8TOIL
WASHINGTO', May  -P. IL
The police resources of the country have been fairly tested during the
past two weeks. Under the circumstances, the shrewdness and energy of
both municipal and national detectives have been proven good. The latter
body has had a too partial share of the applause thus far, while the great
efforts of our New-York and other officers have been overlooked. In the
crowning success of Doherty, Conger, and Baker on the Virginia side of
the water we have forgotten the as vigorous and better sustained pursuit
on the Maryland side.
Yet the Secretary of War has thanked all concerned, especially referring
to many excellent leaders in the long hunt through Charles and St. Mary's
counties. Here the military and civil forces together amounted to quite a
small army, and constituted by far the largest police organization ever
known on this side of the Atlantic. -
I think the adventures and expedients of these public servants worthyof
a column. It would be out of all proportion to pass them by when we
devote a dozen lines to every petty larceny and shoplifting.
Or  the Friday night of the murder the departments were absolutely
paralyzed. The murderers had three good hours for escape; they had
evaded the pursuit of lightning by snapping the telegraph wires, and rumor
filled the town with so many reports that the first valuable hours, which
should have been used to follow hard after them, were consumed in feverish
~fforts to know the real extent ot the assassination.
Immediately afterwards, however, or on Saturday morning early, the
provost and special police force got on the scent, and military in squads
were dispatched close upon their heels.
Three grand pursuits were organized: one Teaching up the north bank
of the Potomao toward Chain bridge, to prevent escape by that direction
into Virginia, where Mosby, it was suspected, waited to hail the murderers;
A second starting from Richmond, Va., northward, forming a broad
advancing picket or skirmish line between the Blue Ridge and the br.d
sea-running streams;
A third to scour the peninsula towards Point Lookout.
The latter region became the only one well examined; the northern xpedition failed until advise& from below to capture Atzerott, and faileid. to
capture Payne.  Yet there were cogent probabilities that the assassin. had
taken this route; f)r Mosby would have given them the right hnd of
fellowship.
4
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4O 
50s., Life, C,me, and Oap,rI.'o/ JoAn Wilke Booth.
When that guerrilla heard of Booth's feat, said Captaun Jett, Dw.
ulaimed:
-i   "Now, by! I could take that man in my arms."
Washington, as a precautionary measure, was doubly picketed at onee,
the authorities in all northern towns advised of the personnel of the mur
derer, and requests made of the detective chiefs in Baltimore, Philadelphia,
and New-York, to forward to Washington without delay their best decoys.
A court of inquiry was organized on the moment, and early in the week
succeeding rewards were offered. An individual, and not the government,
offered the first rewards.
There were two men without whom the hunt would have gone astray
many times.
John S. Young, chief of the New-York detective force, a powerful and
tesolute man, whose great weight and strength are matched by boundless
energy, and both subordinate to a head as clear as the keen and searching
warrant of his eye.  This man has been in familiar converse with every
rebel agent in the Canadas, and is feared by them as they fear the fates of
tleall and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he has probably ren.
dered the cleverest services of the war to the general government.   They
sent for him immediately after the tragedy, and he stopped on the way for
his old police companion, Marshal Murray. The latter's face and figure
are familiar to all who know New-York; he resembles an admiral on his
quarter-deck; he is a detective of fair and excellent repute, and has a some
what novel pride in what he calls "the most beautiful gallows in the
United States."
These officials were ordered to visit Colonel Ingraham'b office and examine
the little es;idence on hand.  They and their tried officers formed a junction
on Sunday afternoon with the large detective force of Provost-Marshal
Major O'Bierne. The latter commands the District of'Columbia civil and
military pol.ice.  lie is a New-Yorker and has been shot through the body
in the field.
The detective force of Young and Murray consisted of Officers Radford,
Kelso, Elder, and It0ey, of New-York; Deputy-Marshal Newcome, for' merly of Tiiz WORLD'S city staff; Officers Joseph Pierson and West, of
Baltimore.
Major O'Bierno's immediate aids were Detectives  John Lee, Lloyd,
Gavigan, Coddingham, and Williams.
A detachnment of the Philadelphia detective police for  Offieers Taggert, George Smith, and Carlin, reporting to Colonel Baker —went in the
direction of the North Pole; everybody is on the que vive for therem.
To the provost-marshal of Baltimore, MacPhail, who knew the tone and
bearing of the country throughout, was joined the zealous co-operation of
Officer Lloyd, of Major O'Bierne's staff, who had a personal feeling'against
the secessionists of lower Maryland; they had once driven him away for
his loyalty, and had reserved their hospitality for assassins.
Lieutenant Commander Cushing, I am informed, also rendered important
services to the governrianent jn connection with the police operations. Vol unteer detectives, such as Ex-M.arshal Lewis and Angelis, were plentiful;
it is probable that in the pitch of the excitement five hundred. detective
officers were in and around Washington city. At-the same time the secret
police of Richmond abandoinel their ordinary business, and devoted them selves solely to this overshadowing offense.
No citizen, in these terrible days, knows-what eyes were upon him ashe
talked and walked, nor how his stature and guise were keenly scanned by
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(olly who pased him absent.fced, yet with his mental portrait  ery
turned over, the while some invisible hand clutched a revolver, and held a
life or death challenge upon his lips.
- The military forces were commanded by Colonel Welles, of the Twenty sixth Michigan regiment, whose activity and zeal were amply sustained by
Colonel- Clendenning, of the Eighth Illinois cavalry, probably the finest
body of horse in the service.
The first party to take the South M]aryland road was dispatched by Ma jor O'Bierhe, and commanded by Lieutenant Lovett, of the Veteran Re.
serves.  It consisted of twenty.five cavalry men, with detectives Cottina
ham, Lloyd, and Gavigan; these latter, with the lieutenant, kept well in
advance. They made inquiries of a soothing and cautious character, but
saw nothing suspicious until they arrived at Piscataway, where an unknown
man, some distance ahead, observed them, and took to the woods. This
was on Sunday night, forty hours after the murder.
Guided by Officer Lloyd, the little band dashed on, arriving at Bryan town on Tuesday. Here they arrested John Lloyd, of the hotel at Surratts
ville, of whom they had previously inquired for the murderers, and he had
said positively that he neither knew them nor had seen anybody whatever
on the night of the crime.  He was returning in a wagon, with his wife,
whom he had ordered, the day before, to go on a visit to Allen's Fresh.
The Monday afterward he started to bring her back.  This woman, frig,ht ened at the arrest, acknowledged at once that in her husband's conduct
there was some inexplicable mystery.  lie was taciturn and defiant as be
fore, until confronted bylsome of his old Union neighbors.
The few Unionists of Prince George's and Charles-counties, long perse cuted and intimidated now came forward and -gave important testimony.
Among these was one Roby, a very fat and very zealous old gentleman,
whose professions were as ample as his perspiration. He told the officers
of the secret meetings for conspiracy's. sake at Lloyd's Hotel, and although
a ~ery John Gilpin on horseback, rode here and there to his great loss of
wind and repose, fastening fire-coals upon the guilty or suspected.
Lloyd was turned over to Mfr. Cottingham, who had established a jail at
.Robytown; that night his house was searched, and Booth's carbine found
hidden in the wall. Three days afterward, Lloyd' himself confessed-and
his neck is quite nervous at this writing.
This little party,- under the untiring Lovett, examined all the farm-houses
below Washington) resorting to man  shrewd expedients, and taking note
of the great swamps to the east of ort Tobacco; they reached Newport
at last and fastened tacit guilt upon many residents.
Beyond Bryantowli they overhauled the residence of Doctor Mudd and
found. Booth's boot. This- was before Lloyd confessed, and was the first
positive trace the officers had that they were really close upon the assa luins.
I do not recall anything more wild and startling than this vague. and dan gerous exploration of a dimly known, hostile, and ignorant country. To
these few detectives we owe much of the subsequent successfl prosecution
oft' the pursuit.  They were the Hebrew spies.
By this time the country was filling up with soldiers, but previously a
second memorable detective party went out under the pers6nal command
of MIjor O'Bierne.  it consisted, besides that officer, of Lee, D'Ang,elli
Callahan, Hoey, Bostwick, Hanover, Bevins, and Mellenry, and embarked
at Washington on a steam-tug for Chappell's Point.  Here a military sta  tion had long been established for the. prevention of blockade and mail-rs
eve   A.           --
51
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52     Th Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Boos.
ning across the Potomac.  It was commanded by Lieutenant Laverty, and
garrisoned by sixty-five men. On Tuesday night, Major O'Bierne's party
reached this place, and soon afterwards, a telegraph station was established
here by an invaluable man to the expedition, Captain Beckwitn, General
Grant's chief cypher operator, who tapped the Point Lookout wire, and
placed the War Department within a moment's reach of the theater of
events.
Major O'Bierne's party started at once over the worst road in the world
for Port Tobacco.
If any place in the world is utterly given over to depravity, it is Port
Tobacco. From this town, by a sinuous creek, there is flat boat navigation
to the Potomac, and across that river to Mattox's creek.  Before the war
Port Tobacco was the seat of a tobacco aristocracy and a haunt of negro
traders. It passed very naturally into a rebel post for blockade-runners
and a rebel post-office general.  Gambling, corner fighting, and shooting
matches were its lyceum education.  Violence and ignorance had every saffrage in the town.  Its people were smugglers, to all intents, and there was
neither Bible nor geography to the whole region adjacent.  Assassination
was never very unpopular at Port Tobacco, and when its victim was a north.
ern president it became quite heroic. A month before the murder a provost-marshal near by was slain in his bed-chamber. For such a town and
district the detective police were the only effective missionaries. The hotel
here is called the Brawner House; it has a bar in the nethermost cellar,
and its patrons, carousing in that imperfect light, look like the denizens of
some burglar's crib, talking robbery between their cups; its dining-room
is dark and tumible-down, and the cuisine bears traces of Caffir origin; a
barbecue is nothing to a dinner there.  The Court House of Port Tobacco
is the most superflous house in the place, except the church. It stands in
the center of the town in a square, and the dwellings lie about it closely,
au if to throttle justice. Five hundred people exist in Port Tobacco; life
there reminds me, in connection with the slimy river and the adjacent
swamps, of the great reptile period of the world, when iguanadons and
pterodactyls and plcosauri ate each other.
'Into this abstract of Gomorrah the few detectives went like angels who
visited Lot. They pretended to be enquiring for friends, or to have busi
ness designs, and the first people they heard of were Harold and Atzerott.
The latter had visited Port Tobacco three weeks before- the murder, and intimated at that time his design of fleeing~ the country.  But everybody
denied having seen him subsequent to the crime.
Atzerotthad been in town just prior to the crime. He had been living-with
a widow woman named Mrs.Wheeler, by whom he had several children, and
she was immediately called upon by Major O'Bierne.  He did not tell her
what Atzerott had done, but vaguely hinted that he had committed some
terrible crime, and that since he had done her wrong, she could vindicate
both herself and justice by telling" his whereabouts.  The woman admitted
that Atzerott had been her bane, but she loved him, and refused to betray
him. 
His trunk was found in her garret, and in it the key to his paint shop in
Port Tobicco. The latter was.fruitlessly searched, but the probable whereabouts of Atzerott in Mongomery county obtained, and Major O'Bierne telegraphing there immediately, the desperate fellow was found and locked up.
A man named Crangle who had succeeded Atzerott in Mrs. Wheeler's pliable affections, was arrested at once and put in jail.  A number of disloyal
'.I
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SAY~~~~~~~~~1
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i/I ~~   /1c
I
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AhDec~t/f by,/u
people were indicated or "spotted" as in no wise an.gry at the P       Idre
taking off, and for all such a provost prison was established
A few miles from Port Tobacco dwelt a solitary woman, who, when ques   tioned, said that for many nights she had heard, after she had retired to bed,
a man enter her cellar and lie there all night departing before dawn.  Ma
jor O'Bierne and the detectives ordered her to place a lamp in her window
the next night she heard him enter, and at dark they establifhed a cordon
of armed officers around the place. At midnight punctually she exhibited
the l.ght, when the officers broke into the house and thoroughly searched it,
without result. Yet the woman positively asserted that she had heard the
nIt!! enter.
It was afterward found that she was of diseased mind.
By this time the military had come up in considerable numbers, and Maf  jor O'Bierne was enabled to confer with Major Wait, of the Eighth Ii.
nois.
The major had pushed on Monday night to Leonardstown, and pretty
well overhauled that locality.
It was at this time that preparations were made to hunt the svamps
around Chapniantown, Beantown, and Allen's Fresh. Booth had been en  tirtely lost since his departure from Mudd's house, and it was believed that
he had either pushed (in for the Potomac or taken to the swamps. The
officers sagaciously determined to follow him to the one and to explore the
ol her.
The swamps tributary to the various branches of the Wicomico river,
of which the chief feeder is Allen's creek, bear variotus names, such as Jor dan's swamp, Atchall's swamp, and Scrub swamp. There are dense growths
of dogwood, gum, and beech, planted in sluices of water and bog; and their
width varies from a half mile to four miles, while their length is upwards
of sixteen miles.  Frequent deep ponds dot this wilderness place, with here
and there a stretch of dry soil, but no human being inhabits the malarious
extent; even a hunted murderer would shrink from hiding there. Serpents
and slimy lizards are the only denizens; sometimes the coon takes refuge
in this desert from the hounds, and in the soft mud a thousand odorous
muskrats delve, with now and then a tremorous otter.  But not'even the
huntd negro dares to fathom the treacherous clay, nor make himself a fel
low of the slimy reptiles which reign absolute in this terrible solitude.  Here
the soldiers prepared to seek for the President's assassin, and no search of
the kind has ever been so tnorough and patient. The Shawnee, in his strong
hold of despair in  the heart of Okeefeuokee, would scarcely have changed
homes wit. Wilkes Booth and David Harold, hiding in this inhuman
country.
The military forces deputed to pursue the fugitives were seven hundred
men of the Eighth Illinois cavalry, six hundred men of the Twenty-second
Colored troops, and one hundred men of the Sixteenth New York. These
swept the swamps by detachments, the mass of them  dismounted, with
cavalry at the belts of clearing, interspersed with detectives at       frequent in
tervals in the rear.  They first formed a strong picket cordon entirely
around the swamps, and then, drawn up in two orders of battle, advanced
boldly into the bogs by two lines of march.  One party swept the swamps
longitudinally, the other pushed straight across their smallest diameter.
A similar march has not been made during the war; the soldiers were
only a few paces apart, and in steady order they took the ground as it came,
no,w p'lunging to their arm-pits in foul sluices of gangrened water. now
55 
Th tO'e, O~tre, and Caatpute t     J  oA  rtka wk  BoothA.
hopelessly submerged in slime, now attacked by lgions of wood teiks, now
tempting some unfaithful log or greenishly solid morass, and plunging to
the tip of the skull in poison stagnation; the tree boughs rent their uni
forms; they came out upon dry land, many Of them without a rag of gatr.
ment scratched, and gashed, and spent, repugnant to themselves, anid disc
gusting to those who saw them; but not one trace of Booth or Harold was
any where found.  Wherever they might be, the swamps did not contain
them.
WVhile all this was going on, a force started from Point Lookout, and
swept the narrow necks of Saint Mary's quite up to Medley's Neck.   To
complete the search in this part of the country, Colonel Wells and Major
O'Bierne started with a force of cavalryand infan try for Chappel Point;
they took the entire peninsula as before, and marched in close skirmish
line across it, butwithout finding anything of note. The matter of inclosing
a house was by cavalry advances, which held all the avenues till mounted
detectives came up. Many strange and ludicrous adventures occured on
each of these expeditions. While the forces were going up Cobb's neck,
there was a counter forde coming down from Allen's Fresh.
Major O'Bierne started for Leonardstown with his detective force, and
played off Laverty as Booth, and Hoey as HIlarold. These two advanced
to farm-houses and gave their assumed names, asking at the same time for
Dsistance and shelter.  They were generally avoided, except by one man
named Cla,gert, who told them they might hide in the woods behind his
house.  When Clapgert was arreste(l, however he stated that he meant to
hide them only to give tlemn up.  While on this adventure, a man who had
heard of the reward came very near shooting Laverty. The ruse now be.
came hazardous and the detectives resumed their real characters.
I have not time to go into the detail of this long and excellent hunt. My
letter of yesterday described how the detectives of Mr. Young and Marshal
Murray examined the negro Swan, and traced Booth to the house of Sam
Coxe, the richest rebel in Charles county.  There is a gap in the evidence
etween the arrival of.Booth at this place and his crossing the Potomac
above Swan Point, in a stolen or purposely-provided canoe.  But as Coxe's
house is only ten miles from the river, it is possible that he made the pa.
sage of the intermediate country undiscovered
One Mills, a rebel mail-c'arrier, also arrested, saw Booth and Harold
lurking along the river bank on Friday; he referred Major O'Bierne to one
Claggert, a rebel, as having seen them also; but Claggert held his tongue,
and went to jail. On Saturday night, Major O'Bierne, thus assured, also
crossed the Potomac with his detectives to Boon's farm, where the fugitives had landed.  While collecting information here a gunboat swung up
the stream, and threatened to fire on the party.
It was now night, and all the party worn to the ground with long travel
and want of sleep.  Lieutenant Laverty's men went a short distance dowt:
the country and gave up, but Major O'Bierne, with asingle man, pushed all
night to King George's court-house, and next day, Sunday, re-embarked for
Chappell's Point. Hence he telegraphed his information, and asked permission to pursue, promising tq catch the assassins before they reached Port
l-oyal.
.This the department refused.  Colonel Baker's men were delegated tc
make the pursuit with the able Lieutenant Doherty, and. O'Bierne, who was
the most active and successful spirit in the chase, returned to Washington,.
theerful and contented. 
TA  Mar t.,
, At Mrm. Surrmtt' Washington house, at the Pennsylvai  Hotel, Was"
Ifnton, and at Burrattsville, the Booth plot was almost entirely arranged.
These three places will be relics of conspiracy forever.
Harold said to Lieutenant Doherty, after the latter had draggd  m.
from the barn.
"Who's that man in there I  It can't be Booth; he told me his name was
Loyd."
He further said that he had begged food for Booth from  house to house
while the latter hid in the woods.
The confederate captain, Willie Jett, who had given Booth a liP behind
his saddle from Port Royal to Garrett's farm, was then courting. Miss
Goldmann at Bowling Green; his traveling companions were Lieutenants
Ruggles and Burbridge.
Payne, the assassin of the' Sewards, was arrested by Officers, Sampson,
of the sub-treasury, and Devoe, acting under- General Alcott. The latter
had besides, Officers Marsh and Clancy (a stenographer).
The reward for the capture of Booth will be distributed between very
many men. The negro, Swan, will get as much of it as he deserves. It
amounts to about eighty thousand dollars, but the War Department may inincrease it at discretion.  The entire rewards amount to a hundred and
sixty odd thousand.  Major O'Bierne should get a large part of t as well.
This story which I must close abruptly, deserves to be re-written, with
all its accessory endeavours.  What  I have said is in skeleton merely,
and far froin exhaustive.
LETTER VI[.
TK-  K AR^-TTJ
'*~~~~~ WAssBnGOw,    y 14.
I am sitting in the President's office. He was here very lately; but he
will not return to dispossess me of this high-backed chair he filled so lI,
nor resume his daily work at the table where I am writing.
"lTere are here only Major Hay and the friend who accompanies me. A
bright-faced boy runs in and out, darkly attired, so that his fob-chain of gold
Is the only relief to his mourning garb. This' is little Tad., the pet of the
White House. That great death, with which the world ring, has made
upon him only the light impression which all things make upon childhood.
He will live to be a man pointed out everywhere, for his father's sake; and
as folks look at him, the tableau of the murder will seem to encircle him.
The roomt is l1ng and high, and so thickly hiung with maps that the color
of the wall cannot be discerned. The Presidein't's table at which I am seat.
ed, adjoins a window at the farthest corner; and to the. left of my chair as
I recline in it, there is a large table before an empty grate, arouind which
there are many'chairs, where the cabinet uased to assemble.  The carpet is
trodden thin, and. the brilliance of its dyes is lost. The.furniture is of the
formal cabinet class, stat+ly and semi-comfortable; there are'book cases
57
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58.          Lufe, Crim.. dul Capture  of JTAn Wil**# Booa.
sprinkled with the sparse library of a country lawyer, but lately plethorni
like the thin body which has departed in its coffin.'hey are taking away
IMr. Lincoln's private effects, to deposit them wheresoever his family may
abide, and the emptiness of the place, on this sunny Sunday, revives that
feeling of desolation from which the land has scarce recovered.   I rise
from my seat and examine the mnaps; they are.froni the coast survey and
engineer departments, and exhibit all the contested grounds )f the war;
there are pencil lines upon them where some one has traced the route of
armies, and planned the strategic circumferences of campaigns.   Was it
the dead President who so followed the march of empire, and dotted the
sites of shock and overthrow?
Here is the Maflassa  country-here the long reach of the wasted Shen andoah; here the wavy line of the James and the sinuous peninsula. The
wide campagna of the gulf country sways in the Potomac breeze that fil ters in at the window, and the Mississippi climbs up the wall, with blotches
of blue and red to show where blood gushed at the bursting of deadly
bombs.  So, in the half-gloomy, half-grand apartment, roamed the tall and
wrinkled figurewhom the country had summoned from his plain home into
mighty history, with the geography of the republic drawn into a narrow
compass so that he might lay his great brown hand upon it everywhere.
And walking to and fro, to and fro, to measure the destinies of arms, he
often stopped, with his thoughtful eyes upon the carpet, to ask if his life
were real and if he were the arbiter of so tremendous issues, or whether
it wNas not all a. fever-dream, snatched from his sofa in the routine office of
the Prairie state.
There is but one pieture on the marble mantel over the cold grate-John
Bright, a photograph.
I tan well imagine how the mind of Mr. Lincoln often went afar to the
face of Bright, who said so kindly things of him when EuropA was mocking his homely guise and provincial phraseology.  To Mr. Lirt... Y7hn
Bright was the standard-bearer of America and democracy in the old
world.  He thrilled over Bright's bold denunciations of peer and "Privi.
leg,,e," and stretched his long arm across the Atlantic to take that daring
Quaker innovator by the hand.
I see some books on the table; perhaps they have lain there undisturbed
gce the reader's dimming eyes grew nerveless.  A parliamentary manual,
a Thesaurus, and two books of humor, "Orpheus C. Kerr," and "Artemus
Ward." These last were read by Mr. Lincoln in the pauses of his hard
day's labor.  Their tenure here bears out the popular verdict of his partiality for a good joke; and, through the window,. from  the seat of Mfr.
Lincoln, I see across the grassy grounds of the capitol, the broken shaft of
the Washington Monuument, the long bridge and the fort-tipped Heights of
Arlington, reaching down to the shining river side.  These scenes he looked
at often to catch some freshness of leaf and water, and often raised the sash
to let the world rush in where only the nation abided, and he'nce on that
awful night, he departed early, to forget this room and its close applications
in the abandon of the theater.
I wonder if that were the least of Booth's crimes-to slay this public
servant in the stolen hour of recreation he enjoyed but seldom.  We
worked his life out here, and killed him when he asked a holiday.
Outside of this room there is an office, where his secretaries sat-a room
more narrow but as long-and opposite this adjacent office, a second door,
directly behind Mr. Lincoln's chair leads by a private passage to his family
quarters. Thin passage is his only monument in the building;. he added 
n Mart.
uor subtracted not hing else; it tells a long story of dum  and loiterer,
oontrahunters and seekers for commissions, garrulolu parents on paltry
errands, toadies without measure and talkers without conscience. They
ressed upon him through the great door opposite his window, and hat in
and, come courtsying to his chair, with an obsequious "  r. President!"
If he dared, though the chief magistrate and commander of the army an a
navy, to go out of the great door, these vampires leaped upon him with
their Babylonia-n pleas, and barred his walk to his hearthside.  He could
not insult them since it was not in hip nature, and perhaps many of them
had really urgent errands. So he called up the carpenter and ordered a
strategic route cut from his office to his harth, and perhaps told of it after
with much merriment.
Here should be written the biography of his official life-in the room
where have concentrated all the wires of action, and where have proceeded
the resolves which vitalized in historic deeds. But only the great measures,
however carried out, were conceived in this office. The little ones proceeded
from other places.
Here once came Mr. Stanton, saying in his hard and positive way:
"Mfr. Lincoln, I have found it expedient to disgrace and arrest General
8tone."
" Stanton," said Mr. Lincoln, with an emotion of pain, "when you considered it necessary to imprison General Stone, I am glad you did not
consult me about it."
And for lack of such consultation, General Stone, I learn, now lies a
maniac in the asylum. The groundless pretext, upon which he suffered the
reputation of treason, issued from the Department of War-not from this
office.
But as to his biography, it is to be written by Colonel Nicolay and
Major Itay.  They are to go to Paris together, one as attache of legation,
the other as consul, and while there, will undertake the labor.  They are
the only men who know his life well enough to exhaust it, having followed
his official tasks as closely as they shared his social hours.
Major Hay is a gentleman of literary force. Colonel Nicolay has a fine
judgment of character and public measures. Together they should satisfy
both curiosity and historiy.
As I hear from my acquaintances  here these episodes of the President's
life, I recall many reminiscences of his ride from Springfield to Harrisburg,
over much of which I passed. Then he left home and became an inhabitant of history.  His face was solid and healthy, his step young, his speech
and manner bold and kindly.  I saw him  at Trenton stand in the Legi
lature, and say, in his conversational intonation:
"We may have to put the foot down firm."
How should we have hung upon his accents then had we anticipated his
-irtues and his fate.
Death is requisite to make opinion grave. We looked upon Mr. Lincoln
then as an amusing sensation, and there was much guffaw as he was re.
garded by the populace; he had not passed out of partisan ownerships
Little by little, afterward, he won esteem, and often admiration, until the
measure of his life was full, and the victories he had achieved made  the
world applaud him.  Yet, at this date, the President was sadly changed.
Four years of perplexity and devotion had wrinkled his face, and stooped
his shoulders, and the failing eyes that glared upon the play closed as his
mission was completed, and the world had been educated enough to cornm
prhebnd him.
I -    -!'                     — ".                            - I
I
. 50 
w)    no   Life, aOCme, and  Capture of John  Wsilk.  A   ih.
The White House has been more of a Republican mansion under huw 
trol than for many administrations.   Uncouth guests came to it often,
typical of the simple western civilization of which he was a graduate,
and while no coarse altercation has ever ensued, the portal has swung
wide for five years.
A friend, connected with a Washington newspaper, told me that he had
occasion to see Mr. Lincoln one evening, and found that the latter had
gone to bed.  But he was told to sit down in the office, and directly the
President entered. He wore only a night shirt, and his long, lank hirsute
limbs, as he sat down, inclined the guest to laughter. Mr. Lincoln dis.
posed of his request at once, and manifested a desire to talk. So he
reached for the cane which my friend carried and conversed in this manner:
"I always used a cane when I was a boy.  It was a freak of mine..My
favorite one was a knotted beech stick, and I carved the head myself.
There's a mighty amount of character in- sticks.  Don't you think so?
You have seen these fishing poles that fit into a cane? Well, that was an
old idea of mine.  Dogwood clubs were favorite ones with the boys.   I
'spose they use'em yet.  Hickory is too heavy,.unless you get it from  a
young sapling.  Have you ever noticed how a stick in -one's hand will
change his appearance? Old women and witches would'nt look so without
sticks.  Meg Merrilies understands that."
In this way my friend, who is a clerk in a newspaper office, heard the
President talk for an hour. The undress of the man and the witness of his
subject would be staples for merriment if we did not reflect that his great ness was of no conventional cast, that the playfulness of his nature and the
simplicity of his illustration lightened public business but never arrested
it.
Another gentleman, whom I know, visited the President in high dudgeon
one night. He was a newspaper proprietor and one of his editors had been
arrested.
"Mr. Lincoln," he said, "I have been offelectioneering for'your re.elecs
tion, and in my absence you have had my editor arrested   I won't stand
it, sir.  I have fought better administrations than yours."
"Why, John," said the President, "I don't know  much about it.  I
suppose your boys have been too enterprizing. The fact is, I dbn't inter fere with the press much, but I supose I am responsible."
"I want you to order the man 8 release to-night," said the applicant.
"I shan't leave here till I get it. In fact, I am the man who should be
arrested.  Why don't you send me to Capitol Hil?"
,This idea pleased the President exceedingl,iy. lie laughed the other into
good humor.
"In fact," he said, "I am under restraint here, and glad of any pretext
to release a journalist."
So he wrote the order, and the writer got his liberty.
It must not be inferred from this, however, that the President was a de.
votee to literature.  He had no professional enthusiasm for it.  The liter.
ar,y coterie of the White House got little flattery but its members were
seated as agreeable citizens and not as the architects of any body's'for
tune. 
Willis went. there much for awhile, but yielded to his old habit of gos
sip'Ing about the hall paper and the teapots.  Emerson went there once,
and was deferred to -us if he were anything but a phirosopher.  Yet he so
far grasped the character of his host as to indite that noble humanitarian
eulogy upon him, delivered at Concord, and printed in the WORLD. IX
I.,. I 
el
wll not do to say definitely in this notice how sevral oo nionl writers
visited the Whit  House, heard the President's views and assnted to them
and afterward abused him. But these attained no remembrance nor tart
reproach'rom that least retaliatory of men. He harbored no malice, and
is,aid to have often placed himself on the stand-point of Davis and Lee,
and accounted for their defection while he could not excuse it.
He was a good reader, and took all the leading NEW-YORK dailies every
day. His secretaries perused them and selected all the items which *ould
interest the President; these were read to him and considered. He bought
few new books, but seemed ever alive to works of comic value; the vein
of humor in him was not boisterous in its manifestations, but touched the
geniality of his nature, and he reproduced all that he absorbed, to elucidate
some new issue, or turn away argument by a laugh.
As a jester, Mr. Lincoln's tendency was caricatured by the prints, but
not exaggerated.  He probably told as many stories as are attributed to
him.  Nor did he, as is averred, indulg,e in these jests on solemn occasions.
No man felt with such personal intensity the extent of the casualities of
his time, and he often gravely reasoned whether he could be in any way
responsible for the bloodshed and devastation over which it was his duty
to preside.
an  acquaintance of mine-a private-once went to him to plead for a
man's life.  He hLd never seen the man for whom he pleaded, and had no
acquaintance with the man's family.  MIr. Lincoln was touched by his dig
interestedness, and said to him
"If I were anything but the-President, I would be constantly working
as you have done."
Whenever a doubt of one's guilt lay on his mind, the man was spared
by his direct interference.
There was an entire absence in the President's character of the heroic element.  lie would do a great deed in deshabille as pr6niptly as in full dress
He never aimed to be brilliant, unconsciously understanding that a great
man's brilliancy is to be measured by the "wholeness" and synthetic cast
of his creer rather than by any fitful ebullitions.  For that-reason welook
in vain through his messages for "points."  His point was not to turn a sentence or an epigram, but to win an effect, regradless of the route to it.
He was commonplace in his talk, and Chesterfield would have had no
patience with him; his dignity of character lay in his uprightness rather
than in his formal manner.  Members of his government often reviewed
him plainly in his presence.  Yet he divined the true course, while they
only argued it out.
Ilis good feeling was not only personal, but national.  He had no pre
judice against any race or potentate. And his democracy was of a practical, rather than of a demonstrative, nature.  Ile was not Marat, but Moreau-not Paine and Jefferson; but Franklin.
His domestic life was like a parlor of night-time, lit by the equal grate
of his genral and uniform kindness.. Young  Thaddy played with him
upon the carpet;  Robert came  home from the war and talked to his
father as to a school-mate, he was to Mfrs. Lincoln as chivwlroits on the
last day of his life as when he courted her. I have somewhere seen a
picture of IHenry IV. of Fran6e, riding his babies on his back: that was
the President.'
8o dwelt the citizen who is gone-. q r,.del in character if not in cere
mony, for good men to come who w).,    his place in the same White
House,  and find their generation.e.   g them to the man thought
12U Marto. 
62     oTh  Lioi (Trsme and -Captufo of JoAn WiUkes mths
worthy of ssassination. I am glad to sit here in his chair, where he has
bent so often,-in the atmosphere of the household he purified, in the
sight of the green grass and the blue river he hallowed by gazing upon, in
the very centre of the nation he preserved for the people, and close the
list of bloody deeds, of desperate fights of swift expiations, of renowned
obsequies of which I have written, by inditing at his table the goodness
of his life and the eternity of his memory.
LETTER VIII.
THE TRAL.
WASHnFGTON, May 26.
The most excitinig trial of our times has obtained a very meager corn.mmemoration in all but its literal features. The evidence adduced in the
course of it, has been too faithfully reported, through its far-fetched and
monotonous irregularities, but nobody realizes the extraordinary scene
from which so many  columns emanate, either by aid of the reporters'
scanty descriptions, or by the purblind sketches of the artists.
Now that the evidence is growing vapid, and the obstinacy of the milltary commission has lost its coarse zest, we may find enough readers  to
warrant a fuller sketch of the conspirators' prison.
About a mile below Washington, where the high Potomac Bluffs meet
the marshy border of the Eastern branch, stands the United States arsenal,
a series of long,, mathematically uninteresting brick buildings, with a
broad lawn behind them, open to the water, and level military plazas, on
which are piled pyramids of shell and ball, among  acres of cannon an,
cannon-carriages,.and caissons.   A high wall, reaching circularly around
these buildings, shows above it, as one looksfrom Washington, the barred
windows of an older and more gloomy structure' than the rest, which
forms the city front of the group of which it is the principal.  This was a
penitentiary, but, long ago added -to the arsenal, it has been re-transform.
ed to a courtroom and jail, and in its third, or uppermost story,.the MIilitary Commission is sitting.
The main road to the arsenal is by a wide and vacant avenue, which
abuts against a gate where automaton sentries walk, but the same gate can
best be reached on foot by the shores of the Potomac, in the sight. of the
forts, the shipping, and Alexandria.
The scene at the arsenal in time of peace is common-place enough; ex.
cept that across the Eastern Branch the towers of the lunatic asylum,
erched upon a height, look down. baronially; but this trial of murderers
has made the. spot a fair.
A whole company of volunteers keeps the gate, through which are pass
iIg cabs, barouches, officers'. ambulances, and a stream of folks on foot;
while farther along almost a regiment crosses the drive, their huddled shelter tents extending entirely across the peninsula   These are playing cards
on the grcund, and tossing quoits, and sleeping on their faces, while a gunboat watches the river front, and under a circular wall a line of patrols, ten
yards apart, go to and fro perpetually.
It is 10 o'clock, and the court is soon to sit.  Its members ride down in
superb ambulances and bring their friends along to show them the mnje.-ty 
of justioe.. A perfect park of carriages stands by the door to the left, and
from thee dismount majorggenerals' wives, in rustling silks; daughters of
congressmen, attired like the lilies of the milliner; little girls who hope to
be young ladies and have come with "Pa," -to look at the assassins; even
brides are here, in the fresh blush of their nuptials, and they consider the
late spectacle of the review as good as lost, if the court-scene be not added
to it. These tender creatures have a weakness for the ring of manacles,
the sight of folks to be suspended in the air, the face of a woman confede.
rate in blood.
They chat with their polite guides, many of whom are gallant captains,
and go one after another up the little Right of steps which leads to the
room of the officer of the day.
'ie passes them, if he pleases, up the crooked stairways, and when they
have climbed three of these, they enter a sort of garret-room, oblong, and
plastered white, and about as large as an ordinary town-house parlor.
Four doors open into it-that by which we have entered, two from the
left,. where the witnesses w'ait, and one at the end, near the left f-ar corner,
which is the outlet from-the cells.
' railing, close up to the stairway door, gives a little space in the fore ground for witnesses; two tables, transverse to this rail, are for the com mission and the press, the first-named being to the right; between these
are a raised platform and pivot armchair for the witness; below are the
sworn phonographers and.the counsel for the accused, and then another
rail like that seperating the crowd from the court, holds behind it the
accused and their guards.
These are they who are living not by years nor by weeks, but by breaths.
They are motley enough, for the most part, sitting upon a long bench witk
their batks against the wall,-ill-shaved, haggard, anxious, and the dungeor.
door at their left opens.now and then to show behind it a moving bayonet.
There are women within the court proper, edging upon the reporters, intro
duced there by a fussy usher, and through four windows filters the' imper feet daylight, making all things distinguishable, yet shadowy. The co,/p
d'ceil of this small and crowded scene is lively as a popular funeral.
There is the witness with raised hand, pointing toward heaven, and look
ing at Judge Holt.  The gilt stars, bars, and orange-colored sashes of the
commission; the women's brilliant silks and bonnets; the crowding spec tators, with their brains in their eyes; the blue coats of the guards; the
working scribes; and last of all the line of culprits, whose suspected guilt
has made them worthy of all illustration.
Between the angle of the wall.and the studded door, under the heavy bar
of dressed stone which marks above the thickhess of the gaol; sits all alone
a woman's figure, clothed- in solemn black. HIer.shadowy skirt hides her
feet,.so that we cannot see whether they are riveted; her sleeves of sa'ole
sweep down to her wrist, and dark gloves cover the plumpness of'her hand,
while a palm-leaf fan nods to and'fro to assist the obscurity of her vail of
crape, descending from-her widow's bonnet.
A solitary woman, beginning' the line of coarse indicted men, shrinking
beneath the.scornful eyes of her sex, and the as bold survey of men more.
pitiful, may well excite, despite her guilt, a moment -of sympathy.
Let men remember that shie is the mother of a son who has fled to save
his forfeit life by deserting'her to shame, and perhaps, to death. Let wo men, who will not mention her in mercy, learn from her end, in all suo ceeding wars, to make patriotism of their household duties and not incite
to blood.
rA4
&a
II.AL 
lo  Life, Crine, ani Claptw  ofMn Wsl Ts  ooth.
Mrs. Surratt is a graduate of that seminary which spits in soldiers' faox,
denounces brave generals upon the rostrum, and cries out for an intermi.
nable scaflold when all the bells are ringing peace.
How far her wicked love influenced her to participation in the murder
rests in her own breast, and up to this time she has not differed fr.om mothers at large-to twist her own bow-string rather than build his gibbet.
Beneath her shadowy bonnet, over her fan-tip, we see two large, sad
eyes, rising and falling, and now and then when the fan sways to and fro,
the hair just turning gray with trouble, and the round face growing wan
and seamed with terrible reflection, are seen a moment crouching low, as if
she would wish to grovel upon the floor and bury her forehead in her
hands.
Yet, sometimes, across Mrs. Surratt's face a stealthiness creeps-a sort
of furtive, feline flashing of the eye, like that of one which means to leap
sideways. At these times tier face seems to grow hard and colorless, as if
that tiger expression which Pradier caught upon the face of Brinvilliers and
fastened into a masque, had been repeated here.  Not to grow mawkish
while we must be kind, let us not forget that'this woman is an old plotter.
If she did not devise the assassination, she was privy to it long.  She was
an agent of contraband mails-a bold, crafty, assured rebel-perhaps a spy
-and in the event of her condemnation, let those who would plead for her
spend half their pity upon that victim whose heart  was like a woman's,
and whose hand.v was mercifill as a mrother's.
Before the door sits an officer, uncovered, who does not seem to labor
under any particular fear, chiefly because the captives are ironed to immova
Dility,'and he stares and smiles alternately, as if he were somewhat amiable
.nd extremely bored.
Next'to the officer is a shabby-looking boy, whose seat is by the right
jamb of the jail door.  Of all boys just old enough to feel their Oats, this
boy is the most commonplace.   His parents would be likely to have no
sanguine hopes of his reaching the presidency; for his head indicates latent
dementia, and a slice or two from it would  recommend him, without ex
amination, to the school for the feeble-minded.' Betterdressed, and washed,
%nd shaved, he might make a tolerable adornment to a hotel door, or even
reach the dignity of a bar-keeper or an usher at a theatre. But that this
fellow should occupy a leaf in history arid be confounded with a tragedy
entering into the literature of the world, reverses manifest destiny, and
leaves neither phrenology nor physiognomy a place to stand upon.
Come up! Gall, Spurzheim, and LIavater, and remark his sallow face,
attenuated by base excesses! Do you know any forehead so broad whith
means so little? the oyster could teach this man philosophy! IHis chin is
sharp, his eyes are blank blue,' his short black hair curls over his ears, and
his beard is of a prickly black, with a moustache which.does not help his
general contemptibleness. A dirty grayish shirt without a linen collar, is
seen between the lapels of the greasy and dusty cloth coat, sloping at the
Rhoulders; and under his worn brown trowsers, the manacle of iron makes
an ugly garter to his carpet clipper.
This is David Harold, who shared the wild night-ride of Booth,  and
barely escaped that outlaw's death, in the burning barn.
Ie stoops to the rail'of the dock, now and then, to chat with his attorney,
an! a sort of blank anxiety, which he wears, as -his head turns here and
there, shifts to a frolicking smiile.  But a woman of unusual attractions
enters the court, and' Harold is much more interested in' her than in his
u ittal.
I
64
-.-,                             lq6 
2%* riaL.
Great Cmar's dust, which stopped a knot-hole, h   in this play bo  an
Inverse parallel. He was at best hostler to a murderer, and failed In that.
His chief concern at present is to have somebody to talk to; and he thinks.
upon the whole, that if an assassination is productive of so little fiu, he will
have nothing to do with another one.
That Harold has slipped into history gives us'as much surprise as that
he has yet to suffer death gives us almost contempt for the scafodl.  But
if the scaffold must wait for only wise men to get upon it, it must rot.
Your wise man does no murder in the first place, and if so, in the second,
he dodges the penalty.  In this world, Harold, idiotcy is oftncr punished
than guilt.
That Booth should have used Hlarold is very naturally accounted for.
Actors live only to be admired; vanity rises to its climax in them. Booth
referred this sparrow to sing him peans rather than live by an eagle and
be screamed at now and then.
At the right hand side of Harold sits a soldier in blue, who is evidently
thinking abouta game of quoits with his comrades in the jail yard; he wonders why lawyers are so very dry, and is surprised to find a trial for murder as tedious as a thanksgiving sermon.
But on the soldier's other hand is a figure which makes the center and
cynosure of this thrilling scene. Taller by a whole head than either hit
companions or the sentries, Payne, the assassin, sits erect, ahd flings his
barbarian eye to. and fro, radiating the tremendous energy of his colossal
physique.
hie is the only man worthy to have. murdered  Mr. Seward.   When
against the delicate organization, the fine, subtle, nervous mind of the Secretary of State, this giant, knife in hand, precipitated himself, two forms of
civilization met as distinctly as when the savage' Gauls invaded the Roman
senate.
Lawlessness and intelligence, the savage and the statesman, body' and
mind, fought together upon.Mr. Seward's bed.
The mystery attending Payne's home' and parentage still exists to make
him more incomprehensible. Out of the vague, dim ultima thule,
like those Asiatic hordes which came from nowhere and shivered civilization,
Payne suddenly appeared and fought his way to the sanctum tanctorum of
law.  I think his part in the assassination more remarkable than Booth's,
The latter's crime was shrewdly plotted, as by one measuring'intelligence
with the  whole  government.   But  Payne  did  not  think-he  only
struck!
With this man's face before me as I write, I am reminded of some ]laori
chief waging war from the lust of blood or the pride of local dominion.
His complexion is bloodless, yet so healthy that a passing observer would
afterward speak of it as ruddy.  His face is broad, with a character nose,
bensual lips, and very high cheek bones; the cranium is'full and the brow
speaking, while the head runs back to an abnormal apex at the tip of the
cerebellum.  His straight, lusterless black hair, duly parted, is at the summit so disturbed that tufts of it rise up like Red Jacket's or Tecumseh's;
but the head is kept well up, and rtsts upon a wonderfully'broad throat,
muscular as one's thigh, and without any trace, as he sits, of the protuberance called Adam's apple.. Withal, the eye is the man Payne's, power. It
is dark and speechless, and rollshere and there like that of a beast in a c.Ige
which strives in vain to understand the language of its captors. It secams
to say, if anything, that it has'no sympathy with anybod  approxima
fld han submitted, like a lion bound, to   the     aogicfonviction an,(f of. tra.ns.
Sb
I. 
66      2L L~ife, Crime, and Capture of John  Wilkt  BootA.
Payne looks at none of his fellow. prisoners: assassins caught seldom  am
to recognise each other.; for while there. is faithfulness among thieves, ther
is none among murderers. His great white eyeball never roves to any.
body's in the dock, nor theirs to his.  lie has confessed- his crime and they
know it; so they have no mutual hope; they listen to the evidence because
it concerns them; he looks at it only, because it cannot save him.   He is
entirely beardless, yet in his boyish chin more of a man physically than
the rest, combined.
While I watch this man I am constantly repeating to myself that staunz
of Bryant's:
"Upon the market place he stood, A man of giant frame
Amid the gathering multitude
That shrank to hear his name;
All proud of step and firm of limb,
Ilis dark eye on the groundAnd silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound."
HIis dress, which we scarcely notice in the grander contrast of his pose
and stature, is an old shirt of woolen blue, with a white nap at the button.
boles, and upon his knees of black cloth he twirls, as if for relaxation, be.
Aween his powerful manacles, a soiled white  handkerchief-if from his
mother, we conjecture, a gift to a bloodhound. from  his dam.  His heavy
handcufls make his broad shoulders more narrow.  Yet we can see by the
outline of the sleeves what girth the muscles has, and the hand at the end
of his long and bony arm is wide and huge, as if it could wield a clay.
more as well as a dirk.  lie also wears carpet slippers, but his ankles are
clogged with so heavy irons that two men must carry them when he enters
or leaves the dock.  Foe  this man there can be no.sentimentno more
than for a bull. The flesh on his face is hard, as if cast, rather than gener.
ated, and while we see how he towers above the entire court, we wateb
him in wonder, as if he were some maniae.denizen of a zone where mnen
without minds grow to the stature and power of fiends.
The face of Payne is not of the traditional southern peculiarities.   He
resembles rather a Pennsylvania mountaineer than a Kentucky rustic.
Three weeks ago I gave, in an account'of the conspiracy which many
gainsayed, but which the trial has fully confirmed, a sketch of this man, to
which I still adhere. He was furnished to Booth and John Surratt from
Canada; sent upon special service with his life in his hands; and he faced
the. murder he was-.to commit like any prize-fighter. I pity Beall, who died
iiitelli,gcLiitly for a wretelihed essiy against civilians, that his biography and
fite i must be malthed by this savage's 
Next to Payne, and crouching under him like a frog under a rock,.1s an
inconsiderable soldier, who chews his cud, and would cheerfully hang his'
protege for the sake of being rid of him. Iy sympathies are entirely en listed for this soldier; he has neither the joy of being acquitted, nor the
excitement of being tried.  He is quite a sizable man  by himself,. but
Payne overhangs him, and the dullness of the trial quite stultifies him.
The few points of law which are admitted here are not so evident to this
soldier as the point of his bayonet. I see what ails him.
Ile wants to swear.
A beam running overhead divides the court lengthwise in half, and as tht
prisoners sit at. the end of the court, the German Atzerott, or Adzerotu,
his a place just beneath the beam.  This is very ominous for Atzerott, 
The fllthiness of this man denies him sympathy.   He is a disgusting little
groveler, of dry, sandy hair, oval head, ears set so close to the chin that
one would think his sense of hearing limited to his jaws, and a complexion
so  ellow that the uncropped brownness of his beard does not materially
darken it.  He wears a grayish coat, low grimy shirt, and the usual carpet
sulippers of threadbare red over his shifting and shiftless feet. htis hcead 
bent forward, and seems to be anxiously trying to catch the tenor of the
trial. Mfany persons outside of the court, Atzerott, are equally puzzled!
From as much examination of this man as his insignificance permits, I
should call him a " gabby"' fellow-loud of resolution, ignoble of effort.
Over his lager no man would be braver. Ils face is familiar to me from
a review ofthose detective cabinets usually called "Rogues' Galleries." As
a "sneak thief" or" bagman," I should convict him by his face; the same
indictment would make me acquit him instantly of assassination. In this
estimate I rely upon evidence as well as upon appearance. Atzerott
swaggered about Kirkwood's Hotel asking for the Vice-President's room;
Payne or Booth would have done the murder silently.  Nobody pities a
dirty man.  The same arts of dress and cleanliness which please ladies
influence juries.
Next to Atzerott sits a soldier-a very jolly and smooth faced soldierwho at one time hears a witness say something  laughable.  The soldier
immediately grins to the farthest point of his scalp.  But he is chagrined
to find that the joke is too trivial to admit of a laugh of duration. Very.
few jokes before the present court do so. But this soldier being of long
charity and excellent patience, awaits the next joke like a veteran under
orders, and reposes his chin upon the dock as if aware that between jokes
there was ampletime for a nap.
The nex.t prisoner to the right is O'Langhlin. He is a small man, about
twenty-eight years of age, attired in a fine, soiled coat, but without white
linen upon either his bosom or neck, and handcuffs rest hugely upon his
mediocrity. His moustache, eye-brows, and hair are regular and very
black.  He does not look unlike Booth, though he seems to have little
bodily power, and he is very anxious, as if more earnest than any of the
rest, tp have a fair lease upon life.  His countenance is not prepossessing,
though he might be considered passably good looking-in a mixed company.
Between O'Laughlin and the next prisoner, Spangler, sits a soldier in
,,iltramarine-a discontented soldier, a moody, dissatisfied, and arbitrary
soldier. His definition of military justice is like the boy's answer at school
to the familiar question uponI the Constitutionaof the United States:
"What rights do accused persons enjoy I"
The boy wrote out, very carefully, this answer:
"Death by hanging."
The boy would have been correct had the question applied to accused
persons before a court-martial.
Spangler, the scene-shifter and stage-carpenter, has the face and bearing
of a day-laborer. His blue woollen shirt does not confuse him, as he is
used to it.  He has an oldish face wrinkled by fearful anticipations, and
his hair is thin. He is awkwardly built, and watches the trial earnestly, an
if striving to catch between the links of evidence vistas of a life insured.
This man has a simple and pleading face, and there is something genial in
his great, incoherent countenance. IIe is said to have cleared the stage for
Booth's escape, but this is indifferently testified to.  He had often been
askea by Booth to take a drink at the nearest bar. Persons who drink
2'h,t 2waL
67 
Cs      The Life, Crinm, and Capture of Jon  Wilke* Booth. 
assure me that the greatest mark of confidence which a great man can shod
a lesser one is to make that tender; this, therefore, explains Booth's power
over Spangler.
Span,,gler is the first scene-shifter who may become a dramatis per8son.
A soldier sits between Spangler and Doctor Mudd.   The soldier would
like Spangler to get up and go away, so that he could have as much of the
bench as he might sleep upon. This particular soldier, I may be qualified
to say, would sleep upon his post.
Doctor tudd has a New England and not a Maryland face. He cornm
pares, to those on his left, as I)ypet-ion to a squatter. His high, oval head
is bald very far up, but not benevolently so, and it is covered with light
red hair, so thin as to contrast indifferentlv with the denseness of his beard
and goatee. His nose would be insignificant but for its sharpness, and at
the nostrils it is sw(ellilng and high-spirited.  His eves.impinge upon his
brows, and they are shiniing and rather dark, while the brows themselves
are so scantily clothed with hair that they seem quite naked. Mludd is
neatly dressed in.a green-grass duster, and white bosom.and collar; if he
had no other advantages over his associates these.last would give it to hinm.
He keeps his feet upon the rail before him in true republican style, and
rolls a morsel of tobacco under his tongue.
The military ecommission works as if it were delegated not to try, but
to convict, and Dr. Mudd,' if he be innocent, is in only less danger than if
he were guilty.  lie has a sort of home-bred intelligence in his face, and
socially is as tar above his fellows as Goliah of Gath above the rest of the
Philistines.
On  the right of Doctor Miidd sits a soldier, who'is striving to loot
through his legs at the judge-advocate, as if taking a sort of secret aim at
that person, with the intent to. fetch him down, because he makes the trial
so very dry, and the soldier so very thirsty.
The last man, who sits on the extreme right of the prisoners, is Mr.
Sam. Arnold.  lie is, perhaps, the best looking of the prisoners, and.the
least implicated.  lie" has a solid, pleasant face; has been a rebel soldier,
foolishly committed  himself to Booth, with perhaps no intention to do  a
crime, recanted in pen and ink, and was made a national character.. Had
he recanted by word of mouth hlie might have saved himself unpleasant
dreams.  This shows everyvbody the absurdity of writing what they can so
easily say. The best thing Arnold ever wrote was his letter to Booth refusing to engage in murder.   Yet this recantation is more in evidence against
him than his original purpose.
Arnold looks out of the window, andl feels easy.
The reporters who are present are generally young fellows, practical and
ardent, like Woods, of Boston;  Colburn, of THE WbORLD; and Major
Poore, who has been the chronicler of such scenes for twenty years. Ber.
Pitman, one of the authors of phonetic writing, is among the official reporters,.and the Mlurphies, who could report the lightning, if it could talk,
are slashing down history as it passes in at their ears and runs out at theii
fingers' ends.
The counsel for the accused strike me as being commonplace lawyers
They either have no chance or no pluck to assert the dignity of their pr;
fessh-in.  Reverdy Johnson is not here.  The first day disgusted him, ap
he is a practitioner of law.  Yet the best word of'the trial has been his
"I, gentlemen, am a member of that body  of legislators which  create'
eourts-martial and major-generals!"
I
. I 
.     IA:e BxectoM.
The commission has collectively an imposing appearance: the facee of
Judge Holt is swarthy; he questions with slow utterance, holding the
witness in his cold, measuring eye. Hunter, who sits at the oposite end
of the table, shuts his eyes now and then, either to sleep or think, or both,
and the other generals take a note or two, and watch for occasions to di
tinguish themselves.
Excepting Judge Holt, the court has shown as little ability as could be
expected from soldiers, placed in unenviable publicity, and upon a duty
for which they are disqualified, both by education and acumen.   Witness
the lack of dignity in Hunter, who opened the court by a coarse allusion
to "humbug chivalry;" of Lew. Wallace, whose heat and intolerance were
appropriately urged in, the most exceptional English; of Howe,   hose
tirade against the rebel General Johnson was feeble as it was ungenerous!
This court was needed to show us at least the petty tyranny of martial
law and the pettiness of martial jurists.  Tlie counsel for the.defene have
just enough show to make the unfairness of the trial partake of hypocrisy,
and the. wideness of the subjects discussed makes one imagine that the
object of the commission is to write a cyclopedia, and not to hang or ac
quit six or eight miserable wretches.
' LETTTER IX.
THE EX 0UIONS.
WASHINGTON,'Friday, July 7tL
Thi  trial is over; four of the conspirators have paid with their lives
t a penalty of the Great Conspiracy; the rest go to the jail, and with one
eoeeption for the remainder of their lives.
Whatever our individual theories may be, the great crime is ended, and
ths is the crowning scene:
it was a long and dusty avenue, along which rambled soldiers in bluish
ly white coats, cattle with their tongues out, straying from the herd, and a
.few negroes making for their cabins, which dotted the fiery and vacant lots
of tue suburbs.  At the foot of this avenue, where a lukewarm river holds
betweeii its dividing arms a dreary edifice of brick, the way was filled with
collected cabs, and elbowing people, abutting against a circle of sentinels
who kept the arsenal gate. The low, flat, dust-white fields to the far left
were also lined with patrols and soldiers lying on the ground in squads beside their stacked muskets.. Within these a second blue and monotonous
line extended.  The drive from the arsenal gate to the arsenal's high and
steel-spiked wall was beset by companies of exacting sabremen, and all
the river bank to the right was edged with blue and bayonets.  This exhibition of wiar was the prelude to a'very ghastly but very popular episodean execution. Three men and a woman were to be led out in shackles and
hung to a beam. They had conspired to take life; they had thrilled the
world with the partial consummation of-their plot; they were to reach the
last eminence of assassins, on  this parched and oppressive noon, by
swinging in pinioned arms and muffled faces in the presence of a thousand
people.
of 
~-,;
)70     HTe  i/e, Crime and Capture of John  Wilkee Booth.
The bayonets'at the gate were lifted as I produced my pan.   It was the
last permission granted.  In giving it away the General seemed relieved,
for he hd been sorely troubled by applications.  Everybody who had visited  Washi.ngton to seek for an office, sought to see this expiation also.
The officer at the gate looked at my pass'suspiciously.  " I don't believe
that all these papers have been genuine,"  he said.  Is an execution, then,
so great a wanling to evil-doers, that men will commit forgery to see it?
I entered a large grassy yard, surrounded by an exceedingly high wall.
On the top of this wall, soldiers with muskets in their hands, were thickly
planted.  The yard below was broken by irregular buildings of brick.   I
climbed by a flight of rickety outside stairs to the central building, where
miany officers were seated at the windows, and looked awhile at the strange
scene on the grassy plaza.  On the left, the long, barred, impregnable pen.
itentiary rose.   The shady spots beneath it were occupied by huddling
spectators.  Soldiers were filling-their canteens at the pump.  A face or
two looked out from the barred jail.  There were many umbrellas hoisted
on the ground to shelter civilians beneath them.   Squads of officers and
citizens lay along the narrow'shadow of the walls.  The north side of the
ard was enclosed on three sides by columns of soldiers drawn up in regu.
?lr order, the side next to the penitentiary being short to admit of in,rcss
to the prisoner's door; but the opposite column reached entirely up to the
iorth wall.
Within this enclosed area a structure to be inhabited by neither the livilig nor the dead was fast approaching con-plcetion.  It stood gaunlt, lofty,
oloa.  Saws  and hammers mnade dolorous- music on it. }Ien,  in their
silir't sleeves, Dwere Iicasuriillg it aiid directing its construction in a b)usiness
way. Now anid then some one would ascend its airy stair to test its firm.
ness; others crawled beneath to wedge its slim supports, or carry away the
falling debris.
Toward this skeleton edifice" all looked with a strange nervousness.
It was the thought and speculation of the gravest and the g.tyest.
It was the gallows.
A  beans reached, horizontally, in the air, twenty feet from the ground;
four awkward ropes, at irregular intervals, dangled from it, each noosed at
the end.  It was upheld. by three props, one in the center and one at each
end.  These props came all the way to the ground where they  were  inor.
ticed. in heavy bars.  Midway of them a fibor was laid, twenty by twelve
feet, held in its positionl on the farther side by shorter props, of whicl,
there were mnany, and reached by fifteen creaking steps, railed on'either
side.  But this -floor had no supports on the side nearest the eye, except
two temporary rods, at the foot of which two inclined beams pointed menacingly, held'in poise by ropes from the gallows floor.
And this floor was presently discovered to be a cheat, a trap, a pitfall.
Two hinges only held it to its firmer half. These were to.give way at
the fatal moment, and leave- only the shallow and-unreliable air for the bound
and smothering to tread upofi.
The traps  were two, sustained by two different props.
The nooses were on each side of the central support.
Was this all?
N.)t all.
Close byj the foot of the gallows fbur wooden boxes were piled  upou
each other at the edge of four newly excavated pits, the fresh earth of which
was already dried and brittle.in the burning noon.
IIere were to be interred the broken carcasses when the gallows had let 
'  I7'.       no rcf.
go Its thirttle.  They were so placed as the victims should emerge from
the gaol door they would be seen near the stair directly in the line of
march.
And not far from these, In silence and darkness beneath the prison where
they had lain so long and so forbodingly, the body of John Wilkes Booth,
sealed up in the brick flro,', had long been mouldering. If the dead can hear
he had listened many a time-to the rattle of their manacles upon the stairs,
to the drowsy hum of the trial and the buzz of the garrulous spectators; to
the moaning, or the gibing, or the praying in the bolted cells where those
whom kindred fate had given a little lease upon life lay waiting for the
terrible pronouncement.
It was a long waiting, and the roof of a high houst outside the walls was
seen to be densely packed with people.  Others kept arriving moment by
moment; soldiers were wondering when the swinging would begin and
officers arguing that the four folks "deserved it, damn them!"  Gentlemen
of experience were telling over the number of such expiations they had wit
nessed.  Analytic people were compariing, the various modes of shooting,
garroting, and guillotining.  Cigars were sending up spirals of soothing
smoke.  There was a good deal of covert fear that a reprieve might be
granted.  Inquires were many and ingenuous for whisky, and one or two
were so deeply expectant that they fell asleep.
I-ow much those four dying, hoping, criinging, dreaming felons were
grudged their little gasp of life! It was to be a scene, not a postponement
or a prolotigation.  "WVho  was to be the executioner?"  Why had not
the renowned and artistic Isaacs been sent for from New York? i" "  ould
they probably die'game, or grow XweLk-kneed in the last extremity I"  Ah,
the gallows' Workmen  have completed the jobs!  "Now then we  should
have it."
Still there was delay.  The sun peeped into the new-made'graves and
nlade blistering hot thegallows'floor. The old pump made its familiar
music to the cool plash of blessed water. The grass withered in the fervid
heat. The bronzed faces of the soldiers ran lumps of sweat. The file upon
the jail walls looked down into the w!de yard yawningly. No wind flut
tere4 the two battle standards condemned to unfold their trophies upon
this coming profanation. Not yet arrived. Why? The extent of grace
has almost been attained.  The sentence gave them only till two o'clock!
Why are they so dilatory in wishing to be hanged?
Suddenly the wicket opens, the troops spring to their feet, and stand at
order arms, the flags go up, the low order passes from company to company; the spectators huddle a little nearer to the scaffold; all the writers
for the press produce their pencils and note-books.
First came a woman pinioned.
A middle-aged woman, dressed in black, bonnetted and veiled, walking
between two bare-headed priests.
One of these held against his breast a crucifix of jet, and in the folds of
his blue-fringed sash he carried an open breviary, while both of them muttered the servica for the dead.
Four soldiers vith musket at shoulder, followed, and a captain led the
way to the gallows.
The second party escorted a small and shambling German, whose head
had a long white cap upon it, rendering more filthy his dull complexion,
and upon whose feet the chains clanked as he slowly advanced, preceded
by two officers, flanked by a Lutheran clergyman, and followed, as his
predecessor, by an armed squad.
71 
72      Th  life, Crimn   and (Capture of John  W;sike Both.
The third, preacher and party, clustered about a shabby' boy, whose
limbs tottered as he progressed.
The fourth, walked in the shadow of a straight high stature, whose.
tawny hair and large blue eye were suggestive rather of the barbarian
striding in his conqueror's triumph, than the assassin going to the gallows.
All these, captives, priests, guards, and officers, nearly twenty in all,
climbed slowly and solemnly the narrow steps;  and  upon four  arm
chlairs, stretching across the stage in the rear of the traps, the condemned
were seated with their spiritual attendants behind them.
The finldingrs and warrants were immediately read to the prisoners by
General Hartrauft in a quiet and respectful tone, an aid holding an
umbrella over him meantime. These having been already published, aind
being besides very uninteresting to any body but the prisoners, were paid
little heed to, all the spectators interesting themselves in the prisoners.
There was a fortuitous delicacy in this distribution, the woman being
placed farthest from the social and physical dirtiness of Atzerott, and near.
est the ulnblanched and mainly physiognomy of Payne.
SheMwas not so pale that the clearness of her comp!exion could not be
seen, and thed brigthtiiess of the sun made her vail quite transparent'.  Her
eyes were seen to be of a soft gray; her brown hair lay smoothly upon
a full, square forehead; the contour of her filce wits comely, but her teeth
had the imperfectness of those of most southern women, being few and
irregular.  Until the lips were opened she did not reveal them.  Her
figurec was not quite full enough to be denlominated buxomn, yet had all the
rolilise of venerable old age, had nature been permitted its due course.
She was of the medium height, and modest-as What.woman would not
be nlder such searching survey?  At first she was very feeble, and leaned
her head upon alternate sides of her arm-chair in nervous spasms; but
now and then, when a so't of wail just issued firom her lips,.the priest
placed before her the cruc(ifix to lull her fearful spirit.  All the while the
good fathers Wigett and \Valter murmured their low, tender cadences, and
inow and then the womnan's face lost its deadly fear, and took a bold, cogIiizable survey of the spectators.   She wore a rob-e of dark woolen, no
collar, and common shoes of black listing.  11er general expression was
that of accute suffering, vanishing at times as if by the conjuration of her
pridie, and again returning in a. paroxysm as she looked at the dreadful
rope dangling before her.  This w(oman, to whom. the priests have made
their industrious moan, lholding up the effigy of Christ when their own
appeals became of no avail, perched there in the lofty air, counting her
breaths, counting the winkfuls of light, couinting the final wrestles of her
breaking heart, had been the belle of her section, and many good men
had courted her hand.  She had led a pleasant life, and children had been
born to her-who shared her mediocre ambition and the invincibility of
her will.  If the charge of her guilt were proven, she was the Lady Macbeth
of the west.
But women know nothing of consequences. She alore of all her sex stands
now in this thrilled and ghastly perspective, and in immediate association
with three creatures in mwho'e company it is no fame to die: a little *rying
boy, a greasy unkempt sniveller, and a confessed desperado. I-Her &ase
and fug,itive son, to know the infamy of his cowardice and die of his shame,
shoulld have seen his mother writhing in her seat upon the throne his
wickedness established for her.
I'ay ie, the strlugest criminal in our history, was alone dignified and'
self possessed.  lie wore a closely-fitting knit shirt, a sailor's straw hat
1. 
. nl   e    mtio".         *'1'
tiod with a ribbon, and dark pantaloons, but no shoes& Hi collar, cat
very low, showed the tremendous  muscularity of  his neck,  and the
breadth of his breast was more conspicuous by the manner in which the
pinioned arms thrust it forward. Hlis height, his vigor, his glare made
him the strong central figure of this interelementary tableaux.   He said
no word; his eyes were red as with the penitential weeping of a courageous
man, and the smooth hardness of his skin seemed like a polished muscle.
He did not look abroad inquisitively, nor within intuitively. He had no
accusation, no despair, no dreaminess. He was only looking at death as
for one long expected, and not a tremor nor a shock stirred his long stately limbs; withal, his blue eye was milder than when I saw him last, as;t
some bitterness, or stolidness, or obstinate pride had been exorcised, perhaps by the candor of confession. Now and then he looked halfpityingly
at the woman, and only once moved his lips, as if in supplication.  Few
who looked at him, forgetful of his crine, did not respect him.  He seemed to feel that no man was more than his peer, and one of his last com.
mands was a word of regret to Mr. Seward.
I have a doubt that this man is entirely a member of our nervous race
I believe that a fiber of the aboriginal runs through his tough sinews. At
times he looked entirely an Indian. His hair is tufted, and will not lie
smoothly. His check-bones'are large and high set. There is a tint in
his complexion.  Perhaps the Seminole blood of his swampy state left a
trace of its combative nature there.
Payne was a preachler's son., and iiot the worst graduate of his class. His
real name is Lewis Thornton Powell.
Ile died without taking the hand of anty living friend.
Even the' squalid Atzerott was not so poor. I felt a pity for his physical
rather than his vital or spiritual peril'.  It seemed a profanation to break
the iron column of his neck, and give to the worm his belted ches
But I remember th!iat he would have slain a sick old man.
The third condemned, although whimnpering, had far mor'e grit than I
anticipated; he- was inquisitive aird flippant-faced, and looked at the noose
flaunting before him, and the people gathered below, and the haggard face
of Atzerott, as if entirely conscious and incapable of abstraction.
~Iarold would have enjoyed this execution vastly as a spectator. He
was, I think, capable of a greater decgree of dcpravity than- any of his 
complices.  Atzerott might have made a sneak thief, Booth a forger, but
Harold was not far fromn a professional pickpocket. Hle was keen-eyed,
insolent, idle, and, by a small experience in Ihouston street, would have
been qualified for a -first-class "kniuck."  lie had not, like the rest, any
political suggestion for the murder of the heads of the nation; and upon
the gallows, in his dirty felt hat, soiled cloth coat, light pantaloons and
stockings, he seemed unworthy of his-manacles.
A very fussy Dutchmana  tied him up and fanned him, and he wept forgetfully, but did not make a halt or absurd spectacle.
Atzerott was my ideal of a man to be hung-a dilution of Wallack's
rendering of the last hours of Fagan, the Jew; a sort of sick man, quite
garrulous and smitten, with his,head thrown forward, muttering to the air,
and a pallidness transparent through his dirt as he jabbered prayers and
pleas confusedly, and looked in.- a complaining sort of way at the noose, as
f not quite certain that it might not have designs upon him.
Hle wore a greyish coat, black vest, light pantaloons and slippers, and a
white affair on his head, perhaps a handkerchief.
His spiritual adviser stood behind him, evidently disgusted with him. 
. he oL,ife, Crime, and Capture of.John Wilkes Booth.
. tzerott lost his life through too much gabbing.   He could have had
serious designs upon nothing greater than a chicken, but talked assassins
tion with the silent and absolute Booth, until entrapped into conspiracy
and the gallows, much against his calculation.  This man was visited by
his mother and a poor, ignorant woman with whom he cohabited. He was
-thle picture of despair, and died ridiculously, whistling up his courage.
These were the dramatis personae, no more  to be sketched, no more to
be cross-examined, no more to be shackled, soon to be cold in their coffins.
They were, altogother, a motley and miserable set.  Ravaillao might
have looked well swinging ill chains; Charlotte Corday is said to have died
like an actress; Beale hung not without dignity, but these people, aspiring
to overturn a nation, bore the appearance of a troop of ignorant folks, ex.
plating the blood-shed of a brawl.
When General Hartrauft ceased reading there was momentary lull,
broken only by the cadences'of the priests.
Then the Rev. Mr. Gillette addressed the spectators in a deep impressive
tone.  The prisoner, Lewis Thornton Powell, otherwise Payne, requested
him to thus publicly and sincerely return his thanks to General Ilartrauft,
the other officers, the soldiers, and all persons who had charge of him  and
had attended him.  Not one unkind word, look, or gesture, had been given
to him by any one.   Dr. Gillette then followed in a fervent prayer in
behalf of the prisoner, durii,ng which Payne's eyes momentarily filled with
tears, and he followed in tlhe prayer with visible feeling.
Rev. Dr. Olds followed, saying in behalf of the prisoner, David E.
Harold, that he tendered his forgiveness to all who had wronged.him, and
asked the forgiveness of all whom  he had wronged.  lIe gave his thanks
to the officers and guards for kindnesses rendered him.   Ie hoped that he
had died in charity with all men and at peace with God. Dr. Olds cotin
eluded with a feeling prayer for the prisoner.
Rev. Dr. Butler then nmade a s.milar return of thanks on behalf of
George A. Atzerott for kindness received from his guards and attendants,
and concluded with an earnest invocation in behalf of the criminal, saying
that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, and asking  that  Ged
Almighty might have mercy upon this man.
'The solemnity of this portion of the scene may be imagined, the sev.
eral clergyman speaking in order the dying testament of their clieni.ts, and
making the hot hours fresh with the soft harmonies of their benedictions.
The two holy fathers having received Mrs. Surratt's confession, after
the custom  of their creed observed silence.  In this, as in other respects,
Mrs. Surratt's last hours were entirely modest and womanly.
The stage was still filled with people; the crisis of the ocession had
come; the chairs were all withdrawn, and- the condemned stood upon their
feet.
The process of tying the limbs began.
It was with a shudder, almost a blush, that I saw an officer gather the
ropes tightly three times about the robes of Mrs. Surratt, and bind her an.
kles with cords. She half fainted, and sank backward upon the: attendants,
her limbs yielding to the extremity of helr' terror, but uttering no cry, only
a kind of sick groaning, like one in the weakness of fever, when a wry med.
icine must be taken. 
Payne, with his feet firfily laced together, stood straight as one of the scai
fold beams, and braced himself up so stoutly that this in part prevented the
breaking of his neck.
I
. #z4 
Harold  tood well beneath the drop, still whipering at the lip, but
taut, and short, and boyish.
Atzerott, in his grovelling attitude, while they tied him began to indulge
in his old vice of gabbing.  He evidently wished to make his finale more
effective than his previous cowardly role, and perhaps was strengthening
his fortitude with a speech, as we sometimes do of dark nigbts with a
whistle.
"Gentlemen," he said, with a sort of choke and gasp,  " take ware,"
He   evidently  meant  "beware,"  or "take  care,   and  confounded
them.
Again, when the white death-cap was dra'rn over his face, he continued
to cry out under it, once saying, "Good bye, shentlemens, who is before
me now;" and again, " May we meet in the other world."  Finally he
drifted away with low, half-intelligible ebullitions, as "God help me," "oh!
oh!" and the like.
The rest said nothing, except Mrs. Surratt, who asked to be supported,
that she might not fall, but Harold protested against the knot with which
he was to be dislocated, it being as huge as one's double fist.
In faot all the mechanical preparations were clumsy and inartistic, and
the final scenes of the execution, therefore, revolting in the extreme.  WVhen
the dcath-caps were all drawn over the faces of the prisoners, and they stood
in line in the awful suspense between absolute life and immediate death, a
man at the neck of each adjusting the cord, the knot beneath the ears of
each protruded five or six inches, and the cord was so thick that it could
not be made to press tightly against the flesh.
So they stood, while nearly a thousand faces from window, roof, wall,
yard and housetop, gazed, the scaffold behind them still densely packed
with the assistants, an(c the four executioners beneath, standing at their
swinging beams. The priests continued to. murmur prayers. The people
were dumb, as if each witness stood alone with none near by to talk to
him.
An instant this continued, while an officer on the plot before, motioned
back the assistants, and then with a forward thrust of his hand, signaled
'bh executioners.
The great beams were darted against the props simultaneously.  The
two traps fell with a slain. The four bodies dropped lIke a single thing,
outside the yet crowded remnant of the gallows floor, and swayed and
turned, to and fto, here and there, forward and backward, and with many
a helpless spasm, while the spectators took a little rush forward, and the
ropes were taut as the struggling pulses of the dying.
rirs. Surratt's neck was broken immediately; she scarcely drew one
breath. Her short woman's figure, with the skirts looped closely about it,
merely dangled by the vibration of her swift descent, and with the knot
holding true under the ear, her head leaned sideways, and her pinioned
-arms seemed content with their confinement.
Payne died a horrible death; the knot slipped to the back of his reck,
and bent his head forwsard on his breast, st that he strangled as he drew
his deep chest almost to his chi, and the knees contracted till they almost
seemed to touch his abdomen. The veins in. hisgreat wrists were like
whip-cords, expanded to twice their natural dimensions, and the huge neck
grew almost black with the dark blood that rushed in a flood to the circling rope.  A long while he swayed and twisted and struggled, till at last
nature ceased her rebellion and life went out unwillingly.
Harold also passed through some struggles. It is doubtful that his
1 2%* Zxwu    i-.
.75 
76      The Life, Crime and Capture of JoA   Wilket BootIA.
nek was broken.   The perspiratcion dripped from his feet, and he swung
iu the hot noon just living eno,ugh to make death irritable.
Atzerott died easily. Life did not care to fight for his possession.
The two central figures lived long after the two upon the flanks.
There they hung, bundles of carcass and old clothes, four in a row, and
past all conspiracy or ambition, the river rolling by without a sound, and
men watching them with a shiver, while the heat of the day seemed sud.
denly abated, as if by the sudden opening of a tomb.
The officers conversed in a haltf-audible tone; the reporters put up their
books; the assistants descended from the gallows; and the medical men
drew near.   No, wind stirred the unbreathing bodies, they were  stone
dead.
The bodies were allowed to hang about twenty minutes, when surgeon
Otis, U. S. V., and Assistant Surgeons Woodward  and Porter, U. S. A.,
examined them and pronounced all dead.   In about ten minutes more  a
ladder was placed against the. scaff)ld preparatory to cutting the bodies
down.  An over.z(,lJ()1s sol(li'r on the platfoimni reached over and Irevrod
tlie c,ri1, lt'tilng olie 1)(IYdy Hilll witl it thtiiiii), wll(i lioe was itniiiedlIat(ly
ordered down and rel)rliniiiI(lded.   The body of Atzerott was placed in i
strong white pine box, and the other bodies cut down in the following
order, Harold, Powell, and Mfrs. Surratt.
The carcasses thus recovered were given over to a squad of soldiers
and each placed in a pine boux without uncovering the'faces.  The boxes
were forthwith placed in the pits prepared for them, and directly all but
the memory of their offense passed from. the recording daylight.
In the gloomy shadow of that arsenal lies all the motive, and essay of a
crime which might have' changed the destinies of our race.  It will be for.
ever a place of suspicion and ma,rvel, the haunted spot of the Capitol, and
the terror of all who to end a fancied evil, cut their way to right with a
dagger.
EXTRA KURAL SCENES.
As everything connected with this expiation will be greedily read I com.
pile from gossip and report a statement of the last intramural hours of the
prilsoners.
During the morning a female friend of Atzerott, from Port Tqbacco,
had an interview with him-she leaving him about eleven o'clock.  He
made the following statement:
He took a room at the Kirkwood House on Thursday, in order to get a
pass from Vice-Pesident Johnson to go to Richmond.  Booth was to lease
the Richmond theater and the President was to be invited to attend it
when visiting Richmond, and captured there. Harold brought the pistol
and knife to the room about half-past two'o'clock on Friday. He (Atzerott) said he would have nothing to do with the murder of Johnson,
when Booth said that Harold,had more courage than Atzei-ott, and he
wanted Atzerott to be with harold to urge him to do it.  There was a
meeting at a restaurant about the middle' of March, at which John Surratt,
O'Laughlin, Booth, Arnold, Payne, Harold and himself were present, when
a plan  o capture the President was discussed.  They had heard the
President was to visit a camp, and they proposed to capture him, coach
and all, drive through long eld'fields to "T. B.," where the coach was to be
I
0 
The eeioa".
left and fresh horses were to be got, and the prt would proeed to the
river So take. boat.  Harold took a buggy to "T. B." in anticipation that
Mr. Lincoln would be captured, and he was to go. with the party to the
river.  Slavery had put him on the side of the South   He  had heard it
preached in church that the curse of God was upon the slaves, for they
were turned black. He always hated the nigger and felt that they should
be kept in ignorance. He had not received any money from Booth,
although he had been promised that if they were successful they should
never want, that they would be honored throughout the South, and that
they could secure an exchange of prisoners and the recognition of the
confederacy.
Harold slept well several hours, but most of the night he was sitting up,
either engaged with his pastor, Rev. Mr. Olds, of Christ Church, or in
prayer. His sisters were with him from an early hour this morning to
twelve o'clock; they being present when he partook of the sacrament at
the hands of Dr. Olds. The parting was particularly affecting. Harold
oonversed freely with thoremn, and expressed himself prepared to die.
Powell converseod with Dr. Gillctte aiidl Dr. tr kSt,r on religlitis toptcs
during the morning, sittinig erect, as he did in the court'room.  FIro,m hil
conversation It appears ttiat he was raised religiously, and belonged to the
Baptist church until after the breaking out of the rebellion. lie appeared
to be sincerely repentant, and in his cell shed tears freely.  He gave his
advisers several commissions of a private character, and stated that he
was willing to meet his God, asking-all men to forgive,'and forgiving all
who had done aught against him.  Colonel Doster, his counsel, also took
leave of him durihng the morning, as well as with Atzerott.
Mrs. Surratt's daughter was with her at an early hour.  One of her
male friends also had an interview with her, and received directions concerning the disposition of her property.  During the night and morning
she received the ministrations of I'tevs. J. A. Walter and B. F. Wigett,
and conversed freely with them, expressing, while protesting her innocence, her willingness to meet her God.  Iler counsel, Messrs. Aiken &
Clampitt, took leave of her during the morning.
A singular feature of this execution was the arrest of General Hancock
th? morning, who appeared in court, to answer a writ of habeas corpsu,
with a full staff. It is well to notice that this execution by military order
has not, therefore, assed without civil protest.  President Johnson et
tended to General Hancock the'right conferred wn  the President by
Congress of setting aside the habeas corpus.
As usual in such executions as this, there were many stirring outside
episodes, and much shrewd mixture of tragedy and business.  A photo.
grapher took note of the scene in all its phases, from a window of a portion
of the jail.  Six artists were present, and thirty seven special correspondents, who came to Washington only for this occasion.
The lasses to.. the execution were written not printed, and, excepting
the bungling mechanism of the scaffold, the sorrowful event went c.ff with
m.-e than usual good order. Every body feels relieved to night, l,ecause
hai' of the crime is buried.
(O, Monday, Mudd, Arnold, O'Laughlin, and Spangler, will go north
ward to prison. The three former for life, the last for six years.
Applications for pardon were made yesterday and today to President
Johnson, by Mrs. Samuel Mudd. who is quite woe-begone and disappoint.
ed, in behalf of her husband, by the sisters of liarold, anid by Miss Anu
Surratt.  Harold's sc,ters, dressed in full mourniig   ar,    d heavily veiled.
77 
78      Th  Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth.
made their appearance at the White House, for the purpose of interceding
with the President in behalf of their brother. Failing to see the Presrdent,
they addressed a note to Mrs. Johnson, and expressed a hope that she
would not turn a deaf ear to their pleadings.  Airs. Johnson being quite
sick, it was deemed expedient by the ushers not to deliver the note,
when, as a last expedient, the ladies asked permission to forward a note to
Mrs. Patterson, the President's daughter, which privilege was not granted,
as Mrs. Patterson is also quite indisposed today.   The poor girls want
away with their last hope shattered.
The misery of the pretty and heart-broken daughter of Mrs. Surratt is
the talk of the city.  This girl appears to have loved her mother with all
the petulent passion of achild.  She visited her constantly, and to-day made
so stirring an effort to obtain her life that her devotion takes half the dis grace from the mother. She got the priests to speak in her behalf. Early
to-day she knelt in the cell at her mother's feet, and sobbed, with now and
then a pitiful scream till thegloomy corridors rang.  She endeavored to
win from Payne a statement that her mother was not accessory, and, as a
last resort, flung herself upon the steps of the White-House, and made that
portal memorable by her filial tears.  About half-past 8 o'clock this morn.
ing, Miss Surratt, accompanied by a ft,,male friend, again visited the White
IIouse, for. the purpose of obtaiining anri interviev with the President. The
latter having giveii orders tli,Lt he would receive no one today, the doorkee)er st,I),p(l cMiss Siirratt ait t'ie foot of the steps le ading up to the Presi.
(1eot's oIl iae, ail woulll( n)ot )lirnlit 4i (r to proceed fiather. o hod then Lskod
pcerO1lissi(ol to Soe0 Gc'n'all tuzzy, tihe pre'sident's military seoretatry, who
promptly answered the summons, and came down stairs where Miss Suirratt
was standing.  As soon Ras the general made his appearance; Miss Surratt
threw herself upon  her knees before him, and catching him by the coat,
with loud sobs and streaming eyes, implored him to assist her in obtaining
I hearing with the President.  General Muzzy, in as tender a manner as
possible, informed Miss Surratt that he could not comply with her request,
!s President Johnson's orders were imperative, and he would.receive no one.
Upon General Muzzy returning to his office, Mliss Surratt threw herself upon
the stair steps, where she remained a considerable length of time, sobbing
aloud in the greatest anguish, protesting her mother's  innocence, and
imploring every one who came near her to intercede in her mother's behalf.
While thus weeping she declared her mother was too good and kind to
be guilty of the enormous-crime of which she was convicted, and asserted
that if her mother was put to death she wished to die also.  She was finally allowed to sit in thte east. room, where she lay in wait for all who entered, hoping to make them efficacious in her behalf, all the while uttering
her weary heart in a woman's touching cries: but at last, certain of disap.
poilitmenit, she drove again to the jail and lay in her mother's cell, with
the heavy face of one who brings ill-news.  The parting will consecrate
those gloomy walls. The daughter saw the mother pinioned and kissed
her wet face as.she went shuddering to the scaffold. The last.words of
Mrs. Surratt, as she went out of the jail, were addressed to a gentleman
whom she had known.
"Good-bye, take care of Ahnnie."'
To-night there is crape on the door of the Surratt's, and a lonely lamp
shines at a single window, where the sad orphan is thinking of her bereav.
ment.
The bodies of the dead have been applied for but at present will not be
given up. 
The.zec.uo.
Judge Holt was petitioned all last night for the lives and liarties of the
condemned, but he was inexorable.
The soldiers who hung the condemned were appointed against their will.
I forbear to give their names as they do not wish the repute of executioners.
They all belonged to the Fourteenth Veteran ReserveInfantry.
Here endeth the story of this tragedy upon a tragedy.  All are glad
that it is done.  I am glad particularly.  It hascost me how many jour
neyillgs to Washington, how many hot midnights at the telegraph office,
how many gallops into wild places, and how much revolting familiarity
with blood.
The end has come. a'he slain, both good and evil, are in their graves,
out of the reach of hangman and assassin.  Only the correspondent never
dies.  He  is the true Pantheist-going out of nature for a week, but
bursting forth afresh in a day, and so insinuating himself into the history
of our era that it is beginning to be hard to find out.where the event ends
and the writer begins.
Next week Ford's Theater opens with the "Octoroon."  The gas will
be pearly as ever; the scenes as rich. The blood-stained foot-lights will
flash as of old upon merry and mimicking faces. So the world has its
tragic ebullitions; but its real career is comedy.  Over the graves c.f the
good and the scaffolds of the evil, sits the leering Mfomus across whose
ace death sometimes brings sleep, but never a wrinkle.
I
u 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The peaceful valleys reaching wide,
The wild war stilled on every hand;
On Pisgah's top our Prophet died,
In sight of Promised Land.
A cheerful heart he bore alway,
Though tragic years clashed on the while$
Death sat behind him  at the play  His last look was a smile.
ii
Hlis single arm crushed wrong and thrall  That grand good will we only dreamed.
Two races weep around his pall,
One saved and one redeemed.
No battle pike his march knbrued;  Unarmed he went'midst martial mniails.
IThe footsore felt their strength renewed
To hear his homely. tales.
The trampled flag he raised again,
And healed our eagle's broken  wing;
lThe night that scattered aimned imen
Saw scorpions rise to sting.
Down fell the brand in treaso)i's hand
Its gashes as he strove to staunch,
And o'er the waste of ruined land
To take the Olive Branch.
The holy crest by murder stained,
Upon its shattered portal lie;
The text this bravo's lips profaned
Be sanctified for aye I
In still green field or belfiried kirk,
Where'er high boughs his sleep may lull,
iere closed his life, where closed his work,
Beside the Capitol.
Be his no tomb perturbed and. pent,
With words too weak for grief begilt,Heap up his grander monument:
The Union he rebuilt!
GEo. ALYRED Towsin.
71'
4. I