The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth Part 7

I come now to the ride out of the city by the chief a.s.sa.s.sin 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 over Capitol Hill.

As they crossed the Eastern branch at Uniontown, Booth gave his proper 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 start. At midnight, precisely, the two hors.e.m.e.n stopped at Surrattsville, Booth remaining on his nag while Harold descended and knocked l.u.s.tily 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 hors.e.m.e.n started to go off, Booth cried out to Lloyd:

"Do you want to hear some news?"

"I don't care much about it," cried Lloyd, by his own account.

"We have murdered," said Booth, "the President and Secretary of State!"

And with this horrible confession, Booth and Harold dashed away in the midnight, across Prince George's county.

On Sat.u.r.day, before sunrise, Booth and Harold, who had ridden all night without stopping elsewhere, reached the house of Dr. Mudd, three miles from Bryantown. They contracted with him for twenty-five dollars in greenbacks to set the broken leg. Harold, who knew Dr. Mudd, introduced 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-fas.h.i.+oned wooden band-box and prepared them. The doctor was a.s.sisted 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 from his foot; within were the words "J. Wilkes." 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 picked 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. c.o.xe, a notorious rebel, and probably well advised of the plot. They reached the house at midnight.

It is a fine dwelling, one of the best in Maryland. And after hallooing for some time, c.o.xe 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.o.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 c.o.xe. All this was meant to influence the darkey; but their motives were as apparent as their words. He conducted them three miles 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 c.o.xe'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 sh.o.r.es 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 eight o'clock it disappeared, and in the afternoon some men at work in Virginia, saw Booth and Harold land, tie the boat's rope to a stone, and fling it ash.o.r.e, 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 article with a list of all who were at Garrett's farm on the death of Booth.

1. E. J. Conger, Detectives.

2. Lieut. Baker, / 3. Surgeon from Port Royal, 4. Four Garrett daughters.

5. Harold, Booth's accomplice,

_Soldiers_.--Company H, Sixteenth New-York Volunteer Cavalry, Lieutenant Ed. P. Doherty commanding: Corporals A. Neugarten, J. Waly, M. Hornsby: Privates J. Mellington, D. Darker, E. Parelays, W. Mockgart; Corporals--Zimmer (Co. C), M. Taenaek; Privates H. Pardman, J. Meiyers, W. Burnn, F. Meekdank, G. Haich, J. Raien, J. Kelly, J. Samger (Co. M), G. Zeichton,--Steinbury, L. Sweech (Co. A), A. Sweech (Co. H), 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 DETECTIVES' STORIES.

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 2--P. M.

The police resources of the country have been fairly tested during the past two weeks. Under the circ.u.mstances, the shrewdness and energy of both munic.i.p.al 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 const.i.tuted by far the largest police organization ever known on this side of the Atlantic.

I think the adventures and expedients of these public servants worthy of a column. It would be out of all proportion to pa.s.s them by when we devote a dozen lines to every petty larceny and shoplifting.

On 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 efforts to know the real extent of the a.s.sa.s.sination.

Immediately afterwards, however, or on Sat.u.r.day 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 wore organized: one reaching up the north bank of the Potomac 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 broad sea-running streams;

A third to scour the peninsula towards Point Lookout.

The latter region became the only one well examined; the northern expedition failed until advised from below to capture Atzerott, and failed, to capture Payne. Yet there were cogent probabilities that the a.s.sa.s.sin had taken this route; far Mosby would have given them the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p.

When that guerrilla heard of Booth's feat, said Captain Jett, he exclaimed:

"Now, by----! I could take that man in my arms."

Was.h.i.+ngton, as a precautionary measure, was doubly picketed at once; the authorities in all northern towns advised of the personnel of the murderer, and requests made of the detective chiefs in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New-York, to forward to Was.h.i.+ngton 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 resolute 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 Beall and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he has probably rendered 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 somewhat novel pride in what he calls "the most beautiful gallows in the United States."

These officials were ordered to visit Colonel Ingraham's office and examine the little evidence 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 police. He 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 Hoey, of New-York; Deputy-Marshal Newcome, formerly of THE WORLD'S city staff; Officers Joseph Pierson and West, of Baltimore.

Major O'Bierne's immediate aids were Detectives John Lee, Lloyd, Gavigan, Coddingham, and Williams.

A detachment of the Philadelphia detective police, force--Officers Taggert, George Smith, and Carlin, reporting to Colonel Baker--went in the direction of the North Pole; everybody is on the _que vive_ for them.

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 a.s.sa.s.sins.

Lieutenant Commander Gus.h.i.+ng, I am informed, also rendered important services to the government in connection with the police operations.

Volunteer detectives, such as Ex-Marshal Lewis and Angelis, were plentiful; it is probable that in the pitch of the excitement five hundred detective officers were in and around Was.h.i.+ngton city. At the same time the secret police of Richmond abandoned their ordinary business, and devoted themselves solely to this overshadowing offense.

No citizen, in these terrible days, knows what eyes were upon him as he talked and walked, nor how his stature and guise were keenly scanned by folks who pa.s.sed him absent-faced, yet with his mental portrait carefully turned over, the while some invisible hand clutched a revolver, and held a life or death challenge upon his lips.