The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth Part 8

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 Maryland road was dispatched by Major O'Bierne, and commanded by Lieutenant Lovett, of the Veteran Reserves.

It consisted of twenty-five cavalry men, with detectives Cottingham, 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 Bryantown on Tuesday. Here they arrested John Lloyd, of the hotel at Surrattsville, 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, frightened at the arrest, acknowledged at once that in her husband's conduct there was some inexplicable mystery. He was taciturn and defiant as before, until confronted by some of his old Union neighbors.

The few Unionists of Prince George's and Charles counties, long persecuted 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 very 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 Mr. 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 Was.h.i.+ngton resorting to many shrewd expedients, and taking note of the great swamps to the east of Port Tobacco; they reached Newport at last and fastened tacit guilt upon many residents.

Beyond Bryantown 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 a.s.sa.s.sins.

I do not recall anything more wild and startling than this vague and dangerous exploration of a dimly known, hostile, and ignorant country.

To these few detectives we owe much of the subsequent successful prosecution of 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 personal command of Major O'Bierne. It consisted, besides that officer, of Lee, D'Angellia, Callahan, Hoey, Bostwick, Hanover, Bevins, and McHenry, and embarked at Was.h.i.+ngton on a steam-tug for Chappell's Point. Here a military station had long been established for the prevention of blockade and mail-running across the Potomao. 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 Beckwith, 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 pa.s.sed 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 suffrage in the town. Its people were smugglers, to all intents, and there was neither Bible nor geography to the whole region adjacent. a.s.sa.s.sination was never very unpopular at Port Tobacco, and when its victim was a northern 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 tumble-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, as 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 pleosauri 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 business 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.

Atzerott had 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 Tobacco. 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 people were indicated or "spotted" as in no wise angry at the President's taking off, and for all such a provost prison was established.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maryland.]

A few miles from Port Tobacco dwelt a solitary woman, who, when questioned, 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. Major 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 established a cordon of armed officers around the place. At midnight punctually she exhibited the light, when the officers broke into the house and thoroughly searched it, without result. Yet the woman positively a.s.serted that she had heard the man enter.

It was afterward found that she was of diseased mind.

By this time the military had come up in considerable numbers, and Major O'Bierne was enabled to confer with Major Wait, of the Eighth Illinois.

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 swamps around Chapmantown, Beantown, and Allen's Fresh. Booth had been entirely lost since his departure from Mudd's house, and it was believed that he had either pushed on for the Potomac or taken to the swamps. The officers sagaciously determined to follow him to the one and to explore the other.

The swamps tributary to the various branches of the Wicomico river, of which the chief feeder is Allen's creek, bear various names, such as Jordan'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 c.o.o.n takes refuge in this desert from the hounds, and in the soil mud a thousand odorous muskrats delve, with now and then a tremorous otter. But not even the hunted negro dares to fathom the treacherous clay, nor make himself a fellow of the slimy reptiles which reign absolute in this terrible solitude. Here the soldiers prepared to seek for the President's a.s.sa.s.sin, and no search of the kind has ever been so thorough and patient. The Shawnee, in his strong hold of despair in the heart of Okeefeuokee, would scarcely have changed homes with 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 ma.s.s of them dismounted, with cavalry at the belts of clearing, interspersed with detectives at frequent intervals 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, now plunging to their arm-pits in foul sluices of gangrened water, now hopelessly submerged in slime, now attacked by Regions of wood ticks, now tempting some unfaithful log or greenishly solid mora.s.s, and plunging to the tip of the skull in poison stagnation; the tree boughs rent their uniforms; they came out upon dry land, many of them without a rag of garment scratched, and gashed, and spent, repugnant to themselves, and disgusting 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.

While 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 cavalry and infantry for Chappel Point; they took the entire peninsula as before, and marched in close skirmish line across it, but without 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 force 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 Harold. These two advanced to farm-houses and gave their a.s.sumed names, asking at the same time for a.s.sistance and shelter. They were generally avoided, except by one man named Claggert, who told them they might hide in the woods behind his house. When Claggert was arrested, however he stated that he meant to hide them only to give them up. While on this adventure, a man who had heard of the reward came very near shooting Laverty. The ruse now became 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 c.o.xe, the richest rebel in Charles county. There is a gap in the evidence between the arrival of Booth at this place and his crossing the Potomac above Swan Point, in a stolen or purposely-provided canoe. But as c.o.xe's house is only ten miles from the river, it is possible that he made the pa.s.sage of the intermediate country undiscovered.

One Mills, a rebel mail-carrier, 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 Sat.u.r.day night, Major O'Bierne, thus a.s.sured, 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 down the country and gave up, but Major O'Bierne, with a single 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 to catch the a.s.sa.s.sins before they reached Port Royal.

This the department refused. Colonel Baker's men were delegated to make the pursuit with the able Lieutenant Doherty, and. O'Bierne, who was the most active and successful spirit in the chase, returned to Was.h.i.+ngton, cheerful and contented.

At Mrs. Burratt's Was.h.i.+ngton house, at the Pennsylvania Hotel, Was.h.i.+ngton, and at Surrattsville, 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 dragged him from the barn.

"Who's that man in there? 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 lift behind his saddle from Port Royal to Garrett's farm, was then courting a Miss Goldmann at Bowling Green; his traveling companions were Lieutenants Ruggles and Burbridge.

Payne, the a.s.sa.s.sin 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 increase it at discretion. The entire rewards amount to a hundred and sixty odd thousand. Major O'Bierne should get a large part of it 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 from exhaustive.

LETTER VII.

THE MARTYR.

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 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 long, nor resume his daily work at the table where I am writing.

There 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 rings, 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 room is long and high, and so thickly hung with maps that the color of the wall cannot be discerned. The President's table at which I am seated, 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, around which there are many chairs, where the cabinet used to a.s.semble.

The carpet is trodden thin, and the brilliance of its dyes is lost. The furniture is of the formal cabinet cla.s.s, stately and semi-comfortable; there are book cases sprinkled with the spa.r.s.e library of a country lawyer, but lately plethoric, like the thin body which has departed in its coffin. They are taking away Mr. 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 maps; they are from the coast survey and engineer departments, and exhibit all the contested grounds of the war: there are pencil lines upon them where some one has traced the route of armies, and planned the strategic circ.u.mferences of campaigns. Was it the dead President who so followed the march of empire, and dotted the sites of shock and overthrow?