Manhunt (20 page)

The recovery of this letter, which Booth had carelessly—or possibly willfully, given his incriminating letter to the
National Intelligencer
—failed to destroy, was a stunning development. Stanton realized that it brimmed with clues: Booth had at least two conspirators named “Sam” and “Mike”; Sam was in Baltimore; the assassination was premeditated, planned before March 27; and the Confederacy might be involved. What else could “see how it will be taken in Richmond” mean?

The
Daily Morning Chronicle
, one of Washington's major papers, described the frantic beginning of the manhunt:

Stanton sent another telegram to General Dix telling him about the new evidence and updating him on Lincoln's condition:

At the Petersen house Dr. Abbott recorded melancholy statistics in the minutes he kept that night: “5:50 A.M., respiration 28, and regular sleeping.”

“6:00 A.M., pulse failing, respiration 28.”

At 6:00 A.M., a fainting sickness overcame Secretary of the Navy Welles He had been cooped up in the claustrophobic Petersen house all night. Welles rose from his bedside chair, where he had sat listening to the sound of Lincoln's breathing. Welles needed fresh air and decided to
go for a walk. When he got outside, stood on the top step, and looked down to the street, he witnessed a remarkable scene: thousands of citizens, keeping their all-night vigil for their dying president. Welles descended the turned staircase and walked among them. They recognized Lincoln's bearded “Father Neptune,” and individual faces emerged from the crowd and spoke to him: “[They] stepped forward as I passed, to inquire into the condition of the President, and to ask if there was hope. Intense grief was on every countenance when I replied that the President could survive but a short time. The colored people especially—and there were at this time more of them, perhaps than of whites—were overwhelmed with grief.” After a while, Welles turned back: “It was a dark and gloomy morning, and rain set in before I returned to the house.” He wanted to be there at the end.

“6:30 A.M., still failing and labored breathing.”

“7:00 A.M., symptoms of immediate dissolution.”

In Maryland, at the same hour, Lieutenant Dana arrived in Piscataway Dana, although he held junior rank, had senior-level connections in Washington. His brother, Charles, was Lincoln's assistant secretary of war and a confidant of Stanton. David Dana and his patrol from the Thirteenth New York Cavalry had left Washington two hours ago, at 5:00 A.M. As soon as he reached Piscataway, he telegraphed Washington to report the progress of his early-morning expedition. “I arrived at this place at 7 A.M., and at once sent a man to Chapel Point to notify the cavalry at that point of the murder of the President, with description of the parties who committed the deed. With the arrangements which have been made it is impossible for them to get across the river in this direction.” Dana had already gotten his first tip, and he relayed it to headquarters: “I have reliable information that the person who murdered Secretary Seward is Boyce or Boyd, the man who killed Captain Watkins in Maryland. I think it without doubt true.” Of course it wasn't Less than nine hours into the manhunt, Dana was pursuing the kind of false lead that would come to bedevil the manhunters in the days ahead.

a
T THE
P
ETERSEN HOUSE
, A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN BEGAN THE
death struggle.

The end was coming on fast. Surgeon General Barnes placed his finger on Lincoln's carotid artery; Dr. Leale placed his finger on the president's right radial pulse; and Dr. Taft placed his hand over the heart. The doctors and nearly every man in the room fished out pocket watches on gold chains. It was 7:20 A.M., April 15, 1865. More than once, they thought that Lincoln had passed away. But the strong body resisted death and rallied again, as it had so many times through the long night.

It was 7:21 A.M. Death was imminent.

At 7:21 and 55 seconds, Abraham Lincoln drew his last breath.

His heart stopped beating at 7:22 and 10 seconds. It was over.

“He is gone; he is dead,” one of the doctors said. To the Reverend Dr. Gurley, the Lincoln family's minister, it seemed that four or five minutes passed “without the slightest noise or movement” by anyone in the room. “We all stood transfixed in our positions, speechless, around the dead body of that great and good man.”

Edwin Stanton spoke first. He turned to his right and looked at Gurley. “Doctor, will you say anything?”

“I will speak to God,” replied the minister, “let us pray.” He summoned up such a stirring prayer that later no one, not even Gurley, could remember what he said. James Tanner tried to scribble down the words, but at this crucial moment the lead tip of his only pencil snapped and he wasn't able to write any more.

Gurley finished and everyone murmured “Amen.” Then, no one dared to speak.

Again Stanton broke the silence. “Now he belongs to the angels.”

Edwin Stanton composed himself, reached for pen and paper, and wrote a single sentence. There was nothing else to say. It was the telegram that would, as soon as a messenger ran it over to the War Department for transmission, announce the sad news to the nation.

One by one those who were there at the end quietly filed out of the little back bedroom. Reverend Dr. Gurley and Robert Lincoln told Mary. She would not go to the death chamber; she could not bear it. She never saw her husband's face again. Around 9:00 A.M. she left the Petersen house. As she descended the stairs, coachman Francis Burke, who had waited all night to take the president home, readied to carry the widowed first lady there. Before she got in the carriage, she glared at Ford's Theatre across the street: “That dreadful house … that dreadful house,” she moaned.

The room was empty of all visitors now, save one. Edwin Stanton and the president were alone. The morning light streaming through the back windows raked across Lincoln's still face. Stanton closed the blinds and approached the president's body. He took from his pocket a small knife or pair of scissors and bent over Lincoln's head. Gently he cut a generous lock of hair—more than one hundred strands—and sealed it in a plain, white envelope. Stanton signed his name in ink on the upper right corner, and then addressed the envelope: “To Mrs. Welles.” The lock was not for him, but a gift for Mary Jane Welles, wife of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and one of Mary Lincoln's few friends in Washington. In 1862, Mrs. Welles had helped nurse Willie Lincoln, ill with typhoid fever, until his death on February 20. Then, in the aftermath, Mary Jane did double duty, continuing to nurse Tad, also ill, while also caring for Mary Lincoln, helpless in her grief. Nine months later, in November 1863, the Welleses' three-year-old son died of diphtheria. With that loss, Mary Jane Welles and Mary Lincoln shared a sadness
that brought them even closer. Within an hour of the assassination, Mary Lincoln had dispatched messengers to summon Mary Jane to her side. Stanton knew that if any woman in Washington deserved a sacred lock of the martyr's hair it was Mary Jane Welles. Later, Mrs. Welles framed the cherished relic with dried flowers that had adorned the president's coffin at the White House funeral. Lost in reverie, Lincoln's god of war gazed down at his fallen chief and wept. Abraham Lincoln was gone. “To the angels.”

It was time to take him home. Stanton ordered soldiers to go quickly and bring what was necessary to transport the body of the slain president. He ordered another soldier to guard the door to the death room and to allow no one to enter and disturb the president's body. When the soldiers returned from their errand and turned down Tenth Street, the crowd began to wail. The men carried a plain, pine box, the final refutation of their hopes. They knew already, of course, that the president was dead. They had seen the cabinet secretaries leave the house, and then Mary Lincoln. But the sight of the crude, improvised coffin made it too real. It was finished. The box looked like a shipping crate, not a proper coffin for a head of state. Lincoln would not have minded. He was always a man of simple tastes. This was the plain, roughly hewn coffin of a rail-splitter.

The men carried the box up the curving stairs and down the narrow hallway. Stanton supervised them as they rested the box on the floor. They unfurled an American flag and approached the president's naked body. They wrapped him in the cotton bunting, and, if they followed custom, were careful to position the canton's thirty-six, five-pointed stars over his face. These were the national colors of the Union. During the war Lincoln insisted that the flag retain its full complement of stars, refusing to acknowledge that the seceded states had actually left the Union. They lifted the president from the bed, placed him in the box, and screwed down the lid. The only sound in the room was the squeaking of the screws being tightened in their holes.

Stanton nodded in assent. In unison, the men bent down and inched
their fingers under the bottom edges of the box; it had no pallbearers' handles. They eased it up from the floor and began shuffling their feet down the narrow hallway to the front door. They carried the president into the street and loaded him onto the back of a simple, horse-drawn wagon. The driver snapped the reins and the modest procession, escorted by a small contingent of bareheaded officers on foot, took Abraham Lincoln home to the White House. There were no bands, drums, or trumpets, just the cadence of horses' hooves and the footsteps of the officers. Lincoln would have liked the simplicity.

After Lincoln's body was removed, Stanton and the other members of the cabinet—save Seward—met in the back parlor of the Petersen house. Andrew Johnson was not present when Lincoln died, so the cabinet sent to him an official, written notification of the president's death and of his succession to the presidency. They urged that the new president be sworn in immediately, and Johnson sent back word that he would be pleased to take the oath of office at 11:00 A.M. in his room at the Kirkwood. In the late morning of April 15, Chief Justice Chase and the officials in attendance found a changed man. Six weeks ago, an intoxicated Johnson had embarrassed himself by giving a foolish, rambling speech on Inauguration Day. Lincoln forgave him and said no more about it. The morning of Lincoln's death found Johnson sober, grave, dignified, and deeply moved. Given the tragic and unprecedented circumstances of his elevation to the presidency, it was decided collectively that it would not be appropriate for him to deliver a formal, public inaugural address.

Between the time Lincoln died and his body was removed from the Petersen house, the first newspaper account of the assassination hit the streets of Washington. The
Daily Morning Chronicle
announced the terrible news with a series of headlines: “MURDER OF President Lincoln. / ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE SECRETARY OF STATE. / MANNER OF ASSASSINATION / Safety of Other Members of the Cabinet. / Description of the Assassin / THE POLICE INVESTIGATION / THE SURGEONs' LATEST REPORTS.”