Manhunt (3 page)

“The most beautiful black eyes in the world.”
John Wilkes Booth at the height of his fame.

By the time Booth arrived at Ford's, the president's messenger had come and gone. Sometime between noon and 12:30 P.M. as he sat outside on the top step in front of the main entrance to Ford's reading his letter, Booth heard the galvanizing news. In just eight hours the subject of all of his brooding, hating, and plotting would stand on the very stone steps where he now sat. This was the catalyst Booth needed to prompt him to action. Here. Of all places, Lincoln was coming here. Booth knew the layout of Ford's intimately: the exact spot on Tenth Street where Lincoln would step out of his carriage; the place the president sat every time he came to the theatre; the route through the theatre that Lincoln would walk and the staircase he would ascend to the box; the dark, subterranean passageway beneath the stage; the narrow hallway behind the stage that led to the back door that opened to Baptist Alley; and how the president's box hung directly above the stage. Booth had played here before, most recently in a March 18 performance as Pescara in
The Apostate
.

And Booth, although he had never acted in it, also knew
Our
American Cousin
—its duration, its scenes, its players, and, most important, as it would turn out, the number of actors onstage at any given moment during the performance. It was perfect. He would not have to hunt Lincoln. The president was coming to him. But was there enough time to make all the arrangements? The checklist was substantial: horses; weapons; supplies; alerting his fellow conspirators; casing the theatre; so many other things. He had only eight hours. But it was possible. If luck was on his side, there was just enough time. Whoever told Booth about the president's theatre party had unknowingly activated in his mind an imaginary clock that, even as he sat on the front step of Ford's, chuckling aloud as he read his letter, began ticking down, minute by minute. He would have a busy afternoon.

a
T THE
E
XECUTIVE
M
ANSION
, A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN ATE
breakfast with his family and planned his day. The president's eldest son, Robert, a junior officer on General Grant's staff, was home from the war. Robert had been at Appomattox, and his father was eager to hear details of Lee's surrender. Lincoln had scheduled a meeting with Grant at 9:00 A.M. at the White House. He wanted to talk more with Robert, so he postponed the meeting and sent a messenger over to the Willard Hotel with a handwritten note for his special guest: “General Grant, Please call at 11. A.M. to-day instead of 9. as agreed last evening. Yours truly, A. Lincoln.” The president decided that Grant should join the cabinet meeting set for that later hour.

At the cabinet meeting Lincoln was jubilant—everyone in attendance, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and the secretaries of the Treasury, the Interior, and the Post Office and the attorney general—noticed Lincoln's good mood. Welles, a faithful diarist, preserved an account of the gathering. Lincoln expected more good news from other battle fronts.

“The President remarked that it would, he had no doubt, come soon, and come favorable, for he had last night the usual dream which
he had preceding nearly every great and important event of the War. Generally the news has been favorable which succeeded this dream, and the dream itself was always the same. I inquired what this remarkable dream could be. He said it related to your (my) element, the water; that he seemed to be in some singular, indescribable vessel, and that was moving with great rapidity towards an indefinite shore. That he had this dream preceding Sumter, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone River, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc.”

General Grant interrupted Lincoln and joked that Stone River was no victory, and that “a few such fights would have ruined us.”

“I had,” the president continued, “this strange dream again last night, and we shall, judging from the past, have great news very soon. I think it must be from Sherman. My thoughts are in that direction, as are most of yours.”

Lincoln had always believed in, and sometimes feared, the power of dreams. On June 9, 1863, while he was visiting Philadelphia, he sent an urgent telegram to Mary Lincoln at the White House, warning of danger to their youngest son: “Think you better put ‘Tad's' pistol away. I had an ugly dream about him.” And in April 1848, when he was a congressman in Washington, he wrote to Mary about their oldest son, Robert: “I did not get rid of the impression of that foolish dream about dear Bobby till I got your letter.”

After the meeting adjourned, the president followed his usual routine: receiving a variety of friends, supplicants, and favor seekers; reading his mail; and catching up on correspondence and paperwork. He was eager to wind up business by 3:00 P.M. for an appointment he had with his wife, Mary. There was something he wanted to tell her.

a
T THE THEATRE
, H
ENRY
C
LAY
F
ORD WROTE OUT AN ADVER
tisement to place in the evening papers, which would start coming off the press at around 2:00 P.M. He delivered the notice to the
Evening Star
personally and sent another via messenger to at least two of the other
papers. That afternoon an advertisement appeared in the
Evening Star
: “LIEUT. GENERAL GRANT, PRESIDENT and Mrs. Lincoln have secured the State Box at Ford's Theatre TO NIGHT, to witness Miss Laura Keene's American Cousin.” Around 1:00 P.M., Ford walked next door and delivered notice in person to his neighbor James P. Ferguson at his restaurant at 452 Tenth Street, one door north of the theatre.

“Your favorite, General Grant, is going to be in the theatre tonight; and if you want to see him,” Ford cautioned, “you had better to go get a seat.”

Ferguson took advantage of the tip: “I went and secured a seat directly opposite the President's box, in the front of the dress circle.” Ferguson booked seats 58 and 59 at the front corner of the house near stage right. The restaurateur didn't want the best view of the play, but the best view of Lincoln and Grant.

James Ford walked to the Treasury Department a few blocks away to borrow several flags to decorate the president's box. Returning to the theatre, his arms wrapped around a bundle of brightly colored cotton and silk bunting, he bumped into Booth, who had just left Ford's, at the corner of Tenth and Pennsylvania, where they exchanged pleasantries. Booth saw the red, white, and blue flags, confirmation of the president's visit tonight.

A few blocks away, on D Street near Seventh, at J. H. Polkinhorn and Son, Printers, pressmen began setting the type for the playbill that would advertise tonight's performance. Once newsboys hit the streets with the afternoon and evening papers, the ad for
Our American Cousin
caught the eye of many Washingtonians eager to see General Grant.

Dr. Charles A. Leale, a twenty-three-year-old U.S. Army surgeon on duty at the wounded commissioned officers' ward at the Armory Square Hospital in Washington, heard that President Lincoln and General Grant would be attending the play. He decided to attend. Three days prior, on the night of April 11, Leale, while taking a walk on Pennsylvania Avenue, encountered crowds of people walking toward the White House. He followed them there and arrived just as Lincoln commenced
his remarks. Leale was moved: “I could distinctly hear every word he uttered, and I was profoundly impressed with his divine appearance as he stood in the rays of light which penetrated the windows.” The news that Lincoln was coming to Ford's Theatre gave the surgeon “an intense desire again to behold his face and study the characteristics of the ‘Savior of his Country.'”

Lincoln's box at Ford's was festooned with flags and a framed engraving of George Washington. The box office manager prepared for a run on tickets when he went on duty at 6:30 P.M.

Later, witnesses remembered seeing Booth at several places in the city that day, but none of his movements created suspicion. Why should they? Nothing Booth did seemed out of the ordinary that afternoon. He talked to people in the street. He arranged to pick up his rented horse. Between 2:00 and 4:00 P.M., Booth rode up to Ferguson's restaurant, stopping just below the front door. Ferguson stepped outside onto his front porch and found his friend sitting on a small, bay mare. James L. Maddox, property man at Ford's, stood beside the horse, one hand on its mane, talking to Booth. “See what a nice horse I have got!” boasted the actor. Ferguson stepped forward for a closer look. “Now, watch,” said Booth, “he can run just like a cat!” At that, Ferguson observed, Booth “struck his spurs into the horse, and off he went down the street.”

At about 4:00 P.M., Booth returned to the National Hotel, walked to the front desk, and spoke to clerks George W. Bunker and Henry Merrick. Three days later a
New York Tribune
reporter described the encounter:

On his way out of the National, Booth asked George Bunker if he was planning on seeing
Our American Cousin
at Ford's, and urged Bunker to attend: “There is going to be some splendid acting tonight.”

Around 4:00 P.M., the actor John Matthews, who would be playing the part of Mr. Coyle in tonight's performance, met Booth on horseback on Pennsylvania Avenue, at the triangular enclosure between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, not far from the Willard Hotel. “We met,” recalled Matthews, “shook hands, and passed the compliments of the day.” A column of Confederate prisoners of war had just marched past, stirring up a dust cloud in their wake.

“John, have you seen the prisoners?” Matthews asked. “Have you seen Lee's officers, just brought in?”

“Yes, Johnny, I have.” Booth raised one hand to his forehead in disbelief and then exclaimed, “Great God, I have no longer a country!”

Matthews, observing Booth's “paleness, nervousness, and agitation,” asked, “John, how nervous you are, what is the matter?”

“Oh no, it is nothing. Johnny, I have a little favor to ask of you, will you grant it?”

“Why certainly,” Matthews replied. “What is it?”

“Perhaps I may have to leave town tonight, and I have a letter here which I desire to be published in the
National Intelligencer
; please attend to it for me, unless I see you before ten o'clock tomorrow; in that case I will see to it myself.” Matthews accepted the sealed envelope and slipped it into a coat pocket.

As Booth and Matthews talked, Matthews spotted General Grant riding past them in an open carriage with his baggage. He appeared to be leaving town.

“There goes Grant. I thought he was to be coming to the theatre this evening with the President.”

“Where?” Booth exclaimed.

Matthews recalled: “I pointed to the carriage; he looked toward it, grasped my hand tightly, and galloped down the avenue after the carriage.”

When Booth caught up to the Grants and rode past their carriage, Julia Grant thought of something that had happened earlier in the day. She was at lunch at the Willard Hotel with General Rawlins—one of Grant's top aides—Mrs. Rawlins, and the Rawlinses' daughter, when four men entered the dining room and occupied a nearby table. One of the men would not stop staring at her, and Julia and Mrs. Rawlins both found the whole group “peculiar.” Now, a few hours later, Booth reminded her of the unpleasant incident when he caught up to their carriage. “As General Grant and I rode to the depot, this same dark, pale man rode past us at a sweeping gallop on a dark horse…. He rode twenty yards ahead of us, wheeled and returned, and as he passed us both going and returning, he thrust his face quite near the General's and glared in a disagreeable manner.” She was sure that it was the same man from Willard's.