Chapter Ten

“So Runs the World Away”

LUCINDA HOLLOWAY, CARESSING BOOTH’S HAIR, HAD WATCHED him die: “[G]asping three times and crossing his hands upon his breasts, he died just as the day was breaking.” She twisted a curl of his hair between her fingers and caught Dr. Urquhart’s eye. She did not need to ask. The doctor looked up, watching for his chance when Doherty, Baker, and Conger, distracted, glanced momentarily away from the assassin’s corpse. Quicker than their eyes could detect, Urquhart’s hand, grasping a pair of razor-sharp surgical scissors, reached down for Booth’s head. In an instant he snipped a lock of the rich, black hair and pressed it into Lucinda Holloway’s palm. As quickly, she clenched her fingers around the black curl into a tight fist to conceal the precious memento. She was not a craven relic hunter who lusted morbidly, like so many others, for bloody souvenirs of the great crime. No, to her the lock was a private, romantic keepsake of the luminous, dying star. If the soldiers saw what she had done, they would have overpowered her, prying open her balled fist and confiscating her treasure.

Later, when the soldiers were gone, Lucinda entered the house and walked straight to the bookcase that held another prized relic—Booth’s field glasses. When no one was looking, she scratched her initials on the buckle of the shoulder strap, and then took the glasses to her mother’s house, a safe distance of several miles from Garrett’s farm.

THE GARRETT MEN STOOD BY AS MUTE WITNESSES TO THE drama they had helped author. By locking Booth and Herold in their barn, they made it impossible for the assassin to make a run for it when the Sixteenth New York arrived. Had they captured a notorious murderer or betrayed an injured, helpless man? Even more, a man who had come under their hospitality. Did they deserve honor or opprobrium? The Garretts feared judgment under the old Southern code. Soon, they tried to rewrite the events of this night to cast their actions in a positive light. Ignoring the fact that they evicted Booth from their home on the night of April 25, the Garretts claimed that he had declined the bed on his last night, and that it was Booth who insisted on sleeping under the porch with the sharp-toothed dogs, or in the barn on the hard, wood planks. Conveniently, they overlooked the part of the story about just who locked Booth inside that barn.

In the years ahead, they even invoked Edwin Booth’s name in defense of their family’s reputation. Edwin, a loyal Unionist, hated John’s deeds, but could not bring himself to hate his brother. Touched that the Garrett family took John in, and under the mistaken impression that they offered his misguided brother nothing but kindness and hospitality during the last two days of his life, Edwin wrote the Garretts a grateful letter: "Your family will always have our warmest thanks for your kindness to him whose madness wrought so much ill to us." If Edwin Booth had known the truth, that the Garretts had locked his brother in a barn like an animal, and helped prepare the funeral pyre, then Edwin, rather than lauding their kindness, might instead have wanted to come down to Port Royal and burn the rest of their farm down to the ground.

Edwin Booth might not have been the only one. The newspapers and the public demonized the Garrett farmhouse and gave it human characteristics, just as they had done to Ford’s Theatre. George Alfred Townsend’s lurid characterization spoke for many: “In the pale moonlight … a plain old farmhouse looked grayly through its environing locusts. It was worn and whitewashed, and 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 … in this house, so peaceful by moonlight, murder had washed its spotted hands, and ministered to its satiated appetite.”

Journalist George Alfred Townsend’s thrilling account of the manhunt.

Conger, Baker, and Doherty wanted to be absolutely certain, before they took the body back to Washington, that they had gotten their man, so they fished from their pockets carte-de-visite photos of Booth. Young Richard Garrett, mesmerized, watched the proceedings:

“I saw it done … our whole family saw it done. [H]e was a strikingly handsome man with a face one could scarcely forget. The detectives had a printed description of him which they proceeded to verify after his death. It agreed in every particular, height, color of hair, eyes, size of hand … I saw the initials J.W.B. just where they were said to be. I saw the detectives place … the photograph of John Wilkes Booth … beside the face of the dead man we had known for two days, and [nothing] in the world could not persuade me that God ever made two men so exactly alike.”

Lieutenant Doherty unrolled his scratchy, wool, regulation army blanket and ordered his men to lay Booth’s body upon it. He told the Garrett girls to go inside and bring him a thick sewing needle. Then he stitched the blanket around the assassin’s corpse, leaving one end open, like a sleeping bag, from which Booth’s feet protruded. They needed a wagon. Doherty’s men rustled up a local man and hired him to drive the corpse to Port Royal. The man brought the wagon to the Garretts’ front porch, where several soldiers heaved Booth in like a sack of corn. David Herold, whimpering, crying, pleading excuses that no one cared to hear, took it all in.

George Alfred Townsend offered his readers an unforgettable picture of Booth’s ersatz hearse:

Booth’s funeral procession retraced the very route that he, David Herold, and their three young Confederate companions had followed from Port Royal to Garrett’s farm two days ago. No sobbing mourners watched this parade. The soldiers forced Herold to walk, but he complained mightily that his feet were killing him. They put him on a horse, tying his feet into the stirrups and his hands to the saddle. On the ride one of the soldiers chatted up Herold and scored a superb souvenir—he persuaded Booth’s companion to trade vests with him.

The jostling wagon disturbed Booth’s clotted wound, noted Townsend. “When the wagon started, Booth’s wound till now scarcely dribbling, began to run anew. It fell through the crack of the wagon, dripping upon the axle, and spotting the road with terrible wafers.” It was an eerie re-creation of the street scene in front of Ford’s Theatre the night of April 14, when drops of Abraham Lincoln’s blood and brains drizzled onto the mud underfoot. Townsend relished the phenomenon of Booth’s flowing blood as the stigmata of a cursed corpse: “It stained the planks and soaked the blankets; and the old negro, at a stoppage, dabbled his hand in it by mistake, he drew back instantly, with a shudder and stifled expletive, ‘Gor-r-r, dat’ll 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 thousand, thousand dollars.’”

After Luther Baker and Ned Freeman crossed the Rappahannock, they drove Booth’s body from Port Conway toward Belle Plaine. Three miles north of that location, Baker haled the John S. Ide, which had transported the Sixteenth New York Cavalry to Belle Plaine on the twenty-fourth. There was no wharf above Belle Plaine, so Baker unloaded Booth’s corpse from Freeman’s wagon, put it in a small boat, and rowed to the Ide.

THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WERE EXACTLY what Conger, Baker, Doherty, and the men of the Sixteenth New York had in mind. Indeed, as news of the assassin’s death spread, manhunters across Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia fantasized about the same thing: That War Department broadside dated April 20, 1865, and its astounding proclamation—“$100,000.00 REWARD! The murderer of our late, beloved President Is Still At Large.” Booth was dead. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, Sam Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, Ned Spangler, and David Herold had all been arrested. It was only a matter of time before the U.S. government began writing checks—to someone.

Conger’s plan worked. He had arrived in Washington before Booth’s body, and now he could claim the credit of being the first to tell Edwin Stanton the news. He rushed from the wharf to Colonel Baker’s office, where he broke the news. “He came into the back office,” Baker stated, “and said to me that he had got Booth.” Conger told the story of Garrett’s farm, unfolded his handkerchief, and showed Baker what he had—the effects taken from Booth’s body. The two detectives jumped in a buggy and, about 5:00 P.M., drove to the War Department to tell Stanton the news. But the secretary had left his office for the day. They drove on to Stanton’s home, leaped out of the buggy, and ran to the front door. They found Stanton in the parlor reclining on a lounge resting, but not asleep. “We have got Booth,” Baker told him. Stanton covered his eyes with his hands, paused, and stood up. Conger and Baker laid out Booth’s effects on a table. Stanton picked up the diary and, Baker recalled, “after looking at it for some time, he handed it back to me.” “Then,” continued Baker, Stanton picked up the “little pocket compass.” In the quiet of his parlor, Stanton had received the news—Booth had been taken, he was dead, and the manhunt for Lincoln’s assassin was over. The secretary of war wasn’t ready to celebrate yet. He wanted to be sure that the body being brought to Washington was really John Wilkes Booth. Conger unrolled the handkerchief containing the treasures he had stripped from Booth’s still living body and shared his booty with Stanton. Persuasive evidence, Stanton must have concurred, but he had to be absolutely certain. He decided to convene an inquest aboard the Montauk as soon as Booth’s body arrived in Washington. Witnesses would give notarized statements. An autopsy would be performed. Then Stanton could be sure.

In Washington, the steamer John S. Ide rendezvoused off the U.S. Navy Yard with an ironclad gunboat—the Montauk—the same vessel that Abraham and Mary Lincoln visited during their carriage ride on the afternoon of the assassination. Stanton took immediate steps to confirm the identity of the man killed at Garrett’s farm. At first glance, Booth was barely recognizable. He had shaved off his moustache, and his injury, the psychological stress of the manhunt, and twelve hard days of living mostly outdoors had taken their toll, reported Townsend, on his hitherto magnificent appearance. “It was fairly preserved, though on one side the face distorted, and looking blue-like death, and wildly bandit-like, as if bearen by avenging angels.” The War Department wanted to quash the birth of any Booth survival myths. Edwin Stanton had already scrutinized all of the personal effects collected at Garrett’s farm: the photos of the girlfriends; the pocket compass that pointed Booth south to imagined safety; the leather-bound pocket calendar. As Stanton turned the pages, he made a startling discovery—Booth had used the calendar as an impromptu diary, and in it he recorded his motive for killing Lincoln, and the turmoil of the manhunt. Only one man, Stanton knew, could have authored these fevered words: Abraham Lincoln’s assassin. Stanton announced the news to the nation:

News of the arrival of Booth’s body spread quickly through the capital, and hundreds of spectators rushed to the river for a glimpse of the dead assassin. “At Washington,” George Alfred Townsend reported, “high and low turned out to look on Booth. Only a few were permitted to see his corpse for purposes of recognition.” A Chicago Tribune correspondent confirmed, with palpable disappointment, that “it seems that the authorities are not inclined to give the wretched carcass the honor of meeting the public gaze.”

News of Booth’s death traveled across the nation by telegraph, and newspapers everywhere rushed to print with excited stories filled with the details of the manhunt’s climax at Garrett’s farm. As soon as the news reached Philadelphia, T. J. Hemphill of the Walnut Theatre knew what had to be done. When he called at Asia Booth Clarke’s home, she received him at once. Asia knew from the very sight of him what must have happened. “The old man stood steadying himself by the center table; he did not raise his eyes, his face was very pale and working nervously. The attitude and pallor told the news he had been deputed to convey.” Asia spoke first.

“Is it over?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Taken?” “Yes.”

“Dead?” “Yes, madam.”

Asia, pregnant with twins, collapsed onto a sofa. If one of her new babies was a boy, she had planned to name him John. “My heart beat like strong machinery, powerful and loud it seemed. I lay down with my face to the wall, thanking God solemnly, and heard the old man’s sobs choking him, heard him go out, and close the street door after him.”

On the Montauk, several men who knew Booth in life, including his doctor and dentist, were summoned aboard the ironclad to witness him in death. It was all very official. The War Department even issued an elaborate receipt to the notary who witnessed the testimony. During a careful autopsy, surgeons noted a distinctive old scar on his neck and the tattoo—“JWB”—that Booth had marked on his hand when he was a boy. The cause of death was easy to prove: gunshot via a single bullet through the neck. As proof the surgeons excised the vertebrae it had passed through and also removed part of Booth’s thorax and pickled the bone and tissue in a neatly labeled glass specimen jar. Booth’s vertebrae repose today in a little-known medical museum, one attraction among thousands in a hideous collection devoted to documenting the wounds of the American Civil War. The surgeon general’s handwritten autopsy report was clinical and brief, but betrayed the emotion of the hour. In his letter to Edwin Stanton, Dr. Barnes assured the secretary of war that John Wilkes Booth had suffered:

Stanton had decided that a written record of the autopsy was insufficient. He summoned the celebrated photographer Alexander Gardner, Mathew Brady’s rival and a favorite of President Lincoln’s, to photograph Booth’s corpse as it lay naked, stretched out on a board on the deck of the ironclad. Stanton also allowed Gardner to photograph the conspirators imprisoned on the ironclads Montauk and Saugus. Gardner took multiple images of Arnold, O’Laughlen, Spangler, Atzerodt, and Herold, each wearing an unusual type of handcuff called “Lilley irons,” joined by a solid bar that prevented the prisoners from bringing their hands together. They would see Gardner again soon, when he took their final portraits. Gardner took special interest in Lewis Powell, picturing him in a number of poses that he soon reproduced as cartes-de-visite for public sale. But, on Stanton’s orders, there would be no public viewing of the autopsy images. Harper’s Weekly based a single, discreet woodcut on one of the horrific images, but the original glass plates and paper prints of Stanton’s trophy photographs vanished 140 years ago, almost as soon as they were taken, and have never been seen again.

The prominent sculptor Clark Mills, who had recently fashioned a plaster life mask of Lincoln in March 1865, sought permission to make a death mask of his assassin. He wanted to come aboard the Montauk, slather Booth’s face with wet plaster and, once it dried, pry the mask from the assassin’s countenance. Mills went too far for the secretary of war. According to a newspaper account, “Mr. Stanton, not deeming him over loyal, replied: ‘You had better take care of your own head.’ “Death masks, Stanton perhaps reasoned, were best suited for honoring great men, not their murderers.

Stanton certainly hoped that, like the autopsy photographs, Booth’s body would vanish. Scoop-seeking reporters lusted to unearth the last great episode of the twelve-day manhunt, the disposal of the assassin’s remains.

“What,” Townsend probed Lafayette C. Baker, “have you done with the body?”

Colonel Baker uttered a typically portentous, self-dramatizing reply: “That is known to only one man living besides myself. It is gone. I will not tell you where. The only man who knows is sworn to silence. Never till the great trumpet comes shall the grave of Booth be discovered.”

“And,” Townsend confidentially advised his readers, “this is true.”

In the days following the close of the manhunt, all the major American newspapers damned John Wilkes Booth with parting epithets. The most vivid among them was penned by George Alfred Townsend:

But Lafayette Baker had lied to Townsend. The second manhunt for John Wilkes Booth—the one for his corpse—had only begun. To prevent Booth’s grave from becoming a shrine, and his body a holy relic of the Lost Cause, sailors from the Montauk, accompanied by the Bakers, had pretended to row his body out to deep water and bury it at sea, so weighted down that it could never rise. The press swallowed the bait, and one newspaper, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News, even published a front-page woodcut illustrating the faux, watery burial. What really happened was far less dramatic. Lafayette Baker, Luther Baker, and two sailors from the Montauk took Booth’s body from the gunboat and laid it on the floor of a rowboat. The sailors shoved off from the ironclad’s low-riding deck, and rowed away from the Navy Yard, down the Potomac’s eastern branch. Booth was on the river again, seven days after Thomas Jones led him to its banks. The sailors made for an army post at Greenleaf’s Point called the Old Arsenal, or the Old Penitentiary, a complex of substantial brick buildings and a courtyard surrounded by a high brick wall. They pulled in to a little wood wharf attached to the arsenal. Lafayette Baker stepped onto the wharf and, leaving his cousin in charge of the corpse, walked to the fort to find Major Benton, the ordnance officer Stanton had chosen to put Booth in the grave. Benton and Baker returned to the wharf, looked at the body, and, Luther Baker recalled, “talked the matter over.” Benton knew just the place to bury him.

Benton ordered some of his men to carry Booth’s body into the fort. They dropped it in a rectangular, wood musket crate, and screwed down the lid. Somebody wrote Booth’s name on top. Then they buried the assassin in a secret, unmarked grave at the Old Arsenal penitentiary, the site chosen by Edwin Stanton as the unconsecrated burial ground for John Wilkes Booth, and for several of his conspirators who would soon join him in the grave. Stanton kept the only key. “I gave directions that he should be interred in that place, and that the place should be kept under lock and key,” Stanton said. He wanted to be sure that “the body might not be made the subject of glorification by disloyal persons and those sympathizing with the rebellion,” or “… the instrument of rejoicing at the sacrifice of Mr. Lincoln.” Stanton wanted to keep the worshipers and relic hunters at bay: “The only object was to place his body where it could not be made an improper use of until the excitement had passed away.” Booth had escaped once before on assassination night, but he would not escape Stanton again.

Booth’s death did not end the manhunt for those who had come in contact with the assassin during his escape. If they thought Boston Corbett had saved them, they were wrong. Stanton wasn’t finished with them. His April 20 proclamation had made that clear: “All persons harboring or secreting the said persons … or aiding or assisting their concealment or escape, will be treated as accomplices in the murder of the President … and shall be subject to … the punishment of DEATH.” Stanton sent more patrols into Maryland and Virginia to track down everyone who he knew, or suspected, had seen or helped Booth during his twelve days on the run. Thomas Jones, Captain Cox, the Garrett sons, and many more were seized and taken to the Old Capitol prison. Then, curiously, within weeks, Stanton freed them all. He decided to put only eight defendants on trial—Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen, Edman Spangler, and Samuel Mudd. Not one person who helped Booth and Herold in Maryland or Virginia, aside from Dr. Mudd, was punished for aiding Lincoln’s assassin. They returned to their homes and families and, for years to come, whispered secret tales of their deeds during the great manhunt.