The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth Part 3

Then, with a jealous woman's frenzy, she drew a knife upon him and stabbed him in the neck, with the intent to kill him. Being muscular, he quickly disarmed her, though he afterward suffered from the wound poignantly.

Does it not bring a blush to our faces that a good, great man, like he who has died--our President--should have met his fate from one so inured to a life of ribaldry? Yet, only such an one could have been found to murder Abraham Lincoln.

The women persecuted Booth more than he followed them. He was waylaid by married women in every provincial town or city where he played. His face was so youthful, yet so manly, and his movements so graceful and excellent, that other than the coa.r.s.e and errant placed themselves in his way. After his celebrated Boston engagement, women of all ages and degrees pressed in crowds before the Tremont House to see him depart.

Their motives were various, but whether curiosity or worse, exhibiting plainly the deep influence which Booth had upon the s.e.x. He could be anywhere easy and gentlemanly, and it is a matter of wonder that with the entry which he had to many well-stocked homes, he did not make hospitality mourn and friends.h.i.+p find in his visit shame and ruin. I have not s.p.a.ce to go into the millionth catalogue of Booth's intrigues, even if this journal permitted further elucidation of so banned a subject. Most of his adherents of this cla.s.s were, like Heine's Polish virgins, and he was very popular with those dramatic ladies--few, I hope and know, in their profession--to whom divorce courts are superfluous.

His last permanent acquaintance was one Ella Turner, of Richmond, who loved him with all the impetuosity of that love which does not think, and strove to die at the tidings of his crime and fight. Happy that even such a woman did not die a.s.sociated with John Wilkes Booth. Such devotion to any other murderer would have earned some poet's tear. But the daisies will not grow a whole rod from _his_ grave.

Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record should have dared to die for fame? Victory would have been ashamed of its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau.

I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year, on first setting out in life, before getting into a transaction of the kind specified. For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a considerable sum of money, and it happily occurred just as he was to quit the city. He had many quarrels and narrow escapes through his license, a husband in Syracuse, N. Y., once followed him all the way to Cleveland to avenge a domestic insult.

Booth's paper "To Whom it may Concern" was not his only attempt at influential composition. He sometimes persuaded himself that he had literary ability; but his orthography and p.r.o.nunciation were worse than his syntax. The paper deposited with J. S. Clarke was useful as showing his power to entertain a deliberate purpose. It has one or two smart pa.s.sages in it--as this:

"Our once bright red stripes look like _b.l.o.o.d.y gashes_ on the face of heaven."

In the pa.s.sages following there is common sense and lunacy:

"I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make me happy, where my profession _alone_, has gained me an income of _more than_ twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my _great personal ambition_ in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the _former_ for the _latter_, besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion) seems insane; but G.o.d is my judge."

Now, read the beginning of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were his words of his coming infamy. If he expected so much for capturing the President merely, what of our execration at slaying him?

"Right or wrong, G.o.d judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, _the lasting condemnation_ of the North.

"I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression.

For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former suns.h.i.+ne. _To wait longer would be a crime_. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. G.o.d's will be done. _I go to see and share the bitter end_."

To wait longer would be a crime. Oh! what was the crime _not_ to wait!

Had he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his memory might have been hidden. The end had come when he appeared to make of benignant victory a quenchless revenge. One more selection from his apostrophe will do. It suggests the manner of his death:

"They say that the South has found _that_ 'last ditch' which the North have so long derided. Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same 'ditch' by her side." The swamp near which he died may be called, without unseemly pun--a truth, not a _bon mot_--the last ditch of the rebellion.

None of the printed pictures that I have seen do justice to Booth. Some of the _cartes de visite_ get him very nearly. He had one of the finest vital heads I have ever seen. In fact, he was one of the best exponents of vital beauty I have ever met. By this I refer to physical beauty in the Medician sense--health, shapeliness, power in beautiful poise, and seemingly more powerful in repose than in energy. His hands and feet were sizable, not small, and his legs were stout and muscular, but inclined to bow like his father's. From the waist up he was a perfect man; his chest being full and broad, his shoulders gently sloping, and his arms as white as alabaster, but hard as marble. Over these, upon a neck which was its proper column, rose the cornice of a fine Doric face, spare at the jaws and not anywhere over-ripe, but seamed with a nose of Roman model, the only relic of his half-Jewish parentage, which gave decision to the thoughtfully stern sweep of two direct, dark eyes, meaning to woman snare, and to man a search warrant, while the lofty square forehead and square brows were crowned with a weight of curling jetty hair, like a rich Corinthian capital. His profile was eagleish, and afar his countenance was haughty. He seemed throat full of introspections, ambitious self-examinings, eye-strides into the future, as if it withheld him something to which he had a right. I have since wondered whether this moody demeanor did not come of a guilty spirit, but all the Booths look so.

Wilkes spoke to me in Was.h.i.+ngton for the first time three weeks before the murder. His address was winning as a girl's, rising in effect not from what he said, but from how he said it. It was magnetic, and I can describe it therefore by its effects alone. I seemed, when he had spoken, to lean toward this man. His att.i.tude spoke to me; with as easy familiarity as I ever observed he drew rear and conversed. The talk was on so trite things that it did not lie a second in the head, but when I left him it was with the feeling that a most agreeable fellow had pa.s.sed by.

The next time the name of Wilkes Booth recurred to me was like the pistol shot he had fired. The right hand I had shaken murdered the father of the country.

Booth was not graceful with his feet, although his ordinary walk was pleasant enough. But his arms were put to artistic uses; not the baser ones like boxing, but all sorts of fencing, manual practice, and the handling of weapons.

In his dress, he was neat without being particular. Almost any clothes could fit him; but he had nothing of the exquisite about him; his neckties and all such matters were good without being gaudy. Nature had done much for him. In this beautiful palace an outlaw had builded his fire, and slept, and plotted, and dreamed.

I have heard it said that Booth frequently cut his adversaries upon the stage in sheer wantonness or bloodthirstiness. This is a mistake, and is attributable to his father, the elder Booth, who had the madness of confounding himself with the character. Wilkes was too good a fencer to make ugly gashes; his pride was his skill, not his awkwardness. Once

he was playing with John McCullough in the last act of "Richard." They were fighting desperately. Suddenly the cross-piece on the hilt of McCullough's sword flew off and cut the owner deeply in the forehead.

Blood ran down McCullough's face, though they continued to struggle, and while, ostensibly, Booth was imitating a demon, he said in a half whisper:

"Good G.o.d, John, did I hurt you?"

And when they went off the stage, Booth was white with fear that he had gashed his friend.

As an actor, Booth was too energetic to be correct; his conception of Richard was vivid and original, one of the best that we have had, and he came nearer his father's rendering of the last act than any body we have had. His combat scene was terrific. The statement that his voice had failed has no valid foundation; it was as good when he challenged the cavalry-men to combat as in the best of his Thespian successes. In all acting that required delicate characterization, refined conception or carefulness, Booth was at sea. But in strong physical parts, requiring fair reading and an abundance of spring and tension, he was much finer than hearsay would have us believe.

His _Romeo_ was described a short time ago by the Was.h.i.+ngton _Intelligencer_ as the most satisfactory of all renderings of that fine character. He played the _Corsican Brothers_ three weeks on a run in Boston. He played _Pescara_ at Ford's Theater--his last mock part in this world--on to-morrow (Sat.u.r.day) night, six weeks ago.

He was fond of learning and reciting fugitive poems. His favorite piece was "The Beautiful Snow" comparing it to a lost purity. He has been known by gentlemen in this city to recite this poem with fine effect, and cry all the while. This was on the principle of "guilty people sitting at a play." His pocket-book was generally full of little selections picked up at random, and he had considerable delicacy of appreciation.

On the morning of the murder, Booth breakfasted with Miss Carrie Bean, the daughter of a merchant, and a very respectable young lady, at the National Hall. He arose from the table at, say eleven o'clock. During the breakfast, those who watched him say that he was lively, piquant and self-possessed as ever in his life.

That night the horrible crime thrilled the land. A period of crippled flight succeeded. Living in swamps, upon trembling hospitality, upon hopes which sank as he leaned upon them. Booth pa.s.sed the nights in perilous route or broken sleep, and in the end went down like a bravo, but in the eyes of all who read his history, commanding no respect for his valor, charity for his motive, or sympathy for his sin.

The closing scenes of these terrible days are reserved for a second paper. Much matter that should have gone into this is retained for the present.

LETTER IV.

THE a.s.sa.s.sIN'S DEATH.

Was.h.i.+ngton, April 28--8 P. M.

A hard and grizzly face overlooks me as I write. Its inconsiderable forehead is crowned with turning sandy hair, and the deep concave of its long insatiate jaws is almost hidden by a dense red beard, which can not still abate the terrible decision of the large mouth, so well sustained by searching eyes of spotted gray, which roll and rivet one. This is the face of Lafayette Baker, colonel and chief of the secret service. He has played the most perilous parts of the war, and is the capturer of the late President's murderer. The story that I am to tell you, as he and his trusty dependents told it to me, will be aptly commenced here, where the net was woven which took the dying life of Wilkes Booth.

When the murder occured, Colonel Baker was absent from Was.h.i.+ngton, He returned on the third morning, and was at once besought by Secretary Stanton to join the hue and cry against the escaped Booth. The sagacious detective found that nearly ten thousand cavalry, and one-fourth as many policemen, had been meantime scouring, without plan or compa.s.s, the whole territory of Southern Maryland. They were treading on each other's heels, and mixing up the thing so confoundedly, that the best place for the culprits to have gone would have been in the very midst of their pursuers. Baker at once possessed himself of the little the War Department had learned, and started immediately to take the usual detective measures, till then neglected, of offering a reward and getting out photographs of the suspected ones. He then dispatched a few chosen detectives to certain vital points, and awaited results.

The first of these was the capture of Atzeroth. Others, like the taking of Dr. Mudge, simultaneously occured. But the district supected being remote from the railway routes, and broken by no telegraph station, the colonel, to place himself nearer the theater of events, ordered an operator, with the necessary instrument, to tap the wire running to Point Lookout, near Chappells Point, and send him prompt messages.

The same steamer which took down the operator and two detectives.

brought back one of the same detectives and a negro. This negro, taken to Colonel Baker's office, stated so positively that he had seen Booth and another man cross the Potomac in a fis.h.i.+ng boat, while he was looking down upon them from a bank, that the colonel, was at first skeptical; but when examined the negro answered so readily and intelligently, recognizing the men from the photographs, that Baker knew at last that he had the true scent.

Straightway he sent to General Hanc.o.c.k for twenty-five men, and while the order was going, drew down his coast survey-maps. With that quick detective intuition amounting almost to inspiration, he cast upon the probable route and destination of the refugees, as well as the point where he would soonest strike them. Booth, he knew, would not keep along the coast, with frequent deep rivers to cross, nor, indeed, in any direction east of Richmond, where he was liable at any time to cross our lines of occupation; nor, being lame, could he ride on; horseback, so as to place himself very far westward of his point of debarkation in Virginia. But he would travel in a direct course from Bluff point, where he crossed to Eastern Tennessee, and this would take him through Port Royal on the Rappahannock river, in time to be intercepted there by the outgoing cavalry men.

When, therefore, twenty-five men, under one Lieutenant Dougherty, arrived at his office door, Baker placed the whole under control of his former lieutenant-colonel, E. J. Conger, and of his cousin, Lieutenant L. B. Baker--the first of Ohio, the last of New-York--and bade them go with all dispatch to Belle Plain on the Lower Potomac, there to disembark, and scour the country faithfully around Port Royal, but not to return unless they captured their men.

Conger is a short, decided, indomitable, courageous fellow, provincial in his manners, but fully understanding his business, and collected as a housewife on Sunday.

Young Baker is large and fine-looking--a soldier, but no policeman--and he deferred to Conger, very properly, during most of the events succeeding.

Quitting Was.h.i.+ngton at 2 o'clock P. M. on Monday, the detectives and cavalrymen disembarked at Belle Plain, on the border of Stafford county, at 10 o'clock, in the darkness. Belle Plain is simply the nearest landing to Fredericksburg, seventy miles from Was.h.i.+ngton city, and located upon Potomac creek. It is a wharf and warehouse merely, and here the steamer John S. Ide stopped and made fast, while the party galloped off in the darkness. Conger and Baker kept ahead, riding up to farm-houses and questioning the inmates, pretending to be in search of the Maryland gentlemen belonging to the party. But n.o.body had seen the parties described, and, after a futile ride on the Fredericksburg road, they turned shortly to the east, and kept up their baffled inquiries all the way to Port Conway, on the Rappahannock.

On Tuesday morning they presented themselves at the Port Royal ferry, and inquired of the ferry-man, while he was taking them over in squads of seven at a time, if he had seen any two such men. Continuing their inquiries at Port Royal, they found one Rollins a fisherman, who referred them to a negro named Lucas, as having driven two men a short distance toward Bowling Green in a wagon. It was found that these men answered to the description, Booth having a crutch as previously ascertained.

The day before Booth and Harold had applied at Port Conway for the general ferry-boat, but the ferryman was then fis.h.i.+ng and would not desist for the inconsiderable fare of only two persons, but to their supposed good fortune a lot of confederate cavalrymen just then came along, who threatened the ferryman with a shot in the head if he did not instantly bring across his craft and transport the entire party. These cavalrymen were of Moseby's disbanded command, returning from Fairfax Court House to their homes in Caroline county. Their captain was on his way to visit a sweetheart at Bowling Green, and he had so far taken Booth under his patronage, that when the latter was haggling with Lucas for a team, he offered both Booth and Harold the use of his horse, to ride and walk alternately.

In this way Lucas was providentially done out of the job, and Booth rode off toward Bowling Green behind the confederate captain on one and the same horse.

So much learned, the detectives, with Rollins for a guide, dashed off in the bright daylight of Tuesday, moving southwestward through the level plains of Caroline, seldom stopping to ask questions, save at a certain halfway house, where a woman told them that the cavalry party of yesterday had returned minus one man. As this was far from circ.u.mstantial, the party rode along in the twilight, and reached Bowling Green at eleven o'clock in the night.