The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth Part 4

This is the court-house town of Caroline county--a small and scattered place, having within it an Ancient tavern, no longer used for other than lodging purposes; but here they hauled from his bed the captain aforesaid, and bade him dress himself. As soon as he comprehended the matter he became pallid and eagerly narrated all the facts in his possession. Booth, to his knowledge, was then lying at the house of one Garrett, which they had pa.s.sed, and Harold had departed the existing day with the intention of rejoining him.

Taking this captain along for a guide, the worn out hors.e.m.e.n retraced, though some of the men were so haggard and wasted with travel that they had to be kicked into intelligence before they could climb to their saddles. The objects of the chase thus at hand, the detectives, full of sanguine purpose; hurried the cortege so well along that by 2 o'clock early morning, all halted at Garrett's gate. In the pale moonlight three hundred yards from the main road, to the left, 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. The front of this house looked up the road toward the Rappahannock, but did not face it, and on that side a long Virginia porch protruded, where, in the summer, among the honeysuckles, the humming bird flew like a visible odor. Nearest the main road, against the pallid gable, a single-storied kitchen stood, and there were three other doors, one opening upon the porch, one in the kitchen gable, and one in the rear of the farmhouse.

Dimly seen behind, an old barn, high and weather-beaten, faced the roadside gate, for the house itself lay to the left of its own lane; and nestling beneath the barn, a few long corn-cribs lay with a cattle shed at hand. There was not a swell of the landscape anywhere in sight. A plain dead level contained all the tenements and structures. A worm fence stretched along the road broken by two battered gate posts, and between the road and the house, the lane was crossed by a second fence and gate. The farm-house lane, pa.s.sing the house front, kept straight on to the barn, though a second carriage track ran up to the porch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Garrett's House.

_A_ Door through which the dying man was brought. _B_ Corner at which the barn was fired. _C_ Spot in the barn on which Booth stood. _D_ Point where Corbett fired. _E_ Porch where Booth died. _G_ Door at which Lieutenant Baker knocked. _H_ Shed. _I_ Kitchen.]

It was a homely and primitive scene enough, pastoral as any farm boy's birth-place, and had been the seat of many toils and endearments. Young wives had been brought to it, and around its hearth the earliest cries of infants, gladdening mothers' hearts, had made the household jubilant till the stars came out, and were its only sentries, save the bright lights at its window-panes as of a camp-fire, and the suppressed chorusses of the domestic bivouac within, where apple toasting and nut cracking and country games shortened the winter shadows. Yet in this house, so peaceful by moonlight, murder had washed its spotted hands, and ministered to its satiated appet.i.te. History--present in every nook in the broad young world--had stopped, to make a landmark of Garrett's farm.

In the dead stillness, Baker dismounted and forced the outer gate; Conger kept close behind him, and the hors.e.m.e.n followed cautiously. They made no noise in the soft clay, nor broke the all-foreboding silence anywhere, till the second gate swung open gratingly, yet even then nor hoa.r.s.e nor shrill response came back, save distant croaking, as of frogs or owls, or the whizz of some pa.s.sing night-hawk. So they surrounded the pleasant old homestead, each horseman, carbine in poise, adjusted under the grove of locusts, so as to inclose the dwelling with a circle of fire. After a pause, Baker rode to the kitchen door on the side, and dismounting, rapped and halloed l.u.s.tily. An old man, in drawers and night-s.h.i.+rt, hastily undrew the bolts, and stood on the threshold, peering s.h.i.+veringly into the darkness.

Baker seized him by the throat at once, and held a pistol to his ear.

"Who--who is it that calls me?" cried the old man. "Where are the men who stay with you?" challenged Baker. "If you prevaricate you are a dead man!" The old fellow, who proved to be the head of the family, was so overawed and paralysed that he stammered, and shook, and said not a word. "Go light a candle," cried Baker, sternly, "and be quick about it." The trembling old man obeyed, and in a moment the imperfect rays flared upon his whitening hairs and bluishly pallid face. Then the question was repeated, backed up by the glimmering pistol, "where are those men?" The old man held to the wall, and his knees smote each other. "They are gone," he said. "We hav'n't got them in the house, I a.s.sure you that they are gone." Here there were sounds and whisperings in the main building adjoining, and the lieutenant strode to the door. A ludicrous instant intervened, the old man's modesty outran his terror.

"Don't go in there," he said, feebly; "there are women undressed in there." "d.a.m.n the women," cried Baker; "what if they are undressed? We shall go in if they haven't a rag." Leaving the old man in mute astonishment, Baker bolted through the door, and stood in an a.s.semblage of bare arms and night robes. His loaded pistol disarmed modesty of its delicacy and subst.i.tuted therefor a seasonable terror. Here he repeated his summons, and the half light of the candle gave to his face a more than bandit ferocity. They all denied knowledge of the strangers'

whereabouts.

In the interim Conger had also entered, and while the household and its invaders were thus in weird tableaux, a young man appeared, as if he had risen from the ground. The muzzles of everybody turned upon him in a second; but, while he blanched, he did not lose loquacity. "Father," he said, "we had better tell the truth about the matter. Those men whom you seek, gentlemen, are in the barn, I know. They went there to sleep."

Leaving one soldier to guard the old man--and the soldier was very glad of the job, as it relieved him of personal hazard in the approaching combat--all the rest, with c.o.c.ked pistols at the young man's head, followed on to the barn. It lay a hundred yards from the house, the front barndoor facing the west gable, and was an old and s.p.a.cious structure, with floors only a trifle above the ground level.

The troops dismounted, were stationed at regular intervals around it, and ten yards distant at every point, four special guards placed to command the door and all with weapons in supple preparation, while Baker and Conger went direct to the portal. It had a padlock upon it, and the key of this Baker secured at once. In the interval of silence that ensued, the rustling of planks and straw was heard inside, as of persons rising from sleep.

At the same moment Baker hailed:

"To the persons in this barn. I have a proposal to make; we are about to send in to you the son of the man in whose custody you are found. Either surrender to him your arms and then give yourselves up, or we'll set fire to the place. We mean to take you both, or to have a bonfire and a shooting match."

No answer came to this of any kind. The lad, John M. Garrett, who was in deadly fear, was here pushed through the door by a sudden opening of it, and immediately Lieutenant Baker locked the door on the outside. The boy was heard to state his appeal in under tone. Booth replied:

"d.a.m.n you. Get out of here. You have betrayed me."

At the same time he placed his hand in his pocket as for a pistol. A remonstrance followed, but the boy slipped quickly over the reopened portal, reporting that his errand had failed, and that he dared not enter again. All this time the candle brought from the house to the barn was burning close beside the two detectives, rendering it easy for any one within to have shot them dead. This observed, the light was cautiously removed, and everybody took care to keep out of its reflection. By this time the crisis of the position was at hand, the cavalry exhibited very variable inclinations, some to run away, others to shoot Booth without a summons, but all excited and fitfully silent.

At the house near by the female folks were seen collected in the doorway, and the necessities of the case provoked prompt conclusions.

The boy was placed at a remote point, and the summons repeated by Baker:

"You must surrender inside there. Give up your arms and appear. There is no chance for escape. We give you five minutes to make up your mind."

A bold, clarion reply came from within, so strong as to be heard at the house door:

"Who are you, and what do you want with us?"

Baker again urged: "We want you to deliver up your arms and become our prisoners."

"But who are you?" hallooed the same strong voice.

Baker.--"That makes no difference. We know who you are, and we want you.

We have here fifty men, armed with carbines and pistols. You cannot escape."

There was a long pause, and then Booth said:

"Captain, this is a hard case, I swear. Perhaps I am being taken by my own friends." No reply from the detectives.

Booth--"Well, give us a little time to consider."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Garrett's House, Where Booth Died--Sketched by W. N.

Walton, for "Harper's Weekly" for May 30th, 1865]

Baker--"Very well. Take time."

Here ensued a long and eventful pause. What thronging memories it brought to Booth, we can only guess. In this little interval he made the resolve to die. But he was cool and steady to the end. Baker, after a lapse, hailed for the last time.

"Well, we have waited long enough; surrender your arms and come out, or we'll fire the barn."

Booth answered thus: "I am but a cripple, a one-legged man. Withdraw your forces one hundred yard from the door, and I will come. Give me a chance for my life, captain. I will never be taken alive."

Baker--"We did not come here to fight, but to capture you. I say again, appear, or the barn shall be fired."

Then with a long breath, which could be heard outside, Booth cried in sudden calmness, still invisible, as were to him his enemies:

"Well, then, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me."

There was a pause repeated, broken by low discussions within between Booth and his a.s.sociate, the former saying, as if in answer to some remonstrance or appeal, "Get away from me. You are a d.a.m.ned coward, and mean to leave me in my distress; but go, go. I don't want you to stay. I won't have _you_ stay." Then he shouted aloud:

"There's a man inside who wants to surrender."

Baker--"Let him come, if he will bring his arms."

Here Harold, rattling at the door, said: "Let me out; open the door; I want to surrender."

Baker--"Hand out your arms, then."

Harold--"I have not got any."

Baker--"You are the man that carried the carbine yesterday; bring it out."

Harold--"I haven't got any."

This was said in a whining tone, and with an almost visible s.h.i.+ver.

Booth cried aloud, at this hesitation: "He hasn't got any arms; they are mine, and I have kept them."

Baker--"Well, he carried the carbine, and must bring it out."

Booth--"On the word and honor of a gentleman, he has no arms with him.

They are mine, and I have got them."

At this time Harold was quite up to the door, within whispering distance of Baker. The latter told him to put out his hands to be handcuffed, at the same time drawing open the door a little distance. Harold thrust forth his hands, when Baker, seizing him, jerked him into the night, and straightway delivered him over to a deputation of cavalrymen. The fellow began to talk of his innocence and plead so noisily that Conger threatened to gag him unless he ceased. Then Booth made his last appeal, in the same clear unbroken voice:

"Captain, give me a chance. Draw off your men and I will fight them singly. I could have killed you six times to-night, but I believe you to be a brave man, and would not murder you. Give a lame man a show."