The Day Lincoln Was Shot (27 page)

All evening long, he had studied the State Box and the right-hand aisle. The President was in the box but, except for one brief moment when he had leaned forward to look down in the orchestra, they had not seen him. The general was not present and Mr. Ferguson kept telling the little girl that Grant was sure to be along at any moment. Now he saw a figure move down the right-hand aisle and he squeezed the little girl's hand. She followed his glance and saw a man step down the broad steps with easy grace. Ferguson shaded his eyes against the glare of the stage lights and, after a look, smiled sadly and said that it wasn't General Grant after all; it was a famous actor named Booth.

Almost as though to assuage the disappointment, James Ferguson noticed that, at the same time, President Lincoln
was leaning forward in the box, with his left hand on the ledge, looking at the people below. It was the first time that Ferguson had seen Lincoln come into plain view, and he nudged the little girl and pointed. She looked steadily, and nodded. For the first time in her life she had seen, with her own eyes, the President of the United States.

John Wilkes Booth, slightly ahead of schedule, came down the dress circle steps slowly. He heard the lines onstage and he knew that he had about two minutes.

Asa Trenchard walked onstage and Mrs. Mountchessington said: “Ah, Mr. Trenchard. We were just talking of your archery powers.”

Asa, who was played by Harry Hawk, was a slender drawling Yankee.

“Wal,” he said, “I guess shooting with bows and arrows is just about like most things in life. All you have got to do is to keep the sun out of your eyes, look straight, pull strong, calculate the distance, and you're sure to hit the mark in most things as well as shooting.”

Booth looked down at the little white door and saw the empty chair. Confused, he looked at patrons sitting in dress circle seats as though wondering which one was the President's guard. He saw the two army officers and he moved by them. For the first time, he realized that he was going to get into that box with no trouble; no challenge; no palaver; no argument; no fight; no stabbing. He was going to be able to walk in as though Lincoln had been expecting him.

He walked down to the white door, and stood with his back to it. He studied the faces nearby, men and women, and he saw some of them glance briefly at him. A real wave of laughter swept the theater and attention reverted to the stage.

Mrs. Mountchessington had just learned that Asa Trenchard was not a millionaire.

“No heir to the fortune, Mr. Trenchard?”

“Oh, no,” he said.

“What!” young Augusta shrieked. “No fortune!”

“Nary a red,” said Asa brightly. “It all comes from their barking up the wrong tree about the old man's property.”

Now was the time. Booth knew that, in a few seconds, Asa would be alone on the stage. He turned the knob, pushed the door, and walked into the darkness. The door closed behind him. He found the pine board, held it against the inside of the door, and tapped the other end down the wall opposite until it settled in the niche he had carved for it. Pursuit could not come from that direction. Nor interference.

He moved toward the door of Box 7 in the darkness. A tiny beam of yellow light squeezed through the gimlet hole in the door and made a dot on the opposite wall.

Wilkes Booth could still hear the actors faintly. Mrs. Mountchessington had just said: “Augusta, to your room!”

And Augusta said: “Yes, Ma. The nasty beast!”

“I am aware, Mr. Trenchard,” said Mrs. Mountchessington in her frostiest tone, “that you are not used to the manners of good society—”

The conspirator crouched and pressed his eye against the gimlet hole. What he saw was clear. The high back of the horsehair rocker was in plain view and the silhouette of a head above it. He waited. Three persons were on the stage. In a matter of seconds, Augusta would be offstage, followed by her irate mother. That would leave Harry Hawk (as Trenchard) alone and he would begin to drawl: “Don't know the manners of good society, eh? . . .”

Booth kept his eye to the gimlet hole. The head in front of him barely moved. The universe seemed to pause for breath. Then Trenchard said: “Don't know the manners of good society, eh?” Booth did not wait to hear the rest of the line. The derringer was now in his hand. He turned the knob. The door swung inward. Lincoln, facing diagonally away toward the left,
was four feet from him. Booth moved along the wall closest to the dress circle. The President had dropped Mrs. Lincoln's hand and there was a little space between their chairs. The major and his Clara were listening to the humorous soliloquy of the actor onstage:

“Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old mantrap!”

The derringer was behind the President's head between the left ear and the spine. Booth squeezed the trigger and there was a sound as though someone had blown up and broken a heavy paper bag. It came in the midst of laughter, so that some people heard it, and some did not. The President did not move. His head inclined toward his chest and he stopped rocking.

Mrs. Lincoln turned at the noise, her round face creased with laughter. So did Major Rathbone and Miss Harris. A chrysanthemum of blue smoke hung in Box 7. Booth, with no maniacal gleam, no frenzy, looked at the people who looked at him and said, “Sic semper tyrannis!” It was said in such an ordinary tone that theatergoers only fourteen feet below did not hear the words.

The conspirator forced his way between the President and his wife. Mrs. Lincoln's laughter dissolved in confusion. She saw the young man towering above her, but she did not know who he was or what he wanted. The major saw the cloud of smoke and, without understanding, jumped up and tried to grapple with the intruder. Booth dropped the derringer and pulled out his knife. The major laid a hand on his arm and the assassin's arm went high in the air and slashed down. Rathbone lifted his left arm to counter the blow, and the knife sliced through his suit and flesh down to the bone.

The assassin moved to the ledge of the box and the major reached for him with his right arm. Booth shoved him and said loudly: “Revenge for the South!” Mrs. Lincoln began to
rub her cheek nervously. She glanced at her husband, but he seemed to be dozing.

Harry Hawk faltered in his lines. He looked up at the State Box indecisively. In the wings, W. J. Ferguson, an actor, heard the explosion and looked up at the box in time to see a dark man come out of the smoke toward the ledge. In the dress circle, James Ferguson and his little friend saw Booth climb over the ledge of the box, at a point near where Boxes 7 and 8 met at the picture of George Washington, and watched him turn his back to the audience and, by holding on with his arms, let himself down over the side.

As he dropped, he pushed his body away from the box with his right hand. This turned him a little and the spur of his right foot caught in the Treasury regiment flag. As the banner ripped, and followed him to the stage in tatters, the actor, by reflex, held his left foot rigid to take the shock of the fall, plus two outstretched hands. He landed on the left leg, and it snapped just above the instep. He fell on his hands, got up, and started to run across the stage to the left. He passed Harry Hawk and headed for the wings.

The audience did not understand. They watched the running actor, and he fell again. He stood and, as he got offstage, he was limping on the outside of his left foot; in effect, walking on his ankle.

Hawk, stupefied, did not move. His arms were still raised in half gesture toward the wings through which the women had departed. Laura Keene, in the Green Room, noticed that the onstage action had stopped and she came out in time almost to bump into Booth. She brushed by him, wondering what had happened to Harry Hawk. An actor stood in Booth's way and he saw a knife flash by his face.

A piercing scream came from the State Box. This was Mrs. Lincoln. Clara Harris stood and looked out at the people below and said “Water!” Major Joseph B. Stewart, sitting in
the front row of the orchestra with his wife and his sister, got up from his seat and climbed over the rim of the stage. He was a big man, looking bigger in a pale fawn suit, and he got to his feet, rushed by Harry Hawk, and yelled “Stop that man!”

The conspirator hobbled to the back door, opened it, and shut it behind him. Johnny Peanut was lying on the stone step with the mare's bridle in his hand. Booth's face was snowy and grim as he pulled his foot back and kicked the boy in the chest.

He took the bridle and limped toward the animal. She began to swing in a swift circle as he tried to get his good foot up in the stirrup. When he made it, Booth pulled himself across the saddle, threw his left leg over, and was just settling in the saddle when Major Stewart came out the back door yelling “Stop! Stop!” He reached for the rein as Booth spurred the horse and turned out of the alley.

The course he chose was not up to F Street, where the gate would have to be unlatched. He swung toward the side of the T, out through Ninth Street, then right toward Pennsylvania Avenue. His job was to put that first mile between him and his pursuers; he must be ahead of the news he had created. So he spurred the little mare hard, and she laid her ears back and ran. The conspirator was in little pain. He knew that his leg had been hurt, but the pain was not great now. He leaned his weight on the right stirrup and sat with the left thigh half up on the saddle. The mare turned into Pennsylvania Avenue and headed toward the Capitol. To the right of the House wing, a moon two days shy of being full was showing.

At Capitol South, he passed another horseman, trotting in the opposite direction. The speed of the mare attracted the lone rider's attention. As Booth turned into New Jersey Avenue, he slowed the mare. This was a shanty section, so dark that, unless the United States Government knew his escape
route, no one would look for him here. At Virginia Avenue, he turned left, and was now close to the bridge.

When Booth swung away from the rear of Ford's Theatre, Johnny Peanut rolled in the alley, moaning: “He kicked me. He kicked me.” Major Stewart turned to go back into the theater and was met by a rush of theater people coming out. Backstage, Jacob Ritterspaugh ran out of the wings and grabbed Ned Spangler by the shoulders.

“That was Booth!” he shouted. “I swear it was Booth!”

Spangler swung and smashed Ritterspaugh in the face.

“Be quiet!” he said. “What do you know about it?”

The audience began to buzz. Some of the men stood and began to ask others what did this mean. The people sensed now that this was not a part of the play and they felt vaguely alarmed. Major Rathbone pointed dramatically toward the dead wings and roared: “Stop that man!” Out of the State Box came a second scream, a shriek that chilled the audience and brought a large part of it to its feet. This again was Mrs. Lincoln. It had penetrated her mind that Mr. Lincoln could not be aroused. To the west, many farmers testified that, at this time, the moon emerged from behind clouds blood red.

In the orchestra, one man stood and brought to mouth the question everyone was asking: “For God's sake, what is it? What happened?” Miss Shepard, the letter writer, stood and saw that Miss Harris was leaning over the ledge of the box wringing her hands and pleading for water. Someone in the box, a man, yelled:

“He has shot the President!”

All over the theater, hoarse voices shouted, “No! No!” “It can't be true!” In a trice, Ford's resembled a hive immediately after the queen bee has died. The aisles were jammed with people moving willy-nilly. The stairs were crowded, some trying to get up to the dress circle, others trying to get down.

Some were up on the stage. Harry Hawk stood in stage center and wept. A group of men tried to force their way through the white door, but, the harder they pushed, the more firmly it held. James Ferguson, choking with horror, picked the little girl up and said that he would carry her out of the theater. Actors in makeup ran on the stage begging to know what had happened.

“Water!” Miss Harris begged from the box. “Water!”

Some of the patrons got out on the street and spread the word that Lincoln had been shot. The President, they said, is lying dead in the box inside. Tempers flared. A crowd collected. From E and F Streets, people came running. Many tried to get into the theater as others were trying to get out. Inside, a few women fainted and the cry for water could be heard from different parts of the theater.

Rathbone, soaked with blood, went back into the corridor and tried to open the door. He found the wooden bar and yelled for the men on the other side to stop leaning against the door. After several entreaties, he was able to lift the bar and it fell to the floor, stained with his blood. The major pleaded that only doctors be admitted. A short, handsome man in sideburns and mustache yelled from the rear of the mob that he was a doctor. Men pushed him forward until he got inside the corridor. He was Dr. Charles Leale, Assistant Surgeon of United States Volunteers, twenty-three years of age.

Someone, below the stage, turned the gas valve up and hundreds of faces were revealed to be in varying stages of fright and anger. On the street, a man shouted, “I'm glad it happened!” In a moment, he was scuffed underfoot, most of his clothes ripped from his body, and he was carried toward a lamppost. Three policemen drew revolvers to save his life.

In the State Box, President Lincoln's knees began to relax and his head began to come forward. Mrs. Lincoln saw it, moaned, and pressed her head against his chest. Rathbone
asked Dr. Leale for immediate attention. “I'm bleeding to death!” he said. The blood had soaked his sleeve and made a pool on the floor. The doctor lifted Rathbone's chin, looked into his eyes, and walked on into the box.

Miss Harris was hysterical. She was begging everyone to please help the President. The doctor looked at her, then lifted Mrs. Lincoln's head off her husband's chest. The First Lady grabbed the hand of medicine and moaned piteously.