Manhunt (10 page)

B
ACK AT
F
ORD'S
T
HEATRE THE MANHUNT FOR
B
OOTH ALMOST
ended before it began when one man, an army major and lawyer named Joseph B. Stewart, rose from his front-row seat to pursue the assassin. Stewart, long-limbed at six foot five, and rumored to be the tallest man in Washington, decided to leap from the first row across the orchestra pit to the stage. But the wide opening served as Booth's moat, sealing off any pursuit by the audience. Stewart slipped before he could make his leap. It was too far. He regained his balance and then, in an acrobatic display, danced across the pit by tiptoeing along the chair tops. In a few moments he reached the stage and followed Booth into the wings. Within days, newspaper woodcuts immortalized Stewart as the solitary audience member who thought of chasing after Booth.

Booth continued rushing through the wings and down the passageway leading to the back door that opened to Baptist Alley. A few more seconds, and he would be in the saddle. But he knew he wouldn't be safe even then. Alert audience members from the rear of the theatre, guessing that the assassin would head for the alley, might sprint out onto Tenth Street to cut off his escape. At this moment, as Booth reached for the back door, interceptors might be running right on Tenth, then right again on F, to cut him off at the mouth of F and Baptist Alley. Even
worse, someone might have already mounted a horse to chase him down.

Booth may have been focused on the alley, but the more immediate danger lay behind him, closing fast. Stewart, following him into the wings and down the passageway, was shortening the distance between them with every stride.

Booth prayed that Ned Spangler or John Peanut stood on the other side of that door, still holding his horse. If either one had tired of holding the animal and taken it back to the actor's stable a few yards down the alley, or had tied her off behind the theatre, only to have her break free, Booth was doomed. He burst through the alley door, sucked his lungs full of fresh, spring night air, and slammed it shut behind him. Mrs. Anderson saw him run out "with something in his hand glittering." Where was the bay mare? She wasn't where he left her. Was Booth trapped, about to suffer the same fate as Shakespeare's Richard III—abandoned on enemy ground without his steed? But when Booth turned his head to the right he saw salvation: his horse, standing quietly in the alley, just a few steps away. In a split second Booth's eyes raced the length of the leather reins, following them into the hands of a man reclining on the wood carpenter's bench near Ford's back wall. It was John Peanut! "Give me my horse, boy!" Booth commanded as he lunged for the animal. There was no wood stepping box nearby to elevate him to the stirrups. With brute strength, he yanked himself onto the black-legged bay mare with a white star on her forehead and grabbed the reins. John Peanut rose to surrender them. As thanks, Booth, still clutching his dagger stained with Major Rathbone's blood, popped Peanut in the head with the pommel, then kicked the youth away hard with his boot heel. Better that than a cut to the throat of the harmless Peanut. Booth balanced himself in the saddle, and at that moment Stewart swung open the theatre door and saw Booth about to gallop away.

From the ground Stewart looked up and saw the assassin, illuminated by the rising moon. Stewart reached for the reins, but Booth, an experienced rider, spurred and pulled the horse in a tight, quick circle
away from Stewart. The horse really could move like a cat. Stewart tried for the reins again, but once more Booth outmaneuvered him from the saddle. Stomping hooves pounded the ground until Booth finally broke free, settled low, and kicked the bay horse hard. She exploded into a gallop that Booth steered down the alley, then guided left toward F Street, vanishing from sight.

Mary Anderson, standing no more than twenty-five feet away, witnessed the assassin's escape: “He had come out of the theatre-door so quick, that it seemed like as if he had but touched the horse, and it was gone in a flash of lightning.” Mary Ann Turner, her next-door neighbor, heard the commotion but wasn't quick enough to witness Booth's escape: “I only heard the horse going very rapidly out of the alley; and I ran immediately to my door and opened it, but he was gone.”

With F Street coming up fast, Booth looked ahead to the alley's mouth. Had his pursuers reached it before him? No one blocked his way. He emerged onto F Street and reined his mount hard to the right. No one was chasing him. Booth galloped east down F Street. He had escaped from Ford's Theatre—barely. But now he faced an even more difficult challenge. Could he escape from Washington, war capital of the Union, its streets filled with thousands of soldiers and loyal citizens, all there to celebrate the end of the Civil War?

By now, back in the alley, a number of people had poured out the door in pursuit of the assassin. “Which way did he go?” they asked Mrs. Anderson. “Which way did he go?” She asked a man what was the matter. “The president was shot,” he answered. “Why, who shot him?” “The man who went out on that horse: did you see him?”

A block down F and to his right, Booth rode past the Herndon House, where just two hours ago he had met with his gang and dreamed of this moment. As Booth continued another block east on F he approached two of Washington's grandest landmarks. To his left he saw the Patent Office, his dark figure silhouetted by the white glow of the huge marble building that was the scene of Walt Whitman's ministrations to wounded soldiers and, just six weeks ago, Lincoln's inaugural
ball. To Booth's right, he saw the massive marble pile of the Post Office, where just ten hours ago Harry Clay Ford picked up the letter that he handed to the actor on the front step of the theatre. Gaslight bounced off the slick, polished walls of both buildings and bathed Booth in a searching glow. Past the buildings in seconds, Booth galloped right and cut across Judiciary Square to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Few people saw him as he fled through downtown Washington. That was understandable, however, because Booth rode away from the celebrating crowds that clogged the upper avenue. He rode east, then southeast, in the opposite direction from the throng, aiming for Capitol Hill. And what interest was one man on a horse to thousands of jubilant men? Booth crossed the Capitol grounds, riding beneath the shadow of the great dome, completed in time for Lincoln's second inauguration. Booth then cut over to the southeast part of Pennsylvania Avenue. He galloped on to Eleventh Street and turned right, swinging south in the direction of the Navy Yard Bridge that led out of Washington and into Maryland. One thought possessed him. Could he reach that bridge and cross the Potomac's eastern branch (now the Anacostia) before pursuers, or news of the assassination, caught up with him? Luck was with him that night. His hard riding kept him ahead of the news. As he neared the river he reined his horse and slowed to a trot. He saw guards ahead. Be natural, he instinctively thought. Don't arouse suspicion.

s
ERGEANT
S
ILAS
T. C
OBB
W
AS STANDING WATCH AT THE
Washington side of the bridgehead. He'd been there since sunset and was on duty until 1:00 A.M. Looking off into the distance, he saw an approaching rider. Cobb knew his orders: allow no one to cross the bridge after dark. Cobb and the handful of men under his command prepared to challenge the rider. Booth, with the flair only a master thespian could muster under such duress, prepared for an impromptu performance—talking his way across the bridge. The time was between 10:35 and 10:45 P.M.

“Who goes there?” Cobb challenged.

“A friend,” the actor replied. Perhaps Cobb would recognize the stage star and wave him across with a smile, his horse not even breaking stride. No such luck.

“Where are you from?”

“From the city,” Booth said vaguely.

Cobb asked his destination.

“I am going down home, down in Charles County.”

The sergeant noticed that the horse's coat was wet and had been ridden hard. He studied Booth's features: “Clear white skin … his hands were very white and he had no gloves on … [he] seemed to be gentlemanly in his address and style and appearance.” Cobb also noted that while Booth carried himself nonchalantly, he seemed to possess reserves of muscular power. Cobb continued to press the matter, asking Booth if he knew that the bridge leaving Washington closed at 9:00 P.M.

The actor claimed he didn't and said he'd chosen a late start on purpose because “it is a dark road ahead and I thought if I waited a spell I would have the moon.”

Cobb pondered for a moment. Booth was at his wit's end. Every second was precious, and this fool was wasting time with his stupid questions. Then Cobb agreed reluctantly to allow Booth to pass.

Booth adopted a reassuring, theatrical voice to calm the dutiful sergeant: “Hell, I guess there'll be no trouble about that.”

Booth gave his horse a gentle tap with the spurs. Then Cobb noticed something unusual. Unlike its cool and collected rider, the horse was restive and nervous, so much that Booth had to rein her in so that she would walk, and not gallop, across the bridge. Cobb wondered why. Booth had handled Cobb perfectly. Except for two things. When the sergeant asked his name he responded, inexplicably, “Booth.” And when Cobb asked where he was going, Booth answered, “Beantown.”

This was a lucky moment for the assassin. If Cobb denied him passage, he had no alternate route of escape. He could not turn back to the city. He had to cross the river now, at this spot, into Maryland. Open,
isolated country beckoned him from the other side of the bridge. He would find friends there. He had to cross. Armed with only a knife, Booth could never have fought his way across. Had he tried, the sergeant and his sentinels would have shot him out of his saddle, and the manhunt would have ended that night, less than an hour after John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Once over the bridge, Booth turned to see if his cat's-paws—David Herold, Lewis Powell, or George Atzerodt—followed in the distance. This was their route, too. Booth saw no one, neither conspirators nor pursuers, behind him, but as he gazed across the river he saw a beautiful scene. The moon, two days past full, rose high over Washington, and under its cool, lunar light the great dome glowed like a twin moon descended upon the earth.

Like Lot's wife, who paused, turned, and dared look upon the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Booth could see the sleeping city from which he fled, and he knew it would awaken soon and hear of the destruction he had wrought. He had done it. And he had escaped.

B
OOTH AND
L
EWIS
P
OWELL HAD LEFT BEHIND SO MUCH
blood. Sergeant Robinson and Fanny Seward worked feverishly to save the secretary of state's life. Seward had more wounds than the sergeant had hands, and Robinson had to teach Fanny how to stanch the flow of blood with cloths and water. “I did not know what should be done,” she said. “Robinson told me everything.” Sprawled across sheets sheared by Powell's knife, she knelt beside her father and, with all of her strength, pressed the ersatz bandages tightly against the cuts. Robinson played doctor and examined Seward's body for additional wounds. Punctures to the lungs, stomach, or heart? No. Any nicked or severed arteries? No. If they could stop the bleeding and Seward could just hold on until Dr. Verdi, Dr. Norris, or Surgeon General Barnes arrived, he might live.

Within minutes messengers returned with the doctors, who relieved Fanny and Robinson. Their examination confirmed it. Despite their
hideous appearance, the wounds were not fatal. Seward—who to Dr. Verdi looked like “an exsanguinated corpse”—would live. Verdi turned to the family and spoke: “I congratulate you all that the wounds are not mortal.” Robinson finally allowed himself to be treated by the doctors. He, too, would live, along with Gus Seward and Hansell. But Powell had inflicted a grievous and potentially fatal wound upon Frederick Seward. The Whitney revolver fractured his skull and exposed his brain. Fred wandered about the house like a zombie, babbling the same phrase, “It is … it is,” over and over unable to complete the thought, while touching
the back of his head with his finger. Fred smiled at Dr. Verdi and seemed to recognize him.