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The Crime & Capture of John Wilkes Booth - George Alfred Townsend · Classic History Book Collection

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  Speaker 1: One year ago, the writer of the letters which follow
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  Speaker 1: visited the battle field of Waterloo, in looking over many
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  Speaker 1: relics of the combat preserved in the museum there. He
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  Speaker 1: was particularly interested in the files of journals contemporary with
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  Speaker 1: the action. These contain the Duke of Wellington's first dispatch
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  Speaker 1: announcing the victory, the reports of the subordinate commanders, and
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  Speaker 1: the current gossip as to the episodes and hazards of
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  Speaker 1: the day. The time will come when remarkable incidents of
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  Speaker 1: these our times will be a staple of as great
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  Speaker 1: curiosity as the issue of Waterloo. It is an incident
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  Speaker 1: without a precedent on this side of the globe, and
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  Speaker 1: never to be repeated. Assassination has made its last effort
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  Speaker 1: to become indigenous here. The public sentiment of loyalist and
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  Speaker 1: rebel has denounced it. The world has remarked it with
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  Speaker 1: uplifted hands and words of execration. Therefore, as long as
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  Speaker 1: history shall hold good, the murder of the President will
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  Speaker 1: be a theme for poesy, romance and tragedy. We who
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  Speaker 1: live in this consecrated time keep the sacred souvenirs of
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  Speaker 1: mister Lincoln's death in our possession, and the best of
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  Speaker 1: these are the newsletters descriptive of his apotheosis and the
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  Speaker 1: fate of the conspirators who slew him. I represented the
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  Speaker 1: World Newspaper at Washington during the whole of those exciting weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and wrote their occurrences fresh from the mouths of the
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  Speaker 1: actors entered according to Act of Congress in the year
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, by Dick and Fitzgerald in the Clerk's
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  Speaker 1: Office of the District Court of the United States for
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  Speaker 1: the Southern District of New York preferatory. It has seemed
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  Speaker 1: fitting to Messrs Dick and Fitzgerald to reproduce the World
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  Speaker 1: Letters as a keepsake for the many who received them kindly.
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  Speaker 1: The sketches appended were conscientiously written, and whatever embellishments they
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  Speaker 1: may seem to have grew out of the stirring events,
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  Speaker 1: not out of my fancy. Subsequent investigation has confirmed the
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  Speaker 1: veracity even of their speculations. I have arranged them, but
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  Speaker 1: have not altered them. If they represent nothing else, they
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  Speaker 1: do carry with them the fever and spirit of the time,
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  Speaker 1: but they do not assume to be literal history. We
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  Speaker 1: live too close to the events related to decide positively
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  Speaker 1: upon them as a brochure of the day. Nothing more.
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  Speaker 1: I give these sketches of a correspondent to the public
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  Speaker 1: g a t end of introductory material. Letter one the murder, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: April seventeen. Some very deliberate and extraordinary movements were made
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  Speaker 1: by a handsome and extremely well dressed young man in
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  Speaker 1: the city of Washington last Friday, at about half past
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  Speaker 1: eleven o'clock a m This person, whose name is J.
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  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth, by profecion an actor and recently engaged in
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  Speaker 1: oil speculations, sauntered into Ford's Theater on Tenth between E
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  Speaker 1: and F Streets and exchanged greetings with a man at
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  Speaker 1: the box office. In the conversation which ensued, the ticket
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  Speaker 1: agent informed Booth that a box was taken from mister
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  Speaker 1: Lincoln and General Grant, who were expected to visit the
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  Speaker 1: theater and contribute to the benefit of Miss Laura Keene
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  Speaker 1: and satisfy the curiosity of a large audience. Mister Booth
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  Speaker 1: went away with a jest and a lightly spoken good afternoon.
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  Speaker 1: Strolling down to Pumphrey's stable on C Street in the
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  Speaker 1: rear of the National Hotel, he engaged a saddle horse,
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  Speaker 1: a high, strong, fast beautiful bay Mare, telling mister Pumphreys
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  Speaker 1: that he should call for her in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon. From here he went to the Kirkwood Hotel
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  Speaker 1: on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue in twelfth Street, where,
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  Speaker 1: calling for a card and a sheet of note paper,
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  Speaker 1: he sat down and wrote upon the first as follows,
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  Speaker 1: for mister Andrew Johnson, I don't wish to disturb you.
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  Speaker 1: Are you at home? J? W. Booth. To this message,
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  Speaker 1: which was sent up by the obliging clerk, mister Johnson
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  Speaker 1: responded that he was very busily engaged. Mister Booth smiled, and,
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  Speaker 1: turning to his sheet of notepaper, wrote on it the fact,
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  Speaker 1: if fact it is, that he had been disappointed in
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  Speaker 1: not obtaining an examination of the Vice President's apartment and
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge of the Vice President's probable whereabouts. The ensuing
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  Speaker 1: evening in no way affected his composure. The note, the
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  Speaker 1: contents of which are unknown, was signed and sealed within
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  Speaker 1: a few moments. Booth arose, bowed to an acquaintance and
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  Speaker 1: passed into the street. His elegant person was seen on
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  Speaker 1: the avenue a few minutes, and was withdrawn into the
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  Speaker 1: Metropolitan Hotel At four p m he again appeared at
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  Speaker 1: Pumphrey's livery stable, mounted the Mayor he had engaged. Rode
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  Speaker 1: leisurely up F Street, turned into an alley behind ninth
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  Speaker 1: and tenth Streets, and thence into an alley, reloading to
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  Speaker 1: the rear of Ford's Theater, which fronts on Tenth Street
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  Speaker 1: between E and F Streets. Here he alighted and deposited
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  Speaker 1: the Mayor in a small stable off the alley, which
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  Speaker 1: she had hired some time before for the accommodation of
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  Speaker 1: a saddle horse, which he had recently sold. Mister Booth
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  Speaker 1: soon afterward retired from the stable, and is supposed to
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  Speaker 1: have refreshed himself at a neighboring bar room. At eight
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  Speaker 1: o'clock the same evening, President Lincoln and Speaker Colfax sat
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: together in a private room at the White House, pleasantly conversing.
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  Speaker 1: General Grant, with whom the President had engaged to attend
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  Speaker 1: Ford's Theater that evening, had left with his wife or Burlington,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: New Jersey in the six o'clock train. After this departure,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: mister Lincoln rather reluctantly determined to keep his part of
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  Speaker 1: the engagement, rather than to disappoint his friends and the audience.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Lincoln, entering the room and turning to mister Colfax
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  Speaker 1: said in a half laughing, half serious way, Well, mister Lincoln,
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  Speaker 1: are you going to the theater with me or not?
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  Speaker 1: I suppose I shall have to go, Colfax said. The
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  Speaker 1: President and the Speaker took his leave, in company with
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Major Rathbone of the Provos Marshal General's Office, who escorted
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  Speaker 1: Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris of New York. Mister
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and Missus Lincoln reached for the theater twenty minutes before
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  Speaker 1: nine o'clock. The house was filled in every part with
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  Speaker 1: a large and brilliantly attired audience. As the presidential party
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  Speaker 1: ascended the stairs and passed behind the dress circle to
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  Speaker 1: the entrance of the private box reserved for them, the
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  Speaker 1: whole assembly, having in mind the recent Union victories, arose, cheered,
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  Speaker 1: waving hats and handkerchiefs, and manifesting every other accustomed sign
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  Speaker 1: of enthusiasm. The President, last to enter the box, turned
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  Speaker 1: before doing so and bowed a courteous acknowledgment of his reception.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: At the moment of the President's arrival, mister Hawks, one
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  Speaker 1: of the actors performing the well known part of Dundreary
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  Speaker 1: had exclaimed, this reminds me of a story, As mister
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Lincoln says, the audience forced him, after the interruption to
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  Speaker 1: tell the story over again. It evidently pleased mister Lincoln,
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  Speaker 1: who turned laughingly to his wife and made a remark
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  Speaker 1: which was not overheard. The box in which the President
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  Speaker 1: sat consisted of two boxes turned into one, the middle
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  Speaker 1: partition being removed as on all occasions when a state
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  Speaker 1: party visited the theater. The box was on a level
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  Speaker 1: with the dress circle, about twelve feet above the stage.
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  Speaker 1: There were two entrances, the door nearest to the wall
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  Speaker 1: having been closed and locked, the door nearest the balustrades
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  Speaker 1: of the dress circle and at right angles with it
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  Speaker 1: being open and left open on till the visitors had entered.
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  Speaker 1: The interior was carpeted, lined with crimson paper, and first
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  Speaker 1: furnished with a sofa covered with crimson velvet, three arm
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  Speaker 1: chairs similarly covered, and six cane bottom chairs. Festoons of
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  Speaker 1: flags hung before the front of the box against a
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  Speaker 1: background of lace. President Lincoln took one of the arm
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  Speaker 1: chairs and seated himself in the front of the box,
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  Speaker 1: in the angle nearest the audience, where partially screened from observation,
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  Speaker 1: he had the best view of what was transpiring on
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  Speaker 1: the stage. Missus Lincoln sat next to him, and Miss
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  Speaker 1: Harris in the opposite angle nearest the stage. Major Rathbone
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  Speaker 1: sat just behind Missus Lincoln and Miss Harris. These four
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  Speaker 1: were the only persons in the box. The play proceeded.
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  Speaker 1: Although our American cousin without mister Southern, has since that
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  Speaker 1: gentleman's departure from this country been justly esteemed a very
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: dull affair, the audience at Ford's, including Missus Lincoln, seemed
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  Speaker 1: to enjoy it very much. The worthy wife of the
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  Speaker 1: President leaned forward with her hand upon her husband's knee,
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  Speaker 1: watching every scene in the drama with amused attention, even
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: across the President's face. At intervals swept the smile, robbing
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  Speaker 1: it of its habitual sadness. About the beginning of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: second act, the mayor, standing in the stable in the
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  Speaker 1: rear of the theater, was disturbed in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: her meal by the entrance of the young man who
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: had quitted her in the afternoon. It is presumed that
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  Speaker 1: she was saddled and bridled with exquisite care, having completed
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  Speaker 1: these preparations, mister Booth entered the theater by the stage door,
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  Speaker 1: summoned one of the scene shifters. Mister John Spangler, emerged
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  Speaker 1: through the same door with that individual, leaving the door open,
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  Speaker 1: and left the mare in his hands to be held
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  Speaker 1: until he Booth should return. Booth, who was even more
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  Speaker 1: fashionably and richly dressed than usual, walked thence around to
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  Speaker 1: the front of the theater and went in, ascending to
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  Speaker 1: the dress circle. He stood for a time, gazing around
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  Speaker 1: upon the audience and occasionally upon the stage, in his
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  Speaker 1: usual graceful manner. He was subsequently observed by mister Ford,
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  Speaker 1: the propriety of the theater, to be slowly elbowing his
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  Speaker 1: way through the crowd that packed the rear of the
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  Speaker 1: dress circle, toward the right side, at the extremity of
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  Speaker 1: which was the box where mister and Missus Lincoln and
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  Speaker 1: their companions were seated. Mister Ford casually noticed this as
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  Speaker 1: a slightly extraordinary symptom of interest on the part of
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  Speaker 1: an actor so familiar with the routine of the theater
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  Speaker 1: and the play. The curtain had risen on the third act.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Missus mount Kessington and Asa Trenchard were exchanging vivacious stupidities
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  Speaker 1: when a young man so precisely resembling the one described
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  Speaker 1: as J. Wilkes's booth that he is asserted to be
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  Speaker 1: the same, appeared before the open door of the President's
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  Speaker 1: Box and prepared to enter. The servant who attended mister
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  Speaker 1: Lincoln said politely, this is the President's box, sir. No
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  Speaker 1: one is permitted to enter. I am a senator, responded
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  Speaker 1: the person mister Lincoln has sent for me. The attendant
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  Speaker 1: gave way, and the young man passed into the box.
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  Speaker 1: As he appeared at the door. Taking a quick comprehensive
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  Speaker 1: glance at the interior, Major Rathbone arose, Are you aware, sir?
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  Speaker 1: He said, courteously, upon whom you are intruding? This is
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  Speaker 1: the President's box, and no one is admitted. The intruder
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  Speaker 1: answered not a word, fastening his eyes upon mister Lincoln,
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  Speaker 1: who had half turned his head to ascertain what caused
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  Speaker 1: the disturbance. He stepped quickly back without the door. Without
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  Speaker 1: this door, there was an eye hole bored in it.
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  Speaker 1: Presumably on the afternoon of the crime, while the theater
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: was deserted by all save a few mechanics, glancing through
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  Speaker 1: this orifice, John Milks booth A spied in a moment
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  Speaker 1: the precise position of the President. He wore upon his
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  Speaker 1: wrinkling face, the pleasant embryo of an honest smile, forgetting
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  Speaker 1: in the mimic scene, the splendid successes of our arms
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  Speaker 1: for which he was responsible, and the history he had
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  Speaker 1: filled so well. The cheerful interior was lost to J.
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  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth. He did not catch the spirit of the
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  Speaker 1: delighted audience, of the flaming lamps, flinging illumination upon the
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  Speaker 1: domestic foreground and the gaily set stage. He only cast
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  Speaker 1: one furtive glance upon the man he was to slay, and,
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  Speaker 1: thrusting one hand in his bosom, another in his skirt pocket,
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  Speaker 1: drew forth simultaneously his deadly weapons. His right palm grasped
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  Speaker 1: a derringer pistol, his left a dirk. Then at astride,
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  Speaker 1: he passed the threshold again, leveled his arm at the President,
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  Speaker 1: and bent the trigger. A keen, quick report and a
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  Speaker 1: puff of white smoke, a close smell of powder, and
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  Speaker 1: the rush of a dark, imperfectly outlined figure, and the
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  Speaker 1: President's head dropped upon his shoulders. The ball was in
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  Speaker 1: his brain. The movements of the assassin were from henceforth
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  Speaker 1: quick as the lightning. He dropped the pistol on the floor, and,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: drawing a bowie knife, struck Major Rathbund, who opposed him,
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  Speaker 1: ripping through his coat from the shoulder down and inflicting
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  Speaker 1: avere flesh wound in his arm. He leaped then upon
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  Speaker 1: the velvet covered balustrade at the front of the box
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  Speaker 1: between Missus Lincoln and miss Harris, and parting with both
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: hands the flags that drooped on either side, dropped to
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  Speaker 1: the stage beneath, arising and turning full upon the audience.
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  Speaker 1: With the knife lifted in his right hand above his head,
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  Speaker 1: he shouted, sick semper Tyrannis Virginia is avenged another instant.
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  Speaker 1: He had fled across the stage and behind the scenes.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Colonel J. B. Stewart, the only person in the audience
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: who seemed to comprehend the deed he had committed, climbed
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: from his seat near the orchestra to the stage and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: followed close behind. The assassin was too fleet and too desperate.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: The fury incarnate meeting mister Withers, the leader of the orchestra,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: just behind the scenes, had stricken him aside with a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: blow that fortunately was not a wound. Overturning Miss Jennie Gourlay,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: an actress who came next in his path, he gained
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: without further hindrance the back door previously leapt open at
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the rear of the theater, rushed through it, leaped upon
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the horse held by mister Spangler, and without doubtshafing that
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: person a word of information, rode out through the alley
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: leading into f street, and thence rapidly away His horses
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: hoofs might almost have been heard amid the silence that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: for a few seconds dwelt in the interior of the theater.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Then missus Lincoln screamed, Miss Harris cried for water, and
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the full, ghastly truth broke upon all. The President is murdered.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: The scene that ensued was as tumultuous and terrible as
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: one of Dante's pictures of hell. Some women fainted, others
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: uttered piercing shrieks and cries for vengeance, and unmeaning shouts
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: for help burst from the mouths of men. Miss Laura Keene,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the actress, proved herself in this awful time as equal
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to sustain a part in real tragedy as to interpret
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that of the stage. Pausing one moment before the footlights
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to entreat the audience to be calm, she and the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: stairs in the rear of mister Lincoln's box entered it,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: took the dying President's head in her lap, bathed it
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: with the water she had brought, and endeavored to force
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: some of the liquid through the insensible lips. The locality
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of the wound was at first supposed to be in
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the breast. It was not until after the neck and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: shoulders had been bared and no mark discovered, that the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: dress of Miss Keen, stained with blood, revealed where the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: ball had penetrated. This moment gave the most impressive episode
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in the history of the continent. The chief magistrate of
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: thirty millions of people, beloved, honored, revered, lay in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: pent up closet of a playhouse, dabbling with his sacred
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: blood the robes of an actress. As soon as the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: confusion and crowd was partially overcome, the form of the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: President was conveyed from the theater to the residence of
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: mister Peterson on the opposite side of Tenth Street. Here,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: upon a bed in a little hastily prepared chamber. It
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: was laid and attended by Surgeon General Barnes and other
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: physicians speedily summoned in the Meanwhile, the news spread through
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the capital as if borne on tongues of flame. Senator Sumner,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: hearing at his residence of the affair, took a carriage
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and drove it a gallop to the White House when
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: he heard where it had taken place, to find Robert
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Lincoln and other members of the household, still unaware of it,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: both drove to Ford's theater and were soon at the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: President's bedside. Secretary Stanton and the other members of the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: cabinet were at hand. Almost as soon. A vast crowd
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: surging up PENNSYLVANIAVNA toward Willard's hotel cried, the President is shot.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: President Lincoln is murdered. Another crowd, sweeping down the avenue,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: met the first with the tidings. Secretary Seward has been
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: assassinated in bed. Instantly, a wild apprehension of an organized
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: contiacy and of other murders took possession of the people.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: The shout to arms was mingled with the expressions of
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: sorrow and rage that everywhere filled the air. Where is
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: General Grant, or where is Secretary Stanton? Where are the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: rest of the cabinet? Broke from thousands of lips? A
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: conflagration of fire is not half so terrible as was
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the conflagration of passion that rode through the streets and
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: houses of Washington on that awful night. The attempt on
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the life of Secretary Seward was perhaps as daring, if
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: not so dramatic, as the assassination of the President. At
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: nine twenty o'clock, a man, tall, athletic and dressed in
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: light colored clothes, alighted from a horse in front of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: mister Seward's residence in Madison Place, where the Secretary was lying,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: very feeble from his recent injuries. The house, a solid
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: three story brick building, was formerly the old Washington Club House.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Leaving his horse standing, the stranger rang at the door
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and informed the servant who admitted him, that he desired
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to see mister Seward. The servant responded that mister Seward
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: was very ill, and that no visitors were admitted. But
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I am a messenger from doctor Verdy, mister Seward's physician.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I have a prescription which I must deliver to him myself.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: The servant still demurring the stranger without further Parley pushed
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: him aside and ascended the stairs. Moving to the right,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: he proceeded towards mister Seward's room and was about to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: enter it when mister Frederick Seward appeared from an opposite
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: doorway and demanded his business. He responded in the same
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: manner as to the servant below, but being met with
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a refusal, suddenly closed the controversy by striking mister Seward
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a severe and perhaps mortal blow across the forehead with
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the butt of a pistol. As the first victim fell,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Major Seward, another and younger son of the secretary emerged
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: from his father's room. Without a word. The man drew
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a knife and struck the Major several blows with it,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: rushing into the chamber as he did so. Then, after
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: dealing the nurse a horrible wound across the bowels, he
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: sprang to the bed upon which the secretary lay, stabbing
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: him once in the face and neck. Mister Seward arose
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: convulsively and fell from the bed to the floor, turning
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and brandishing his knife anew. The assassin fled from the room,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: cleared the prostrate form of Frederick Seward in the hall,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: descended the stairs in three leaps, and was out of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the door and upon his horse in an instant. It
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: is stated by a person who saw him mount that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: although he leaped upon his horse with most unseemly haste,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: he trotted around the corner of the block with circumspect deliberation,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: around both the house on Tenth Street and the residence
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of Secretary Seward. As the fact of both tragedies became
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: generally known, crowds soon gathered so vast and tumultuous that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: military guards scarcely sufficed to keep them from the doors.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: The room to which the President had been conveyed is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: on the first floor, at the end of the hall.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It is only fifteen feet square, with a Brussels carpet
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: papered with brown and hung with a lithograph of Rosa
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Barneur's horse Fair, and engraved copy of Herring's village Blacksmith,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and two smaller ones of the stable and the barn
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: yard from the same artist. A table and bureau spread
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: with crochet work. Eight chairs in the bed were all
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the furniture. Upon this bed, a low walnut four poster
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: lay the dying President. The blood oozing from the frightful
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: wound in his head and staining the pillow. All that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the medical skill of half a dozen accomplished surgeons could
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: do had been done to prolong a life, evidently ebbing
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: from a mortal hurt. Secretary Stanton just arrived from the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: bedside of mister Seward, asked Surgeon General Barnes, what was
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: mister Lincoln's condition. I fear, mister Stanton, that there is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: no hope. Oh no, General, no no. And the man
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of all others, apparently strange to tears, sank down aside
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the bed, the hot, bitter evidences of an awful sorrow
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: trickling through his fingers to the floor. Senator Sumner sat
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the bed, holding one of
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the President's hands in his own, and sobbing with kindred grief.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Secretary Wells stood at the foot of the bed, his
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: face hidden, his frame shaken with emotion. General Halleck, Attorney
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: General Speed, Postmaster General Denison M. B. Field, Assistant Secretary
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of the Treasury, Judge Otto, General Meggs, and others visited
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the chamber at times, and then retired Missus Lincoln. But
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: there is no need to speak of her Missus. Senator
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Dixon soon arrived and remained with her through the night.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: All through the night, while the horror stricken crowds outside
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: swept and gathered along the streets, while the military and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: police were patrolling and weaving a cordon around the city,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: while men were arming and asking each other what victim neck,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: while the telegraph was sending the news from city to
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: city over the continent, And while the two assassins were
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: speeding unharmed upon fleet horses far away. His chosen friends
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: watched upon the death bed of the highest of the nation.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Occasionally Doctor Gurley, pastor of the church where mister Lincoln
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: habitually attended, knelt down in prayer. Occasionally Missus Lincoln and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: her sons entered to find no hope and to go
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: back to ceaseless weeping. Members of the cabinet, senators, representatives, generals,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: and others took turns at the bedside. Chief Justice Chase
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: remained until a late hour and returned in the morning.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Secretary mc cullough remained a constant watcher until five a m.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Not a gleam of consciousness shone across the visage of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the President up to his death. A quiet, peaceful death
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: at last, which came at twenty two minutes past seven am.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Around the bedside at this time were Secretary's Stanton Welles, Usher,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Speed, Postmaster General Denison M. B. Field, Assistant
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Secretary of the Treasury, Judge Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: General Halleck, General Miggs, Senator Sumner F. R. Andrews of
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: New York, General Todd of Dakota, John Hay, Private Secretary,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Governor Oglesby of Illinois, General Farnsworth, Missus and Miss Kenney,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Miss Harris, Captain Robert Lincoln, son of the President, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: doctors E. W. Abbott, R. K. Stone, C. D. Gatch,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Neil Hall, and Liberman Reverend doctor Gurley. After the event,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: knelt with all around in prayer, and then entering the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: adjoining room where were gathered Missus Lincoln, Captain Robert Lincoln,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: mister John Hay and others, prayed again. Soon after nine o'clock,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the remains were placed in a temporary coffin and conveyed
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: to the White House under a small escort. In Secretary
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Sewage Chamber, A similar, although not so solemn, a scene
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: prevailed between that chamber and the one occupied by President Lincoln.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Visitors alternated to and fro through the night. It had
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: been early ascertained that the wounds of the Secretary were
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: not likely to prove mortal. A wire instrument to relieve
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the pain which he suffered from the previous injuries, prevented
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the knife of the assassin from striking too deep. Mister
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Frederick Sewage's injuries were more serious. His forehead was broken
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in by the blow from the pistol, and up to
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: this hour he has remained perfectly unconscious. The operation of
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: tree panning the skull has been performed, but little hope
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is had of his recovery. Major Seward will get well.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Mister Hansell's condition is somewhat doubtful. Secretary Seward, who cannot speak,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: was not informed of the assassination of the President and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the injury of his son until yesterday. He had been
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: worrying as to why mister Lincoln did not visit him.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Why doesn't the President come to see me? He asked
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: with his pencil, where is Frederick? What is the matter
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: with him? Perceiving the nervous excitement which these doubts occasioned,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a consultation was had at which it was finally determined
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: that it would be best to let the Secretary know
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the worst. Secretary Stanton was chosen to tell him. Sitting
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: down beside mister Seward's bed yesterday afternoon. He therefore related
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to him a full account of the whole affair. Mister
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Seward was so surprised and shocked that he raised one
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: hand involuntarily and groaned. Such is the condition of affairs
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: at this state of the terror. The pursuit of the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: assassins has commenced, is full of wild and baseless rumors.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Much that is said is stirring. Little is reliable. I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: tell it to you as I get it. But fancy
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: is more prolific than truth. Be patient. Footnote. The facts
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: above had been collected by mister Jerome B. Stillion before
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: my arrival in Washington. The arrangement of them is my
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: own end of Letter one, Letter two, The Obsequies in Washington, Washington,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: April nineteenth evening. The most significant and most creditable celebration
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: ever held in Washington has just transpired. A good ruler
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: has been followed from his home to the capital by
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a grand cortege worthy of the memory and of the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: nation's power. As description must do injustice to the extent
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of the display, so must criticism fail to sufficiently commend
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: its perfect tastefulness. Rarely has a Republican assemblage been so orderly.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: The funeral of mister Lincoln is something to be remembered
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: for a cycle. It caps all eulogy upon his life
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and services, and was, without exception, the most representative, spontaneous,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: and remarkable testimonial ever rendered to the remains of an
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: American citizen. The night before the funeral showed the probable
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: character of the cortege. At Willard's alone, four hundred applications
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: by telegraph or beds were refused. As many as six
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: thousand persons spent Tuesday night in the streets, in depots,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and in outbuildings. The population of the city this morning
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: was not far short of a hundred thousand, and of
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: these as many as thirty thousand walked in possession with
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: mister Lincoln's ashes. All orders of folks were at hand,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the country adjacent set in hay wagons, donkey carts, dearborns.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: All who could slip away from the army came to town,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and every attainable section of the Union forwarded mourners. At
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: no time in his life had mister Lincoln so many
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to throng about him as in this hour, when he
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: is powerless to do any one a service. For once
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in history office seekers were disinterested, and contractors and hangers
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on human These came for this time only to the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: capital of the Republic, without an axe to grind or
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: curiosity to subserve. Respect and grief were all their motive.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: This day was shown that the great public heart beats
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: unselfish and reverent, even after a dynasty of plunder and war.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: The arrangements for the funeral were made by mister Harrington,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who was beset by applicants
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: for tickets. The number of these were reduced to six hundred,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the clergy getting sixty, and the press twenty. I was
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: among the first to pass the White House guards and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: into the building. Its free stone columns were draped in black,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and all the windows were funereal. The ancient reception room
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: was half closed, and the famous East room, which is
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: approached by a spacious hall, had been reserved for the obsequies.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: There are none present here but a few silent attendants
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of the late owner of the Republican Palace, deeply ensconced
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: in the white satin stuffing of his coffin. The President
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: lies like one asleep. The broad, high, beautiful room is
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: like the varnished interior of a vault. The frescoed ceiling
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: wears the national shield, some pointed vases filled with flowers
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and fruit, and three emblazonings of gilt pendant, from which
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: are shrouded chandeliers. A purplish gray is the prevailing tint
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of the ceiling. The cornice is silver white, set off
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: by a velvet crimson. The wall paper is gold and red,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: broken by eight lofty mirrors, which are chastely margin with
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: black and faced with fleece. Their imperfect surfaces reflect the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: lofty catafalque, an open canopy of solemn alapaca, lined with
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: tasteful satin of creamish lead, looped at the curving roof
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and dropping to the four corners in half transparent tapestry.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Beneath the roof, the half light shines upon a stage
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: of fresh and fragrant flowers, up bearing a long high coffin.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: White lace of pure silver pendent from the border throws
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: a mild shimmer upon the solid silver tracery, hinges and emblazonings.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: A cross of lilies stands at the head, and anchor
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of roses at the foot. The lid is drawn back
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: to show the face and bosom, and on the coffin
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: top are heather, precious flowers, and sprigs of green. This catafalque, or,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: in plain words, this coffin, set upon a platform and canopede,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: has around it a sufficient space of Brussels carpet, And
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: on three sides of this there are raised steps covered
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: with black, on which the honored visitors are to stand.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: The fourth side is bare, save of a single row
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of chairs, some twenty in number, on which the reporters
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: are to sit. The odor of the room is fresh
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and healthy. The shade is solemn without being oppressive. All
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: is rich, simple and spacious, And in such sort as
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: any king might wish to lie, approach and look at
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the dead man. Death has fastened into his frozen face
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: all the character and idiosyncrasy of life. He has not
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: changed one line of his grave, grotesque countenance, nor smoothed
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: out a single feature. The hue is rather bloodless and leaden,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: but he was alway sallow. The dark eyebrows seem abruptly arched.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: The beard, which will grow no more, is shaved close
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: save the tuft at the short, small chin. The mouth
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is shut, like that of one who has put the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: foot down firm, and so are the eyes, which look
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: as calm as slumber. The collar is short and awkward.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Turned over this stiff elastic cravat, and whatever energy or
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: humor or tender gravity marked the living face is hardened
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: into its pulseless outline. No corpse in the world is
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: better prepared according to appearances. The white satin around it
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: reflects sufficient light upon the face to show us that
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: death is really there. But there are sweet roses and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: early magnolias, and the balmiest of lilies strewn about, as
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: if the flowers had begun to bloom, even upon his
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: coffin looking on uninterruptedly, for there is no pressure. And
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: henceforth the place will be thronged with gazers who will
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: take from the sight its suggestiveness and respect. Three years ago,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: when little Willie Lincoln died, doctors Brown and Alexander, the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: embalmers or injectors, prepared his body so handsomely that the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: President had it twice disinterred to look upon it. The
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: same men, in the same way have made perpetual these
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: beloved lineaments. There is now no blood in the body.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It was drained by the jugular vein and sacredly preserved
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as through a cutting on the inside of the thigh.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: The empty blood vessels were charged with a chemical preparation,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: which soon hardened to the consistence of stone. The long
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and bony body is now hard and stiff, so that
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: beyond its present position it cannot be moved any more
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: than the arms or legs of a statue. It has
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: undergone many changes. The scalp has been removed, the brain
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: taken out, the chest opened, and the blood emptied. All
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that we see of Abraham Lincoln, so cunningly contemplated in
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: this splendid coffin, is a mere shell, an effigy, a sculpture.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: He lies in sleep, But it is the sleep of marble.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: All that may his flesh, vital, sentient, and affectionate, is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: gone forever. The officers present are General's Hunter and Dire,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and two staff captains. Hunter compact and dark and Reticent
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: walks about the empty chamber in full uniform, his bright
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: buttons and sash and sword, contrasting with his dark blue
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: uniform gauntlets upon his hands, crape on his arm and blade,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: his corded hat in his hands, a paper collar just
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: apparent above his velvet tips. And now and then he
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: speaks to Captain Nesmith or Captain Dw's of General Harding's staff,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: rather as one who wishes company than one who has
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: anything to say. His two silver stars upon his shoulders
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: shine dimly in the draped apartment. He was one of
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: the first in the war to urge the measures which
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: mister Lincoln afterward adopted. The aides walked to and fro
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: selected without reference to any association with the late president.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Their clothes are rich, their swords wear mourning. They go
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: in silence. Everything is funereal in the deeply draped mirrors.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Strange mirages are seen, as in the coffin scene of
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Lucretia Borgia, where all the dusky perspectives bear vistas of
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: gloomy palls. The upholsterers make timid noises of driving nails
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and spreading tapestry. But save ourselves and these few watchers
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and workers, only the dead is here. The White House,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: so ill appreciated in common times, has seemed to be
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: capacious and elegant, no disgrace to the nation, even in
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the eyes of those foreign folk of rank who shall
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: gather here. Directly. As we sit brooding, with the pall
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: straight before us, the funeral guns are heard indistinctly booming
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: from the far forts, and the tap of drums in
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the serried street without, where troops and citizens are forming
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: for the ground procession. We see through the window in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the beautiful spring day, that the grass is brightly green,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: and all the trees in blossom show us through their archways,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the bronze and marble statues breaking the horizon. But there
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: is one at an upper window, seeing all this through
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: her tears, to whom the beautiful noon, with its wealth
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: of zephyrs and sweets, can waft no gratulation. The father
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: of her children, the confidante of her affection and ambition,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: has passed from life into immortality, and lies below, dumb, cold, murdered.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: The feeling of sympathy for Missus Lincoln is as widespread
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: as the regret for the Chief Magistrate. Whatever indiscretions she
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: may have committed in the abrupt transition from plainness to
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: power are now forgiven, and forgotten. She and her sons
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: are the property of the nation, associated with its truest
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: glories and its worst breath. By and by the guests
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: drop in hat in hand, wearing upon their sleeves waving crape,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and some of them slip up to the coffin to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: carry away a last impression of the fading face. But
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the first accession of force is that of the clergy.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Sixty in number. They are devout looking men, darkly attired,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and have come from all the neighboring cities to represent
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: every denomination. Five years ago these were wrangling over slavery
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: as a theological question, and at the beginning of the
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: war it was hard in many of their bodies to
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: carry loyal resolutions. Today they are here such sincere mourners
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: as Robert Pattison of the Methodist Church, who passed much
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: of his life among slaves and masters. He and the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: rest have come to believe that the President was wise
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: and right, and follow him to his grave as the
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: apostles the turd on Calbury. All these retire to the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: south end of the room, facing the feet of the corps,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and stand there silently to wait for the coming of others.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Very soon this east room is filled with the representative
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: intelligence of the entire nation. The governors of states stand
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: on the dais, next to the head of the coffin,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: with the varied features of curtain Brow, Fenton, Stone, Ogglesby,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and Ingraham. Behind them are the mayors and councilmen of
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: many towns, paying their last respects to the representative of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the source of all municipal freedom. To their left are
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the corporate officers of Washington, zealous to make this day's
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: funeral honors atone for the shame of the assassination. With
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: these are sprinkled many scarred and worthy soldiers who have
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: borne the burden of the Grand War, and stand before
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: this shape they loved in quiet civil reverence. Still further
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: down the steps and closer to the catafalque, rest the
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: familiar faces of many of our greatest generals. The manly
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: features of Augur, whose blood I have seen trickling forth
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: upon the field of battle. The open, almost beardless contour
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: of Halleck, who has often talked of sieges and campaigns.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: With this homely gentleman who is going to the grave.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: There are more bright stars twinkling in contiguous shoulder bars,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: but Sitting in a chair upon the beflowered carpet is
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Ulysses Grant, who has lived a century in the last
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: three weeks, and comes to day to add the luster
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of his iron face to this thrilling and saddened picture.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: He wears white gloves and sash, and is swarthy, nervous,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: and almost tearful. His feet crossed, his square receding head
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: turning now here. Now there his treble constellation blazing upon
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the left shoulder only but hidden on the right. And
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I seem to read upon his compact features the indurate
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and obstinate will to fight on the line nine. He
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: have selected the honor of the country through any peril,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: as if he had sworn it by the slain man's bier.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: His state fellow, patron and friend. Here also is General McCallum,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: who has seemed the rebellious South with military roads, to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: send victory along them and bring back the groaning and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the scarred. These and the rest are grand historic figures,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: worthy of all artistic depiction. They have looked so often
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: into the mortar's mouth that no bravo's blade can make
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: them WinCE. Do you see the thin haired, conical head
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: of the Viking Farragut close by General Grant, with many
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: naval heroes close behind, storm beaten, and every inch Americans
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: in thought and physiognomy? What think the foreign ambassadors of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: such men, in the light of their own overloaded bodies
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: were meaningless? Orders, crosses and ribbons shine dimly in the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: funeral light. These legations number perhaps a hundred men of
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: all civilized races. The Sardinian envoy jetty eyed, towering above
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the rest. But they are still and respectful, gathered thus
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: by a slain ruler to see how worthy is the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: republic he has preserved. Whatever sympathy these have for our institutions,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I think that in such audience they must have been
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: impressed with the futility of any thought that either one
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: citizen right or one territorial inch can ever be torn
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: from the United States. Not to speak disparagingly of these
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: noble guests, I was struck with the superior facial energy
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: of our own public servants, who were generally larger and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: brighter faced, born of that aristocracy which took its patent
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: from two Balcane and Abel the Goatherd, and graduated in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, the Haitian Minister, swarthy and fiery faced, is
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: conspicuous among these, but nearer down and just opposite the catifort,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: so that it is perpendicular to the direction of vision
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: stand the central powers of our government, its President and counselors.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: President Johnson is facing the middle of the coffin, upon
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the lowest step, his hands are crossed. Upon his breast
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: is dark clothing just revealing his plated shirt, and upon
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: his full plethoric shaven face, broad and severely compact. Two
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: telling gray eyes rest under a thoughtful brow, whose turning
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: hair is straight and smooth. Beside him are Vice President Hamlin,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: whom he succeeded, and ex Governor King, his most intimate friend,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: who lends to the ruling severity of the place. A
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: half Falstaffian episode. The cabinet are behind, as if arranged
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: for a daguerreotypist stanton short and quicksilvery in long go
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: tee and glasses in stunted contrast the tall and snow
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: tipped shape of mister Wells with the rest practical and attentive.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And at their side is Secretary Chase, high, dignified and handsome,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: with folded arms, listening but undemonstrative, a half foot higher
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: than any spectator, and dividing with Charles Sumner, who is
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: near by the preference for manly beauty in age with
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: mister Chase are other justices of the Supreme Court. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to their left, near the feet of the corpse are
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the reverend Senators, representing the oldest and the newest states,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: splendid faces, little worn with early and later toils, backed
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: up by the high classical features of Colonel Forney their secretary.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Beyond are the representatives and leading officials of the various departments,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: with a few odd folks like George Francis Train exquisite
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: as ever, and for this time only, with nothing to say.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Close by the corpse sit the relatives of the deceased, plain, honest,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: hardy people, typical as much much of the simplicity of
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: our institutions as of mister Lincoln's self made eminence. No
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: blood relatives of mister Lincoln were to be found. It
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: is a singular evidence of the poverty of his origin,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and therefore of his exceeding good report, that, accepting his
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: immediate family, none answering to his name could be discovered.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Missus Lincoln's relatives were present, however, in some force. Doctor
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Lyman Beecher Todd, General John B. S. Todd, C. M.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Smith Esquire, and mister N. W. Edwards, the late President's
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: brother in law. Plain self made people were here and
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: were sincerely affected. Captain Robert Lincoln sat during the services
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: with his face in his handkerchief, weeping quietly, and little
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: tad his face red and heated, cried as if his
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: heart would break. Missus Lincoln, weak worn and nervous, did
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: not enter the East room north follow the remains. She
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: was the Chief magistrates lady yesterday to day, a widow
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: bearing only an immortal name. Among the neighbors of the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: late President who came from Afar to pay respect to
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: his remains was one old gentleman who left Richmond on Sunday.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I had been upon the boat with him and heard
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: him in hot wrangle with some officers who advised the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: summary execution of all rebel leaders. This old man opposed.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: When the feeling against him became so intense that he
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: was compelled to retire, he counseled mercy, good faith, and forgiveness.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: To day, the men who had called him a traitor
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: saw him among the family, mourners bent with grief. All
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: these are waiting in solemn lines, standing erect, with a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: space of several feet between them and the coffin. And
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: there is no bustle, nor unseemly curiosity, not a whisper,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: not a footfall, only the collected nation looking with awed
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: hearts upon eminent death. This scene is historic. I regret
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: that I must tell you of it over a little wire,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: for it admits of all exemplification. In this high, spacious,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: elegant apartment, laughter and levy, social pleasantry and refined badinage
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: had often held their session. Dancing and music had made
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: those mirrors thrill, which now reflect appall, and which the
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: most beautiful women of their day had mingled here with
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: men of brilliant favor. Now only a very few brave
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: enough to look upon death were wearing funeral weeds. The
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: pleasant face of missus Kate Sprague looks out from these.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: But such scenes gain little additional power by beauty's presence.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And this wonderful relief was carved at one blow by
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes's booth. The religious services begin at noon. They
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: were remarkable not only for their association with the national event,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: but for a tremendous political energy, which they had. While
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: none of the prayers or speeches exhibited great literary carefulness
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: or will obtain perpetuity on their own merits, they were
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: full of feeling and expressed all the intense concern of
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the country. The procession surpassed in sentiment, populousness, and sincere
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: good feeling anything of the kind we have had in America.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: It was several miles long, and in all its elements
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was full and tasteful. The scene on the avenue will
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: be always remembered as the only occasion on which that
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: great thoroughfare was a real adornment to the seat of government.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: In the tree tops, on the housetops, at all the windows,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the silent and affected crowds clustered beneath half massed banners
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and waving crape to reverentially uncover as the dark vehicle,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: bearing its rich silver mounted often swept along. Mottoes of
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: respect and homage were on many edifices, and singularly some
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: of them were taken from the play of Richard the Third,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: which was the murderer's favorite part. The entire width of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the avenue was swept from curb to curb by the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: deep lines. The chief excellence of this procession was its
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: representative nature. All classes, localities, and trades were out as
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the troops, in broad, straight columns with reversed muskets, moved
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to solemn marches. All the guns on the fortifications on
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the surrounding hills discharged horse salutes, guns which the arbiter
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: of war, whom they were to honor, could hear. No longer.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Every business place was closed. Sabermen swept the street of
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: footmen and horsemen. The carriages drove two abreast not less
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: than five thousand officers of every rank marked abreast with
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the cortege. They were noble looking men, with intelligent faces,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and represented the sinews of the land. And the music
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: was not the least excellent feature of the mournful display.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: About thirty bands were in the line, and they played
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: all varieties of solemn marches, so that there were continual
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and mingling strains of funeral music for more than three hours.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Artillery consisting of heavy brass pieces, followed behind. In fact,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: all the citizen virtues and all the military enterprise of
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: the country were evidenced, never again until Washington becomes, in fact,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: what it is in name the chief city of America.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Shall we have a scene like this? Repeated, the grandest
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: procession ever seen on this continent, spontaneously evoked to celebrate
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: the foulest crime on record. If any feeling of gratulation
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: could arise in so calamitous a time, it would be
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that so soon after this appalling calamity, the nation calmly
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: and collectedly rallied about its succeeding rulers, and showed in
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the same moment its regret for the past and its
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: resolution for the future. To me, the scene in the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: White House, the street, and the Capital today was the
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: strongest evidence that war afforded of the stability of our
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: institutions and the worthiness and the magnanimous power of our people.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: The cortege passed to the left side of the Capitol,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and entering the Great Gates, passed the grand stairway opposite
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the splendid dome, where the coffin was disengaged and carried
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: up the ascent. It was posted under the bright concave,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: now streaked with mournful trappings, and left in state, watched
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: by guards of officers with drawn swords. This was a
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: wonderful spectacle the man most beloved and honored in the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: ark of the Republic. The storied paintings representing errors in
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: its history were draped in sable, through which they seemed
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: to cast reverential glances upon the lament. The thrilling scenes
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: depicted by trembule, the commemorative canvases of Leutza, the wilderness,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: vegetation of power, glared from their separate pedestals upon the
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: central spot, where lay the fallen majesty of the country.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Here the prayers and addresses of the noon were rehearsed,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and the solemn burial service read. At night, the jets
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of gas concealed in the spring of the dome were
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: lighted up, so that their bright reflection masses of burning
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: light like marvelous halos upon the little box, where so
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: much that we love and honor rested on its way
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: to the grave. And so through the starry night, in
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the fame of the Great Union he had strengthened and recovered.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: The ashes of Abraham Lincoln, zealously guarded, are now reposing
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: the sage the citizen, the patriot, the man has reached
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: all the eminence that life can give. The worthy or
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the ambitious. The haunted fugureive who struck through our hearts
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: to slay him, should stand beside his stately beer to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: see how powerless are bullets and blades to take the
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: real life of any noble man. End of Letter two,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Letter three. The Murderer, Washington, April twenty seventh, Part one.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Justice is satisfied, though blinder vengeance may not be. While
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the illustrious murdered is on the way to the shrine,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the stark corpse of his murderer lies in the shambles.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: The one died quietly like his life, the other died
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: fighting like his crime. And now that over all of them,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: the darkness and the dew have descended, the populace, which
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: may not be all satisfied, may perhaps be calmed. No
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: triumphal mourning can add to the President's glory. No further
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: execration can disturb the assassin's slumbers. They have gone for
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: what they were, into history, into tradition, into the hereafter,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: both of men and spirits and what they were may be.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: In part concluded, mister Lincoln's career passes in extent gravity
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and eventful association the province of newspaper biography, but Booth
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: is the hero of a single deed, and the delineation
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: of him may begin and be exhausted in a single article.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I have been at pains since the day of the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: President's obsequies to collect all valid information on the subject
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: of his assassin, in anticipation of the latter's capture and death.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Now that these have been consummated, I shall print the
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: biography the elder Booth in every land was a sojourner,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: as all his fathers were of Hebrew descent, and by
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: a line of actors, he united in himself that strong
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Jewish physiognomy, which, in its nobler phases makes all that
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: is dark and beautiful, and the combined vagrancy of all
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: men of genius and all men of the stage fitful, powerful, passionate.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: His life was a succession of vices and triumphs. He
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: mastered the intricate characters of dramatic literature by intuition rather
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: than by study, and produced them with a vigor and
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: vividness which almost passed the depicting of real life. The
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: stage on which he raved and fought became as historic
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: as the actual decks of battleships, and his small and
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: brawny figure comes down to us in those paroxysms of
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: delirious art, like that of Harold or Richard or Prince Rupert.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: He drank to excess, was profligate but not generous, required
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: but not reliable, and licentious to the bounds of cruelty.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: He threw off the wife of his bosom to fly
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: from England with a flower girl, and settling in Baltimore,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: dwelt with his younger companion and brought up many children.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: While his first possessed went down to a drunken and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: broken hearted death, he himself, wandering westward, died on the way,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: errant and feverish even in the closing moments. His widow,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: too conscious of her predecessor's wrongs and often taunted with them,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: lived apart, frugal and discreet, and brought her six children
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: up to honorable maturity. These were Junius Brutus, Edwin Forrest,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: though he drops the forest for professional considerations, John Wilkes, Joseph,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and the girls. All of the boys are known to
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: more or less of fame. None of them, in his
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: art has reached the renown of the father, but one
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: has sent his name as far as that of the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: great playwright to whom they were pupils. Wherever Shakespeare is quoted,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth will be named, and infamously like that
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Hubert in King John, who would have murdered the gentle
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Prince Arthur. It may not be a digression here to
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: ask what has become of the children of the weird
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: genius I have sketched above. Missus Booth, against whom Calumny
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: has had no word to say, now resides with her
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: daughters in Nineteenth Street, New York. John s Clark dwells
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: in princely style in Philadelphia, with the daughter whom he married.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: He is the business partner of Edwin Booth, and they
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: are likely to become as powerful managers as they have
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: been successful stars. Edwin Booth, who is said to have
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: the most perfect physical head in America, and whom the
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: ladies call the beau eyedeal of the melancholy Dane, dwells
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: also on Nineteenth Street. He has acquired a fortune and
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: is without doubt a frankly loyal gentleman. He could not
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: well be otherwise from his membership in the Century Club,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: where literature and loyalty are never dissolved. Correct and pleasing
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: without being powerful or brilliant. He has led a plain
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: and appreciated career, and latterly to his own honor, has
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: been awakening among dramatic authors some emulation by offering handsome
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: compensations for original plays. Junius Brutus Booth, the oldest of
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: them all, most resembles in feature his wild and wayward father.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: He is not as good an actor as was Wilkes,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and kept in the West that border civilization of the drama.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: He now lies on a serious charge of complicity in
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill jail. Joseph Booth tried the stage as a
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: utility actor and promptly failed. The best part he ever
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: had to play was Orson in the Iron Chest, and
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: his discomfiture was signal. Then he studied medicine, but grew discouraged,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and is now in California in an office of some sort.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: A son of Booth by his first wife, became a
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: first class lawyer in Boston. He never recognized the rest
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: of the family. Wilkes Booth, the third son, was shot
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: dead or on Wednesday for attempting to escape from the
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: consequences of murder. Such are the people to whom one
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: of the greatest actors of our time gave his name
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: and lineaments, but I have anticipated the story. Although her
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: family was large, it was not so hard sailing with
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: missus Rosalie Booth, as may be inferred. Her husband's gains
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: had been variably great, and they owned a farm of
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: some value near Baltimore. The boys had plain but not
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: sufficient schooling, though by the time John Wilkes grew up,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Edwin and Junius were making some little money and helping
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the family. So Wilkes was sent to a better school
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: than they, where he made some eventful acquaintances. One of
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: these won his admiration as much in the playground as
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: in subsequent life upon the field of battle. This was
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Fitzhugh Lee, son of the great rebel Chieftain. I have
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: not heard that Lee ever had any friendship for young Wilkes,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: but his port and name were enough to excite a
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: less ardent imagination. The son of a soldier already great
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: and a descendant of Washington Wilkes. Booth had often spoken
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: of the memory of the young man, envied his success,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: and perhaps boasted of more intimacy than he ever had.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: The exemplars of young Wilkes. It was soon seen were
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: anything but literary. He hated school and pent up life,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: and loved the open air. He used to stroll off
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: to fish, though that sort of amusement was too sedentary
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: for his nature, but went on fowling jaunts with enthusiasm.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: In these latter he manifested that fine nerve and certain
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: eye which was the talk of all his associates. But
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: his greatest love was the stable. He learned to ride
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: with his first pair of boots and hung around the
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: grooms to beg permission to take the nags to water.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: He grew in later life to be both an indurated
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: and graceful horseman. Towards his mother and sisters, he was
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: affectioned without being obedient. Of all the sons, Wilkes was
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: the most headstrong indoors and the most contented away from home.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: He had a fitful gentleness which won him forgiveness, and
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: of one of his sisters he was particularly fond, but
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: none had influence over him. He was seldom contentious, but
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: obstinately bent, and what he willed he did in silence,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: seeming to discard sympathy or confidence. As a boy, he
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: was never bright, except in a boy's sense that is,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: he could run and leap well, fight when challenged, and
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: generally fell in with the sentiment of the crowd. He
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: therefore made many companions, and in his early days all
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: passed between Baltimore City and the adjacent farm. I have
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: heard it said as the only evidence of Booth's ferocity
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: in those early times, that he was always shooting cats
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: and killed off almost the entire breed in his neighborhood.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: But on more than one occasion he ran away from
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: both school and home, and once made the trip of
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: the Chesapeake to the Oyster fisheries without advising any one
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: of his family. While yet very young, Wilke's Booth became
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: an habitue of the theater. His traditions and tastes were
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: all in that direction. His blood was of the stage,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: like that of the Keynes, the Kembles, and the wallacks.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: He would not commence at the bottom of the ladder
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: and climb from round to round, nor take part in
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: more than a few thespian efforts. One night, however, a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: young actor who was to have a benefit and wished
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to fill the house, resolved, for the better purpose to
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: give Wilkes a chance. He announced that a son of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: the Great Booth of tradition would enact the part of Richmond,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: and the announcement was enough before a crowded place. Booth
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: played so badly that he was hissed. Still holding to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: his gossamer hopes in high conceit, Wilkes induced John S Clark,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: who was then addressing his sister, to obtain him a
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: position in the company of the Arch Street Theater at
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia for eight dollars a week. Wilkes Booth, at the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: age of twenty two, contracted with William Wheatley to play
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: in any piece or part for which he might be cast,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: and to appear every day at rehearsal. He had to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: play the courier in Sheridan Knowles's Wife on his first night,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: with five or ten little speeches to make, but such
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: was his nervousness that he blundered continually and quite balked
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the piece. Soon afterward, he undertook the part of one
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: of the Venetian comrades in Hugo's Lucrecio Borgia, and was
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to have said in his turn, Madame I am Petruccio Pandolpho,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: instead of which he exclaimed Madame I am Pandolpho, Pet Pidolphio,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Pet Pentuccio, Pet, damn it? What am I? The audience roared,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and Booth, though full of chagrin, was compelled to laugh
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: with them. The very next night, he was to play Dawson,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: an important part in Moore's tragedy The Gamester. He had
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: bought a new dress to wear on that night and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: made abundant preparations to do himself honor. He therefore invited
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: a lady whom he knew, to visit the theater and
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: witness his triumph. But at the instance of his appearance
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: on the stage, the audience, remembering Petruccio Pandolfo of the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: previous night, burst into laughter, hisses, and mock applause, so
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: that he was struck dumb and stood rigid with nothing
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: whatever to say. Mister John Dolman, to whose Stukeley has played,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: was compelled therefore to strike Dawson entirely out of the piece.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: These occurrences nettled Booth, who protested that he studied faithfully,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: but as want of confidence ruined him, mister Fredericks, the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: stage manager, made constant complaints of Booth, who, by the way,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: did not play under his full name, but as mister J. Wilkes,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and he bore the general reputation of having no promise
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: and being a careless fellow. He associated freely with such
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: of the subordinate actors as he liked, but being through
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Clark then a rising favorite, of better connections might had
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: he chosen, advanced himself socially, if not artistically. Clark was
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: to have a benefit one evening and to enact, among
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: other things, a mock Richard the third to which he
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: allowed Wilkes Booth to play a real Richmond. On this
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: occasion for the first time, Booth showed some energy and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: obtained some applause, but in general he was stumbling and worthless.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I myself remember on three consecutive nights having him trip
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: up and receive suppressed hisses. He lacked enterprise. Other young actors,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: instead of waiting to be given better parts, committed them
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to memory in the hope that their real interpreter might
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: not come to hand. Among these I recalled John mc cullough,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: who afterwards became quite a celebrated actor. He was getting,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: if I correctly remember, only six dollars a week, while
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Booth obtained eight. At Wilkes Booth seemed too slow or
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: indifferent to get on the weather side of such chances.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: He still held the part of third walking gentlemen, and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: the third is always the first to be walked off
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: in case of strait, as was Wilkes Booth. He did
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: not survive forty weeks engagement, nor make above three hundred
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: dollars in all that time. The Kellers arrived, they cut
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: down the company, and they dispensed with Wilkes Booth. He
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: is remembered in Philadelphia by his failure, as in the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: world by his crime. About this time, a manager named
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Cuncle gave Booth a salary of twenty dollars a week
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: to go to the Richmond Theater. There he played a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: high order of parts and played them better, winning applauses
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: from the easy provincial cities and taking as everywhere the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: ladies by storm. I have never wondered why many actors
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: were strongly predisposed towards the South. There their social status
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: is nine times as big as with us. The hu hospitable, lounging,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: buzzing character of the Southerner is entirely consonant with the
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: cosmopolitanism of the stage, and that easy hang up your hatitiveness,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: which is the rule and the demand in thespianship. We
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: place actors outside of society and execute them because they
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: are there. The South took them into affable fellowship and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: was not ruined by it, but beloved by the fraternity.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Booth played two seasons in Richmond and left in some esteem.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: When the John Brown raid occurred, Booth left the Richmond
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: theater for the scene of strife in a picked company
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: with which he had affiliated for some time. From his
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: connection with the militia. On this occasion, he was wont
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: to trace his fealty to Virginia. He was a non
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: commissioned officer and remained in charlest until after the execution,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: visiting the old pike man in jail, and his company
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: was selected to form guard around the scaffold when John
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Brown went white haired to his lint. There may be
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: in this a consolation for the canonizers of the first
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: arm bearer between the sections, that one whose unit swelled
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: the host to crush out that brave old life took
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: from the scene inspiration enough to slay a merciful president.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: In his unsuspecting leisure, Booth never referred to John Brown's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: death in Bravado. Possibly at that Gallows began some such
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: terrible purpose, as he afterward consummated. End of Letter three,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Part one, Letter three The Murderer, Washington, April twenty seventh,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Part two. It was close upon the beginning of the
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: war when Booth resolved to transform himself from a stock
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: actor to a star. As many will read this who
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: do not understand such distinctions, let me preface it by
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: explaining that a star is an actor who belongs to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: no one theater, but travels from each to all, playing
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: a few weeks at a time, and sustained in his
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: chief character by the regular or stock actors. A stock
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: actor is a good actor and a poor fool. A
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: star is an advertisement in tights who grows rich and
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: corrupts the public taste. Booth was a star, and being so,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: had an agent. The agent is a trumpeter who goes
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: on before writing the impartial notices which you see in
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: the editorial columns of country papers, and counting noses at
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: the theater doors. Booth's agent was one Matthew Canning, an
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: exploded Philadelphia lawyer who took to managing by passing the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: bar and J. Wilkes no longer but our country's rising tragedian. J.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in his father's consecrated
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: part of Richard the Third. It was very different work,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: between receiving eight dollars a week and getting half the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: gross proceeds of every performance. Booth kept northward when his
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: engagement was done, playing in many cities such parts as Romeo,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the Corsican Brothers, and Raphael in the Marble Heart. In
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: all of these he gained applause, and his journey eastward,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: ending in Eastern cities like Providence, Portland and Boston, was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: a long success, in part deserved. In Boston he received
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: a special commendation for his enactment of Richard. I have
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: looked over this play, his best and favorite one, to
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: see how closely the career of the crooked back he
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: so often delineated, resembled his own. How like that fearful
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: night of Richard on Bosworth Field must have been Booth's
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: sleep in the barn at Port Royal, tortured by ghosts
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: of victims, all repeating. When I was mortal, my anointed
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: body by thee was punched full of deadly holes. Think
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: on the tower and me to spare and die, or
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: this from some of Booth's female victims. Let me see
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: heavy on thy soul to morrow. I that was wash'd
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: to death with fulsome wine, Poor Clarence, by thy guile,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: betray'd to death to morrow in the battle, think on me,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: despair and die. These terrible conjurations must have recalled how
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: aptly the scene has often rehearsed by Booth the sword
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: in hand, where, leaping from his bed, he cries in horror,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: give me another horse, bind up my wounds, have mercy,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: YESU soft I did, but dream o coward conscience, How
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: thou dost afflict me? The lights burn blue? It is
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: now dead midnight, cold flareful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: What do I fear myself? There is none else by?
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Is there a murderer here? No? Yes, I am, then fly?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: What from my self? My conscience half a thousand. Several tongues,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: and every tongue bears in a several tale, and every
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: tale condemns me for a villain, perjury, perjury, and the
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: highest degree murder, stern murder in the direst degree. All
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: several sins, all used in each degree throng to the bar,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: crying all guilty, guilty. By these starring engagements, Booth made
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: incredible sums. His cash book for one single season showed
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: earnings deposited in bank of twenty two odd thousand dollars
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: in New York. He did not get a hearing except
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: at a benefit or two where he played parts not
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: of his selection. In Philadelphia. His earlier failure predisposed the
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: people to discard him, and they did. But he had
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: made enough and resolved to invest his winnings. The oil
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: fever had just begun. He hired an agent, sent him
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: to the western districts, and gave him discretionary power. His
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: investments all turned out profitable. Booth died, as far as understood,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: without debts. The day before the murder, he paid an
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: old friend a hundred dollars, which he had borrowed two
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: days previously. He banked at J. Cook's in Washington generally,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: but turned most of his funds into stock and other matters.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: He gave eighty dollars eight months ago for a part
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: investing with others in a piece of western oil land.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: The certificate for this land he gave to his sister
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: just before he died. His agent informed him that the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: share was worth fifteen thousand dollars. Booth kept his accounts
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: latterly with great regularity, and was lavish as ever, but
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: took note of all expenditures, however irregular. He was one
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: of those men whom the possession of money seems to
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: have energized his life so purposeless long before grew by
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: good fortune to a strict computation with the world. Yet
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: what availed so sudden reformation, and of what use was
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: the gaining of wealth to throw one's life so soon
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: away and leap from competence to hunted infamy. The beauty
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: of this man, and his easy confidentiality, not familiar, but
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: marked by a mild and even dignity, made many women
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: impassioned of him. He was licentious as men, and particularly
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: as actors go, but not a seducer, so far as
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: I can learn. I have traced one case in Philadelphia
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: where a young girl who had seen him on the
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: stage became enamored of him. She sent him bouquets, notes, photographs,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: and all the accessories of an intrigue. Both to whom
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: such things were common yielded to the girl's importunities at last,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: and gave her an interview. He was surprised to find
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: that so bold a correspondent, was so young, so fresh,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: and so beautiful. He told her, therefore, in pity the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: consequences of pursuing him, that he entertained no affection for her,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: though a sufficient desire, and that he was a man
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: of the world to whom all women grew fulsome in
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: their turn. Go home, he said, and beware of actors.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: They are to be seen, not to be known. The girl,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: yet more infatuated, persisted. Booth, who had no real virtue
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: except by scintillations, became what he had promised, and one
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: more soul went to the isles of Cyprus. In Montgomery,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: if I do not mistake, Booth met the woman from
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: whom he received a stab, which he carried all the
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: rest of his days. She was an actress, and he
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: visited her. They assumed a relation creditable only in La Boueim,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: and were as tender as love without esteem can ever be.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: But after a time Booth wearied of her and offered
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: to say good bye. She refused. He treated her coldly,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: she pleaded. He passed her by. Then, with a jealous
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: woman's frenzy, she drew a knife upon him and stabbed
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: him in the neck, with the intent to kill him.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Being muscular, he quickly disarmed her, though he afterwards suffered
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: from the wound. Poignantly, does it not bring a blush
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: to our faces that a good great man like he
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: who has died our President, should have met his fate
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: from one so inured to a life of ribaldry. Yet
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: only such a one could have been found to murder
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. The women persecuted both more than he followed them.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: He was waylaid by married women in every provincial town
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: or city where he played. His face was so youthful,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: yet so manly, and his movements so graceful and excellent,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: that other than the coarse an errant placed themselves in
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: his way. After his celebrated Boston engagement, women of all
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: ages and degrees pressed in crowds before the Tremont House
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: to see him depart. Their motives were various, but whether
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: curiosity or worse, exhibiting plainly the deep influence which Booth
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: had upon the sex, he could be anywhere easy and gentlemanly.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: And it is a matter of wonder that with the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: entry which he had to many well stopped homes. He
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: did not make hospitality, mourn and friendship find in his
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: visit shame and ruin. I have not space to go
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: into the milliant catalog of boost intrigues, even if this
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: journal permitted further elucidation of so banned a subject. Most
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: of his adherents of this class were like Heine's Polish virgins,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: and he was very popular with those dramatic ladies few
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: I hope and know in their profession to whom divorce
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: courts are superfluous. His last permanent acquaintance was one Ella
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Turner of Richmond, who loved him with all the impetuosity
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: of that love which does not think, and strove to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: die at the tidings of his crime and fight, happy
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: that even such a woman did not die associated with
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth. Such devotion to any other murderer would
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: have earned some poets tier. But the daisies will not
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: grow a whole rod from his grave. Of what avail?
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: May we ask on the impossible supposition that Booth's crime
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: could have been considered heroic. Was it that such a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: record could have dared to die for fame? Victory? Would
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: not have been ashamed of its champion, as England of
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: Nelson and France of Mirabeau. I may add to this
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: on first setting out in life, before getting into a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: transaction of the kind specified for an affair at his
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: boarding house. He was compelled to pay a considerable sum
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: of money, and it happily occurred just as he was
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: to quit the city. He had many quarrels and narrow
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: escapes through his license. A husband in Syracuse, New York,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: once followed him all the way to Cleveland to avenge
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: a domestic insult. Booth's paper, to whom it may concern,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: was not his only attempt at influential composition. He sometimes
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: persuaded himself that he had literary ability, but his orthography
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: and pronunciation were worse than his syntax. The paper deposited
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: with J. S. Clark was useful as showing his power
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: to entertain a deliberate purpose. It has one or two
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: smart passages in it, as this our once bright red
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: In the passages following, there is common sense and lunacy.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: I know how foolish, I shall be deemed for undertaking
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: such a step as this, Where on the one side,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: I have many friends and everything to make me happy,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: where my profession alone has gained me an income of
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: more than twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: great personal ambition in my profession has such a great
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: field for labor. On the other hand, the South have
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: never bestowed upon me one kind word. A place now
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: where I have no friends except beneath the sod, a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: place where I must either become a private soldier or
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: a beggar, to give up all of the former for
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: the latter. Besides my mother and sisters, whom I love
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: so dearly, although they so widely differ with me in opinion,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: seems insane. But God is my judge. Now read the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: beginning of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were his
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: words of his coming infamy. If he expected so much
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: for capturing the president merely, what of our execration at
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: slaying him right or wrong? God judge me, not man,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: For be my motive good or bad of one thing,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I am sure the lasting condemnation of the North. I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: love peace more than life, have loved the Union beyond expression.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: For four years I have waited, hoped, and prayed for
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have prov'd
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: as idle as my hopes God's will be done. I
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: go to sea and share the bitter end. To wait
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: longer would be a crime. Oh what was the crime
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: not to wait? Had he only shared the bitter end,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: then in the common trench his memory might have been hidden.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: The end had come when he appeared to make a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: benignant victory, a quenchuless revenge. One more selection from his
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: apostrophe will do it suggests the manner of his death.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: They say that the South has found that last ditch
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: which the North hath so long derided. Should I reach
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: her in safety and find it true, I will proudly
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: beg permission to triumph or die in that same ditch
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: by her side. The swamp near which he died may
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: be call'd without unseen pon a truth not of Beaumont,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the last ditch of the rebellion. None of the printed
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: pictures that I have seen due justice to booth. Some
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: of the carts to visitat get him very nearly. He
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: had one of the finest vital heads I have ever seen.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: In fact, he was one of the best exponents of
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: vital beauty I have ever met. By this I refer
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: to physical beauty in the medician sense, health, shapeliness, power
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: in beautiful poise, and seemingly more power in repose than
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: in energy. His hands and feet were sizable, not small,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and his legs were stout and muscular, but inclined a
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: bow like his father's. From the waist up he was
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a perfect man, his chest being full and broad, his
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: shoulders gently sloping, and his arms as white as alabaster
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: but hard as marble. Over these, upon a neck which
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: was its proper column, rose the cornice of a fine
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Doric face, spare at the jaws and not anywhere over ripe,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: but seemed with a nose of Roman model, the only
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: relic of his half Jewish parentage, which gave decision to
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: the thoughtfully stern sweep of two direct dark eyes, meaning
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: to woman's snare and to man a search warrant, while
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: the lofty, square forehead and square brows were crowned with
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: a weight of curling jetty hair like a rich Corinthian capital.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: His profile was eagleish and afar. His countenance was haughty.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: He seemed throat, full of introspections, ambitious self examinings, eye
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: strides into the future, as if it withheld him something
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: to which he had a right. I have since wondered
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: whether this moody demeanor did not come of a guilty spirit.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: But all the booths looked so. Wilkes spoke to me
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: in Washington for the first time, three weeks before the murder.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: His address was winning as a girl's rising. In effect,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: not from what he said, but from how he said it.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: It was magnetic, and I can describe it therefore by
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: its effects alone, I seemed when he had spoken to
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: lean toward this man. His attitude spoke to me with
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: as easy familiarity as I ever observed. As he drew
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: near and conversed. The talk was on so trite things
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: that it did not lie a second in the head.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: But when I left him, it was with the feeling
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: that a most agreeable fellow had passed By the next
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: time the name of Wilkes Booth recurred to me was
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: like the pistol shot he had fired the right hand,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: I had shaken, murdered the father of our country. Booth
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: was not graceful with his feet, although his ordinary walk
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: was pleasant enough. But his arms were put to artistic uses,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: not the baser ones like boxing, but all sorts of fencing,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: manual practice, and the handling of weapons. In his dress,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: he was neat without being particular. Almost any clothes could
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: fit him, but he had nothing of the exquisite about him.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: His neckties and all such matters were good without being gaudy.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Nature had done much for him in this beautiful palace,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: and outlaw had builded his fire, and slept and plotted
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: and dreamed. I have heard it said that Booth frequently
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: cut his adversaries upon the stage in sheer wantonness or bloodthirstiness.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: This is a mistake, and is attributable to his father,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: the elder Booth, who had the madness of confounding himself
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: with the character Wilkes. Was too good offenser to make
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: ugly gashes. His pride was his skill, not his awkwardness.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Once he was playing with John mc cullough in the
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: last act of Richard, they were fighting desperately. Suddenly the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: cross piece on the hilt of mc cullough's sword flew
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: off and cut the owner deeply in the forehead. Blood
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: ran down mc cullough's face. Though they continued to struggle,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: and while ostensibly Booth was imitating a demon, he said
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: in a half whisper, good God, John, did I hurt you?
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: And when they went off the stage, Booth was white
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: with fear that he had gashed his friend. As an actor,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: Booth was too energetic to be correct. His conception of
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: Richard was vivid and original, one of the best that
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: we have had, and he came nearer his father's rendering
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: of the Last Act than anybody we have seen. His
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: combat scene was terrific. The statement that his voice had
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: failed has no valid foundation. It was as good when
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: he challenged the cavalrymen to combat, as in the best
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: of his Thespian successes. In all acting that required delicate characterization,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: refined conception, or carefulness, Booth was at sea, but in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: strong physical parts, requiring fair reading and an abundance of
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: spring and tension. He was much finer than hearsay would
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: have us believe. His Romeo was described a short time
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: ago by the Washington Intelligencer as the most satisfactory of
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: all renderings of that fine character. He played The Corsican
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: Brothers three weeks on a run in Boston. He played
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Pescara at Ford's Theatre, his last mock part in this
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: world on tomorrow Saturday night, six weeks ago. He was
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: fond of learning and recited fugitive poems. His favorite piece
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: was the Beautiful Snow, comparing it to a lost purity.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: He has been known by gentlemen in this city to
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: recite this poem with fine effect and cry all the while.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: This was on the principle of guilty people sitting at
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: a play. His pocket book was generally full of little
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: selections picked up at random, and he had considerable delicacy
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: of appreciation. On the morning of the murder Booth, breakfasted
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: with Miss Carrie Bean, the daughter of a merchant and
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: a very respectable young lady, at the National Hall. He
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: arose from the table at say eleven o'clock during the breakfast.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Those who watched him say that he was lively piquant
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: and self possessed as ever in his life. That night,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: the horrible crime thrilled the land. A period of crippled
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: flight succeeded living in swamps, upon trembling hospitality, upon hopes
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: which sank as he leaned upon them. Booth passed the
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: nights in perilous rout or broken sleep, and in the
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: end went down like a bravo, but in the eyes
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: of all who read his history, commanding no respect for
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: his valor charity, for his motive, or sympathy for his sin.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: The closing scenes of these terrible days are reserved for
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: a second paper. Much matter that should have gone into
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: this is retained for the present end of letter three,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: Letter four. The Assassin's Death, Washington, April twenty eighth, eight
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: p m. Part one. A hard and grizzly face overlooks
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: me as I write. Its inconsiderable forehead is crowned with
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: turning sandy hair, and the deep concave of its long,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: insatiate jaws is almost hidden by a dense red beard,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: which cannot still abate the terrible decision of the large mouth,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: so well sustained by searching eyes of spotted gray, which
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: roll and rivet one. This is the face of Lafayette Baker,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: Colonel and chief of the Secret Service. He has played
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: the most perilous parts of the war, and is the
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: capturer of the late President's murderer. The story that I
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: am to tell you, as he and his trusty dependence
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: told it to me, will be aptly commenced here where
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: the net was woven which took the dying life of
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth. When the murder occurred, Colonel Baker was absent
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: from Washington. He returned on the third morning, and was
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: at once besought by Secretary Stanton to join the hue
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: and cry against the escaped Booth. The sagacious detective found
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: that nearly ten thousand cavalry and one fourth as many
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: policemen had been meantime scouring without plan or compass, the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: whole territory of southern Maryland. They were treading on each
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: other's heels and mixing up the things so confoundedly that
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: the best place for the culprits to have gone would
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: have been in the very midst of their pursuers. Baker
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: at once possessed himself of the little the War Department
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: had learned, and started immediately to take the usual detective measures,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: till then neglected of offering a reward and getting out
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: photographs of the suspected ones. He then dispatched a few
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: chosen detectives to certain vital points and awaited result. The
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: first of these was the capture of Atzerot. Others, like
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: the taking of doctor Mudd, simultaneously occurred, but the district suspected.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Being remote from the railway routes and broken by no
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: telegraph station, the Colonel, to place himself nearer the theater of events,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: ordered an operator with the necessary instrument to tap the
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: wire running to point lookout Chapel's Point and send him
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: prompt messages. The same steamer which took down the operator
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: and two detectives, brought back one of the same detectives
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: and a negro. This negro, taken to Colonel Baker's office,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: stated so positively that he had seen Booth and another
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: man cross the Potomac in a fishing boat while he
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: was looking down upon them from a bank, that the
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Colonel was at first skeptical, But when examined, the negro
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: answered so readily and intelligently, recognizing the men from the photographs,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: that Baker knew at last that he had the true
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: scent straightway. He sent to General Hancock for twenty five men,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: and while the order was going drew down his coast
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: survey maps. With that quick detective intuition amounting almost to inspiration,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: he cast upon the probable route and destination of the refugees,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: as well as the point where he would soonest strike them.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: Booth he knew would not keep along the coast with
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: frequent deep rivers to cross, nor indeed in any direction
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: east of Richmond, where he was liable at any time
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: to cross our lines of occupation. Nor being lame, could
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: he ride on horseback so as to place himself very
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: far westward of this point of debarkation in Virginia. But
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: he would travel in a direct course from Bluff Point
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: where he crossed to eastern Tennessee, and this would take
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: him through Port Royal on the Rappahannock River in time
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: to be intercepted there by the outgoing cavalrymen. When before
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: twenty five men under one Lieutenant Doherty arrived at his
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: office door, Baker placed the whole under control of his
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: former lieutenant, Colonel E. J. Conger, and of his cousin,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant L. B. Baker, the first of Ohio, the last
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: of New York, and bade them go with all dispatch
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: to bell Plaine on the lower Potomac there to disembark
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: and scour the country faithfully around Port Royal, but not
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: to return unless they captured their men. Conger is a short, decided, indominable,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: courageous fellow, provincial in his manners, but fully understanding his business,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: and collected as a housewife on Sunday. Young Baker is
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: large and fine looking, a soldier but no policeman, and
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: he deferred to Conger very properly during most of the
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: events Succeeding quitting Washington at two o'clock PM on Monday,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: the detectives and cavalrymen disembarked at bell Plain, on the
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: border of Stafford County at ten o'clock in the darkness.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: Bell Plain is simply the nearest landing to Fredericksburg, seventy
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: miles from Washington City and located upon Potomac Creek. It
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: is a wharf and warehouse merely, and here the steamer
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: John s Ide stopped and made fast while the party
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: galloped off in the darkness. Conger and Baker kept ahead,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: riding up to farmhouses and questioning the inmates, pretending to
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: be in search of the Maryland gentlemen belonging to the party,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: but nobody had seen the parties described, and after a
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: futile run on the Fredericksburg Road, they turned shortly to
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: the east and kept up their baffled inquiries all the
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: way to Port Conway on the Rappahannock. On Tuesday morning,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: they presented themselves at the Port Royal Ferry and inquired
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: of the ferryman, while he was taking them over in
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: squads of seven at a time, if he had seen
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: any two such men. Continuing their inquiries at Port Royal,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: they found one Rollins, a fisherman, who referred them to
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: a Negro named Lucas as having driven two men a
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: short distance toward Bowling Green in a wagon. It was
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: found that these men answered to the description Booth having
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: a crutch, as previously ascertained. The day before, Booth and
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: Herold had applied at Port Conway for the general ferryboat,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: but the ferryman was then fishing and would not desist
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: for the inconsiderable fare of only two persons. But to
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: their supposed good fortune, a lot of Confederate cavalrymen just
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: then came along, who threatened the ferryman with a shot
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: in the head if he did not instantly bring across
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: his craft and transport the entire party. These cavalrymen were
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: of Moseby's disbanded command, returning from Fairfax Court House to
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: their homes in Caroline County. Their captain was on his
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: way to visit a sweetheart at Bowling Green, and he
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: had so far taken Booth under his patronage that when
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: the latter was haggling with Lucas for a team, he
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: offered both Booth and Harold the use of his horse
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: to ride and walk alternately. In this way, Lucas was
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: providentially done out of the job, and Booth rode off
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: toward Bowling Green behind the Confederate captain on one and
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: the same horse. So much learned, the detectives, with Rollins
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: for a guide, dashed off in the bright daylight of Tuesday,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: moving southwestward through the level plains of Caroline, seldom stopping
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: to ask questions, save at a certain half way house,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: where a woman told them that the cavalry party of
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: yesterday had returned minus one man. As this was far
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: from circumstantial, the party rode along in the twilight and
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: reached Bowling Green at eleven o'clock in the night. This
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: is the court house town of Caroline County, a small
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: and scattered place, having within it an ancient tavern, no
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: longer used for other than lodging purposes. But here they
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: hauled from his bed the captain aforesaid, and bade him
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: dress himself. As soon as he comprehended the matter, he
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: became pallid and eagerly narrated all the facts in his possession. Booth,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: to his knowledge, was then lying in the house of
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: one garret, which they had passed, and Harold had departed
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: the existing day with the intention of rejoining him, taking
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: this captain along for a guide. The worn out horsemen retraced,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: though some of the men were so haggard and wasted
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: with travel that they had to be kicked into intelligence
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: before they could climb to their saddles. The objects of
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: the chase thus at hand. The detectives, full of sanguine purpose,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: hurried the corte so well along that by two o'clock
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: early morning, all halted at Garrett's Gate in the pale moonlight,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: three hundred yards from the main road to the left,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: a plain old farmhouse looked grayly through its environing locusts.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: It was worn and whitewashed, and two storied, and its
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: half human windows glowered down upon the silent cavalrymen like
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: watching owls, which stood as sentries over some horrible secret
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: asleep within the front of this house looked up the
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: road toward the rappahannock, but did not face it. And
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: on that side a long virginia porch protruded, where in
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: the summer among the honeysuckles, the humming bird flew like
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: a visible odor. Nearest the main road, against the pallid gable,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: a single storied kitchen stood, and there were three other doors,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: one opening upon the porch, one in the kitchen gable,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: and one in the rear of the farm house. Dimly
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: seen behind an old barn, high and weather beaten faced
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: the roadside gate for the house itself lay to the
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: left of its own lane, and nestling beneath the barn,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: a few long corn cribs lay with a cattle shed
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: at hand. There was not a swell of the landscape
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: anywhere in sight. A plain, dead level contained all the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: tenements and structures. A worm fence stretched along the road,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: broken by two battered gate posts, and between the road
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: and the house the lane was crossed by a second
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: fence and gate. The farm house lane passing the house
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: front kept straight on to the barn, though a second
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: carriage track ran up to the port. It was a
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: homely and primitive scene, enough pastoral as any farm boy's birthplace,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and had been the seat of many toils and endearments.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: Young wives had been brought to it, and around its
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: heart the earliest cries of infants, gladdening mothers hearts had
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: made the household jubilant till the stars came out, and
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: were its only sentries, save the bright lights at its
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: window panes as of the camp fire, and the suppressed
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: choruses of the domestic bivouac within, where apple toasting and
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: nut cracking and country games shortened the winter shadows. Yet
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: in this house, so peaceful by moonlight, murder had washed
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: its spotted hands and ministered to its satiated appetite. History
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: present in every nook in the broad young world, had
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: stopped to make a landmark of Garrett's farm. In the
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: dead stillness, Baker dismounted and forced the outer gate. Conger
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: kept close behind him, and the horsemen followed cautiously. They
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: made no noise in the soft clay, nor broke the
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: all foreboding silence anywhere till the second gate swung open gratingly.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: Yet even then, nor horse nor shrill response came back,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: save distant croaking, as of frogs or owls, or the
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: whiz of some passing night hawk. So they surrounded the
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: pleasant old homestead, each horseman carbine in poise, adjusted under
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: the grove of locusts, so as to inclose the dwelling
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: with a circle of fire. After a pause, Baker rode
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: to the kitchen door on the side, and, dismounting, raped
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: and hallowed lustily. An old man in drawers and night
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: shirt hastily undrew the bolts and stood on the threshold,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: peering shiveringly into the darkness. Baker seized him by the
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: throat at once and held a pistol to his ear.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: Who who is that calls me? Cried the old man.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: Where are the men who stay with you? Challenged Baker,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: If you prevaricate, you are a dead man. The old fellow,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: who proved to be the head of the family, was
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: so overawed and paralyzed that he stammered and shook, and
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: said not a word. Go light a candle, cried Baker, sternly,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: and be quick about it. The trembling old man obeyed,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: and in a moment the imperfect rays flared upon his
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: whitening hairs and bluishly pallid face. Then the question was repeated,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: backed up by the glimmer ring pistol. Where are those men?
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: The old man held to the wall, and his knees
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: smote each other. They are gone, he said, We haven't
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: got them in the house. I assure you that they
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: are gone. Here. There were sounds and whisperings in the
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: main building adjoining, and the lieutenant strode to the door.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: A ludicrous instant intervened. The old man's modesty outran his terror.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: Don't go in there, he said, feebly. There are women
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: undressed in there. Damn the women, cried Baker, What if
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: they are undressed? We shall go in if they haven't
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: a rag Leaving the old man in mute astonishment, Baker
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: bolted through the door and stood in an assemblage of
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: bare arms and night robes. His loaded pistol disarmed modesty
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: of its delicacy, and substituted therefore a seasonable terror. Here
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: he repeated his summons, and the half light of the
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: candle gave to his face a more than bandit ferocity.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: They all denied knowledge of the stranger's whereabouts. En of
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: Letter four, Part one, Letter four The Assassin's Death, Washington,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: April twenty eighth, eight p m. Part two. In the
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: interim conger had also entered, And while the household and
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: its invaders were thus in weird tableaux, a young man
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: appeared as if he had risen from the ground. The
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: muzzles of everybody turned upon him in a second, But
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: while he blanched, he did not lose loquacity. Father, He said,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: we had better tell the truth about the matter. Those
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: men whom you seek, gentlemen, are in the barn. I know.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: They went there to sleep, leaving one soldier to guard
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: the old man, and the soldier was very glad of
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: the job, as it relieved him of personal hazard in
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: the approaching combat. All the rest, with cocked pistols at
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: the young man's head, followed on to the barn. It
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: lay a hundred yards from the house. The front barn
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: door facing the west gable, and was an old and
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: spacious structure with floors only a trifle above the ground level.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: The troops dismounted were stationed at regular intervals around it,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: and ten yards distant. At every point. Four special guards
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: placed to command the door, and all with weapons in
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: supple preparation. While Baker and Conger went direct to the portal,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: it had a padlock upon it, and the key of
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: this Baker secured at once. In the interval of silence
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: that intued, the rustling of planks and straw was heard
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: inside as a person's rising from sleep. At the same moment,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: Baker hailed to the persons in this barn, I have
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: a proposal to make. We are about to send in
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: to you the son of the man in whose custody
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: you are found. Either surrender to him your arms and
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: then give yourselves up, or we'll set fire to the
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: place we mean to take you both, or to have
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: a bonfire and a shooting match. No answer came to
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: this of any kind. The lad John M. Garrett, who
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: was in deadly fear, was here pushed through the door
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: by a sudden opening of it, and immediately Lieutenant Baker
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: locked the door. On the outside. The boy was heard
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: to state his appeal in an undertone. Booth replied, damn
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: you get out of here. You have betrayed me. At
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: the same time, he placed his hand in his pocket
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: as for a pistol. A remonstrance followed, but the boy
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: slipped quickly over the reopened portal, reporting that his errand
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: had failed and that he dared not enter again. All
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: this time, the candle brought from the house to the
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: barn was burning close beside the two detectives, rendering it
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: easy for any one within to have shot them dead.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: This observed, The light was cautiously removed, and everybody took
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: care to keep out of its reflection. By this time
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: the crisis of the position was at hand. The cavalry
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: exhibited very variable inclinations, some to run away, others to
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: shoot booth without a summons, but all excited and fitfully silent.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: At the house near by, the female folks were seen
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: collected in the doorway, and the necessities of the case
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: provoked prompt conclusions. The boy was placed at a remote point,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: and the summons repeated by Baker. You must surrender inside there,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: give up your arms and appear. There is no chance
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: for escape. We give you five minutes to make up
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: your mind. A bold clarion reply came from within, so
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: strong as to be heard at the house door. Who
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: are you and what do you want with us? Baker
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: again urged, we want you to deliver up your arms
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: and become our prisoners. But who are you? Hallooed the
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: same strong voice, Baker, That makes no difference. We know
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: who you are and we want you. We have here
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: fifty men armed with carbines and pistols. You cannot escape.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: There was a long pause, and then Booth said, Captain,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: this is a hard case. I swear perhaps I am
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: being taken by my own friends. No reply from the detectives. Booth, Well,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: give us a little time to consider. Baker very well,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: take time here, ensued a long and eventful pause. What
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: thronging memories it brought to Booth we can only guess.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: In this little interval he made the resolve to die,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: but he was cool and steady to the end. Baker,
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: after a lapse, hailed for the last time, well we
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: have waited long enough. Surrender your arms and come out,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: or will fire the barn. Booth answered thus, I am
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: but a cripple, a one legged man. Withdraw your forces
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: one hundred yards from the door, and I will come.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: Give me a chance for my life, Captain. I will
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: never be taken alive, Baker. We did not come here
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: to fight, but to capture you. I say again, a
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: peer or the barn shall be fired. Then, with a
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: long breath which could be heard outside, Booth cried in
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: sudden calmness, still invisible, as were to him his enemies. Well, then,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me. There was
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: a pause, repeated broken by low discussions within between Booth
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: and his associate, the former saying as if in answer
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: to some remonstrance or appeal, get away from me. You
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: are a damned coward and mean to leave me in
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: my distress. But go go. I don't want you to stay.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: I won't have you stay. Then he shouted aloud, there's
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: a man inside who wants to surrender Baker. Let him
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: come if he will bring his arms here. Harold, rattling
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: at the door, said let me out, open the door.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: I want to surrender, Baker. Hand out your arms. Then, Harold,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: I have not got any. Baker. You are the man
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: that carried the carbine yes to day. Bring it out. Harold,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: I haven't got any. This was said in a whining
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: tone and with an almost visible shiver, Booth cried aloud
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: at this hesitation. He hasn't got any arms. They are
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: mine and I have kept them. Baker, well, he carried
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: the carbine and must bring it out. Booth on the
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: word and honor of a gentleman. He has no arms
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: with him. They are mine and I have got them.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: At this time, Harold was quite up to the door,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: within whispering distance of Baker. The latter told him to
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: put out his hands to be handcuffed, at the same
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: time drawing open the door a little distance. Harold thrust
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: forth his hands when Baker, seizing him, jerked him into
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: the night, and straightway delivered him over to a deputation
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: of cavalrymen. The fellow began to talk of his innocence
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: and plead so noisily that Conger threatened to gag him
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: unless he ceased. Then both made his last appeal in
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: the same clear, unbroken voice, Captain, give me a chance.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: Draw off your men, and I will fight them singly.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: I could have killed you six times to night, but
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: I believe you to be a brave man, and would
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: not murder you. Give a lame man a show. It
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: was too late for Parley all this time Booth's voice
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: had sounded from the middle of the barn, ere he
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: ceased speaking. Colonel Congres, slipping around to the rear, drew
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: some loose straws through a crack and lit a match
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: upon them. They were dry and blazed up in an instant,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: carrying a sheet of smoke and flame through the parted planks,
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: and heaving in a twinkling a world of light and
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: heat upon the magazine. Within the blaze lit up the
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: black recesses of the great barn, till every wasped nest
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: and cobweb in the roof was luminous, flinging streaks of
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: red and violet across the tumbled farm gear in the corner, plows, harrows, hoes, rakes,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: sugar mills, and making every separate grain in the high
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: bin adjacent gleam like a moat of precious gold. They
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: tinged the beams, the upright columns, the barricades, where Clover
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: and Timothy piled high, held toward the hot incendiary their
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: separate straws for the funeral pile. They bathed the murderer's
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: retreat in beautiful illumination, and while in brawled outline his
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: figure stood revealed. They rose like an impenetrable wall to
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: guard from sight the hated enemy, who lit them. Behind
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: the blaze, with his eye to a crack, Congres saw
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: wilkes booth standing upright upon a crutch. He likens him
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: at this instance to his brother Edwin, whom he says
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: he so much resembled that he half believed, for the
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: moment the whole pursuit to have been a mistake. At
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: the gleam of the fire, Wilkes dropped his crutch and
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: carbine in both hands, crept up to the spot to
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: a spy the incendiary and shoot him dead. His eyes
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: were lustrous like fever, and swelled and rolled in terrible beauty,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: while his teeth were fixed, and he wore the expression
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: of one in the calmness before frenzy in vain. He
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: peered with vengeance in his look. The blaze that made
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: him visible concealed his enemy. A second he turned, glaring
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: at the fire, as if to leap upon it and
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: extinguish it. But it had made such headway that this
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: was a futile impulse, and he dismissed it as calmly
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: as upon the battlefield. A veteran stands amidst the hail
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: of ball and shell and plunging iron, both turned at
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: a man's stride and pushed for the door. Carbine in poise,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: and the last resolve of death, which we named despair,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: set on his high, bloodless forehead. And so he dashed,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: intent to expire, not unaccompanied a disobedient sergeant, and an
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: eye hole drew upon him the fatal bead. The barn
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: was all glorious with conflagration, and in the beautiful ruin.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: This outlawed man strolled like all that we know of,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: wicked valor, stern in the face of death. A shock,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: a shout, a gathering up of his splendid figure, as
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: if to overtip the step that your God gave him,
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: and John Wilkes's booth fell headlong to the floor, lying
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: there in a heap, a little life remaining. He has
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: shot himself, cried Baker, unaware of the source of the report,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: and rushing in, he grasped his arms to guard against
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: any faint or strategy. A moment convinced him that further
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: struggle with the prone flesh was useless. Booth did not move,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: nor breathe, nor gasp. Conger and two sergeants now entered,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: and taking up the body, they bore it in haste
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: from the advancing flame, and laid it without upon the grass,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: all fresh with heavenly dew. Water, cried Conger, bring water.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: When this was dashed into his face, he revived a
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: moment and stirred his lips. Baker put his ear close
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: down and heard him say, tell mother, and die for
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: my country. They lifted him again, the firing croaching in
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: hotness upon them, and placed him on the porch before
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: the dwelling. A mattress was brought down, on which they
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: placed him and propped his head, and gave him water
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: and brandy. The women of the household joined meantime by
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: another son, who had been found in one of the
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: corn cribs, watching as he said, to see that Booth
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: and Herold did not steal. The horses were nervous, but
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: prompt to do the dying man all kindnesses, although waved
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: sternly back by the detectives. They dipped a rag in
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: brandy and water, and this being put between Booth's teeth,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: he sucked it greedily. When he was able to articulate again,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: he muttered to mister Baker the same words with an adenda,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: Tell mother, I died for my country. I thought I
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: did for the best. Baker repeated this, saying at the
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: same time, Booth, do I repeat it correctly? Booth nodded
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: his head. By this time, the grayness of dawn was approaching.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: Moving figures inquisitively coming near were to be seen distinctly,
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: and the cocks began to crow gutturily. Though the barn
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: was a hulk of blaze and ashes, sending toward the
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: zenith a spiral line of dense smoke. The women became
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: importunate that the troops might be ordered to extinguish the
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: fire which was spreading toward their precious corn cribs. Not
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: even death could banish the call of interest. Soldiers were
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: sent to put out the fire, and Booth, relieved of
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: the bustle around him, drew near to death apace. Twice
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: he was heard to say, kill me, kill me. His
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: lips often moved, but could complete no appreciable sound. He
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: made once a motion which the quickeye of Conger understood
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: to mean that his throat pained him. Conger put his
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: finger there when the dying man attempted to cough, but
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: only caused the blood at his perforated neck to flow
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: more lively. He bled very little, although shot quite through
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: beneath and behind the ears, his collar being severed on
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: both sides. The soldier had been, meantime despatched for a doctor,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: but the rout and return were quite six miles, and
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: the sinner was sinking fast still. The women made efforts
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: to get to see him, but were always rebuffed, and
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: all the brandy they could find was demanded by the assassin,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: who motioned for strong drink every two minutes. He made
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: frequent desires to be turned over, not by speech but
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: by gesture, and was alternately placed upon his back belly
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: and sighed. His tremendous vitality evidenced itself almost miraculously. Now
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: and then his heart would cease to throb, and his
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: pulses would be cold as a dead man's. Directly, life
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: would begin anew, the face would flush up effulgently, the
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: eyes open and brighten, and soon relapsing stillness reasserted, would
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: again be dispossessed of the same magnificent triumph of man
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: over mortality. Finally, the fussy little doctor arrived in time
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: to be useless. He probed the wound to see if
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: the ball were not in it, and shook his head
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: sagely and talked learnedly. Just at his coming, Booth had
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: asked to have his hands raised and shown him. They
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: were so paralyzed that he did not know their location.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: When they were displayed, he muttered with a sad lethargy, useless, useless.
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: These were the last words he ever uttered. As he
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: began to die. The sun rose and threw beams into
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: all the tree tops. It was of a man's height.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: When the struggle of death twitched and fingered in the
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: fading Bravo's face. His jaw drew spasmodically and oblikely downward.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: His eyeballs rolled toward his feet and began to swell.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: Lividness like a horrible shadow fastened upon him. And with
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: a sort of gurgle and sudden check, he stretched his
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: feet and threw his head back and gave up the ghost.
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: They sewed him up in a saddle blanket. This was
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: his shroud, too, like a soldier's. Harold meantime had been
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: tied to a tree, but was now released for the march.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: Colonel Conger pushed on immediately for Washington. The cortege was
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: to follow. Booth's only arms were his carbine, knife and
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: two revolvers. They found about him bills of exchange, Canadian money,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: and a diary. A venerable old negro living in the
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: vicinity had the misfortune to possess a horse. This horse
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: was a relic of former generations, and showed by his
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: protruding ribs the general lameness of the land. He moved
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: in an eccentric amble, and when put upon, his speed
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: was generally run backward. To this old negro's horse was
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: harnessed a very shaky and absurd wagon, which rattled like
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: approaching dissolution, and each part of it ran without any
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: connection or correspondence with any other part. It had no
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: tail board, and its shafts were sharp as famine. And
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: into this mimicry of a vehicle, the murderer was to
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: be sent to the Potomac River. While the man he
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: had murdered was moving in state across the Morning continent.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: The old negro geared up his wagon by means of
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: a set of fossil harness, and when it was backed
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: to Garrett's porch, they laid within it the discolored corpse.
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: The corpse was tied with ropes round the legs and
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: made fast to the wagon sides. Harold's legs were tied
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: to stirrups, and he was placed in the center of
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: four murderous looking cavalrymen. The two sons of Garrett were
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: also taken along, despite the sobs and petitions of the
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: old folks and women, But the rebel captain, who had
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: given Booth a lift, got off amidst the Knight's agitations
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: and was not rearrested. So moved the cavalcade of retribution,
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: with death in its midst, along the road to Port Royal.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: When the wagon started, Booth wound till now scarcely dribbling,
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: began to run anew. It fell through the crack of
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: the wagon, dripping upon the axle and spotting the road
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: with terrible wafers. It stained the planks and soaked the blankets,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: and the old negro, at a stoppage, dabbled his hands
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: in it. By mistake, he drew back instantly with a
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: shudder and stifled expative gore. Dattle never come off in
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: de world. It's murderous blood. He wrung his hands and
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: looked imploringly at the officers, and shuddered again. Gore, I
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have dat on me for toos and taos and dollars.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: The progress of the team was slow, with frequent danger
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: of shipwreck altogether, but toward noon the cortege filed through
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: Port Royal, where the citizens came out to ask the
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: matter and why a man's body covered with somber blankets
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: was going by with so great escort. They were told
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: that it was a wounded Confederate, and so held their tongs.
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: The little Fairy, again in requisition, took them over by squads,
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: and they pushed from Fort Conway to bell Plaine, which
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: they reached in the middle of the afternoon. All the
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: way the blood dribbled from the corpse in a slow,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: incessant sanguine exudation. The old Negro was niggardly dismissed with
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: two paper dollars, the dead man untied and cast upon
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: the vessel's dock. Steam gotten up in a little while,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: and the broad Potomac shores saw this skeleton ship flit
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: by as the bloody sun through gashes and blots of
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: unhealthy light along the silver surface all the way associate
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: with the carcass went Harold, shuddering in so grim companionship
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: and in the awakened fears of his own approaching ordeal,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: beyond which it loomed already the gossamer fabric of a scaffold.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: He tried to talk for his own exoneration, saying he
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: had ridden as was his wont beyond the East branch,
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: and returning found Booth wounded, who begged him to be
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: his companion. Of his crime. He knew nothing so help him, God,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But nobody listened to him. All interest of crime, courage,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: and retribution centered in the dead flesh at his feet.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: At Washington high and low turned out to look on Booth.
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: Only a few were permitted to see his corpse for
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: purposes of recognition. It was fairly preserved, though on one
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: side of the face distorted and looking blue like death,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: and wildly bandit like as if beaten by avenging winds. Yesterday,
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: the Secretary of War, without instructions of any kind, committed
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: to Colonel Lafier C. Baker of the Secret Service the
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: stark corpse of j. Wie Iilks Booth. The Secret Service
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: never fulfilled its volition. More secretively, what have you done
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: with the body? Said I to Baker. That is known?
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: He answered, to only one man living besides myself, it
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: is gone. I will not tell you where. The only
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: man who knows is sworn to silence. Never till the
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: great trumpeter comes shall the grave of Booth be discovered.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: And this is true. Last night, the twenty seventh of April,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: a small row boat received the carcass of the murderer.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: Two men were in it. They carried the body off
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: into the darkness, and out of that darkness it will
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: never return in the darkness like his great crime. May
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: it forever remain impalpable, invisible, mon descript, condemned to that
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: worse than damnation annihilation. The river bottom may ooze about it,
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: laden with great shot drowning manacles. The earth may have
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: opened to give it that silence and forgiveness which man
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: will never give its memory. The fishes may swim around it,
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: or the daisies grow white above it, But we shall
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: never know mysterious, incomprehensible, unattainable, like the dim times through
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: which we live and think upon, as if we only
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: dream them in perturbed fever. The assassin of a nation's
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: head rest somewhere in the elements, and that is all.
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: But if the indignant seas or the profaned turf shall
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: ever vomit his corpse from their recesses, and it receives
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: humane or Christian burial from some who do not recognize it,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: Let the last words those decaying lips ever uttered, be
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: carved upon them with a dagger, to tell the history
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: of a young and once promising life. Useless useless of
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: Letter four. Letter five, A Solution of the Conspiracy. Part one.
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: The annexed letter, which has been caviled at as much
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: as copied, is a rationale of the conspiracy, combined from
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: the government's own officers. When it was written, it was
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: believed to be true. The evidence of the trial has
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: confirmed much of it. I reprint it to show how
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: men's ingenuities were at work to account for the conception
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: and progress of the plot. Washington may second, Justice and
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: fame are equally and simultaneously satisfied. The President is not
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: yet in his sarcophagus, but all the conspirators against his life,
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: with a minor exception or two, are in their prison sales,
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: waiting for the Halter. The dark and bloody plot against
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: a good ruler's life is now so fully unraveled that
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: I may make it plain to you there is nothing
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: to be gained by further waiting. The trials are proceeding,
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: the evidence is mountain high. Within a week, the national
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: scaffold will have done its work and be laid away forever.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: This prompt and necessary justice will signal the last public
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: assassination in America. Borgio and Medici and Brinvilliers have left
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: no descendants on this side of the world. The conspiracy,
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: with both the greatest and the smallest of our cycle,
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: narrowed in execution to a few. It was understood and
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: connived at by a multitude. One man was its head
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: and heart. Its accessories were so numerous that the trouble
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: is not whom to suspect, but whom not accuse. Damning
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: as the result may be to the character of our race,
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: it must be admitted, in the light of facts, that
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: Americans are as secretive and as skillful plotters as any
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: people in the world. The Rye House plot never fully
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: understood the many schemes of Mazzini, never fastened upon him
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: sufficiently well for implication yield in extent darkness and intricacy
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: to the Republican plot against the President's life and those
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: of his counselors. The police operations proved that the late
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: murder was not a spasmodic and fitful crime, but long
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: premeditated and carried to consummation with as much cohesion and
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: resolution as the murder of Alessandro de Medici or Henricatra.
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: I have been accused of canonizing Booth, much as I
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: denounce and deprecate his crime, holding him to be worthy
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: of all execration, and so seeped in blood that the
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: excuses of a century will fail to lift him out
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: of the atmosphere of common felons. I still, at every
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: new development, stand farther back, in surprise and terror, at
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: the wonderful resources and extraordinary influence of one whom I
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: had learned to consider a mere Thespian, full of sound, fury,
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: and assertion. Strange and anomalous as the facts may seem,
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth was the sole projector of the plot
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: against the President, which culminated in the taking of that
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: good man's life. He had rolled under his tongue the
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: sweet paragraphs of Shakespeare referring to Brutus as had his father,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: so well that the old man named one son Junius Brutus,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: and the other John Wilkes, after the wild English agitator,
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: until it became his ambition, like the wicked Lorenzino de Medici,
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: to stake his life upon one stroke for fame, the
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: murder of a ruler obnoxious to the South. That Wilkes
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: Booth was a Southern man from the first may be
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: accounted for upon grounds of interest as well as of sympathy.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: It is insidious to find no higher incentive than appreciation.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: But on the stage, this is the first and last motive.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: And as Edwin Booth made his success in the North
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: and remained steadfast, Wilkes Booth was most truly applauded in
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: the South and became a rebel. A false emotion of gratitude,
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: as well as an impulse of mingled waywardness and gratitude,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: set John Wilkes's face from the first toward the North,
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: and he burned to make his name a part of history,
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: cried into fame by the applauses of the South. He
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: hung to this bloody suggestion with dogged inflexibility, maintaining only
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: one axiom above all the rest, that whatever minor parts
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: might be enacted, Casca, Cassius, or what not, he was
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: to be the dramatic brutus, accepting the assassin's negativeness. In
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: other words, the idea was to be his own, as
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: well as the crowning blow. Booth shrank at first from
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: murder until another and less dangerous resolution failed. This was
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: no less than the capture of the President's body and
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: its detention or transportation to the South. I do not
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: rely on this assertion upon his sealed letter, where he
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: avows it. There has been found, upon a street within
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: the city limits, a house belonging to one Missus Greene,
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: mined and furnished with underground apartments, manacles, and all the
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: accessories to private imprisonment. Here the President and as many
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: as could be gagged and conveyed away with him, were
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: to be concealed in the event of failure to run
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: them into the Confederacy. Owing to his failure to group
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: around him as many men as he desired, Booth abandoned
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: the project of kidnapping. But the house was discovered last
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: week as represented ready to be blown up at a
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: moment's notice. It was at this time that Booth devised
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: his triumphant route through the South. The dramatic element seems
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: to have been never lacking in his design, and with
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: all his base purposes, he never failed to consider some
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: subsequent notoriety to be enjoyed. He therefore shipped before the
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: end of eighteen sixty four his theatrical wardrobe from Canada
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: to Nassau. After the commission of his crime, he intended
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: to reclaim it and star throughout the South, drawing money
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: as much by his crime as his abilities. When Booth
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: began on his own responsibility to hunt for accomplices, he
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: found his theory at fault. The bold men he had
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: dreamed of refused to join him in the rash attempt
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: at kidnapping the president, and were too conscientious to meditate murder.
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: All those who presented themselves were military men, unwilling to
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: be subordinate to a civilian and a mere play actor.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: And the mortified Bravo found himself therefore compelled to sink
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: to a petty rank in the plot, or to make
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: use of base and despicable assistance. His vanity found it
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: easier to compound with the second alternative than the first.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: Here began the first resolve, which in its mere animal
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: estate we may name courage. Booth found that a tragedy
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: in real life could no more be enacted without greasy
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: faced and not need supernumeraries than upon the mimic stage.
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: Your first citizen who swings a stave for marc antony
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: and drinks hard porter behind the flies is very likely
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: the Bravo of real life who murders between his cocktails
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: at the nearest bar. Wilkes both had passed the ordeal
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: of a garlicky green room, and did not shrink from
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: the broader and rancor green room of real life. He
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: assembled around him, one by one the cutthroats at whom
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: his soul would have revolted, except that he had become,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: by resolve, a cutthroat in himself. About this time, certain
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: gentlemen in Canada began to be unenviably known. I abstained
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: from giving their names because unaware of how far they
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: seconded this crime, if at all, But they seconded as
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: infamous things such as cowardly raids from neutral territory into
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: the States, bank robbings, lake pirating, city burning, counterfeiting, railways, sundering,
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: and the importation of yellow fever into peaceful and unoffending communities.
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: I make no charges against those whom I do not know,
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: but simply say that the Confederate agents Jacob Thompson, Larry McDonald,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: Clement Clay, and some others had already accomplished enough villainy
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: to make Wilkes Booth, on the first of the present year,
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: believe that he had but to seek an interview with them.
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: He visited the provinces once, certainly, and three times, it
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: is believed, stopping in Montreal at Saint Lawrence Hall and
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: banking four hundred and fifty five dollars ODD at the
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: Ontario Bank. This was his own money. I have myself
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: seen his bank book with the single entry of this amount.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: It was found in the room of Atzerot at Kirkwood's Hotel.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: From this visit, whatever encouragement Booth received, he continued in
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: systematic correspondence with one or more of those agents down
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: to the commission of his crime. I dare not say
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: how far each of these agents was implicated. My personal
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: conviction is that they were neither loth to the murder
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: nor astonished when it had been done. They had money
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: with discretion from the Confederacy, though acting at discretion and
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: outside of responsibility, and always at every wild adventure, they
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: instructed their dupes that each man took his life in
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: his hand on every incursion into the North. So Beale
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: took his raiding on the Great Lakes, So Kennedy took
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: his on a midnight bonfire tramp into the metropolis. So
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: took the Saint Alban's raiders their lives in their palms,
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: dashing into a peaceful town. And if these agents entertained
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth's suggested at all, they plainly told him that
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: he carried his life in his dagger's edge, and would
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: expect from them neither aid nor exculpation. Some one or
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: all of these agents furnished Booth with a murderer, the
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: fellow Wood or Payne, who stabbed mister Seward and was
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: caught at Missus Surrat's house in Washington. He was one
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: of three Kentucky brothers, all outlaws, and had himself, it
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: is believed, accompanied one of his brothers, who is known
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: to have been at Saint Alban's on the day of
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: the bank delivery. This pain besides being positively identified as
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: the assassin of the sewards, had no friends nor haunts
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: in Washington. He was simply a dispatched murderer, and after
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: the night of the crime, struck northward of the frontier
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: instead of southward, in the company of Booth. The proof
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: of this will follow in the course of the article.
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: While I assert that the Canadian agents knew Booth and
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: patted his back, calling him, like Macbeth, the Prince of
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: cut Throats, I am equally certain that Booth's project was
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: unknown in Richmond. No word nor written line, no clue
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: of any sort has been found attaching Booth to the
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: Confederate authorities. The most that can be urged to meet
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: preposterous claims of this sort is that out of the
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: rebellion grew the murder, which is like attributing the measles
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: to the creation of man. But mac Donald and his
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: party had money at discretion and under their control the
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: Biolist fellows on the continent. Their personal influence over those
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: errant ones amounted to omnipotence. Most of the latter were
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: young and sanguine people, like Beale and Booth. Their plots
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: were made up at Saint Catharines, Toronto and Montreal. And
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: they have maintained since the war began, rebel mail routes
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: between Canada and Richmond leading directly past Washington. If Booth
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: received no positive instructions, he was, at any rated judged
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: a man likely to be of use, and therefore introduced
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: to the rebel agencies in and around Washington, doubtless by
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: direct letter or verbal instruction. He received a password to
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: the house of Missus Surat, half applauded, half rebuffed by
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: the rebel agents in Canada. Booth's impression of his visit
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: were just those which would whet him soonest for the tragedy.
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: His vanity had been fed by the assurance that success
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: depended upon himself alone, and that as he had the responsibility,
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: he would absorb the fame. And the method of correspondence
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: was of that dark and mysterious shape which powerfully operated
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: upon his dramatic temperament. What could please an actor and
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: the son of an actor better than to mingle as
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: a principle in a real conspiracy, the aims of which
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: were pseudo patriotic, and the end so astounding that at
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: its coming the whole globe would reel. Booth reasoned that
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: the ancient world would not feel more sensitively the death
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: of Julius Caesar than the new and sudden taking off
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln. And so he grew into the idea
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: of murder. It became his business thought. It was his
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: recreation and his study. He had not worked half so
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: hard for histrionic successes, for his terrible graduation into an assassin.
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: He had fought often on the boards and seen men
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: die in well imitated horror, with flowing blood upon his
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: keen sword's edge, and the strong stride of mimic victory
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: with which he flourished his weapon. At the closing of
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: the curtain, he embraced conspiracy like an old diplomatist, and
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: found in the Woman and the Spots objects for emulation.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: South east of Washington stretches a tapering peninsula composed of
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: four fertile counties, which, at the remote tip make point
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: look Out, and do not contain any town within them
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: of more than a few hundred inhabitants. Tobacco has ruined
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: the land of these, and slavery has ruined the people.
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: Yet in the beginning they were of that splendid stock
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: of Calvert and Lord Baltimore, but retained today only the
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: religion of the peaceful Founder. I mention it as an
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: exceptional and remarkable fact that every conspirator in custody is,
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: by education a Catholic. These are our most loyal citizens. Elsewhere,
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: but on the western shore of Maryland it is a
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: noxious and pestilential place for patriotism. The county immediately outside
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: of the District of Columbia to the south is named
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: Prince George's and the pleasantest village of this county, close
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: to Washington, is called Surrattsville. This consists of a few
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: cabins at a cross road surrounding a fine old hotel well.
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: The master whereof giving the settlement his name, left the
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: property to his wife, who for a long time carried
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: it on with indifferent success, having a son and several daughters.
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: She moved to Washington soon after the beginning of the
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: war and led the tavern to a trusty friend, one
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: John Lloyd. Sir. Ratsville has gained nothing in patronage or
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: business from the war, except that it became at an
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: early date a rebel post office. The Great Secret Mail
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: from Matthias Creek, Virginia to Port Tobacco struck Surretsville and
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: then headed off to the east to Washington, going meanderingly
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: north of this post route. Missus Surrat was a manageress,
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: and John Lloyd, when he rented her hotel, assumed the
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: responsibility of looking out for the mail, as well the
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: duty of making Missus Surrat at home when she chose
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: to visit him. So, Sir Ratsville, only ten miles from Washington,
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: has been throughout the war a sect of conspiracy. It
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: was like a suburb of Richmond, reaching quite up to
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: the rival capital. And though the few Unionists on the
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: peninsula knew its reputation well enough, nothing of the sort
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: came out until the murder. Treason never found a better
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: agent than Missus Surat. She is a large, masculine, self
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: possessed female mistress of her house, and as lithe a rebel,
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: as Belle Boyd or Missus greenhow she is not the
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: flippantry and menace of the first, nor the social power
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: of the second. But the rebellion has found no fitter agent.
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: At her country tavern and Washington home booth was made welcome,
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: and there began the muttered murder against the nation and mankind.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: The acquaintance of Missus Surat in Lower Maryland undoubtedly suggested
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: to Booth the route of escape, and made him known
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: to his subsequent accomplices. Last fall he visited the entire
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: region as far as Leonardstown in Saint Mary's County, professing
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: to be in search of land, but really hunting up
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: confederates upon whom he could depend. At this time he
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: bought a map a fellow to which I have seen
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: among Atzerot's effects, published at Buffalo for the rebel government,
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: and marking at haphazard all the Maryland villages, but without
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: tracing the high roads at all. The absence of these
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: roads it will be seen hereafter very nearly misled Booth
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: during his crippled flight. It could not but have struck
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: Booth that this isolated part of Maryland, ignorant and rebel
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: to the brim, without telegraph or railways or direct stage routes,
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: belted with swamps and broken by dense timber, afforded extraordinary
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: opportunities for shelter and escape. Only the Coast Survey had
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: any adequate map of it. It was ultimately to all
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: intents and treason might subsist in welcome upon it. Or
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: a thousand years when Booth cast around him for assistance,
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: He naturally selected those men whom he could control. The
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: first that recommended himself was one Harold, a youth of
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: inane and plastic character, carried away by the example of
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: an actor, and full of execrable quotations, going to show
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: that he was an imitator of the Master's spirit, both
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: in text and admiration. This Harold was a gunner and
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: therefore versed in arms. He had traversed the whole lower
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: portion of Maryland, and was therefore a geographer as well
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: as a tool. His friends lived at every farmhouse between
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: Washington and Leonardsville, and he was respectably enough connected so
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: as to make his association creditable as well as useful. Harold,
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: whose picture I have seen, is a dull faced, shallow boy,
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: smooth haired, and provincial. He has no money nor employment,
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: except that he clerked for a druggist for a while,
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: until he knew Wilkes Booth, who looked at him only
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: once and bought his soul for a smile. Harold was
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: infatuated by Booth as a woman by a soldier. He
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: copied his gait and tone, adopted his opinions, and was
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: unhappy out of his society. Booth gave him money mysteriously obtained,
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: and together they made the acquaintance of young John Surat,
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: son of the conspiratress. Young Surret does not appear to
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: have been a puissant spirit in the scheme. Indeed, all
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: design and influence therein was absorbed by Missus Surret and Booth.
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: The latter was the head and heart of the plot.
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: Missus Surat was his anchor, and the rest of the
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: boys were disciples to Escariot and Jezebel. John Surrat, a
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: youth of strong Southern physiognomy, beardless and lanky, knew of
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: the murder and connived at it. Sam Arnold and one
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: McLaughlin were to have been parties to it, but backed out.
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: In the end. They all relied upon Missus Surat and
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: took their cues from Wilkes Booth. The conspiracy had its
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: own time and kept its own counsel. Murder, except among
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: the principles, was seldom mentioned, except by genteel implication. But
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: they all publicly agreed that mister Lincoln ought to be shot,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: and that the North was a race of fratricides. Much
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: was said of Brutus and Booth repeated heroic passages to
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: the delight of Harold, who learned them also, and wondered
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: if he was not born to greatness. End of Letter five,
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: Part one, Letter five A Solution of the Conspiracy Part two.
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: In this growing darkness, where all were hearsed cold hearted murder,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth grew great of stature. He had found a
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: purpose consonant with his evil nature and bad influence over
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: weak men. So he grew moodier, more vigilant, more plausible.
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: By mean and temperament. He was born to handle a stiletto.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: We have no face so markedly Italian it would stand
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: for Caesar Borgia at any day in the year. All
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: the rest were swayed or persuaded by Booth. His schemes
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: were three in order. First, to kidnap the president and
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: cabinet and run them south or blow them up. Second,
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: kidnapping failed to murder the president and the rest and
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: seek shelter in the Confederate capital. Third, the rebellion failed
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: to be its avenger and throw the country into consternation,
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: while he escaped by the unfrequented parts of Maryland. When
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: this last resolution had been made, the plot was both
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: contracted and extended. There were made two distinct circles of confidants,
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: those aware of the meditated murder and those who might
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: shrink from murder, though willing accessories for a lesser object.
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: Two colleagues for blood were at once accepted Pain and Atserrot.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: The former I have sketched. He is believed to have
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: visited Washington once before at Booth's citation for the murder
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: was at first fixed for the day of inauguration. Atsrot
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: was a fellow of German descent who had led a
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: death spirit life at Port Tobacco, where he was a
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: house painter. He had been a blockade runner across the
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: Potomac and a mail carrier. When Booth and Missus Surrat
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: broke the design to him with a suggestion that there
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: was wealth in it. He embraced the offer at once
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: and bought a dirk and pistol. Payne also came from
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: the North to Washington, and, as fate would have it,
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: the President was announced to appear at Ford's Theater in public. There,
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: the resolve of Blood was reduced to a definite moment.
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: On the night before the crime, Booth found on whom
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: he could rely John Surrett was sent northward by his
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: mother On Thursday. Sam Arnold and McLaughlin, each of whom
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: was to kill a cabinet officer, grew Pigeon, livered and
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: ran away. Harold, true to his partiality, lingered around Booth
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: to the end. Atcerot went so far as to take
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: his knife and pistol to Kirkwood's, where President Johnson was stopping,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: and hid them under the bed. But either his courage
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: failed or a trifling accident deranged his plan. But Payne,
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: a professional murderer, stood game and fought his way over
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: prostrate figures to his sick victim's bed. There was great
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: confusion and terror among the tacit and rash conspirators on
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: Thursday night. They had looked upon the plot as of
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: a melodrama, and found to their horror that John Wilkes
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: Booth meant to do murder. Six weeks before the murder,
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: young John Surrett had taken two splendid repeating carbines to
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: Surretsville and told John Lloyd to secrete them. The latter
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: made a hole in the wainscoting and suspended them from strings,
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: so that they fell within the plastered wall of the room. Below.
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: On the very afternoon of the murder, Missus Surat was
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: driven to Surrattsville, and she told John Lloyd to have
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: the carbines ready because they would be called for that night.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: Harold was made quartermaster and hired the horses. He and
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: Atsurrot were mounted between eight o'clock and the time of
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: the murder and rodding about the streets together. The whole
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: party was prepared for a long ride, as their spurs
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: and gauntlet show. It may have been their design to
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: ride in company to the lower Potomac, and by their
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: numbers exact subsistence and transportation. But all edifices of murder
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: lack a corner stone. We only know that booth ate
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: and talked well during the day, that he never seemed
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: so deeply involved in oil, and that there is a
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: hiatus between his supper here and his appearance at Ford's theater.
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: Lloyd I may interpolate, ordered his wife a few days
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: before the murder to go on a visit to Allan's Fresh.
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: She says she does not know why she was so
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: sent away, but swears that it is so. Harrold, three
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: weeks before the murder, visited Port Tobacco and said that
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: the next time the boys heard of him, he would
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: be in Spain. He added that with Spain there was
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: no extradition treaty. He said at Sir Ratsville that he
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: meant to make a barrel of money, or his neck
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: would stretch. Atsarot said that if he ever came to
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: Port Tobacco again, he would be rich enough to buy
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: the whole place. Wilkes Booth told a friend to go
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: to Ford's on Friday night and see the best acting
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: in the world. At Ford's Theater on Friday night, there
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: were many standers in the neighborhood of the door and
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: along the dress circle in the direction of the private
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: box where the President sat. The play went on pleasantly,
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: though mister Wilkes Booth, an observer of the audience, visited
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: the stage and took note of the positions. His alleged associate,
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: the stage carpenter, then received quiet orders to clear the
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: passage by the wings from the prompter's post to the
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: stage door. All this time mister Lincoln, in his family circle,
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: unconscious of the death that crowded fast upon him, watched
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: the pleasantry and smiled and felt heart full of gentleness.
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: Suddenly there was a murmur near the audience door, as
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: of a man speaking above his bound. He said nine
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: o'clock and forty five minutes. These words were reiterated from
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: mouth to mouth until they passed the theater door, and
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: were heard upon the sidewalk. Directly a voice cried in
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: the same slightly raised monotone nine o'clock and fifty minutes.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: This also passed from man to man until it touched
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: the street like a shudder. Nine o'clock and fifty five minutes,
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: said the same relentless voice. After the next interval, each
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: of which narrowed to a lesser span the life of
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: the good President. Ten o'clock here sounded and conspiring echo
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: said in reverberation ten o'clock. So like a creeping thing.
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: From lip to lip went ten o'clock and five minutes,
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: an interval ten o'clock and ten minutes. At this instant
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth appeared in the door of the theater, and
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: the men who had repeated the time so faithfully and
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: so ominously scattered at his coming, as at some warning fantum.
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes afterwards, the telegraph wires were cut. All this
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: is so dramatic that I fear to excite a laugh
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: when I write it, but it is true and proven,
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: and I do not say it, but report it. All
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: evil deeds go wrong. While the click of the pistol
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: taking the President's life went like a pang through the theater.
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: Paine was spilling blood in mister Seward's house from threshold
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: to sick chamber. But Booth's broken leg delayed him or
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: made him lose his general calmness, and he and Harold
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: left Pain to his fate. I have not adverted to
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: the whole board with a gimlet in the entry door
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: of mister Lincoln's box and cut out with a pen knife.
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: The theory that the pistol ball of Booth passed through
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: this hole is exploded, and the stage carpenter may have
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: to answer for this little orifice with all his neck.
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: For when Booth leaped from the box, he strode straight
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: across the stage by the footlights, reaching the prompter's post,
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: which is immediately behind that private box opposite mister Lincoln.
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: From this box to the stage door in the rear,
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: the passageway leads behind the ends of the scenes, and
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: if generally either closed up by one or more withdrawn
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: scenes or so narrow that only by doubling and turning
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: sideways can one pass along. On this fearful night. However,
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: the scenes were so adjusted to the murderer's design that
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: he had a free aisle from the foot of the
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: stage to the exit door. Within fifteen minutes after the murder,
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: the wires were severed entirely around the city, excepting only
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: a secret wire for government uses, which leads to Old Point.
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: I am told by this wire the government reached the
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: fortifications around Washington, first telegraphing all the way to Old Point,
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: and then back to the outlying forts. This information comes
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: to me from so many creditable channels that I must
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: concede it. Payne, having as he thought, made an end
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: of mister Seward, which would have been the case but
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: for Robinson. The nurse mounted his horse and attempted to
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: find Booth. But the town was in alarm, and he
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: galloped at once for the open country, taking as he imagined,
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: the proper road for the East Branch. He rode at
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: a killing pace, and when near Fort Lincoln on the
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: Baltimore Pike, his horse threw him headlong afoot, and bewildered,
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: he resolved to return to the city, whose lights he
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: could plainly see. But before doing so, he concealed himself
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: some time and made some almost absurd efforts to disguise himself.
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: Cutting a cross section from the woolen undershirt which covered
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: his muscular arm, he made a rude cap of it
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: and threw away his bloody coat. This has since been
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: found in the woods, and blood has been found also
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: on his bosom and sleeves. He also spattered himself plentifully
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: with mud and clay, and taking an abandoned pick from
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: the deserted entrenchments near by, he struck at once for Washington,
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: by the providence which always attends murder. He reached Missus
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: Surrat's door just as the officers of the government were
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: arresting her. They seized Paine at once, who had an
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: awkward lie to urge in his defense that he had
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: come there to dig a trench. That night. He dug
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: a trench deep and broad enough for both of them
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: to lie in forever. They washed his hands and found
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: them soft and womanish. His pockets contained tooth and nail
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: brushes and a delicate pocket knife. All this apparel consorted
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: ill with his assumed character he is, without doubt mister
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: Seward's attempted murderer coarse and hard and calm. Missus Surrat
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: shut up her house after the murder and waited with
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: her daughters till the officers came. She was imperturbable and
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: rebuked her girls for weeping, and would have gone to
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: jail like a statue, but that in her extremity pain
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: knocked at her door. He had come. He said to
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: dig a ditch for Missus Surrat, whom he very well knew.
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: But Missus Surratt protested she had never seen the man
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: at all and had no ditch to clean. How fortunate, girls,
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: She said, that these officers are here. This man might
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: have murdered us. All her effrontery stamps as worthy of
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: companionship with Booth. Payne has been identified by a lodger
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: of Missus Surat's as having twice visited the house under
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: the name of Wood. The girls will render valuable testimony
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: in the trial. If John Surat were in custody, the
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: links would be complete. Atsorat had a room almost directly
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: over Vice President Johnson's. He had all the materials to
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: do murder, but lost spirit or opportunity he ran away
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: so hastily that all his arms and baggage were discovered.
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: A tremendous bowie knife and a colt's cavalry revolver were
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: found between the mattresses of his bed. Booth's coat was
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: also found there, showing conspired flight in company, and in
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: it three boxes of cartridges, a map of Maryland, gauntlet
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: for riding, a spur, and a handkerchief marked with the
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: name of Booth's mother, a mother's souvenir for a murderer's pocket.
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: Atsorat fled alone and was found at the house of
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: his uncle in Montgomery County. I do not know whether
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: any instrument of murder has ever made me thrill as
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: when I drew this terrible bowie knife from its chief.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: Major O'Byrne of New York was the instigator of Vasarrot's
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: discovery and arrest. I come now to the ride out
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: of the city by the chief assassin and his dupe.
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: Harold met Booth immediately after the crime in the next street,
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: and they rode at a gallop past the Patent office
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: and over Capitol Hill. As they crossed the Eastern branch
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: at Uniontown, Booth gave his proper name to the officer
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: at the bridge. This, which would seem to have been foolish,
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: was in reality very shrewd. The officers believed that one
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: of Booth's accomplices had given this name in order to
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: put them out of the real Booth track. So they
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: made efforts elsewhere, and so Booth got a start. At
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: midnight precisely, the two horsemen stopped at Surretzville, Booth remaining
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: on his nag while Harold descended and knocked hastily at
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: the door. Lloyd, the landlord, came down a once when
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: Harold pushed past him into the bar and obtained a
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: bottle of whiskey, some of which he gave to Booth immediately.
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: While Booth was drinking, Harold went upstairs and brought down
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: one of the carbines. Lloyd started to get the other,
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: but Harold said, we don't want it. Booth has broken
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: his leg and can't carry it. So the second carbine
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: remained in the hall, where the officers afterward founded. As
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: the two horsemen started to go off, Booth cried out
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: to Lloyd, do you want to hear some news? I
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: don't care much about it? Cried Lloyd, by his own account.
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: We have murdered, said Booth, the President and Secretary of State.
• 2:35:39
  Speaker 1: And with this horrible confession, Booth and Harold dashed away
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: in the midnight across Prince George's County on Saturday. Before sunrise,
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: Booth and Harold, who had ridden all night without stopping elsewhere,
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: reached the house of doctor Mudd, three miles from Bryantown.
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: They contracted with him for twenty five dollars in green
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: backs to set the broken leg. Harold, who knew doctor Mudd,
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: introduced Booth under another name and stated that he had
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: fallen from his horse during the night. The doctor remarked
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: of Booth that he draped the lower part of his
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: face while the leg was being set. He was silent
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: and in pain. Having no splints in the house, they
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: split up an old fashioned wooden band box and prepared them.
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: The doctor was assisted by an Englishman who at the
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: same time began to hew out a pair of crutches.
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: The inferior bone of the left leg was broken vertically across,
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: and because vertically it did not yield when the crippled
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: man walked upon it, the riding boot of Booth had
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: to be cut from his foot within were the words J. Wilkes.
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: The doctor says he did not notice these, but that
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: visual defect may cost him his neck. The two men
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: waited around the house all day, but toward evening they
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: slipped their horses from the stable and rode away in
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: the direction of Allan's Fresh. Below Bryantown run certain deep
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: and slimy swamps. Along the belt of these, Booth and
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: Harold picked up a Negro named Swan, who volunteered to
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: show them the road for two dollars. They gave him
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: five more to show them the route to Allan's Fresh,
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: but really wished as their actions intimated to gain the
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: house of one Sam Cox, a notorious rebel and probably
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: well advised of the plot. They reached the house at midnight.
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: It is a fine dwelling, one of the best in Maryland,
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: and after halloing for some time, Cox came down to
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: the door himself. As soon as he opened it and
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: beheld who the strangers were, he instantly blew out a
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: candle he held in his hand, and without a word,
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: pulled them into the house, the Negro remaining in the yard.
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: The Confederates remained in Coxe's house until four a m.
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: During which time the Negro saw them drink and eat heartily.
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: But when they reappeared, they spoke in a loud tone
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: so that Swan could hear them against the hospitality of
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: cox All. This was meant to influence the darky, but
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: their motives were as apparent as their words. He conducted
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: them three miles further on. When they told him that
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: now they knew the way, and giving him five dollars more,
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: making twelve in all, told him to go back. But
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: when the Negro, in the dusk of the morning, looked
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: after them as he receded, he saw that both horses
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: heads were turned once more toward Coxes. And it was
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: this man, doubtless who harbored the fugitives from Sunday to Thursday,
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: aided possibly by such neighbors as the Wilsons and the Adamses.
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: At the point where Booth crossed the Potonac, the shores
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: are very shallow, and one must wade out some distance
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: to where a boat will float. A white man came
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 1: up here with a canoe on Friday and tied it
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: by a stone anchor. Between seven and eight o'clock it disappeared,
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: and in the afternoon some men at work in Virginia,
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: saw Booth and herold Land tie the boat's roped to
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: a stone and fling it ashore, and strike at once
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: across a plowed field for King George court House. Many
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: folks entertained them without doubt, but we positively hear of
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: them next at Port Royal Ferry, and then at Garrett's farm.
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: I closed this article with a list of all who
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: were at Garrett's farm on the death of Booth. One E. J.
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: Conger Detectives, two Lieutenant Baker, three surgeon from Port Royal four,
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: four Garrett daughters, five Harold Booth's Accomplice Soldiers Company H.
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: Sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry, Lieutenant ED P. Doherty, Commanding
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: Corporals A. Newgarten, J. Wally, M. Hornsby Privates, J. Mellington, D. Darker, E. Parlays, W. Mutgart,
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: Corporal's Zimmer Company, C. M. Taineck Privates, H. Pardman, J. Myers, W.
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: Byrne F. Meekdank G. H. Jay Rayhan, J. Kelly, J.
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: Samger Company, M. G. Zeichton, Steinberry L. Swech Company A. A.
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: Sweech Company, H. F Diacts, Sergeant Wandell Corporals, Lennicke, Winnecke,
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Corbett, Company L. Sergeant Corbett, who shot Booth, was
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: the only man of the command belonging to the same
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: company with Lieutenant Doherty Commandant. End of Letter five, Letter six.
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: The detective's stories Washington may sewond p M. The police
• 2:40:34
  Speaker 1: resources of the country have been fairly tested during the
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: past two weeks. Under the circumstances, the shrewdness and energy
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: of both municipal and national detectives have been proven good.
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: The latter body has had a two partial share of
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: the applause thus far. While the efforts of our New
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: York and other officers have been overlooked in the crowning
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: success of Doherty, Conger and Baker on the Virginia side
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: of the water, we have forgotten the asvvigorous and better
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: sustained pursuit on the Maryland side. Yet the Secretary of
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: War has thanked all concerned, especially referring to many excellent
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: leaders in the long hunt to Charles and Saint Mary's Counties. Here,
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: the military and civil forces together amounted to quite a
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: small army and constituted by far the largest police organization
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: ever known on this side of the Atlantic. I think
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: the adventures and expedients of these public servants worthy of
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: a column. It would be out of all proportion to
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: pass them by when we devote a dozen lines to
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: every petty larceny and shoplifting. On the Friday night of
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: the murder, the departments were absolutely paralyzed. The murderers had
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: three good hours for escape. They had evaded the pursuit
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: of lightning by snapping the telegraph wires, and rumor filled
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: the town with so many reports that the first valuable hours,
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: which should have been used to follow hard after them,
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 1: were consumed in feverish efforts to know the real expens
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: of the assassination. Immediately afterwards, however, or on Saturday morning,
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: early the Provo and Special police force got on the scent,
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: and military in squads were dispatched close upon their heels.
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: Three grand pursuits were organized, one reaching up the north
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: bank of the Potomac toward Chain Bridge, to prevent escape
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: by that direction into Virginia, where Moseby it was suspected,
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: weighted to hail the murderers. The second, starting from Richmond,
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: Virginia northward, forming a broad advancing picket or skirmish line
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: between the Blue Ridge and the broad Sea running streams.
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: A third to scour the peninsula toward Point Lookout. The
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: latter region became the only one well examined. The northern
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: expedition failed, until advised from below, to capture ats Rot,
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: and failed to capture Pain. Yet there were cogent probabilities
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: that the assassin had taken this route, for Mosby would
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: have given them the right hand of fellowship. When that
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: guerrilla heard of Booth's feet and Captain Jett, he exclaimed,
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 1: now by blank, I could take that man in my arms. Washington,
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: as a precautionary measure, was doubly picketed. At once. The
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: authorities in all northern towns advised of the personnel of
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: the murderer, and requests made of the detective chiefs in Baltimore, Philadelphia,
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: and New York to forward to Washington without delay their
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: best decoys. A court of inquiry was organized on the moment,
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: and early in the week succeeding rewards were offered an
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: individual and not the government offered the first rewards. There
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: were two men without whom the hunt would have gone
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: astray many times. John s Young, chief of the New
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 1: York Detective Force, A powerful and resolute man, whose great
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: weight and strength are matched by boundless energy, and both
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: subordinate to a head as clear as the keen and
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: searching warrant of his eye. This man has been in
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: familiar converse with every rebel agent in the Canadas, and
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: is feared by them as they fear the fates of
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: Beale and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he has probably
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: rendered the cleverest services of the war to the general government.
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: They sent for him immediately after the tragedy, and he
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 1: stopped on the way for his old police companion, Marshall Murray.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: The latter's face and figure are familiar to all who
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: know New York. He resembles an admiral on his quarter deck.
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: He is a detective of fair and excellent repute, and
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: has a somewhat novel pride in what he calls the
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: most beautiful gallows in the United States. These officials were
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: ordered to visit Colonel Ingraham's office and examine the little
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: evidence on hand. They and their tried officers formed a
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: junction on Sunday afternoon with the large detective force of
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: Provo Marshal Major O'Byrne. The latter commands the District of
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: Columbia Civil and Military Police. He is a New Yorker
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: and has been shocked through the body in the field.
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: The detective force of Young and Murray consisted of Officers Radford,
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: kelso Elder and Hoey of New York, Deputy Marshall Newcombe,
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: formerly of the World's City Staff, Officers Joseph Pearson, and
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: West of Baltimore. Major O'Byrne's immediate aides were detectives John Lee,
• 2:45:21
  Speaker 1: Lloyd Gavigan, Cottingham and Williams. A detachment of the Philadelphia
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: Detective Police Force, Officers Taggart, George Smith, and Carlin, reporting
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: to Colonel Baker, went in the direction of the North Pole.
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: Everybody is on the q vive for them to the provo.
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: Marshal of Baltimore mac Phail, who knew the tone and
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: bearing of the country. Throughout, was joined the zealous co
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: operation of Officer Lloyd of Major Burn's staff, who had
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: a personal feeling against the secessionists of Lower Maryland. They
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: had once driven him away from his loyalty and had
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: reserved their hospitality for assassins. Lieutenant Commander Gushing I am
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: informed also rendered important services to the government in connection
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: with the police operations. Volunteer detectives, such as Ex Marshal
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: Lewis and Angelis were plentiful. It is probable that in
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: the pitch of the excitement, five hundred detective officers were
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: in and around Washington City. At the same time, the
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: secret police of Richmond abandoned their ordinary business and devoted
• 2:46:26
  Speaker 1: themselves solely to this overshadowing offense. No citizen in these
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: terrible days knows what eyes were upon him as he
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: talked and walked, nor how his stature and guise were
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: keenly scanned by folks who passed him absent faced, yet
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: with his mental portrait carefully turned over the while some
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: invisible hand clutched a revolver and held a life or
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: death challenge upon his lips. The military forces were commanded
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: by Colonel Wells of the twenty sixth Michigan Regiment, whose
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: activity and zeal were amply sustained by Colonel and Denning
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: of the eighth Illinois Cavalry, probably the finest body of
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 1: horse in the service. The first party to take the
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: South Maryland Road was dispatched by Major O'Byrne and commanded
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: by Lieutenant Lovett of the Veteran Reserves. It consisted of
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 1: twenty five cavalrymen with detectives Cottingham, Lloyd, and Gavigan. These latter,
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: with the Lieutenant, kept well in advance. They made inquiries
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: of a soothing and cautious character, but saw nothing suspicious
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: until they arrived at Piscataway, where an unknown man some
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 1: distance ahead observed them and took to the woods. This
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: was on Sunday night, forty hours after the murder. Guided
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: by Officer Lloyd, the little band dashed on, arriving at
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: Bryantown on Tuesday. Here they arrested John Lloyd, of the
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: hotel at Sir Ratsville, of whom they had previously inquired
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 1: for the murderers, and he had said positively that he
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: neither knew them nor had seen anybody whatever. On the
• 2:47:57
  Speaker 1: night of the crime. He was returning in a wagon
• 2:48:00
  Speaker 1: with his wife, whom he had ordered the day before
• 2:48:02
  Speaker 1: to go on a visit to Allan's Fresh the monday
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 1: afterward he started to bring her back. This woman, frightened
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: at the arrest, acknowledged at once that in her husband's
• 2:48:12
  Speaker 1: conduct there had been inexplicable mystery. He was taciturn and
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: defiant as before, until confronted by some of his old
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: union neighbors. The few Unionists of Prince George's and Charles County's,
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: long persecuted and intimidated, now came forward and gave important testimony.
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: Among these was one Roby, a very fat and very
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: zealous old gentleman, whose professions were as ample as his perspiration.
• 2:48:40
  Speaker 1: He told the officers of the secret meetings for conspiracy's
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: sake at Lloyd's hotel. And although a very John Gilpin
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: on horseback, rode here and there to his great loss
• 2:48:50
  Speaker 1: of wind and repose, fastening fired coals upon the guilty
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: or suspected, Lloyd was turned over to mister Cuttingham, who
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: had a stable to jail at Ruby Town. That night
• 2:49:02
  Speaker 1: his house was searched and booth carbine found hidden in
• 2:49:06
  Speaker 1: the wall. Three days later Lloyd himself confessed, and his
• 2:49:10
  Speaker 1: neck is quite nervous at this writing. This little party,
• 2:49:15
  Speaker 1: under the untiring Lovett, examined all the farm houses below Washington,
• 2:49:19
  Speaker 1: resorting to many shrewd expedients, and taking note of the
• 2:49:22
  Speaker 1: great swamps to the east of Port Tobacco, They reached
• 2:49:26
  Speaker 1: Newport at last and fastened tacit guilt upon many residents.
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: Beyond Bryantown. They overhauled the residence of doctor Mudd and
• 2:49:35
  Speaker 1: found Booth's boot. This was before Lloyd confessed, and was
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: the first positive trace the officers had that they were
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: really close upon the assassins. I do not recall anything
• 2:49:47
  Speaker 1: more wild and startling than this vague and dangerous exploration
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 1: of a dimly known, hostile and ignorant country. To these
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 1: few detectives we owe much of the subsequent successful prosecution
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: of the pursuit. They were the Hebrew Spies. By this
• 2:50:04
  Speaker 1: time the country was filling up with soldiers, but previously
• 2:50:06
  Speaker 1: A second memorable detective party went out under the personal
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 1: command of Major o'burn. It consisted besides that officer of
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: Lee d'angelia, Callahan, Hoey, Bostick, Hanover, Bevins and mc henry,
• 2:50:23
  Speaker 1: and embarked at Washington on a steam tug for Chapel's Point. Here,
• 2:50:27
  Speaker 1: a military station had long been established for the prevention
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: of blockade and mail running across the Potomac. It was
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: commanded by Lieutenant Laverty and garrisoned by sixty five men.
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: On Tuesday night, Major o'burn's party reached this place, and
• 2:50:43
  Speaker 1: soon afterwards a telegraph station was established here by an
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: invaluable man to the expedition, Captain beckwith General Grant's chief
• 2:50:51
  Speaker 1: cipher operator, who tapped the point look out wire and
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: placed the War Department within a moment's reach of the
• 2:50:57
  Speaker 1: theater of events. Major o'byrnan's parties started at once over
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: the worst road in the world for Port Tobacco. If
• 2:51:06
  Speaker 1: any place in the world is utterly given over to depravity,
• 2:51:09
  Speaker 1: it is Port Tobacco. From this town by a sinuous creek,
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: there is flatboat navigation to the Potomac and across that
• 2:51:17
  Speaker 1: river to Mattox's Creek. Before the war, Port Tobacco was
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 1: the seat of a tobacco aristocracy and a haunt of
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: Negro traders. It passed very naturally into a rebel post
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: for blockade runners and a rebel post office General. Gambling, corner,
• 2:51:34
  Speaker 1: fighting and shooting matches were its lyceum. Education, violence, and
• 2:51:38
  Speaker 1: ignorance had every suffrage in the town. Its people were
• 2:51:42
  Speaker 1: smugglers to all intents, and there was neither Bible nor
• 2:51:45
  Speaker 1: geography to the whole region adjacent. Assassination was never very
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: unpopular at Port Tobacco, and when its victim was a
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: Northern president, it became quite heroic. A month before the
• 2:51:58
  Speaker 1: murder of Provo mar near by was slain in his
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: bed chamber. For such a town and district, the detective
• 2:52:05
  Speaker 1: police were the only effective missionaries. The hotel here is
• 2:52:09
  Speaker 1: called the Brauner House. It has a bar in the
• 2:52:12
  Speaker 1: nethermost cellar, and its patrons carousing in that imperfect light
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: look like the denizens of some burglar's crib, talking robbery
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: between their cups. Its dining room is dark and tumble down,
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: and the cuisine bears traces of Kaffir origin. A barbecue
• 2:52:29
  Speaker 1: is nothing to a dinner there. The Court House of
• 2:52:33
  Speaker 1: Port Tobacco is the most superfluous house in the place
• 2:52:35
  Speaker 1: except the church. It stands in the center of the
• 2:52:38
  Speaker 1: town in a square, and the dwellings lie about it closely,
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: as if to throttle justice. Five hundred people exist in
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: Port Tobacco. Life there reminds me, in connection with the
• 2:52:49
  Speaker 1: Slimy River and the adjacent swamps, of the Great reptile
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: period of the world, when iguanadons and pterodactyls and plaosori
• 2:52:59
  Speaker 1: hate each other. Into this abstract of Gomorrah. The few
• 2:53:04
  Speaker 1: detectives went like angels who visited lot. They pretended to
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: be inquiring for friends or to have business designs, and
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: the first people they heard of were Herald and Atserot.
• 2:53:16
  Speaker 1: The latter had visited Port Tobacco three weeks before the
• 2:53:19
  Speaker 1: murder and intimated at that time his design of fleeing
• 2:53:22
  Speaker 1: the country, but everybody denied having seen him subsequent to
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 1: the crime. Atseat had been in town. Just prior to
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: the crime. He had been living with a widow woman
• 2:53:32
  Speaker 1: named Missus Wheeler, by whom he had several children, and
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: she was immediately called upon by Major o'byrn. He did
• 2:53:39
  Speaker 1: not tell her what Atsorot had done, but vaguely hinted
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 1: that he had committed some terrible crime, and that since
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: he had done her wrong, she could vindicate both their
• 2:53:48
  Speaker 1: self and justice by telling his whereabouts. The woman admitted
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: that Atserot had been her Bane, but she loved him
• 2:53:56
  Speaker 1: and refused to betray him. His trunk was found in
• 2:54:00
  Speaker 1: her garret, and in it the key to his paint
• 2:54:03
  Speaker 1: shop in Port Tobacco. The latter was fruitlessly searched, but
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: the probable whereabouts of Atsorrot in Montgomery County obtained and
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 1: Major O'Byrne telegraphing there. Immediately, the desperate fellow was found
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 1: and locked up. A man named Crangle, who had succeeded
• 2:54:20
  Speaker 1: Atsorrot in Missus Wheeler's pliable affections, was arrested at once
• 2:54:24
  Speaker 1: and put in jail. A number of disloyal people were
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: indicated or spotted as in no wise angry at the
• 2:54:31
  Speaker 1: president's taking off and for all, such a provo prison
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: was established. A few miles from Port Tobacco Dwelt a
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: solitary woman who, when questioned, said that for many nights
• 2:54:43
  Speaker 1: she had heard after she had retired to bed, a
• 2:54:45
  Speaker 1: man enter her cellar and lie there all night, departing
• 2:54:49
  Speaker 1: before dawn. Major O'Byrne and the detectives ordered her to
• 2:54:54
  Speaker 1: place a lamp in her window. The next night she
• 2:54:56
  Speaker 1: heard him enter, and at dark they established a cordon
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: of armed officers around the place. At midnight, punctually she
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: exhibited the light. When the officers broke into the house
• 2:55:07
  Speaker 1: and thoroughly searched it without result. Yet the woman positively
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: asserted that she had heard the man enter. It was
• 2:55:16
  Speaker 1: afterwards found that she was of diseased mind. By this
• 2:55:21
  Speaker 1: time the military had come up in considerable numbers, and
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 1: Major O'Byrne was enabled to confer with Major Waite of
• 2:55:27
  Speaker 1: the eighth Illinois. The Major had pushed on Monday night
• 2:55:31
  Speaker 1: till Leonardstown and pretty well overhauled that locality. It was
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: at this time that preparations were made to hunt the
• 2:55:38
  Speaker 1: swamps around Chapmantown. Beantown and Allen's fresh booth had been
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: entirely lost since his departure from Mudd's house, and it
• 2:55:47
  Speaker 1: was believed that he had either pushed on for the
• 2:55:49
  Speaker 1: Potomac or taken to the swamps. The officers sagaciously determined
• 2:55:53
  Speaker 1: to follow him to the one and to explore the other.
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 1: The swamp's tributary to the various branches the Weiccomico River,
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: of which the chief feeder is Allen's Creek, bear various
• 2:56:05
  Speaker 1: names such as Jordan's Swamp, atchall swamp, and scrub swamp.
• 2:56:10
  Speaker 1: They are dense growths of dogwood, gum and beech planted
• 2:56:14
  Speaker 1: in sluices of water and bog, and their width ferries
• 2:56:17
  Speaker 1: from a half mile to four miles, while their length
• 2:56:20
  Speaker 1: is upwards of sixteen miles. Frequent deep ponds dot this
• 2:56:24
  Speaker 1: wilderness place, with here and there a stretch of dry soil,
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 1: But no human being in habits the malarious extent. Even
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: a hunted murderer would shrink from hiding there. Serpents and
• 2:56:36
  Speaker 1: slimy lizards are the only denizens. Sometimes the coon takes
• 2:56:40
  Speaker 1: refuge in this desert from the hounds, and in the
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: soil mud a thousand odorous muskrats delve with now and
• 2:56:47
  Speaker 1: then a tremorous otter. But not even the hunted negro
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 1: dares to fathom the treacherous clay, nor make himself a
• 2:56:55
  Speaker 1: fellow of the slimy reptiles which reign absolute in this
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 1: terrible sun qulitude. Here the soldiers prepared to seek for
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: the President's assassin, and no search of the kind has
• 2:57:06
  Speaker 1: ever been so thorough and patient. The Shawnee, in his
• 2:57:10
  Speaker 1: strong hold of despair in the heart of Okefinoki, would
• 2:57:14
  Speaker 1: scarcely have changed homes with Wilkes Booth and David Herald
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: hiding in this inhuman country. The military forces deputed to
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: pursue the fugitives, where seven hundred men of the eighth
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: Illinois Cavalry, six hundred men of the twenty second Colored
• 2:57:28
  Speaker 1: troops and one hundred men of the sixteenth New York.
• 2:57:33
  Speaker 1: These swept the swamps by detachments, the mass of them
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: dismounted with cavalry at the belts of clearing, interspersed with
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: detectives at frequent intervals in the rear. They first formed
• 2:57:44
  Speaker 1: a strong picket cordon entirely around the swamps, and then,
• 2:57:48
  Speaker 1: drawn up in two orders of battle, advanced boldly into
• 2:57:51
  Speaker 1: the bogs by two lines of march. One party swept
• 2:57:55
  Speaker 1: the swamps longitudinally, the other pushed straight across their smallest diameter.
• 2:58:00
  Speaker 1: A similar march has not been made during the war.
• 2:58:03
  Speaker 1: The soldiers were only a few paces apart, and in
• 2:58:06
  Speaker 1: steady order. They took the ground as it came, now
• 2:58:09
  Speaker 1: plunging to their arm pits in foul sluices of gangrened water,
• 2:58:13
  Speaker 1: now hopelessly submerged in slime, now attacked by regions of
• 2:58:17
  Speaker 1: wood ticks, now tempting some unfaithful log or greenishly solid morass,
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: and plunging to the tip of the skull in poisoned stagnation.
• 2:58:27
  Speaker 1: The tree boughs rent their uniforms. They came out upon
• 2:58:30
  Speaker 1: dry land, many of them without a rag of garments.
• 2:58:33
  Speaker 1: Scratched and gashed and spent repugnant to themselves and disgusting
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: to those who saw them. But not one trace of
• 2:58:41
  Speaker 1: Booth or Herald was anywhere found. Wherever they might be,
• 2:58:47
  Speaker 1: the swamps did not contain them. While all this was
• 2:58:51
  Speaker 1: going on, a force started from Point Lookout and swept
• 2:58:55
  Speaker 1: the narrow necks of Saint Mary's Quite up to Medley's
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: Neck to complete the search and a part of the country.
• 2:59:00
  Speaker 1: Colonel Wells and Major O'Byrne started with a force of
• 2:59:03
  Speaker 1: cavalry and infantry for Chapel Point. They took the entire
• 2:59:08
  Speaker 1: peninsula as before and marched in close skirmish line across it,
• 2:59:12
  Speaker 1: but without finding anything of note. The matter of enclosing
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: a house was by cavalry advances, which held up all
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: the avenues till mounted detectives came up. Many strange and
• 2:59:24
  Speaker 1: ludicrous adventures occurred on each of these expeditions. While the
• 2:59:28
  Speaker 1: forces were going up Cobb's Neck, there was a counter
• 2:59:31
  Speaker 1: force coming down from Allan's Fresh. Major O'Byrne started for
• 2:59:36
  Speaker 1: Leonardstown with his detective force and played off Laverty as
• 2:59:40
  Speaker 1: Booth and Hoey as Harold. These two advanced to farm
• 2:59:44
  Speaker 1: houses and gave their assumed names, asking at the same
• 2:59:47
  Speaker 1: time for assistance and shelter. They were generally avoided, except
• 2:59:51
  Speaker 1: by one man named Claggert, who told them they might
• 2:59:55
  Speaker 1: hide in the woods behind his house. When Claggert was arrested, however,
• 3:00:00
  Speaker 1: he stated that he meant to hide them, only to
• 3:00:02
  Speaker 1: give them up. While on this adventure, a man who
• 3:00:05
  Speaker 1: had heard of the reward came very near shooting Labberty.
• 3:00:10
  Speaker 1: The ruse now became hazardous, and the detectives resumed their
• 3:00:13
  Speaker 1: real characters. I have not time to go into the
• 3:00:17
  Speaker 1: detail of this long and excellent hunt. My letter of
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: yesterday described how the detectives of mister Young and Marshall
• 3:00:24
  Speaker 1: Murray examined the Negro Swan and traced Booth to the
• 3:00:27
  Speaker 1: house of Sam Cox, the richest rebel in Charles County.
• 3:00:32
  Speaker 1: There is a gap in the evidence between the arrival
• 3:00:34
  Speaker 1: of Booth at this place and his crossing the Potomac
• 3:00:36
  Speaker 1: above Swan Point in a stolen or purposely provided canoe.
• 3:00:41
  Speaker 1: But as Coxe's house is only ten miles from the river,
• 3:00:44
  Speaker 1: it is possible that he made the passage of the
• 3:00:47
  Speaker 1: intermediate country undiscovered. One mills a rebel mail carrier was arrested,
• 3:00:54
  Speaker 1: saw Booth and herald lurking along the river bank on Friday.
• 3:00:58
  Speaker 1: He referred Major O'Byrne to the one Claggert, a rebel,
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: as having seen them also, but Claggert held his tongue
• 3:01:05
  Speaker 1: and went to jail. On Saturday night, Major o'byrn, thus assured,
• 3:01:09
  Speaker 1: also crossed the Potomac with his detectives to Boone's farm,
• 3:01:12
  Speaker 1: where the fugitives had landed. While collecting information. Here a
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: gunboat swung up the stream and threatened to fire on
• 3:01:19
  Speaker 1: the party. It was now night, and all the party
• 3:01:23
  Speaker 1: warned to the ground. With long travel and want of sleep.
• 3:01:26
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Laverty's men went a short distance down the country
• 3:01:29
  Speaker 1: and gave up, but Major O'Byrne, with a single man,
• 3:01:33
  Speaker 1: pushed all night to King George's court house, and next
• 3:01:36
  Speaker 1: day Sunday re embarked for Chapel's Point. Hence, he telegraphed
• 3:01:40
  Speaker 1: his information and asked permission to pursue, promising to catch
• 3:01:44
  Speaker 1: the assassins before they reached Port Royal. This the department refused.
• 3:01:49
  Speaker 1: Colonel Baker's men were delegated to make the pursuit with
• 3:01:52
  Speaker 1: the able Lieutenant Doherty and o'byrn, who was the most
• 3:01:55
  Speaker 1: active and successful spirit in the case, returned to Washington
• 3:02:00
  Speaker 1: and contented at Missus Surrat's Washington house, at the Pennsylvania Hotel, Washington,
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: and at Suratsville. The Booth plot was almost entirely arranged.
• 3:02:12
  Speaker 1: These three places will be relics of conspiracy forever. Harold
• 3:02:16
  Speaker 1: said to Lieutenant Doherty, after the latter had dragged him
• 3:02:19
  Speaker 1: from the farm. Who's that man in there? It can't
• 3:02:22
  Speaker 1: be Booth? He told me his name was Lloyd. He
• 3:02:25
  Speaker 1: further said that he had begged food for Booth from
• 3:02:28
  Speaker 1: house to house while the latter hid in the woods.
• 3:02:31
  Speaker 1: The Confederate Captain Willie Jett, who had given Booth a
• 3:02:34
  Speaker 1: lift behind his saddle from Port Royal to Garrett's farm,
• 3:02:38
  Speaker 1: was then courting a miss Goldman at Bowling Green. His
• 3:02:42
  Speaker 1: traveling companions were Lieutenants Ruggles and Burbridge Payne. The assassin
• 3:02:47
  Speaker 1: of the Sewage, was arrested by officers Sampson of the
• 3:02:50
  Speaker 1: sub Treasury and Devaux, acting under General Alcott. The latter
• 3:02:54
  Speaker 1: had besides officers marsh and Clancy, a stenographer. Reward for
• 3:03:00
  Speaker 1: the capture of Booth will be distributed between very many men.
• 3:03:04
  Speaker 1: The Negro Swan will get as much of it as
• 3:03:07
  Speaker 1: he deserves. It amounts to about eighty thousand dollars, but
• 3:03:10
  Speaker 1: the War Department may increase it at discretion. The entire
• 3:03:14
  Speaker 1: rewards amount to a hundred and sixty odd thousand. Major
• 3:03:18
  Speaker 1: o'burne should get a large part of it as well.
• 3:03:21
  Speaker 1: This story, which I must close abruptly, deserves to be rewritten,
• 3:03:25
  Speaker 1: with all its accessory endeavors. What I have said is
• 3:03:28
  Speaker 1: in skeleton, merely and far from exhaustive. End of Letter six,
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: Letter seven the Martyr Washington, May fourteenth. I am sitting
• 3:03:43
  Speaker 1: in the President's office. He was here very lately, but
• 3:03:46
  Speaker 1: he will not return to dispossess me of this high
• 3:03:49
  Speaker 1: backed chair he filled so long, nor resume his daily work.
• 3:03:53
  Speaker 1: At the table where I am writing, There are here
• 3:03:57
  Speaker 1: only Major Hay and the friend who coompanies me. A
• 3:04:01
  Speaker 1: bright faced boy runs in and out, darkly attired, so
• 3:04:05
  Speaker 1: that his fob chain of gold is the only relief
• 3:04:07
  Speaker 1: to his morning garb. This is little Tad, the pet
• 3:04:11
  Speaker 1: of the White House. That great death with which the
• 3:04:14
  Speaker 1: world rings has made upon him. Only the light impression
• 3:04:18
  Speaker 1: which all things make upon childhood. He will live to
• 3:04:22
  Speaker 1: be a man pointed out everywhere for his father's sake,
• 3:04:26
  Speaker 1: and as folks look at him, the tableau of the
• 3:04:28
  Speaker 1: murder will seem to encircle him. The room is long
• 3:04:33
  Speaker 1: and high, and so thickly hung with maps that the
• 3:04:37
  Speaker 1: color of the wall cannot be discerned. The President's table,
• 3:04:41
  Speaker 1: at which I am seated, adjoins a window at the
• 3:04:43
  Speaker 1: farthest corner, and to the left of my chair, as
• 3:04:46
  Speaker 1: I recline in it, there is a large table before
• 3:04:49
  Speaker 1: an empty grate, around which there are many chairs, where
• 3:04:52
  Speaker 1: the cabinet used to assemble. The carpet is trodden thin,
• 3:04:57
  Speaker 1: and the brilliance of its dyes is lost. The furniture
• 3:05:01
  Speaker 1: is of the formal cabinet class, stately and semi comfortable.
• 3:05:05
  Speaker 1: There are bookcases sprinkled with the sparse library of a
• 3:05:08
  Speaker 1: country lawyer, but largely plethoric, Like the thin body which
• 3:05:13
  Speaker 1: has departed in its coffin. They are taking away mister
• 3:05:17
  Speaker 1: Lincoln's private effects, to deposit them wheresoever his family may abide,
• 3:05:22
  Speaker 1: And the emptiness of the place on this sunny Sunday
• 3:05:25
  Speaker 1: revives that feeling of desolation from which the land has
• 3:05:28
  Speaker 1: scarce recovered. I rise from my seat and examine the maps.
• 3:05:33
  Speaker 1: They are from the coast Survey and engineer departments, and
• 3:05:37
  Speaker 1: exhibit all the contested grounds of the war. There are
• 3:05:41
  Speaker 1: pencil lines upon them where some one has traced the
• 3:05:43
  Speaker 1: rout of armies and planned the strategic circumferences of campaigns.
• 3:05:48
  Speaker 1: Was it the dead president who so followed the march
• 3:05:51
  Speaker 1: of empire and dotted the sites of shock and overthrow?
• 3:05:56
  Speaker 1: Here is Manassas Country. Here the long reach of the Wayst. Shenandoah.
• 3:06:01
  Speaker 1: Hear the wavy line of the James, and the sinuous peninsula.
• 3:06:05
  Speaker 1: The wide campagna of the Gulf country sways in the
• 3:06:08
  Speaker 1: Potomac breeze that filters in at the window, and the
• 3:06:12
  Speaker 1: Mississippi climbs up the wall with blotches of blue and
• 3:06:16
  Speaker 1: red to show where blood gushed at the bursting of
• 3:06:19
  Speaker 1: deadly bombs. So in the half gloomy, half grand apartment
• 3:06:24
  Speaker 1: roamed the tall and wrinkled figure whom the country had
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: summoned from his plain home into mighty history, with the
• 3:06:32
  Speaker 1: geography of the Republic drawn into a narrow compass, so
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: that he might lay his great brown hand upon it.
• 3:06:37
  Speaker 1: Everywhere and walking to and fro to and fro to
• 3:06:42
  Speaker 1: measure the destinies of arms. He often stopped with his
• 3:06:46
  Speaker 1: thoughtful eyes upon the carpet, to ask if his life
• 3:06:50
  Speaker 1: were real, and if he were the arbiter of so
• 3:06:53
  Speaker 1: tremendous issues, or whether it was not all a fever
• 3:06:57
  Speaker 1: dream snatched from his sofa in the routine office of
• 3:07:00
  Speaker 1: the Prairie State. There is but one picture on the
• 3:07:05
  Speaker 1: marble mantle over the cold grate, John Bright, a photograph.
• 3:07:10
  Speaker 1: I can well imagine how the mind of mister Lincoln
• 3:07:12
  Speaker 1: often went afar to the face of Bright, who said
• 3:07:15
  Speaker 1: so kindly things of him, when Europe was mocking his
• 3:07:18
  Speaker 1: homely guise and provincial phraseology. To mister Lincoln, John Bright
• 3:07:23
  Speaker 1: was the standard bearer of America and democracy in the
• 3:07:26
  Speaker 1: old world. He thrilled over Bright's bold denunciations of peer
• 3:07:31
  Speaker 1: and privilege, and stretched his long arm across the Atlantic
• 3:07:36
  Speaker 1: to take that daring Quaker innovator by the hand. I
• 3:07:40
  Speaker 1: see some books on the table. Perhaps they have lain
• 3:07:43
  Speaker 1: there undisturbed since the reader's dimming eyes grew nerveless. A
• 3:07:48
  Speaker 1: parliamentary manual, a Thessorus, and two books of humor Orpheus c.
• 3:07:54
  Speaker 1: Kerr and Artemis Ward. These last were read by mister
• 3:07:58
  Speaker 1: Lincoln in the pauses of his hard day's labor. Their
• 3:08:02
  Speaker 1: tenure here bears out the popular verdict of his partiality
• 3:08:05
  Speaker 1: for a good joke, And through the window from the
• 3:08:08
  Speaker 1: seat of mister Lincoln icee across the grassy grounds of
• 3:08:11
  Speaker 1: the Capital, the broken shaft of the Washington Monument, the
• 3:08:15
  Speaker 1: Long Bridge, and the fort tipped heights of Arlington, reaching
• 3:08:20
  Speaker 1: down to the shining river side these scenes he looked
• 3:08:24
  Speaker 1: at often to catch some freshness of leaf and water,
• 3:08:27
  Speaker 1: and often raised the sash to let the world rush
• 3:08:30
  Speaker 1: in where only the nation abided. And hence, on that
• 3:08:33
  Speaker 1: awful night he departed early to forget this room and
• 3:08:37
  Speaker 1: its close applications in the abandon of the theater. I
• 3:08:41
  Speaker 1: wonder if that were the least of Booth's crimes to
• 3:08:44
  Speaker 1: slay this public service in the stolen hour of recreation
• 3:08:47
  Speaker 1: he enjoyed, but seldom we worked his life out here
• 3:08:51
  Speaker 1: and killed him when he asked a holiday. Outside of
• 3:08:55
  Speaker 1: this room there is an office where his secretaries sat,
• 3:08:58
  Speaker 1: a room more narrow but as long, and opposite this
• 3:09:02
  Speaker 1: adjacent office, a second door directly behind mister Lincoln's chair
• 3:09:06
  Speaker 1: leads to a private passage to his family quarters. This
• 3:09:10
  Speaker 1: passage is his only monument in the building. He added
• 3:09:13
  Speaker 1: nor subtracted nothing else. It tells a long story of
• 3:09:17
  Speaker 1: duns and loiterers, contract hunters and seekers for commissions, garrulous
• 3:09:22
  Speaker 1: parents on paltry errands, toadies without measure, and talkers without conscience.
• 3:09:29
  Speaker 1: They pressed upon him through the great door opposite his window,
• 3:09:32
  Speaker 1: and hat in hand came courtseying to his chair with
• 3:09:35
  Speaker 1: an obsequious mister President. If he dared, though the Chief
• 3:09:42
  Speaker 1: Magistrate and commander of the Army and Navy, to go
• 3:09:45
  Speaker 1: out of the great door, these vampires leaped upon him
• 3:09:48
  Speaker 1: with their Babylonian pleas and barred his walk to his
• 3:09:52
  Speaker 1: heart's side. He could not insult them, since it was
• 3:09:55
  Speaker 1: not in his nature, and perhaps many of them had
• 3:09:58
  Speaker 1: really urgent errands. So he called up the carpenter and
• 3:10:01
  Speaker 1: ordered a strategic route cut from his office to his hearth,
• 3:10:05
  Speaker 1: and perhaps told of it after with much merriment. Here
• 3:10:09
  Speaker 1: should be written the biography of his official life in
• 3:10:13
  Speaker 1: the room where have concentrated all the wires of action,
• 3:10:17
  Speaker 1: and where have preceded the resolves which vitalized in historic deeds.
• 3:10:22
  Speaker 1: But only the great measures, however carried out, were conceived
• 3:10:26
  Speaker 1: in this office. The little ones proceeded from other places.
• 3:10:31
  Speaker 1: Here once came mister Stanton, saying, in his hard and
• 3:10:34
  Speaker 1: positive way, mister Lincoln, I have found it expedient to
• 3:10:38
  Speaker 1: disgrace and arrest General Stone. Stanton said mister Lincoln, with
• 3:10:43
  Speaker 1: an emotion of pain. When you considered it necessary to
• 3:10:47
  Speaker 1: imprison General Stone, I am glad you did not consult
• 3:10:50
  Speaker 1: me about it. And for lack of such consultation, General Stone,
• 3:10:55
  Speaker 1: I learned now lays a maniac in the asylum. The
• 3:10:59
  Speaker 1: groundless pretext upon which he suffered the reputation of treason
• 3:11:02
  Speaker 1: issued from the Department of War, not from this office.
• 3:11:07
  Speaker 1: But as to his biography, it is to be written
• 3:11:09
  Speaker 1: by Colonel Nicolay and Major Hay. They are to go
• 3:11:12
  Speaker 1: to Paris together, one as attache of legation, the other
• 3:11:16
  Speaker 1: as consul, and while there will undertake the labor. They
• 3:11:19
  Speaker 1: are the only men who know his life well enough
• 3:11:21
  Speaker 1: to exhaust it, having followed his official tasks as closely
• 3:11:25
  Speaker 1: as they shared his social hours. Major Hay is a
• 3:11:29
  Speaker 1: gentleman of literary force. Colonel Nicolay has a fine judgment
• 3:11:34
  Speaker 1: of character and public measures. Together they should satisfy both
• 3:11:38
  Speaker 1: curiosity and history. As I hear from my acquaintances here
• 3:11:42
  Speaker 1: these episodes of the president's life. I recall many reminiscences
• 3:11:46
  Speaker 1: of his ride from Springfield to Harrisburg, over much of
• 3:11:50
  Speaker 1: which I passed. Then he left home and became an
• 3:11:54
  Speaker 1: inhabitant of history. His face was solid and healthy, his
• 3:11:58
  Speaker 1: step young, his speech and manner bold and kindly. I
• 3:12:02
  Speaker 1: saw him at Trenton, stand in the legislature and say,
• 3:12:05
  Speaker 1: in his conversational intonation, we may have to put the
• 3:12:09
  Speaker 1: foot down firm. How should we have hung upon his accents? Then?
• 3:12:14
  Speaker 1: Had we anticipated his virtues and his fate. Death is
• 3:12:19
  Speaker 1: requisite to make opinion grave. We looked upon mister Lincoln
• 3:12:23
  Speaker 1: then as an amusing sensation, and there was much guffaw
• 3:12:27
  Speaker 1: as he was regarded by the populace. He had not
• 3:12:30
  Speaker 1: passed out of partisan ownership. Little by little afterward he
• 3:12:34
  Speaker 1: won esteem and often admiration, until the measure of his
• 3:12:37
  Speaker 1: life was full, and the victories he had achieved made
• 3:12:40
  Speaker 1: the world applaud him. Yet at this date the president
• 3:12:45
  Speaker 1: was sadly changed. Four years of perplexity and devotion had
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: wrinkled his face and stooped his shoulders, and the failing
• 3:12:53
  Speaker 1: eyes that glared upon the play closed as his mission
• 3:12:57
  Speaker 1: was completed and the world had been educated enough to
• 3:13:01
  Speaker 1: comprehend him. The White House has been more of a
• 3:13:04
  Speaker 1: Republican mansion under his control than for many administrations. Uncouth
• 3:13:09
  Speaker 1: guests came to it often, typical of the simple Western
• 3:13:12
  Speaker 1: civilization of which he was a graduate, and while no
• 3:13:15
  Speaker 1: coarse altercation has ever ensued, the portal has swung wide
• 3:13:20
  Speaker 1: for five years. A friend connected with a Washington newspaper
• 3:13:25
  Speaker 1: told me that he had occasion to see mister Lincoln
• 3:13:27
  Speaker 1: one evening and found that the latter had gone to bed,
• 3:13:31
  Speaker 1: but he was told to sit down in the office,
• 3:13:33
  Speaker 1: and directly the president entered. He wore only a night
• 3:13:36
  Speaker 1: shirt and his long, lank hair suit. Limbs as he
• 3:13:40
  Speaker 1: sat down inclined the guests to laughter. Mister Lincoln disposed
• 3:13:45
  Speaker 1: of his request at once and manifested a desire to talk,
• 3:13:49
  Speaker 1: so he reached for the cane, which my friend carried,
• 3:13:52
  Speaker 1: and conversed in this manner. I always used a cane
• 3:13:56
  Speaker 1: when I was a boy. It was a freak of mine.
• 3:13:59
  Speaker 1: A favorite one was not a beech stick, and I
• 3:14:01
  Speaker 1: carved the head myself. There is a mighty amount of
• 3:14:05
  Speaker 1: character and sticks, don't you think so? You have seen
• 3:14:08
  Speaker 1: these fishing poles that fit into a cane. Well, that
• 3:14:11
  Speaker 1: was an old idea of mine. Dogwood clubs were favorite
• 3:14:15
  Speaker 1: ones with the boys. I suppose they use em. Yet
• 3:14:18
  Speaker 1: hickory is too heavy, and I should get it from
• 3:14:21
  Speaker 1: a young sapling. Have you ever noticed how a stick
• 3:14:24
  Speaker 1: in one's hand will change his appearance? Old women and
• 3:14:27
  Speaker 1: witches wouldn't look so without sticks made Merylisa understands that
• 3:14:33
  Speaker 1: in this way. My friend, who is a clerk in
• 3:14:35
  Speaker 1: a newspaper office, heard the President talk for an hour.
• 3:14:39
  Speaker 1: The undress of the man and the witness of his
• 3:14:42
  Speaker 1: subject would be staples for merriment if we did not
• 3:14:45
  Speaker 1: reflect that his greatness was of no conventional caste, that
• 3:14:49
  Speaker 1: the playfulness of his nature and the simplicity of his
• 3:14:52
  Speaker 1: illustration light in public business, but never arrested it. Another
• 3:14:58
  Speaker 1: gentleman whom I know, visited the President in high dudgeon
• 3:15:01
  Speaker 1: one night. He was a newspaper proprietor, and one of
• 3:15:05
  Speaker 1: his editors had been arrested. Mister Lincoln. He said, I
• 3:15:10
  Speaker 1: have been off electioneering for your re election, and in
• 3:15:13
  Speaker 1: my absent you have had my editor arrested. I won't
• 3:15:16
  Speaker 1: stand it, sir, I have fought better administrations than yours, why, John,
• 3:15:23
  Speaker 1: said the President. I don't know much about it. I
• 3:15:26
  Speaker 1: suppose your boys had been too enterprising. The fact is
• 3:15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't interfere with the press much, but I suppose
• 3:15:32
  Speaker 1: I am responsible. I want you to order that man's
• 3:15:37
  Speaker 1: release to night, said the applicant.
• 3:15:39
  Speaker 2: I shan't leave here till I get it. In quact,
• 3:15:42
  Speaker 2: I am the man who should be arrested. Why don't
• 3:15:44
  Speaker 2: you send me to Capitol Hill. The idea pleased the
• 3:15:48
  Speaker 2: President exceedingly. He laughed the other into good humor.
• 3:15:52
  Speaker 1: In fact, he said, I am under restraint here and
• 3:15:55
  Speaker 1: glad of any pretext to release a journalist. So he
• 3:15:58
  Speaker 1: wrote the order, and the writer got his liberty. It
• 3:16:02
  Speaker 1: must not be inferred from this, however, that the President
• 3:16:05
  Speaker 1: was a devotee to literature. He had no professional enthusiasm
• 3:16:09
  Speaker 1: for it. The literary coterie of the White House got
• 3:16:11
  Speaker 1: little flattery, but its members were treated as agreeable citizens,
• 3:16:16
  Speaker 1: and not as the architects of anybody's fortune. Willis went
• 3:16:20
  Speaker 1: there much for a while, but yielded to his old
• 3:16:23
  Speaker 1: habit of gossiping about the hall paper and the teapots.
• 3:16:27
  Speaker 1: Emerson went there once and was deferred to as if
• 3:16:30
  Speaker 1: he were anything but a philosopher. Yet he so far
• 3:16:34
  Speaker 1: grasped the character of his host as to indict that
• 3:16:36
  Speaker 1: noble humanitarian eulogy upon him, delivered at Concord and printed
• 3:16:41
  Speaker 1: in the world. It will not do to say definitely
• 3:16:46
  Speaker 1: in this notice, how several occasional writers visited the White House,
• 3:16:50
  Speaker 1: heard the President's views, and dissented to them, and afterward
• 3:16:54
  Speaker 1: abused him. But these attained no remembrance nor tart reproach
• 3:16:58
  Speaker 1: from that least retalit orlory of men. He harbored no malice,
• 3:17:03
  Speaker 1: and is said to have often placed himself on the
• 3:17:05
  Speaker 1: standpoint of Davis and Lee and accounted for their defection
• 3:17:09
  Speaker 1: while he could not excuse it. He was a good
• 3:17:13
  Speaker 1: reader and took all the leading New York dailies every day.
• 3:17:17
  Speaker 1: His secretaries perused them and selected all the items which
• 3:17:20
  Speaker 1: would interest the President. These were read to him and considered.
• 3:17:25
  Speaker 1: He bought few new books, but seemed ever alive to
• 3:17:28
  Speaker 1: works of comic value. The bane of humor in him
• 3:17:31
  Speaker 1: was not boisterous in its manifestations, but touched the geniality
• 3:17:35
  Speaker 1: of his nature, and he reproduced all that he absorbed
• 3:17:39
  Speaker 1: to elucidate some new issue, to turn away argument by
• 3:17:42
  Speaker 1: a lath As a jester. Mister Lincoln's tendency was caricatured
• 3:17:48
  Speaker 1: by the Prince, but not exaggerated. He probably told as
• 3:17:51
  Speaker 1: many stories as are attributed to him, Nor did he,
• 3:17:55
  Speaker 1: as his averred, indulge in these jests. On solemn occasions.
• 3:18:00
  Speaker 1: No man felt with such personal intensity the extent of
• 3:18:04
  Speaker 1: the casualties of his time, and he often gravely reasoned
• 3:18:07
  Speaker 1: whether he could be in any way responsible for the
• 3:18:10
  Speaker 1: bloodshed and devastation over which it was his duty to preside.
• 3:18:15
  Speaker 1: An acquaintance of mine, a private once went to him
• 3:18:18
  Speaker 1: to plead for a man's life. He had never seen
• 3:18:21
  Speaker 1: the man for whom he pleaded, and had no acquaintance
• 3:18:23
  Speaker 1: with the man's family. Mister Lincoln was touched by his disinterestedness,
• 3:18:27
  Speaker 1: and said to him, if I were anything but the President,
• 3:18:31
  Speaker 1: I would be constantly working as you have done. Whenever
• 3:18:36
  Speaker 1: a doubt of one's guilt lay on his mind. The
• 3:18:38
  Speaker 1: man was spared by his direct interference. There was an
• 3:18:43
  Speaker 1: entire absence in the President's character of the heroic element.
• 3:18:47
  Speaker 1: He would do a great deed in deshabille as promptly
• 3:18:51
  Speaker 1: as in full dress. He never aimed to be brilliant,
• 3:18:54
  Speaker 1: unconsciously understanding that a great man's brilliancy is to be
• 3:18:58
  Speaker 1: measured by the wholeness and sennthetic cast of his career,
• 3:19:02
  Speaker 1: rather than by any fitful ebullitions. For that reason we
• 3:19:06
  Speaker 1: look in vain through his messages for points. His point
• 3:19:10
  Speaker 1: was not to turn a sentence or an epigram, but
• 3:19:13
  Speaker 1: to win an effect, regardless of the route to it.
• 3:19:17
  Speaker 1: He was commonplace in his talk, and Chesterfield would have
• 3:19:20
  Speaker 1: had no patience with him. His dignity of character lay
• 3:19:24
  Speaker 1: in his uprightness rather than in his formal manner. Members
• 3:19:28
  Speaker 1: of his government often reviewed him plainly in his presence,
• 3:19:32
  Speaker 1: yet he divined the true course while they only argued
• 3:19:36
  Speaker 1: it out. His good feeling was not only personal but national.
• 3:19:41
  Speaker 1: He had no prejudice against any race or potentate, and
• 3:19:44
  Speaker 1: his democracy was of a practical rather than of a
• 3:19:48
  Speaker 1: demonstrative nature. He was not Marah, but more not Paine
• 3:19:53
  Speaker 1: and Jefferson, but Franklin. His domestic life was like a
• 3:19:58
  Speaker 1: parlor of night time, lit by the equal grate of
• 3:20:01
  Speaker 1: his genial and uniform kindness. Young Thaddy played with him
• 3:20:05
  Speaker 1: upon the carpet. Robert came home from the war and
• 3:20:08
  Speaker 1: talked to his father as to a schoolmate. He was
• 3:20:11
  Speaker 1: to missus Lincoln as chivalrous on the last day of
• 3:20:14
  Speaker 1: his life, as when he courted her. I have somewhere
• 3:20:17
  Speaker 1: seen a picture of Enricat of France riding his babies
• 3:20:22
  Speaker 1: on his back. That was the President, so dwelt the
• 3:20:27
  Speaker 1: citizen who is gone, a model in character, if not
• 3:20:31
  Speaker 1: in ceremony, for good men to come, who will take
• 3:20:35
  Speaker 1: his place in the same White House and find their
• 3:20:37
  Speaker 1: generation comparing them to the man thought worthy of assassination.
• 3:20:42
  Speaker 1: I am glad to sit here in his chair, where
• 3:20:45
  Speaker 1: he has bent so often, in the atmosphere of the
• 3:20:48
  Speaker 1: household he purified, in the sight of the green grass
• 3:20:51
  Speaker 1: and the blue river he hallowed by gazing upon in
• 3:20:54
  Speaker 1: the very center of the nation, he preserved for the people.
• 3:20:58
  Speaker 1: And closed the list of bloody deeds, of desperate fights,
• 3:21:02
  Speaker 1: of swift expiations, of renowned obsequies of which I have written,
• 3:21:07
  Speaker 1: by indicting at this table the goodness of his life
• 3:21:11
  Speaker 1: and the eternity of his memory. End of letter seven,
• 3:21:19
  Speaker 1: Letter eight. The Trial Washington, May twenty sixth, the most
• 3:21:25
  Speaker 1: exciting trial of our times, has obtained a very meager
• 3:21:28
  Speaker 1: commemoration in all but its literal features. The evidence adduced
• 3:21:32
  Speaker 1: in the course of it has been too faithfully reported
• 3:21:35
  Speaker 1: through its far fetched and monotonous irregularities. But nobody realizes
• 3:21:40
  Speaker 1: extraordinary scene from which so many columns emanate, either by
• 3:21:44
  Speaker 1: aid of the reporter's scanty descriptions or by the pure
• 3:21:48
  Speaker 1: blind sketches of the artists. Now that the evidence is
• 3:21:52
  Speaker 1: growing vapid and the obstinacy of the military commission has
• 3:21:56
  Speaker 1: lost its course, zest we may find enough readers to worry,
• 3:22:00
  Speaker 1: and a fuller sketch of the conspirator's prison. About a
• 3:22:05
  Speaker 1: mile below Washington, where the high Potomac Bluffs meet the
• 3:22:08
  Speaker 1: marshy border of the Eastern Branch, stands the United States Arsenal,
• 3:22:13
  Speaker 1: a series of long, mathematically uninteresting brick buildings with a
• 3:22:17
  Speaker 1: broad lawn behind them, open to the water, and level
• 3:22:21
  Speaker 1: military plazas on which are piled pyramids of shell and ball,
• 3:22:26
  Speaker 1: among acres of cannon and cannon carriages and caissons. A
• 3:22:31
  Speaker 1: high wall, reaching circularly around these buildings, shows above it,
• 3:22:35
  Speaker 1: as one looks from Washington, the barred windows of an
• 3:22:38
  Speaker 1: older and more gloomy structure than the rest, which forms
• 3:22:42
  Speaker 1: the city front of the group of which it is
• 3:22:44
  Speaker 1: the principle. This is the Penitentiary, but long ago added
• 3:22:49
  Speaker 1: to the Arsenal. It has been retransformed to a court
• 3:22:52
  Speaker 1: room and jail, and in its third or uppermost story,
• 3:22:57
  Speaker 1: the military Commission is sitting. The main road to the
• 3:23:01
  Speaker 1: Arsenal is by a wide and vacant avenue, which abuts
• 3:23:05
  Speaker 1: against a gate where automaton sentries walk. But the same
• 3:23:09
  Speaker 1: gate can best be reached on foot by the shores
• 3:23:11
  Speaker 1: of the Potomac, in the sight of the forts, the
• 3:23:14
  Speaker 1: Shipping and Alexandria. The scene at the Arsenal in time
• 3:23:18
  Speaker 1: of peace is commonplace enough, except that across the eastern branch,
• 3:23:22
  Speaker 1: the towers of the Lunatic Asylum, perched upon a height,
• 3:23:26
  Speaker 1: look down baronial ly. But this trial of murderers has
• 3:23:30
  Speaker 1: made the spot a fair. A whole company of volunteers
• 3:23:34
  Speaker 1: keeps the gate, through which are passing cabs, barouches, officers, ambulances,
• 3:23:39
  Speaker 1: and a stream of folks on foot, while further along,
• 3:23:43
  Speaker 1: almost a regiment crosses the drive, their huddles shelter tents
• 3:23:47
  Speaker 1: extending entirely across the peninsula. These are playing cards on
• 3:23:52
  Speaker 1: the ground and tossing quoits, and sleeping on their faces,
• 3:23:56
  Speaker 1: while a gunboat watches the river front, and under a
• 3:23:59
  Speaker 1: certain killer wall, a line of patrols ten yards apart
• 3:24:03
  Speaker 1: go to and fro perpetually. It is ten o'clock and
• 3:24:07
  Speaker 1: the court is soon to sit. Its members ride down
• 3:24:11
  Speaker 1: in superb ambulances and bring their friends along to show
• 3:24:14
  Speaker 1: them the majesty of justice. A perfect park of carriages
• 3:24:18
  Speaker 1: stands by the door to the left, and from these
• 3:24:21
  Speaker 1: dismount major general's wives in rustling silks, daughters of congressmen,
• 3:24:27
  Speaker 1: attired like the lilies of the milliner, little girls who
• 3:24:31
  Speaker 1: hope to be young ladies, and have come with pa
• 3:24:33
  Speaker 1: to look at the assassins. Even brides are here in
• 3:24:37
  Speaker 1: the fresh blush of their nuptials, and they consider the
• 3:24:41
  Speaker 1: late spectacle of the review as good as lost if
• 3:24:44
  Speaker 1: the court scene be not added to it. These tender
• 3:24:48
  Speaker 1: creatures have a weakness for the ring of manacles, the
• 3:24:52
  Speaker 1: sight of folks to be suspended in the air, the
• 3:24:55
  Speaker 1: face of a woman confederate in blood. They chat with
• 3:24:59
  Speaker 1: their polite guides, many of whom are gallant captains, and
• 3:25:03
  Speaker 1: go one after another up the little flight of steps
• 3:25:05
  Speaker 1: which leads to the room of the Officer of the day.
• 3:25:09
  Speaker 1: He passes them if he pleases, up the crooked stairways,
• 3:25:13
  Speaker 1: and when they have climbed three of these, they enter
• 3:25:16
  Speaker 1: a sort of garret room oblong and plastered white, and
• 3:25:20
  Speaker 1: about as large as an ordinary town house parlor. Four
• 3:25:23
  Speaker 1: doors open into it that by which we have entered,
• 3:25:27
  Speaker 1: two from the left, where the witnesses wait, and one
• 3:25:30
  Speaker 1: at the end near the left far corner, which is
• 3:25:33
  Speaker 1: the outlet from the cells. A railing close up to
• 3:25:37
  Speaker 1: the stairway door gives a little space in the foreground
• 3:25:40
  Speaker 1: for witnesses. Two tables transverse to this rail are for
• 3:25:45
  Speaker 1: the commission and the press, the first named being to
• 3:25:48
  Speaker 1: the right. Between these are a raised platform and pivot
• 3:25:52
  Speaker 1: arm chair for the witness Below are the sworn phonographers
• 3:25:56
  Speaker 1: and the council for the accused. And then another rail
• 3:26:00
  Speaker 1: like that separating the crowd from the court, holds behind
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: it the accused and their guards. These are they who
• 3:26:08
  Speaker 1: are living not by years nor by weeks, but by breaths.
• 3:26:12
  Speaker 1: They are motley enough for the most part, sitting along
• 3:26:15
  Speaker 1: a long bench with their backs against the wall, ill shaved, haggard, anxious,
• 3:26:21
  Speaker 1: and the dungeon door at their left opens now and
• 3:26:23
  Speaker 1: then to show behind it a moving bayonet. There are
• 3:26:27
  Speaker 1: women within the court, proper edging upon the reporters, introduced
• 3:26:32
  Speaker 1: there by a fussy usher, and through four windows filters
• 3:26:36
  Speaker 1: the imperfect daylight, making all things distinguishable yet shadowy. The
• 3:26:41
  Speaker 1: coud oile of this small and crowded scene as lively
• 3:26:45
  Speaker 1: as a popular funeral. There is the witness with raised
• 3:26:49
  Speaker 1: hand pointing toward heaven and looking at Judge Holt, the
• 3:26:53
  Speaker 1: gilt stars, bars and orange colored sashes of the commission,
• 3:26:57
  Speaker 1: the women's brilliant silks and bonnet, the crowding spectators with
• 3:27:01
  Speaker 1: their brains in their eyes, the blue coats of the guards,
• 3:27:05
  Speaker 1: the working scribes, and last of all the line of culprits,
• 3:27:09
  Speaker 1: whose suspected guilt has made them worthy of all illustration.
• 3:27:14
  Speaker 1: Between the angle of the wall and the studded door,
• 3:27:17
  Speaker 1: under the heavy bar of dressed stone which marks above
• 3:27:20
  Speaker 1: the thickness of the jail, sits all alone a woman's
• 3:27:25
  Speaker 1: figure clothed in solemn black. Her shadowy skirt hides her
• 3:27:29
  Speaker 1: feet so that we cannot see whether they are riveted.
• 3:27:33
  Speaker 1: Her sleeves of sable sweep down to her wrist, and
• 3:27:36
  Speaker 1: dark gloves cover the plumpness of her hand, while a
• 3:27:39
  Speaker 1: palmly fan nods to and fro to assist the obscurity
• 3:27:43
  Speaker 1: of her veil of crape descending from her widow's bonnet.
• 3:27:47
  Speaker 1: A solitary woman, beginning the line of coarse indicted men,
• 3:27:51
  Speaker 1: shrinking beneath the scornful eyes of her sex, and the
• 3:27:55
  Speaker 1: as bold survey of men more pitiful, may well excite,
• 3:27:59
  Speaker 1: despite her guilt a moment of sympathy. Let men remember
• 3:28:04
  Speaker 1: that she is the mother of a son who has
• 3:28:06
  Speaker 1: fled to save his forfeit life by deserting her to
• 3:28:10
  Speaker 1: shame and perhaps to death. Let women who will not
• 3:28:15
  Speaker 1: mention her in mercy learn from her end in all
• 3:28:18
  Speaker 1: succeeding wars, to make patriotism of their household duties, and
• 3:28:22
  Speaker 1: not in sight to blood. Missus Serat is a graduate
• 3:28:26
  Speaker 1: of that seminary which spits in soldier's faces, denounces brave
• 3:28:31
  Speaker 1: generals upon the rostrum, and cries out for an interminable scaffold,
• 3:28:36
  Speaker 1: when all the bells are ringing peace. How far her
• 3:28:40
  Speaker 1: wicked love influenced her to participation in the murder rests
• 3:28:44
  Speaker 1: in her own breast, and up to this time she
• 3:28:46
  Speaker 1: has not differed from mothers at large to twist her
• 3:28:49
  Speaker 1: own bowstring rather than build his gibbet. Beneath her shadowy
• 3:28:54
  Speaker 1: bonnet over her fan tip, we see two large sad
• 3:28:58
  Speaker 1: eyes rising and falling. And now and then, when the
• 3:29:01
  Speaker 1: fan sways to and fro, the hair just turning gray
• 3:29:05
  Speaker 1: with trouble, and the round face growing wan and seamed
• 3:29:09
  Speaker 1: with terrible reflection, are seen a moment crouching low, as
• 3:29:14
  Speaker 1: if she would wish to grovel upon the floor and
• 3:29:16
  Speaker 1: bury her forehead in her hands. Yet sometimes across missus
• 3:29:21
  Speaker 1: Surat's face a stealthiness creeps, a sort of furtive feline
• 3:29:25
  Speaker 1: flashing of the eye, like that of one which means
• 3:29:28
  Speaker 1: to leap sideways. At these times her face seems to
• 3:29:32
  Speaker 1: grow hard and colorless, as if the tiger expression which
• 3:29:36
  Speaker 1: Pradier caught upon the face of Brinvilliers and fastened into
• 3:29:40
  Speaker 1: a mask had been repeated here. Not to grow mawkish.
• 3:29:44
  Speaker 1: While we must be kind, let us not forget that
• 3:29:47
  Speaker 1: this woman is an old plotter. If she did not
• 3:29:51
  Speaker 1: devise the assassination, she was privy to it long she
• 3:29:55
  Speaker 1: was an agent of contraband males, a bold, crafty, assured
• 3:29:59
  Speaker 1: revel perhaps a spy. And in the event of her condemnation,
• 3:30:04
  Speaker 1: let those who would plead for her spend half their
• 3:30:06
  Speaker 1: pity upon that victim whose heart was like a woman's
• 3:30:09
  Speaker 1: and whose hand was merciful as a mother's. Before the
• 3:30:14
  Speaker 1: door sits an officer uncovered, who does not seem to
• 3:30:18
  Speaker 1: labor under any particular fear, chiefly because the captives are
• 3:30:22
  Speaker 1: ironed to immoveability, and he stares and smiles alternately, as
• 3:30:27
  Speaker 1: if he were somewhat amiable and extremely bored. Next to
• 3:30:33
  Speaker 1: the officer is a shabby looking boy whose seat is
• 3:30:36
  Speaker 1: by the right jamb of the jail door. Of all
• 3:30:40
  Speaker 1: boys just old enough to feel their oats, this boy
• 3:30:42
  Speaker 1: is the most commonplace. His parents would be likely to
• 3:30:46
  Speaker 1: have no sanguine hopes for his reaching the presidency. For
• 3:30:49
  Speaker 1: his head indicates latent dementia, and a slice or two
• 3:30:52
  Speaker 1: from it would recommend him, without examination, to the school
• 3:30:56
  Speaker 1: for the feeble minded, better dressed and washed, and show
• 3:31:00
  Speaker 1: he might make a tolerable adornment to a hotel door,
• 3:31:04
  Speaker 1: or even reach the dignity of a bar keeper or
• 3:31:07
  Speaker 1: an usher at a theater, But that this fellow should
• 3:31:11
  Speaker 1: occupy a leaf in history and be confounded with a tragedy.
• 3:31:15
  Speaker 1: Entering into the literature of the world reverses manifest destiny
• 3:31:20
  Speaker 1: and leaves neither phrenology nor physiognomy a place to stand upon.
• 3:31:26
  Speaker 1: Come up, gall spurt time and lavater and remark his
• 3:31:30
  Speaker 1: sallow face attenuated by base excesses. Do you know any
• 3:31:35
  Speaker 1: forehead so broad which means so little? The oyster could
• 3:31:40
  Speaker 1: teach this man philosophy. His chin is sharp, his eyes
• 3:31:44
  Speaker 1: are blank blue, His short black hair curls over his ears,
• 3:31:48
  Speaker 1: and his beard is of a prickly black with a mustache,
• 3:31:52
  Speaker 1: which does not help his general contemptibleness. A dirty grayish
• 3:31:57
  Speaker 1: shirt without a linen collar is seen between the lplls
• 3:32:00
  Speaker 1: of the greasy and dusty cloth coat, sloping at the shoulders,
• 3:32:04
  Speaker 1: and under his worn brown trousers. The manacle of iron
• 3:32:08
  Speaker 1: makes an ugly garter to his carpet slipper. This is
• 3:32:12
  Speaker 1: David Harold, who shared the wild knight ride of booth
• 3:32:15
  Speaker 1: and barely escaped that outlaw's death in the burning barn.
• 3:32:19
  Speaker 1: He stoops to the rail of the dock now and
• 3:32:22
  Speaker 1: then to chat with his attorney, and a sort of
• 3:32:24
  Speaker 1: blank anxiety which he wears as his head turns here
• 3:32:27
  Speaker 1: and there, shifts to a frolicking smile. But a woman
• 3:32:31
  Speaker 1: of unusual attractions enters the court, and Harold is much
• 3:32:35
  Speaker 1: more interested in her than in his acquittal. Great Caesar's dust,
• 3:32:41
  Speaker 1: which stopped the mot hole, has in this playboy an
• 3:32:44
  Speaker 1: inverse parallel. He was at best ostler to a murderer,
• 3:32:48
  Speaker 1: and failed in that. His chief concern at present is
• 3:32:51
  Speaker 1: to have somebody to talk to, and he thinks upon
• 3:32:54
  Speaker 1: the whole that if an assassination is productive of so
• 3:32:57
  Speaker 1: little fun, he will have nothing to do with another one.
• 3:33:02
  Speaker 1: That Harold had slipped into history gives us as much
• 3:33:04
  Speaker 1: surprise as that he has yet to suffer death gives
• 3:33:07
  Speaker 1: us almost contempt for the scaffold. But if the scaffold
• 3:33:11
  Speaker 1: must wait for only wise men to get upon it,
• 3:33:14
  Speaker 1: it must rot. Your wise man does no murder in
• 3:33:18
  Speaker 1: the first place, and if so in the second, he
• 3:33:21
  Speaker 1: dodges the penalty. In this world, Harold idiocy is oftener
• 3:33:26
  Speaker 1: punished than guilt that Booth should have used Harold is
• 3:33:31
  Speaker 1: very naturally accounted for. Actors live only to be admired.
• 3:33:35
  Speaker 1: Vanity rises to its climax in them. Booth preferred this
• 3:33:39
  Speaker 1: sparrow to sing him peons, rather than live by an
• 3:33:42
  Speaker 1: eagle and be screamed at. Now and then, on the
• 3:33:47
  Speaker 1: right hand side of Harold sits a soldier in blue,
• 3:33:49
  Speaker 1: who is evidently thinking about a game of quoits with
• 3:33:52
  Speaker 1: his comrades in the jail yard. He wonders why lawyers
• 3:33:56
  Speaker 1: are so very dry, and is surprised to find a
• 3:33:59
  Speaker 1: trial for murder as tedious as a thanksgiving sermon. But
• 3:34:04
  Speaker 1: on the soldier's other hand is a figure which makes
• 3:34:07
  Speaker 1: the center and cynosure of this thrilling scene taller by
• 3:34:11
  Speaker 1: a whole head than either his companions or the sentry's pain.
• 3:34:16
  Speaker 1: The assassin sits erect and flings his barbarian eye to
• 3:34:20
  Speaker 1: and fro, radiating the tremendous energy of his colossal physique.
• 3:34:26
  Speaker 1: He is the only man worthy to have murdered mister Seward.
• 3:34:30
  Speaker 1: When against the delicate organization, the fine, subtle, nervous mind
• 3:34:33
  Speaker 1: of the Secretary of State, this giant knife in hand
• 3:34:37
  Speaker 1: precipitated himself. Two forms of civilization met as distinctly as
• 3:34:43
  Speaker 1: when the savage Gauls invaded the Roman Senate. Lawlessness and intelligence.
• 3:34:49
  Speaker 1: The savage and the statesman, body and mind fought together
• 3:34:53
  Speaker 1: upon mister Seward's bed. The mystery attending Paine's home and
• 3:34:58
  Speaker 1: parentage still exist to make him more incomprehensible. Out of
• 3:35:03
  Speaker 1: the vague dim ULTIMATEULYI, like those asiatic hordes which came
• 3:35:08
  Speaker 1: from nowhere and shivered civilization, Pain suddenly appeared and fought
• 3:35:12
  Speaker 1: his way to the sanctum sanctorum of law. I think
• 3:35:16
  Speaker 1: his part in the assassination more remarkable than Booths. The
• 3:35:20
  Speaker 1: latter's crime was shrewdly plotted, as by one measuring intelligence
• 3:35:24
  Speaker 1: with the whole government. But Pain did not think. He
• 3:35:28
  Speaker 1: only struck with this man's face before me. As I write,
• 3:35:33
  Speaker 1: I am reminded of some Maori chief waging war from
• 3:35:36
  Speaker 1: the lust of blood or the pride of local dominion.
• 3:35:40
  Speaker 1: His complexion is bloodless, yet so healthy that a passing
• 3:35:44
  Speaker 1: observer would afterwards speak of it as ruddy. His face
• 3:35:48
  Speaker 1: is broad, with a character nose, sensual lips, and with
• 3:35:51
  Speaker 1: very high cheek bones. The cranium is full and the
• 3:35:55
  Speaker 1: brow speaking, while the head runs back to an abnormal
• 3:35:59
  Speaker 1: apex at the tip of the cerebellum. His straight, lustreless
• 3:36:03
  Speaker 1: black hair, duly parted, is at the summit, so disturbed
• 3:36:07
  Speaker 1: that tufts of it rise up like red jackets or
• 3:36:10
  Speaker 1: to cumbses. But the head is kept well up and
• 3:36:14
  Speaker 1: rests upon a wonderfully broad throat, muscular as one's thigh,
• 3:36:18
  Speaker 1: and without any trace as he sits of the protuberance
• 3:36:21
  Speaker 1: called Adam's apple withal. The eye is the man Pain's power.
• 3:36:26
  Speaker 1: It is dark and speechless, and rolls here and there,
• 3:36:29
  Speaker 1: like that of a beast in a cage, which strives
• 3:36:32
  Speaker 1: in vain to understand the language of its captors. It
• 3:36:35
  Speaker 1: seems to say, if anything, that it has no sympathy
• 3:36:39
  Speaker 1: with anybody approximate, and has submitted, like a lion, bound
• 3:36:43
  Speaker 1: to the logic of conviction and of chains. Paine looks
• 3:36:47
  Speaker 1: at none of his fellow prisoners. Assassins caught seldom care
• 3:36:51
  Speaker 1: to recognize each other, For while there is faithfulness among thieves,
• 3:36:56
  Speaker 1: there is none among murderers. His great white eye ball
• 3:37:00
  Speaker 1: never roves to anybody's in the dock, nor theirs to his.
• 3:37:04
  Speaker 1: He has confessed his crime, and they know it, so
• 3:37:07
  Speaker 1: they have no mutual hope. They listen to the evidence
• 3:37:10
  Speaker 1: because it concerns them. He looks at it only because
• 3:37:14
  Speaker 1: it cannot save him. He is entirely beardless, yet in
• 3:37:18
  Speaker 1: his boyish chin, more of a man physically than the
• 3:37:21
  Speaker 1: rest combined. While I watch this man, I am constantly
• 3:37:25
  Speaker 1: repeating to myself that Standza of Bryant's. Upon the market place.
• 3:37:31
  Speaker 1: He stood, a man of giant frame amid the gathering
• 3:37:36
  Speaker 1: multitude that shrank to hear his name, all proud of
• 3:37:40
  Speaker 1: step and firm of limb, his dark eye on the ground,
• 3:37:45
  Speaker 1: And suddenly they gazed on him as on a lion. Bound.
• 3:37:50
  Speaker 1: His dress, which we scarcely notice in the grander contrast
• 3:37:54
  Speaker 1: of his pose and stature, is an old shirt of
• 3:37:57
  Speaker 1: woolen blue with a white nap at the button holes,
• 3:38:00
  Speaker 1: and upon his knees of black cloth. He twirls, as
• 3:38:03
  Speaker 1: if for relaxation, between his powerful manacles, a soiled white handkerchief.
• 3:38:09
  Speaker 1: If from his mother we conjecture a gift to a
• 3:38:11
  Speaker 1: bloodhound from his dam. His heavy handcuffs make his broad
• 3:38:15
  Speaker 1: shoulders more narrow. Yet we can see by the outline
• 3:38:19
  Speaker 1: of the sleeves, what girth the muscles has, and the
• 3:38:23
  Speaker 1: hand at the end of his long and bony arm
• 3:38:26
  Speaker 1: is wide and huge, as if he could wield a
• 3:38:29
  Speaker 1: clay more as well as a dirk. He also wears
• 3:38:33
  Speaker 1: carpet slippers, but his ankles are clogged with so heavy
• 3:38:36
  Speaker 1: irons that two men must carry them when he enters
• 3:38:39
  Speaker 1: or leaves the dock. For this man there can be
• 3:38:43
  Speaker 1: no sentiment, no more than for a ball. The flesh
• 3:38:47
  Speaker 1: on his face is hard, as if cast rather than generated.
• 3:38:50
  Speaker 1: And while we see how he towers above the entire court,
• 3:38:54
  Speaker 1: we watch him in wonder, as if he were some
• 3:38:56
  Speaker 1: maniac denizen of his zone, where men without mines grow
• 3:39:00
  Speaker 1: to the stature and power of fiends. The face of
• 3:39:05
  Speaker 1: Pain is not of the traditional Southern peculiarities. He resembles
• 3:39:09
  Speaker 1: rather a Pennsylvania mountaineer than a Kentucky rustic. Three weeks
• 3:39:15
  Speaker 1: ago I gave in an account of the conspiracy, which
• 3:39:18
  Speaker 1: many gainsaid, but which the trial has fully confirmed, a
• 3:39:22
  Speaker 1: sketch of this man, to which I still addhere He
• 3:39:25
  Speaker 1: was furnished to Booth and John Surat from Canada, sent
• 3:39:29
  Speaker 1: upon special service, with his life in his hands, and
• 3:39:32
  Speaker 1: effaced the murder he was to commit, like any prize fighter.
• 3:39:36
  Speaker 1: I pity Beale, who died intelligently for a wretched essay
• 3:39:40
  Speaker 1: against civilians, that his biography and fate must be matched
• 3:39:44
  Speaker 1: by this savages. Next to pain and crouching under him
• 3:39:48
  Speaker 1: like a frog under a rock, is an inconsiderable soldier
• 3:39:52
  Speaker 1: who choose his cud and would cheerfully hang his protegee
• 3:39:55
  Speaker 1: for the sake of being rid of him. My sympathies
• 3:39:59
  Speaker 1: are entire enlisted for this soldier. He has neither the
• 3:40:03
  Speaker 1: joy of being acquitted nor the excitement of being tried.
• 3:40:06
  Speaker 1: He is quite a sizeable man by himself, but pain
• 3:40:09
  Speaker 1: overhangs him, and the dulness of the trial quite stultifies him.
• 3:40:14
  Speaker 1: The few points of law which are admitted here are
• 3:40:17
  Speaker 1: not so evident to this soldier as the point of
• 3:40:19
  Speaker 1: his bayonet. I see what ails him. He wants to swear.
• 3:40:26
  Speaker 1: A beam running overhead divides the court lengthwise in half,
• 3:40:30
  Speaker 1: and as the prisoners sit at the end of the court,
• 3:40:32
  Speaker 1: the German Atsiot or Adzerota has a place just beneath
• 3:40:37
  Speaker 1: the beam. This is very ominous for Atzerot. The filthiness
• 3:40:41
  Speaker 1: of this man denies him sympathy. He is a disgusting
• 3:40:45
  Speaker 1: little groveler of dry sandy hair. Oval head ears set
• 3:40:50
  Speaker 1: so close to the chin that one would think his
• 3:40:52
  Speaker 1: sense of hearing limited to his jaws, and a complexion
• 3:40:56
  Speaker 1: so yellow that the uncropped brownness of his beard does
• 3:40:59
  Speaker 1: not materially darken it. He wears a grayish coat, low
• 3:41:04
  Speaker 1: grimy shirt, and the usual carpet slippers of threadbare red
• 3:41:09
  Speaker 1: over his shifting and shiftless feet. His head is bent
• 3:41:12
  Speaker 1: forward and seems to be anxiously trying to catch the
• 3:41:15
  Speaker 1: tenor of the trial. Many persons outside of the court
• 3:41:19
  Speaker 1: Atserat are equally puzzled from as much examination of this
• 3:41:25
  Speaker 1: man as his insignificance permits. I should call him a
• 3:41:28
  Speaker 1: gabby fellow, loud of resolution, ignoble of effort over his logger.
• 3:41:34
  Speaker 1: No man would be braver. His face is familiar to
• 3:41:37
  Speaker 1: me from a review of those detective cabinets usually called
• 3:41:40
  Speaker 1: rogue's galleries, as a sneak, thief or bagman. I should
• 3:41:44
  Speaker 1: convict him by his face. The same indictment would make
• 3:41:48
  Speaker 1: me acquit him instantly of assassination. In this estimate, I
• 3:41:52
  Speaker 1: rely upon evidence as well as of all appearance, Atsorats
• 3:41:56
  Speaker 1: swaggered about Kirkwood's hotel asking for the Vice president's room
• 3:42:00
  Speaker 1: pain or both would have done the murder silently. Nobody
• 3:42:05
  Speaker 1: pities a dirty man. The same arts of dress and
• 3:42:09
  Speaker 1: cleanliness which please ladies influence juries. Next to Atzerots, it's
• 3:42:15
  Speaker 1: a soldier, a very jolly and smooth faced soldier, who,
• 3:42:19
  Speaker 1: at one time hears a witness say something laughable. The
• 3:42:22
  Speaker 1: soldier immediately grins to the farthest point of his scalp.
• 3:42:26
  Speaker 1: But he is chagrined to find that the joke is
• 3:42:29
  Speaker 1: too trivial to admit of a laugh of duration. Very
• 3:42:32
  Speaker 1: few jokes before the present court do so. But this soldier,
• 3:42:37
  Speaker 1: being of long charity and excellent patience, awaits the next
• 3:42:40
  Speaker 1: joke like a veteran under orders, and reposes his chin
• 3:42:44
  Speaker 1: upon the dock, as if aware that between jokes there
• 3:42:47
  Speaker 1: was ample time for a nap. The next prisoner to
• 3:42:52
  Speaker 1: the right is O'Laughlin. He is a small man, about
• 3:42:56
  Speaker 1: twenty eight years of age, attired in a fine soiled coat,
• 3:43:00
  Speaker 1: but without white linen upon either his bosom or neck,
• 3:43:03
  Speaker 1: and handcuffs. Rests hugely upon his mediocrity. His mustache eyebrows
• 3:43:09
  Speaker 1: and hair are regular and very black. He does not
• 3:43:13
  Speaker 1: look unlike Booth, though he seems to have little bodily power,
• 3:43:17
  Speaker 1: and he is very anxious, as if more earnest than
• 3:43:20
  Speaker 1: any of the rest, to have a fair lease upon life.
• 3:43:24
  Speaker 1: His countenance is not prepossessing, though he might be considered
• 3:43:28
  Speaker 1: passively good looking. In a mixed company. Between O'Laughlin and
• 3:43:33
  Speaker 1: the next prisoner, Spangler sits a soldier in ultramarine, a
• 3:43:37
  Speaker 1: discontented soldier, a moody, dissatisfied, and arbitrary soldier. His definition
• 3:43:43
  Speaker 1: of military justice is like the boy's answer at school
• 3:43:47
  Speaker 1: to the familiar question about the Constitution of the United States,
• 3:43:52
  Speaker 1: What rights do accuse persons enjoy? The boy rode out
• 3:43:57
  Speaker 1: very carefully. This answer death by hanging. The boy would
• 3:44:02
  Speaker 1: have been correct had the question applied to accused persons
• 3:44:05
  Speaker 1: before a court martial. Spangler, the scene shifter and stage carpenter,
• 3:44:10
  Speaker 1: has the face and bearing of a day laborer. His
• 3:44:13
  Speaker 1: blue woolen shirt does not confuse him, as he is
• 3:44:16
  Speaker 1: used to it. He has an oldish face, wrinkled by
• 3:44:20
  Speaker 1: fearful anticipations, and his hair is thin. He is awkwardly
• 3:44:24
  Speaker 1: built and watches the trial earnestly, as if striving to
• 3:44:28
  Speaker 1: catch between the links of evidence vistas of a life insured.
• 3:44:32
  Speaker 1: This man has a simple and pleading face, and there
• 3:44:35
  Speaker 1: is something genial in his great, incoherent countenance. He is
• 3:44:39
  Speaker 1: said to have cleared the stage for Booth's escape, but
• 3:44:42
  Speaker 1: this is indifferently testified too. He had often been asked
• 3:44:46
  Speaker 1: by Booth to take a drink at the nearest bar.
• 3:44:50
  Speaker 1: Persons who drink assure me that the greatest mark of
• 3:44:53
  Speaker 1: confidence which a great man can show a lesser one
• 3:44:56
  Speaker 1: is to make that tender. This therefore explained booth power
• 3:45:00
  Speaker 1: over Spangler. Spangler is the first scene shifter who may
• 3:45:05
  Speaker 1: become a dramatist PERSONAI. A soldier sits between Spangler and
• 3:45:12
  Speaker 1: doctor Mud. The soldier would like Spangler to get up
• 3:45:15
  Speaker 1: and go away, so that he could have as much
• 3:45:17
  Speaker 1: of the bench as he might sleep upon. This particular soldier,
• 3:45:20
  Speaker 1: I may be qualified to say, would sleep upon his post.
• 3:45:25
  Speaker 1: Doctor Mud has a new England and not a marilyn face.
• 3:45:29
  Speaker 1: He compares to those on his left as hyperion to
• 3:45:32
  Speaker 1: a squatter. His high oval head is bald, very far up,
• 3:45:37
  Speaker 1: but not benevolently so, and it is covered with light
• 3:45:40
  Speaker 1: red hair, so thin as to contrast indifferently with the
• 3:45:44
  Speaker 1: denseness of his beard and goat tea. His nose would
• 3:45:48
  Speaker 1: be insignificant but for its sharpness, and at the nostrils
• 3:45:52
  Speaker 1: it is swelling and high spirited. The eyes impinge upon
• 3:45:56
  Speaker 1: his brows, and they are shining and rather dark, while
• 3:45:59
  Speaker 1: the brows and cells are so scantily clothed with hair
• 3:46:02
  Speaker 1: that they seem quite naked. Mud is neatly dressed in
• 3:46:06
  Speaker 1: a green grass duster and white bosom and collar. If
• 3:46:11
  Speaker 1: he had no other advantages over his associates, these last
• 3:46:14
  Speaker 1: would give it to him. He keeps his feet upon
• 3:46:17
  Speaker 1: the rail before him in true Republican style, and rolls
• 3:46:20
  Speaker 1: a morsel of tobacco under his tongue. The military commission
• 3:46:25
  Speaker 1: works as if it were delegated not to try, but
• 3:46:28
  Speaker 1: to convict, and Doctor Mud, if he be innocent, is
• 3:46:32
  Speaker 1: in only less danger than if he were guilty. He
• 3:46:35
  Speaker 1: has a sort of home bred intelligence in his face,
• 3:46:38
  Speaker 1: and socially is as far above his fellows as Goliah
• 3:46:41
  Speaker 1: of Gath above the rest of the Philistines. On the
• 3:46:46
  Speaker 1: right of doctor Mudd sits a soldier who is striving
• 3:46:49
  Speaker 1: to look through his legs at the judge advocate, as
• 3:46:52
  Speaker 1: if taking a sort of secret aim at that person
• 3:46:55
  Speaker 1: with the intent to fetch him down, because he makes
• 3:46:57
  Speaker 1: the trial so very dry and the soldier so very thirsty.
• 3:47:04
  Speaker 1: The last man who sits on the extreme right of
• 3:47:06
  Speaker 1: the prisoners is mister Sam Arnold. He is perhaps the
• 3:47:10
  Speaker 1: best looking of the prisoners, and the least implicated. He
• 3:47:14
  Speaker 1: has a solid, pleasant face, has been a rebel soldier,
• 3:47:18
  Speaker 1: foolishly committed himself to Booth with perhaps no intention to
• 3:47:22
  Speaker 1: do a crime, recanted in pen ending, and was made
• 3:47:26
  Speaker 1: a national character. Had he recanted by word of mouth,
• 3:47:29
  Speaker 1: he might have saved himself unpleasant dreams. This shows everybody
• 3:47:34
  Speaker 1: the absurdity of writing what they can so easily say.
• 3:47:38
  Speaker 1: The best thing Arnold ever wrote was his letter to
• 3:47:40
  Speaker 1: Booth refusing to engage in murder. Yet this recantation is
• 3:47:45
  Speaker 1: more in evidence against him than than his original purpose.
• 3:47:48
  Speaker 1: Arnold looks out of the window and feels easy. The
• 3:47:53
  Speaker 1: reporters who are present are generally young fellows, practical and ardent,
• 3:47:57
  Speaker 1: like Woods of Boston, Colburn of the World, and Major Poor,
• 3:48:02
  Speaker 1: who has been the chronicler of such scenes for twenty years.
• 3:48:05
  Speaker 1: Ben Pittman, one of the authors of phonetic writing, is
• 3:48:09
  Speaker 1: among the official reporters and the murphys who could report
• 3:48:13
  Speaker 1: the lightning if it could talk, or slashing down history
• 3:48:16
  Speaker 1: as it passes in at their ears and runs out
• 3:48:18
  Speaker 1: at their fingers ends. The counsel for the accused strike
• 3:48:23
  Speaker 1: me as being commonplace lawyers, they either have no chance
• 3:48:27
  Speaker 1: or no pluck to assert the dignity of their profession.
• 3:48:30
  Speaker 1: Reverdy Johnson is not here. The first day disgusted him
• 3:48:35
  Speaker 1: as he is a practitioner of law. Yet the best
• 3:48:38
  Speaker 1: word of the trial has been his, I, gentlemen, am
• 3:48:43
  Speaker 1: a member of that body of legislators which creates court
• 3:48:47
  Speaker 1: martials and major generals. The Commission has collectively an imposing appearance.
• 3:48:54
  Speaker 1: The face of Judge Holt is swarthy. He questions with
• 3:48:57
  Speaker 1: slow utterance, holding the witness in cold measuring eye. Hunter,
• 3:49:02
  Speaker 1: who sits at the opposite end of the table, shuts
• 3:49:05
  Speaker 1: his eyes now and then either to sleep or think,
• 3:49:09
  Speaker 1: or both. And the other generals take a note or
• 3:49:11
  Speaker 1: two and watch for occasions to distinguish themselves. Excepting Judge Holt,
• 3:49:17
  Speaker 1: the court has shown as little ability as could be
• 3:49:20
  Speaker 1: expected from soldiers placed in unenviable publicity, and upon a
• 3:49:25
  Speaker 1: duty for which they are disqualified both by education and acumen.
• 3:49:30
  Speaker 1: Witnessed the lack of dignity and Hunter, who opened the
• 3:49:33
  Speaker 1: court by a coarse allusion to Humbug's chivalry of lew Wallace,
• 3:49:38
  Speaker 1: whose heat and intolerance were appropriately urged in the most
• 3:49:41
  Speaker 1: exceptional English, of how whose tirade against the rebel General
• 3:49:46
  Speaker 1: Johnson was feeble as it was ungenerous. This court was
• 3:49:51
  Speaker 1: needed to show us at least the petty tyranny of
• 3:49:54
  Speaker 1: martial lawn, the pettiness of martial jurists. The Council for
• 3:49:58
  Speaker 1: the Defense of just enough the show to make the
• 3:50:00
  Speaker 1: unfairness of the trial partake of hypocrisy, and the wideness
• 3:50:04
  Speaker 1: of the subjects discussed makes one imagine that the object
• 3:50:08
  Speaker 1: of the Commission is to write a cyclopedia, and not
• 3:50:12
  Speaker 1: to hang or a quit six or eight miserable wretches.
• 3:50:18
  Speaker 1: End of Letter eight, Letter nine, the Executions, Washington, Friday,
• 3:50:25
  Speaker 1: July seven. The trial is over. Four of the conspirators
• 3:50:30
  Speaker 1: have paid with their lives the penalty of the Great conspiracy.
• 3:50:33
  Speaker 1: The rest go to jail, and, with one exception for
• 3:50:36
  Speaker 1: the remainder of their lives, whatever our individual theories may
• 3:50:40
  Speaker 1: be the great crime is ended, and this is the
• 3:50:43
  Speaker 1: crowning scene. It was a long and dusty avenue along
• 3:50:48
  Speaker 1: which rambled soldiers in bluishly white coats, cattle with their
• 3:50:52
  Speaker 1: tongues out straying from the herd, and a few negroes
• 3:50:55
  Speaker 1: making for their cabins, which dotted the fiery and vacant
• 3:50:58
  Speaker 1: lots of the suburbs. At the foot of this avenue,
• 3:51:02
  Speaker 1: where a lukewarm river holds between its dividing arms a
• 3:51:05
  Speaker 1: dreary edifice of brick. The way was filled with collected
• 3:51:09
  Speaker 1: cabs and elbowing people abutting against a circle of sentinels
• 3:51:14
  Speaker 1: who kept the arsenal gate. The low, flat, dust white
• 3:51:17
  Speaker 1: fields to the far left were also lined with patrols
• 3:51:20
  Speaker 1: and soldiers lying on the ground in squads beside their
• 3:51:24
  Speaker 1: stacked muskets. Within these, a second blue and monotonous line
• 3:51:29
  Speaker 1: extended the drive from the arsenal gate to the Arsenal's
• 3:51:33
  Speaker 1: high and steel spiked wall was beset by companies of
• 3:51:37
  Speaker 1: exacting sabermen, and all the river bank to the right
• 3:51:40
  Speaker 1: was edged with blue and bayonets. This exhibition of war
• 3:51:45
  Speaker 1: was the prelude to a very ghastly but very popular
• 3:51:48
  Speaker 1: episode an execution. Three men and a woman were to
• 3:51:53
  Speaker 1: be led out in shackles and hung to a beam.
• 3:51:56
  Speaker 1: They had conspired to take life. They had thrilled the
• 3:51:59
  Speaker 1: world with the partial consummation of their plot. They were
• 3:52:03
  Speaker 1: to reach the last eminence of assassins on this parched
• 3:52:07
  Speaker 1: and oppressive noon by swinging in pinioned arms and muffled
• 3:52:11
  Speaker 1: faces in the presence of a thousand people. The bayonets
• 3:52:15
  Speaker 1: at the gate were lifted as I produced my pass.
• 3:52:18
  Speaker 1: It was the last permission granted. In giving it away,
• 3:52:21
  Speaker 1: the General seemed relieved, for he had been sorely troubled
• 3:52:24
  Speaker 1: by applications. Everybody who had visited Washington to seek for
• 3:52:29
  Speaker 1: an office sought to see this expiation. Also, the officer
• 3:52:33
  Speaker 1: at the gate looked at my pass suspiciously. I don't
• 3:52:37
  Speaker 1: believe that all these papers have been genuine, he said,
• 3:52:41
  Speaker 1: Is an execution, then, so great a warning to evil
• 3:52:44
  Speaker 1: doers that men will commit forgery. To see it, I
• 3:52:48
  Speaker 1: entered the large grassy yard, surrounded by an exceedingly high wall.
• 3:52:52
  Speaker 1: On the top of this wall, soldiers with muskets in
• 3:52:54
  Speaker 1: their hands were thickly planted. The yard below was broken
• 3:52:58
  Speaker 1: by irregular buildings of bread. I climbed by a flight
• 3:53:02
  Speaker 1: of rickety outside stairs to the central building, where many
• 3:53:05
  Speaker 1: officers were seated at the windows and looked awhile at
• 3:53:08
  Speaker 1: the strange scene. On the grassy plaza. On the left,
• 3:53:13
  Speaker 1: the long, barred, impregnable penitentiary rose. The shady spots beneath
• 3:53:18
  Speaker 1: it were occupied by huddling spectators. Soldiers were filling their
• 3:53:22
  Speaker 1: canteens at the pump. A face or two looked out
• 3:53:26
  Speaker 1: from the barred jail. There were many umbrellas hoisted on
• 3:53:30
  Speaker 1: the ground to shelter civilians. Beneath them. Squads of officers
• 3:53:34
  Speaker 1: and citizens lay along the narrow shadow of the walls.
• 3:53:38
  Speaker 1: The north side of the yard was enclosed on three
• 3:53:41
  Speaker 1: sides by columns of soldiers drawn up in regular order,
• 3:53:44
  Speaker 1: the side next to the penitentiary being short to admit
• 3:53:47
  Speaker 1: of ingress to the prisoner's door, but the opposite column
• 3:53:51
  Speaker 1: reached entirely up to the north wall. Within this enclosed area,
• 3:53:56
  Speaker 1: a structure to be inhabited by neither the living nor
• 3:53:59
  Speaker 1: the dead, was fast approaching completion. It stood gaunt, lofty,
• 3:54:05
  Speaker 1: long saws and hammers made dolorous music on it. Men
• 3:54:10
  Speaker 1: in their shirt sleeves were measuring it and directing its
• 3:54:12
  Speaker 1: construction in a business way. Now and then some one
• 3:54:16
  Speaker 1: would ascend its airy stare to test its firmness. Others
• 3:54:20
  Speaker 1: crawled beneath to wedge its slim supports or carry away
• 3:54:23
  Speaker 1: the falling debris. Toward this skeleton edifice, all looked with
• 3:54:27
  Speaker 1: a strange nervousness. It was the thought and speculation of
• 3:54:32
  Speaker 1: the gravest and the gayest. It was the gallows. A
• 3:54:37
  Speaker 1: beam reached horizontally in the air twenty feet from the ground.
• 3:54:40
  Speaker 1: Four awkward ropes at irregular intervals dangled from it, each
• 3:54:44
  Speaker 1: noosed at the end. It was upheld by three props,
• 3:54:48
  Speaker 1: one in the center and one at each end. These
• 3:54:50
  Speaker 1: props came all the way to the ground, where they
• 3:54:53
  Speaker 1: were mortised in heavy bars. Midway of them, a floor
• 3:54:57
  Speaker 1: was laid twenty by twelve feet, held in it position
• 3:55:00
  Speaker 1: on the farther side by shorter props, of which there
• 3:55:03
  Speaker 1: were many, and reached by fifteen creaking steps railed on
• 3:55:08
  Speaker 1: either side. But this floor had no supports on the
• 3:55:11
  Speaker 1: side nearest the eye, except two temporary rods at the
• 3:55:15
  Speaker 1: foot of which two inclined beams pointed menacingly held in
• 3:55:20
  Speaker 1: poise by ropes from the gallows floor, and this floor
• 3:55:24
  Speaker 1: was presently discovered to be a cheat, a trap, a pitfall.
• 3:55:29
  Speaker 1: Two hinges only held it to its firmer half. These
• 3:55:33
  Speaker 1: were to give way at the fatal moment and leave
• 3:55:35
  Speaker 1: only the shallow and unreliable air for the bound and
• 3:55:38
  Speaker 1: smothering to tread upon. The traps were two sustained by
• 3:55:43
  Speaker 1: two different props. The nooses were on each side of
• 3:55:46
  Speaker 1: the central support. Was this all not all close by
• 3:55:52
  Speaker 1: the foot of the gallows. Four wooden boxes were piled
• 3:55:55
  Speaker 1: upon each other at the edge of four newly excavated pits,
• 3:55:59
  Speaker 1: the fresh earth of which was already dried in brittle
• 3:56:03
  Speaker 1: in the burning noon. Here were to be interred the
• 3:56:07
  Speaker 1: broken carcasses. When the gallows had let go its throttle.
• 3:56:11
  Speaker 1: They were so placed, as the victims should emerge from
• 3:56:14
  Speaker 1: the jail door, they would be seen near the stair,
• 3:56:17
  Speaker 1: directly in the line of march, and not far from these,
• 3:56:22
  Speaker 1: in silence and darkness beneath the prison, where they had
• 3:56:25
  Speaker 1: lain so long and so forebodingly. The body of John
• 3:56:29
  Speaker 1: Wilkes's booth, sealed up in the brick floor, had long
• 3:56:34
  Speaker 1: been moldering. If the dead can hear, He had listened
• 3:56:38
  Speaker 1: many a time to the rattle of their manacles upon
• 3:56:41
  Speaker 1: the stairs, to the drowsy hum of the trial, and
• 3:56:44
  Speaker 1: the buzz of the garrulous spectators, to the moaning or
• 3:56:47
  Speaker 1: the gibing, or the preying in the bolted cells, where
• 3:56:51
  Speaker 1: those whom kindred Fate had given a little lease upon
• 3:56:53
  Speaker 1: life lay waiting for the terrible pronouncement. It was a
• 3:56:59
  Speaker 1: long waiting, and the roof of a high house outside
• 3:57:03
  Speaker 1: the walls was seen to be densely packed with people.
• 3:57:06
  Speaker 1: Others kept arriving moment by moment. Soldiers were wondering when
• 3:57:10
  Speaker 1: the swinging would begin, and officers arguing that the four
• 3:57:13
  Speaker 1: folks deserved it, damned them. Gentlemen of experience were telling
• 3:57:18
  Speaker 1: over the number of such expiations they had witnessed. Analytic
• 3:57:22
  Speaker 1: people were comparing the various modes of shooting, garroting, and guillotining.
• 3:57:28
  Speaker 1: Cigars were sending up spirals of soothing smoke. There was
• 3:57:32
  Speaker 1: a good deal of covert fear that a reprieve might
• 3:57:35
  Speaker 1: be granted. Inquiries were many and ingenuous for whisky, and
• 3:57:41
  Speaker 1: one or two were so deeply expectant that they fell asleep.
• 3:57:47
  Speaker 1: How much more those four dying, hoping, cringing, dreaming felons
• 3:57:52
  Speaker 1: were drudged their little gasp of life. It was to
• 3:57:56
  Speaker 1: be a scene, not a postponement or a prolongation. Who
• 3:58:01
  Speaker 1: was to be the executioner? Why had not the renowned
• 3:58:05
  Speaker 1: and artistic Isaacs been sent for from New York? Would
• 3:58:09
  Speaker 1: they probably die game or grow weak need in the
• 3:58:12
  Speaker 1: last extremity. Ah, the gallows workmen have completed the job.
• 3:58:18
  Speaker 1: Now then we should have it. Still there was delay.
• 3:58:23
  Speaker 1: The sun peeped into the new made graves and made
• 3:58:26
  Speaker 1: blistering hot the gallows floor. The old pump made its
• 3:58:29
  Speaker 1: familiar music to the cool plash of blessed water. The
• 3:58:34
  Speaker 1: grass withered in the fervid heat. The bronzed faces of
• 3:58:37
  Speaker 1: the soldiers ran lumps of sweat. The file upon the
• 3:58:41
  Speaker 1: jail walls looked down into the wide yard yawningly. No
• 3:58:45
  Speaker 1: wind fluttered. The two battle standards condemned to unfold their
• 3:58:49
  Speaker 1: trophies upon this coming profanation not yet arrived. Why the
• 3:58:56
  Speaker 1: extent of grace had almost been attained, the sentence gave
• 3:58:59
  Speaker 1: them only till two o'clock. Why are they so dilatory
• 3:59:03
  Speaker 1: in wishing to be hanged. Suddenly the wicket opens. The
• 3:59:07
  Speaker 1: troops spring to their feet and stand at order. Arms.
• 3:59:10
  Speaker 1: The flags go up. The low order passes from company
• 3:59:13
  Speaker 1: to company. The spectators huddle a little nearer to the scaffold.
• 3:59:17
  Speaker 1: All the writers for the press produced their pencils and
• 3:59:20
  Speaker 1: note books. First came a woman pinioned, a middle aged
• 3:59:25
  Speaker 1: woman dressed in black, bonneted and veiled, walking between two
• 3:59:29
  Speaker 1: bareheaded priests. One of these held against his breast a
• 3:59:33
  Speaker 1: crucifix of jet, and in the folds of his blue
• 3:59:36
  Speaker 1: fringed sash, he carried an open breviary while both of
• 3:59:40
  Speaker 1: them muttered the service for the dead. Four soldiers with
• 3:59:44
  Speaker 1: musketed shoulder followed, and a captain led the way to
• 3:59:47
  Speaker 1: the gallows. The second party escorted a small and shambling German,
• 3:59:52
  Speaker 1: whose head had a long white cap upon it, rendering
• 3:59:55
  Speaker 1: more filthy his dull complexion, and upon whose feet the
• 3:59:59
  Speaker 1: chains banked as he slowly advanced, preceded by two officers,
• 4:00:03
  Speaker 1: flanked by a Lutheran clergyman, and followed as his predecessor
• 4:00:08
  Speaker 1: by an armed squad. The third preacher and party clustered
• 4:00:12
  Speaker 1: about a shabby boy whose limbs tottered as he progressed.
• 4:00:17
  Speaker 1: The fourth walked in the shadow of a straight, high stature,
• 4:00:21
  Speaker 1: whose tawny hair and large blue eyes were suggestive rather
• 4:00:25
  Speaker 1: of the barbarians striding in his conqueror's triumph than the
• 4:00:29
  Speaker 1: assassin going to the gallows. All these captives, priests, guards
• 4:00:35
  Speaker 1: and officers, nearly twenty in all, climbed slowly and solemnly
• 4:00:39
  Speaker 1: the narrow steps, and upon four arm chairs stretching across
• 4:00:43
  Speaker 1: the stage. In the rear of the traps, the condemned
• 4:00:46
  Speaker 1: were seated, with their spiritual attendants behind them. The findings
• 4:00:51
  Speaker 1: and warrants were immediately read to the prisoners by General
• 4:00:54
  Speaker 1: Hartroft in a quiet and respectful tone, and aid holding
• 4:00:58
  Speaker 1: an umbrella over him time, these having been already published,
• 4:01:03
  Speaker 1: and being besides very uninteresting to anybody. But the prisoners
• 4:01:06
  Speaker 1: were paid little heed to all the spectators interesting themselves
• 4:01:11
  Speaker 1: in the prisoners. There was a fortuitous delicacy in this distribution.
• 4:01:16
  Speaker 1: The woman being placed farthest from the social and physical
• 4:01:19
  Speaker 1: dirtiness of atsorat and nearest the unblanched and manly physiognomy
• 4:01:23
  Speaker 1: of pain, she was not so pale that the clearness
• 4:01:27
  Speaker 1: of her complexion could not be seen, and the brightness
• 4:01:30
  Speaker 1: of the sun made her veil quite transparent. Her eyes
• 4:01:33
  Speaker 1: were seen to be of a soft gray. Her brown
• 4:01:36
  Speaker 1: hair lay smoothly upon a full, square forehead. The contour
• 4:01:41
  Speaker 1: of her face was calmly, but her teeth had the
• 4:01:43
  Speaker 1: imperfectness of those of most southern women, being few and irregular.
• 4:01:49
  Speaker 1: Until the lips were opened, she did not reveal them.
• 4:01:52
  Speaker 1: Her figure was not quite full enough to be denominated booksam,
• 4:01:56
  Speaker 1: yet had all the promise of venerable old age, had
• 4:01:59
  Speaker 1: nature had been permitted its due course. She was of
• 4:02:03
  Speaker 1: medium height and modest as what woman would not be
• 4:02:07
  Speaker 1: under such searching survey. At first, she was very feeble,
• 4:02:11
  Speaker 1: and leaned her head upon alternate sides of her arm
• 4:02:14
  Speaker 1: chair in nervous spasms. But now and then, when a
• 4:02:18
  Speaker 1: sort of wail just issued from her lips, the priest
• 4:02:21
  Speaker 1: placed before her the crucifix to lull her fearful spirit.
• 4:02:25
  Speaker 1: All the while the good fathers Wigot and Walter murmured
• 4:02:29
  Speaker 1: their low, tender cadences. And now and then the woman's
• 4:02:32
  Speaker 1: face lost its deadly fear and took a bold, cognizable
• 4:02:36
  Speaker 1: survey of the spectators. She wore a robe of dark woolen,
• 4:02:40
  Speaker 1: no collar, and common shoes of black listing. Her general
• 4:02:45
  Speaker 1: expression was that of acute suffering, vanishing at times as
• 4:02:48
  Speaker 1: if by the conjuration of her pride, and again returning
• 4:02:52
  Speaker 1: in a paroxysm as she looked at the dreadful rope
• 4:02:55
  Speaker 1: dangling before her. This woman to whom the priests had
• 4:02:59
  Speaker 1: made their industrious moan, holding up the epigy of Christ
• 4:03:04
  Speaker 1: when their own appeals became of no avail, perched there
• 4:03:07
  Speaker 1: in the lofty air, counting her breaths, counting the winkfuls
• 4:03:12
  Speaker 1: of light, counting the final wrestles of her breaking heart.
• 4:03:16
  Speaker 1: Had been the bell of her section, and many good
• 4:03:19
  Speaker 1: men had courted her hand. She had led a pleasant life,
• 4:03:23
  Speaker 1: and children had been born to her who shared her
• 4:03:26
  Speaker 1: mediocre ambition and the invincibility of her will. If the
• 4:03:30
  Speaker 1: charge of her guilt were proven, she was the Lady
• 4:03:33
  Speaker 1: Macbeth of the West. But women know nothing of consequences.
• 4:03:39
  Speaker 1: She alone, of all her sex, stands now in this
• 4:03:41
  Speaker 1: thrilled and ghastly perspective, and in immediate association with three
• 4:03:45
  Speaker 1: creatures in whose company it is no fame to die.
• 4:03:50
  Speaker 1: A little crying boy, a greasy, young, kemp sniveler, and
• 4:03:54
  Speaker 1: a confessed desperado her base and fugitive son. To know
• 4:04:00
  Speaker 1: the infamy of his cowardice and die of his shame,
• 4:04:03
  Speaker 1: should have seen his mother writhing in her seat upon
• 4:04:06
  Speaker 1: the throne, his wickedness established for her pain. The strangest
• 4:04:13
  Speaker 1: criminal in our history was alone, dignified and self possessed.
• 4:04:18
  Speaker 1: He wore a closely fitted knit shirt, a sailor's straw
• 4:04:21
  Speaker 1: hat tied with a ribbon, and dark pantaloons, but no shoes.
• 4:04:25
  Speaker 1: His collar, cut very low, showed the tremendous muscularity of
• 4:04:29
  Speaker 1: his neck, and the breadth of his breast was more
• 4:04:32
  Speaker 1: conspicuous by the manner in which the pinioned arms thrust
• 4:04:35
  Speaker 1: it forward. His height, his vigor, his glare made him
• 4:04:39
  Speaker 1: the strong central figure of this interelementary tableaux. He said
• 4:04:44
  Speaker 1: no word. His eyes were red as with the penitential
• 4:04:47
  Speaker 1: weeping of a courageous man, and the smooth hardness of
• 4:04:51
  Speaker 1: his skin seemed like a polished muscle. He did not
• 4:04:55
  Speaker 1: look abroad inquisitively, nor within intuitively. He had no accusation,
• 4:05:00
  Speaker 1: no despair, no dreaminess. He was only looking at death
• 4:05:04
  Speaker 1: as for one long expected and not a tremor nor
• 4:05:08
  Speaker 1: a shock stirred his long, stately limbs withal. His blue
• 4:05:12
  Speaker 1: eye was milder than when I saw him last, as
• 4:05:15
  Speaker 1: if some bitterness, or stolidness or obstinate pride had been exorcised,
• 4:05:21
  Speaker 1: perhaps by the candor of confession. Now and then he
• 4:05:25
  Speaker 1: looked half pityingly at the woman, and only once moved
• 4:05:29
  Speaker 1: his lips, as if in supplication. Few who looked at
• 4:05:32
  Speaker 1: him forgetful of his crime, did not respect him. He
• 4:05:36
  Speaker 1: seemed to feel that no man was more than his peer,
• 4:05:40
  Speaker 1: and one of his last commands was a word of
• 4:05:42
  Speaker 1: regret to mister Seward. I have no doubt that this
• 4:05:46
  Speaker 1: man is entirely a member of our nervous race. I
• 4:05:50
  Speaker 1: believe that a fiber of the Aboriginal runs through his
• 4:05:52
  Speaker 1: tuft sinews. At times he looked entirely an Indian. His
• 4:05:57
  Speaker 1: hair is tufted and will not lie smoothly. His cheek
• 4:06:01
  Speaker 1: bones are large and high set. There is a tint
• 4:06:04
  Speaker 1: in his complexion. Perhaps the seminole blood of his swampy
• 4:06:08
  Speaker 1: state left a trace of its combative nature there. Payne
• 4:06:12
  Speaker 1: was a preacher's son, and not the worst graduate of
• 4:06:16
  Speaker 1: his class. His real name is Lewis Thornton Powell. He
• 4:06:21
  Speaker 1: died without taking the hand of any living friend. Even
• 4:06:25
  Speaker 1: the squalid Atserat was not so poor. I felt a
• 4:06:28
  Speaker 1: pity for his physical, rather than his vital or spiritual peril.
• 4:06:33
  Speaker 1: It seemed a profanation to break the iron column of
• 4:06:36
  Speaker 1: his neck and give to the worm his belted chest.
• 4:06:41
  Speaker 1: But I remember that he would have slain a sick
• 4:06:44
  Speaker 1: old man. The third condemned, though whimpering, had far more
• 4:06:49
  Speaker 1: grit than I anticipated. He was inquisitive and flippant faced,
• 4:06:53
  Speaker 1: and looked at the noose flaunting before him, and the
• 4:06:56
  Speaker 1: people gathered below, and the haggard face of Atsora as
• 4:07:00
  Speaker 1: if entirely conscious and incapable of abstraction. Harold would have
• 4:07:05
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this execution vastly. As a spectator. He was, I think,
• 4:07:09
  Speaker 1: capable of a greater degree of depravity than any of
• 4:07:12
  Speaker 1: his accomplices. Atsirot might have made a sneak thief, booth
• 4:07:16
  Speaker 1: a forger, but Harold was not far from a professional pickpocket.
• 4:07:21
  Speaker 1: He was keen eyed, insolent, idle, and by a small
• 4:07:24
  Speaker 1: experience in Houston Street, would have been qualified for a
• 4:07:27
  Speaker 1: first class Canuck. He had not liked the rest any
• 4:07:31
  Speaker 1: political suggestion for the murder of the heads of the nation,
• 4:07:34
  Speaker 1: And upon the gallows. In his dirty felt hat, soiled cloth, coat,
• 4:07:39
  Speaker 1: like pantaloons and stockings, he seemed unworthy of his manacles.
• 4:07:44
  Speaker 1: A very fussy Dutchman tied him up and fanned him,
• 4:07:47
  Speaker 1: and he wept forgetfully, but did not make a halt
• 4:07:50
  Speaker 1: or absurd spectacle atseat was my ideal of a man
• 4:07:55
  Speaker 1: to be hung, A dilution of Wallack's rendering of the
• 4:07:59
  Speaker 1: last hours of fage in the jew A sort of
• 4:08:01
  Speaker 1: sick man, quite garrulous and smitten, with his head thrown
• 4:08:05
  Speaker 1: forward mutter into the air, and a pallidness transparent through
• 4:08:08
  Speaker 1: his dirt as he jabbered prayers and pleased confusedly, and
• 4:08:12
  Speaker 1: looked in a complaining sort of way at the noose,
• 4:08:15
  Speaker 1: as if not quite certain that it might not have
• 4:08:17
  Speaker 1: designs upon him. He wore a grayish coat, black vest,
• 4:08:23
  Speaker 1: light pantaloons and slippers, and a white affair on his head,
• 4:08:26
  Speaker 1: perhaps a handkerchief. His spiritual adviser stood behind him, evidently
• 4:08:32
  Speaker 1: disgusted with him. Atsarot lost his life through too much gabbin.
• 4:08:37
  Speaker 1: He could have had serious designs upon nothing greater than
• 4:08:40
  Speaker 1: a chicken, but talked assassination with the silent and absolute booth,
• 4:08:45
  Speaker 1: until entrapped into conspiracy in the gallows. Much against his calculation.
• 4:08:50
  Speaker 1: This man was visited by his mother and a poor
• 4:08:54
  Speaker 1: ignorant woman with whom he cohabited. He was the picture
• 4:08:58
  Speaker 1: of despair and died ridiculed, whistling up his courage. These
• 4:09:04
  Speaker 1: were the dramatis personae, No more to be sketched, no
• 4:09:08
  Speaker 1: more to be cross examined, no more to be shackled,
• 4:09:11
  Speaker 1: soon to be cold in their coffins. They were altogether
• 4:09:16
  Speaker 1: a motley and miserable set. Rabblis might have looked well
• 4:09:21
  Speaker 1: swinging in chains. Charlotte Corday is said to have died
• 4:09:24
  Speaker 1: like an actress. Beale hung not without dignity. But these people,
• 4:09:30
  Speaker 1: aspiring to overturn a nation, bore the appearance of a
• 4:09:34
  Speaker 1: troop of ignorant folks, expiating the bloodshed of a brawl.
• 4:09:39
  Speaker 1: When General Hartromt finished reading, there was momentary law, broken
• 4:09:43
  Speaker 1: only by the cadences of the priests, and the reverend.
• 4:09:47
  Speaker 1: Mister Gillette addressed the spectators in a deep, impressive tone.
• 4:09:52
  Speaker 1: The prisoner Lewis Thornton Powell otherwise pain requested him to
• 4:09:56
  Speaker 1: thus publicly and sincerely return his thanks to Jennarl Hartroft,
• 4:10:01
  Speaker 1: the other officers, the soldiers, and all persons who had
• 4:10:04
  Speaker 1: charge of him and had attended him. Not one unkind word,
• 4:10:09
  Speaker 1: look or gesture had been given to him by any one.
• 4:10:13
  Speaker 1: Doctor Gillette then followed in a fervent prayer in behalf
• 4:10:16
  Speaker 1: of the prisoner, during which Paine's eyes momentarily filled with tears,
• 4:10:21
  Speaker 1: and he followed in the prayer with visible feeling. Reverend
• 4:10:26
  Speaker 1: Doctor Olds followed, saying in behalf of the prisoner David E. Herald,
• 4:10:31
  Speaker 1: that he tendered his forgiveness to all who had wronged him,
• 4:10:34
  Speaker 1: and asked the forgiveness of all whom he had wronged.
• 4:10:38
  Speaker 1: He gave his thanks to the officers and guards for
• 4:10:40
  Speaker 1: kindnesses rendered him. He hoped that he had died in
• 4:10:44
  Speaker 1: charity with all men and at peace with God. Doctor
• 4:10:48
  Speaker 1: Olds concluded with a feeling prayer for the prisoner. Reverend
• 4:10:53
  Speaker 1: Doctor Butler then made a similar return of thanks on
• 4:10:56
  Speaker 1: behalf of George A. Atzerot for kindness received from his
• 4:11:00
  Speaker 1: guards and attendants, and concluded with an earnest invocation in
• 4:11:04
  Speaker 1: behalf of the criminal, saying that the blood of Jesus
• 4:11:07
  Speaker 1: cleanses from all sin, and asking that God Almighty might
• 4:11:12
  Speaker 1: have mercy upon this man. The solemnity of this portion
• 4:11:16
  Speaker 1: of the scene may be imagined the several clergymen speaking
• 4:11:20
  Speaker 1: in order the dying testament of their clients, and making
• 4:11:24
  Speaker 1: the hot hours fresh with the soft harmonies of their benedictions.
• 4:11:30
  Speaker 1: The two Holy Fathers, having received Missus Surrat's confession after
• 4:11:33
  Speaker 1: the custom of their creed, observed silence. In this as
• 4:11:37
  Speaker 1: in other respects, Missus Surrat's last hours were entirely modest
• 4:11:41
  Speaker 1: and womanly. The stage was still filled with people. The
• 4:11:47
  Speaker 1: crisis of the occasion had come. The chairs were all withdrawn,
• 4:11:51
  Speaker 1: and the condemned stood upon their feet. The process of
• 4:11:54
  Speaker 1: tying the limbs began. It was with a shudder, almost
• 4:11:59
  Speaker 1: a blush, that I saw an officer gather the ropes
• 4:12:02
  Speaker 1: tightly three times about the robes of Missus Surat and
• 4:12:05
  Speaker 1: bind her ankles with cords. She half fainted and sank
• 4:12:09
  Speaker 1: backward upon the attendants, her limbs, yielding to the extremity
• 4:12:13
  Speaker 1: of her terror, but uttering no cry, only a kind
• 4:12:16
  Speaker 1: of sick groaning, like one in the weakness of fever.
• 4:12:20
  Speaker 1: When a wry medicine must be taken, Payne, with his
• 4:12:24
  Speaker 1: feet firmly laced together, stood straight as one of the
• 4:12:27
  Speaker 1: scaffold beams, and braced himself up so stoutly that this
• 4:12:31
  Speaker 1: in part prevented the breaking of his neck. Harold stood
• 4:12:36
  Speaker 1: well beneath the drop, still whimpering at the lips, but
• 4:12:39
  Speaker 1: taut and short and boyish at surat in his groveling attitude.
• 4:12:45
  Speaker 1: While they tied him, began to indulge in his old
• 4:12:48
  Speaker 1: vice of gabbing. He evidently wished to make his finale
• 4:12:51
  Speaker 1: more effective than his previous cowardly roll, and perhaps was
• 4:12:55
  Speaker 1: strengthening his fortitude with a speech, as we sometimes do
• 4:12:59
  Speaker 1: of dark nights. With a whistle. Gentlemen, he said, with
• 4:13:03
  Speaker 1: a sort of choke and gasp, take where he evidently
• 4:13:08
  Speaker 1: meant beware or take care, and confounded them again. When
• 4:13:13
  Speaker 1: the white death cap was drawn over his face, he
• 4:13:16
  Speaker 1: continued to cry out under it, once saying goodbye, gentleman's
• 4:13:21
  Speaker 1: who is before me now? And again may we meet
• 4:13:25
  Speaker 1: in the other world. Finally, he drifted away with low,
• 4:13:29
  Speaker 1: half intelligible ebullitions as God helped me. Oh oh, and
• 4:13:34
  Speaker 1: the like the rest said nothing except Missus Surrat, who
• 4:13:39
  Speaker 1: asked to be supported that she might not fall. But
• 4:13:42
  Speaker 1: Harold protested against the knot with which he was to
• 4:13:44
  Speaker 1: be dislocated, it being as huge as one's double fist.
• 4:13:49
  Speaker 1: In fact, all the mechanical preparations were clumsy and inartistic,
• 4:13:52
  Speaker 1: and the final scenes of the execution therefore revolting in
• 4:13:55
  Speaker 1: the extreme. When the death caps were all drawn over
• 4:13:59
  Speaker 1: the faces of the prisoners, and they stood in line
• 4:14:01
  Speaker 1: in the awful suspense between absolute life and immediate death,
• 4:14:05
  Speaker 1: a man at the neck of each adjusting the cord.
• 4:14:09
  Speaker 1: The knot beneath the ears of each protruded five or
• 4:14:11
  Speaker 1: six inches, and the cord was so thick that it
• 4:14:14
  Speaker 1: could not be made to press tightly against the flesh.
• 4:14:19
  Speaker 1: So they stood while nearly a thousand faces from window, roof, wall,
• 4:14:23
  Speaker 1: yard and house top gazed, the scaffold behind them, still
• 4:14:27
  Speaker 1: densely packed, with the assistants and the four executioners beneath
• 4:14:31
  Speaker 1: standing at their swinging beams. The priests continued to murmur prayers.
• 4:14:37
  Speaker 1: The people were dumb, as if each witness stood alone,
• 4:14:40
  Speaker 1: with none near by to talk to him. An instant
• 4:14:44
  Speaker 1: this continued while an officer on the plot before motioned
• 4:14:47
  Speaker 1: back the assistance, and then with a forward thrust of
• 4:14:50
  Speaker 1: his hand signaled the executioners. The great beams were darted
• 4:14:54
  Speaker 1: against the props simultaneously. The two traps fell with a slam.
• 4:14:58
  Speaker 1: The four bodies dropped like a single thing outside the
• 4:15:01
  Speaker 1: yet crowded remnant of the gallows floor, and swayed and
• 4:15:05
  Speaker 1: turned to and fro here and there, forward and backward,
• 4:15:08
  Speaker 1: and with many a helpless spasm, while the spectators took
• 4:15:12
  Speaker 1: a little rush forward, and the ropes were taut as
• 4:15:15
  Speaker 1: the struggling pulses of the dying Missus Serat's neck was broken.
• 4:15:20
  Speaker 1: Immediately she scarcely drew one breath, Her short woman's figure,
• 4:15:24
  Speaker 1: with the skirts looped closely about it, merely dangled by
• 4:15:28
  Speaker 1: the vibration of her swift descent, and with the knot
• 4:15:31
  Speaker 1: holding true under the ear. Her head leaned sideways, and
• 4:15:34
  Speaker 1: her pinioned arms seemed content with their confinement. Paine died
• 4:15:39
  Speaker 1: a horrible death. The knot slipped to the back of
• 4:15:43
  Speaker 1: his neck and bent his head forward on his breast,
• 4:15:45
  Speaker 1: so that he strangled as he drew his deep chest
• 4:15:48
  Speaker 1: almost to his chin, and the knees contracted till they
• 4:15:52
  Speaker 1: almost seemed to touch his abdomen. The veins in his
• 4:15:55
  Speaker 1: great wrists were like whip cords, expanded to twice their
• 4:15:59
  Speaker 1: natural diamonds chins, and the huge neck grew almost black
• 4:16:03
  Speaker 1: with the dark blood that rushed in a flood to
• 4:16:05
  Speaker 1: the circling rope. A long while he swayed and twisted
• 4:16:10
  Speaker 1: and struggled, till at last Nature ceased her rebellion, and
• 4:16:15
  Speaker 1: life went out unwillingly. Harold also passed through some struggles.
• 4:16:21
  Speaker 1: It is doubtful that his neck was broken. The perspiration
• 4:16:24
  Speaker 1: dripped from his feet, and he swung in the hot noon,
• 4:16:27
  Speaker 1: just living enough to make death irritable. Atzerot died easily.
• 4:16:33
  Speaker 1: Life did not care to fight for his possession. The
• 4:16:37
  Speaker 1: two central figures lived long after the two upon the flanks.
• 4:16:42
  Speaker 1: There they hung bundles of carcass and old clothes for
• 4:16:45
  Speaker 1: in a row, and passed all conspiracy or ambition, the
• 4:16:50
  Speaker 1: river rolling by without a sound, and men watching them
• 4:16:54
  Speaker 1: with a shiver, while the heat of the day seemed
• 4:16:57
  Speaker 1: suddenly abated, as if by the sudden opening of a tomb.
• 4:17:03
  Speaker 1: The officers conversed in a half audible tone. The reporters
• 4:17:06
  Speaker 1: put up their books. The assistants descended from the gallows,
• 4:17:10
  Speaker 1: and the medical men drew near. No wind stirred the
• 4:17:14
  Speaker 1: unbreathing bodies. They were stone dead. The bodies were allowed
• 4:17:19
  Speaker 1: to hang about twenty minutes, when surgeon Otis U. S
• 4:17:23
  Speaker 1: V and assistant surgeons Woodward and Porter U. S. A
• 4:17:27
  Speaker 1: examined them and pronounced all dead. In about ten minutes more,
• 4:17:32
  Speaker 1: a ladder was placed against the scaffold preparatory to cutting
• 4:17:35
  Speaker 1: the bodies down. An over zealous soldier on the platform
• 4:17:38
  Speaker 1: reached over and severed the cord, letting one body fall
• 4:17:41
  Speaker 1: with a thump, when he was immediately ordered down and reprimanded.
• 4:17:46
  Speaker 1: The body of Atsarat was placed in a strong white
• 4:17:49
  Speaker 1: pine box, and the other bodies cut down in the
• 4:17:52
  Speaker 1: following order Herald Powell and Missus Surat. The carcasses, thus recovered,
• 4:17:59
  Speaker 1: were given over to a squad of soldiers and each
• 4:18:01
  Speaker 1: placed in a pine box without uncovering the faces. The
• 4:18:04
  Speaker 1: boxes were forthwith placed in the pits prepared for them,
• 4:18:08
  Speaker 1: and directly all but the memory of their offense passed
• 4:18:11
  Speaker 1: from the recording daylight. In the gloomy shadow of that
• 4:18:15
  Speaker 1: arsenal lies all the motive and essay of a crime
• 4:18:18
  Speaker 1: which might have changed the destinies of our race. It
• 4:18:22
  Speaker 1: will be forever a place of suspicion and marvel, a
• 4:18:26
  Speaker 1: haunted spot of the capital, and the terror of all who,
• 4:18:30
  Speaker 1: to end of fancied evil, cut their way to right
• 4:18:33
  Speaker 1: with a dagger. End of Letter nine. Extramural scenes, as
• 4:18:43
  Speaker 1: everything connected with this expiation will be greedily read, I
• 4:18:47
  Speaker 1: compile from gossip and report a statement of the last
• 4:18:50
  Speaker 1: intramural hours of the prisoners. During the morning, a female
• 4:18:55
  Speaker 1: friend of Atsorat from Port Tobacco had an interview with him,
• 4:18:58
  Speaker 1: she leaving him about eleven o'clock. He made the following statement.
• 4:19:04
  Speaker 1: He took a room at the Kirkwood House on Thursday
• 4:19:07
  Speaker 1: in order to get a pass from Vice President Johnson
• 4:19:10
  Speaker 1: to go to Richmond. Booth was to lease the Richmond
• 4:19:13
  Speaker 1: Theater and the President was to be invited to attend
• 4:19:16
  Speaker 1: it when visiting Richmond. And captured there, Harold brought the
• 4:19:20
  Speaker 1: pistol and knife to the room about half past two
• 4:19:22
  Speaker 1: o'clock on Friday. He Atsorrot said he would have nothing
• 4:19:27
  Speaker 1: to do with the murder of Johnson. When Booth said
• 4:19:29
  Speaker 1: that Harold had more courage than Atsrot, and he wanted
• 4:19:32
  Speaker 1: Atserot to be with Harold to urge him to do it.
• 4:19:35
  Speaker 1: There was a meeting at a restaurant about the middle
• 4:19:37
  Speaker 1: of March, at which John Serat O'Loughlin, Booth, Arnold Payne,
• 4:19:42
  Speaker 1: Harold and himself were present when a plan to capture
• 4:19:46
  Speaker 1: the President was discussed. They had heard the President was
• 4:19:49
  Speaker 1: to visit a camp, and they proposed to capture him
• 4:19:52
  Speaker 1: coach and all drive through long old fields to t B,
• 4:19:57
  Speaker 1: where the coach was to be left and fresh horses
• 4:19:59
  Speaker 1: were to begun, and the party would proceed to the
• 4:20:02
  Speaker 1: river to take a boat. Harold took a buggy to
• 4:20:05
  Speaker 1: t B in anticipation that mister Lincoln would be captured
• 4:20:08
  Speaker 1: and he was to go with the party to the river.
• 4:20:11
  Speaker 1: Slavery had put him on the side of the South.
• 4:20:14
  Speaker 1: He had heard it preached in church that the curse
• 4:20:17
  Speaker 1: of God was upon the slaves, for they were turned black.
• 4:20:21
  Speaker 1: He always hated the nigger and felt that they should
• 4:20:24
  Speaker 1: be kept in ignorance. He had not received any money
• 4:20:27
  Speaker 1: from Booth, although he had been promised that if they
• 4:20:30
  Speaker 1: were successful, they should never want that they would be
• 4:20:33
  Speaker 1: honored throughout the South, and that they could secure an
• 4:20:36
  Speaker 1: exchange of prisoners and the recognition of the Confederacy. Harold
• 4:20:42
  Speaker 1: slept well several hours, but most of the night he
• 4:20:44
  Speaker 1: was sitting up, either engaged with his pastor, Reverend Mister
• 4:20:48
  Speaker 1: Olds of Christ Church, or in prayer. His sisters were
• 4:20:53
  Speaker 1: with him from an early hour this morning to twelve o'clock,
• 4:20:56
  Speaker 1: they being present when he partook of the sacrament at
• 4:20:59
  Speaker 1: the hands of doctor Olds. The parting was particularly affecting.
• 4:21:04
  Speaker 1: Harold conversed freely with them and expressed himself prepared to die.
• 4:21:10
  Speaker 1: Powell conversed with doctor Gillette and doctor Striker on religious
• 4:21:14
  Speaker 1: topics during the morning, sitting erect as he did in
• 4:21:17
  Speaker 1: the court room. From his conversation it appears that he
• 4:21:21
  Speaker 1: was raised religiously and belonged to the Baptist Church until
• 4:21:24
  Speaker 1: after the breaking out of the rebellion. He appeared to
• 4:21:28
  Speaker 1: be sincerely repentant, and in his cell shed tears freely.
• 4:21:32
  Speaker 1: He gave his advisers several commissions of a private character,
• 4:21:36
  Speaker 1: and stated that he was willing to meet his God,
• 4:21:39
  Speaker 1: asking all men to forgive and forgiving all who had
• 4:21:43
  Speaker 1: done aught against him. Colonel Doster, his counsel also took
• 4:21:48
  Speaker 1: leave of him during the morning, as well as with Atsorat. Missus.
• 4:21:53
  Speaker 1: Surat's daughter was with her at an early hour. One
• 4:21:57
  Speaker 1: of her male friends also had an interview with her
• 4:22:00
  Speaker 1: and received directions concerning the disposition of her property. During
• 4:22:04
  Speaker 1: the night and morning, she received the ministrations of Reverends. J. A.
• 4:22:08
  Speaker 1: Walter and B. F. Wigett, and conversed freely with them, expressing,
• 4:22:13
  Speaker 1: while protesting her innocence, her willingness to meet her God.
• 4:22:17
  Speaker 1: Her counsel, Messrs Aiken and Clampett, took leave of her
• 4:22:21
  Speaker 1: during the morning. A singular feature of this execution was
• 4:22:27
  Speaker 1: the arrest of General Hancock this morning, who appeared in
• 4:22:30
  Speaker 1: court to answer a writ of habeas corpus with a
• 4:22:33
  Speaker 1: full staff. It is well to notice that this execution
• 4:22:37
  Speaker 1: by military order has mopped therefore passed without civil protest.
• 4:22:42
  Speaker 1: President Johnson extended to General Hancock the right conferred upon
• 4:22:45
  Speaker 1: the President by Congress of setting aside the habeas corpus.
• 4:22:50
  Speaker 1: As usual in such executions as this, there were many
• 4:22:54
  Speaker 1: stirring outside episodes in much shrewd mixture of tragedy and business.
• 4:23:00
  Speaker 1: Photographer took note of the scene in all its phases
• 4:23:02
  Speaker 1: from a window of a portion of the jail. Six
• 4:23:06
  Speaker 1: artists were present and thirty seven special correspondents who came
• 4:23:10
  Speaker 1: to Washington only for this occasion. The passes to the
• 4:23:15
  Speaker 1: execution were written, not printed, and accepting the bungling mechanism
• 4:23:19
  Speaker 1: of the scaffold, the sorrowful event went off with more
• 4:23:23
  Speaker 1: than usual good order. Everybody feels relieved to night because
• 4:23:28
  Speaker 1: half of the crime is buried. On Monday, Mud, Arnold,
• 4:23:33
  Speaker 1: o' laughlin and Spangler will go northward to prison. The
• 4:23:37
  Speaker 1: three former for life, the last for six years. Applications
• 4:23:43
  Speaker 1: for pardon were made yesterday and to day to President
• 4:23:46
  Speaker 1: Johnson by Missus Samuel Mudd, who is quite woebegone and
• 4:23:50
  Speaker 1: disappointed in behalf of her husband, by the sisters of Harold,
• 4:23:55
  Speaker 1: and by miss Ann sur Rat. Harold's sisters, dressed in
• 4:23:59
  Speaker 1: full mourning and heavily veiled, made their appearance at the
• 4:24:02
  Speaker 1: White House for the purpose of interceding with the President
• 4:24:04
  Speaker 1: in behalf of their brother. Failing to see the President,
• 4:24:08
  Speaker 1: they addressed a note to Missus Johnson and expressed a
• 4:24:12
  Speaker 1: hope that she would not turn a deaf ear to
• 4:24:14
  Speaker 1: their pleadings. Missus Johnson being quite sick, it was deemed
• 4:24:19
  Speaker 1: expedient by the ushers not to deliver the note, when
• 4:24:22
  Speaker 1: as a last expedient, the ladies asked permission to forward
• 4:24:25
  Speaker 1: a note to Missus Patterson, the President's daughter, which privilege
• 4:24:30
  Speaker 1: was not granted, as Missus Patterson is also quite indisposed.
• 4:24:34
  Speaker 1: To day, the poor girls went away with their last
• 4:24:38
  Speaker 1: hope shattered. The misery of the pretty and heartbroken daughter
• 4:24:43
  Speaker 1: of Missus Surrat is the talk of the city. The
• 4:24:46
  Speaker 1: girl appears to have loved her mother with all the
• 4:24:48
  Speaker 1: petulant passion of a child. She visited her constantly, and
• 4:24:53
  Speaker 1: to day made so stirring an effort to obtain her
• 4:24:56
  Speaker 1: life that her devotion takes half the disgrace from the mother.
• 4:25:00
  Speaker 1: She got the priest to speak in her behalf. Early
• 4:25:03
  Speaker 1: to day she knelt in the cell at her mother's
• 4:25:06
  Speaker 1: feet and sobbed with now and then a pitiful scream,
• 4:25:09
  Speaker 1: till the gloomy corridors rang. She endeavored to win from
• 4:25:13
  Speaker 1: pain a statement that her mother was not accessory, and
• 4:25:16
  Speaker 1: as a last resort, flung herself upon the steps of
• 4:25:19
  Speaker 1: the White House and made that portal memorable by her
• 4:25:23
  Speaker 1: filial tears. About half past eight o'clock this morning, Miss Surrat,
• 4:25:28
  Speaker 1: accompanied by a female friend, again visited the White House
• 4:25:32
  Speaker 1: for the purpose of obtaining an interview with the President,
• 4:25:35
  Speaker 1: the latter having given orders that he would receive no
• 4:25:38
  Speaker 1: one to day. The door keeper stopped Miss Surat at
• 4:25:41
  Speaker 1: the foot of the steps leading up to the President's
• 4:25:43
  Speaker 1: office and would not permit her to proceed further. She
• 4:25:48
  Speaker 1: then asked permission to see General Muzzy, the President's military secretary,
• 4:25:52
  Speaker 1: who promptly answered the summons and came downstairs where Miss
• 4:25:56
  Speaker 1: Surrat was standing. As soon as the General made his appearance,
• 4:26:00
  Speaker 1: Miss Surrat threw herself upon her knees before him, and,
• 4:26:03
  Speaker 1: catching him by the coat, with loud sobs and streaming eyes,
• 4:26:08
  Speaker 1: implored him to assist her in obtaining a hearing with
• 4:26:10
  Speaker 1: the President. General Muzzy, in as tender a manner as possible,
• 4:26:15
  Speaker 1: informed Miss Surrat that he could not comply with her request,
• 4:26:19
  Speaker 1: as President Johnson's orders were imperative and he would receive
• 4:26:23
  Speaker 1: no one. Upon General Muzzy returning to his office, Miss
• 4:26:27
  Speaker 1: Surrat threw herself upon the stair steps, where she remained
• 4:26:31
  Speaker 1: a considerable length of time, sobbing aloud in the greatest anguish,
• 4:26:35
  Speaker 1: protesting her mother's innocence and imploring every one who came
• 4:26:39
  Speaker 1: near her to intercede in her mother's behalf. While thus weeping,
• 4:26:44
  Speaker 1: she declared her mother was too good and kind to
• 4:26:46
  Speaker 1: be guilty of the enormous crime of which she was convicted,
• 4:26:50
  Speaker 1: and asserted that if her mother was put to death,
• 4:26:52
  Speaker 1: she wished to die also. She was finally allowed to
• 4:26:56
  Speaker 1: sit in the east room, where she lay in wait
• 4:26:59
  Speaker 1: for all who entered, hoping to make them efficacious in
• 4:27:02
  Speaker 1: her behalf, all the while uttering her weary heart in
• 4:27:05
  Speaker 1: a woman's touching cries. But at last, certain of disappointment,
• 4:27:12
  Speaker 1: she drove again to the jail and lay in her
• 4:27:14
  Speaker 1: mother's cell with the heavy face of one who brings
• 4:27:17
  Speaker 1: ill news. The parting will consecrate those gloomy walls. The
• 4:27:24
  Speaker 1: daughter saw the mother pinioned, and kissed her wet face
• 4:27:27
  Speaker 1: as she went shuddering to the scaffold. The last words
• 4:27:32
  Speaker 1: of missus Surratt, as she went out of the jail,
• 4:27:34
  Speaker 1: were addressed to a gentleman whom she had known, good bye,
• 4:27:39
  Speaker 1: take care of Annie.
• 4:27:42
  Speaker 2: To night.
• 4:27:43
  Speaker 1: There is crape on the door of the Surats, and
• 4:27:46
  Speaker 1: the lonely lamp shines at a single window, where the
• 4:27:48
  Speaker 1: sad orphan is thinking of her bereavement. The bodies of
• 4:27:53
  Speaker 1: the dead have been applied for, but at present will
• 4:27:57
  Speaker 1: not be given up. Judge Holt was petitioned all last
• 4:28:02
  Speaker 1: night for the lives and liberties of the condemned, but
• 4:28:05
  Speaker 1: he was inexorable. The soldiers who hung the condemned were
• 4:28:10
  Speaker 1: appointed against their will. I forbear to give their names,
• 4:28:14
  Speaker 1: as they do not wish the repute of executioners. They
• 4:28:18
  Speaker 1: all belong to the fourteenth Veteran Reserve Infantry. Here endeth
• 4:28:25
  Speaker 1: the story of this tragedy upon a tragedy. All are
• 4:28:29
  Speaker 1: glad that it is done. I am glad particularly it
• 4:28:32
  Speaker 1: has cost me. How many journeying to Washington, how many
• 4:28:36
  Speaker 1: hot midnights in the telegraph office, how many gallops into
• 4:28:40
  Speaker 1: wild places, and how much revolting familiarity with blood. The
• 4:28:47
  Speaker 1: end has come. The slain, both good and evil, are
• 4:28:52
  Speaker 1: in their graves, out of the reach of hangman and assassin.
• 4:28:56
  Speaker 1: Only the correspondent never dies. He is the true path antheist,
• 4:29:00
  Speaker 1: going out of nature for a week, but bursting forth
• 4:29:03
  Speaker 1: afresh in a day, and so insinuating himself into the
• 4:29:06
  Speaker 1: history of our era, that it is beginning to be
• 4:29:09
  Speaker 1: hard to find out where the event ends and the
• 4:29:12
  Speaker 1: writer begins. Next week Ford's Theater opens with the Octoroon.
• 4:29:18
  Speaker 1: The gas will be pearly as ever, the scenes as rich.
• 4:29:21
  Speaker 1: The blood stained footlights will flash as of old upon
• 4:29:24
  Speaker 1: merry and mimicking faces. So the world has its tragic ebullitions,
• 4:29:30
  Speaker 1: but its real career is comedy. Over the graves of
• 4:29:34
  Speaker 1: the good and scaffolds of the evil sits the leering Momus,
• 4:29:38
  Speaker 1: a cross whose face death sometimes brings sleep, but never
• 4:29:43
  Speaker 1: a wrinkle. End of the life, Crime and Capture of
• 4:29:50
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth by George Alfred Townsend