Part 6 (1/2)

It could not but have struck Booth that this isolated part of Maryland ignorant and rebel to the brim, without telegraph or railways, or direct stage routes, belted with swamps and broken by dense timber, afforded extraordinary opportunities for shelter and escape. Only the coast survey had any adequate map of it; it was _ultima thule_ to all intents, and treason might subsist in welcome upon it for a thousand years.

When Booth cast around him for a.s.sistance, he naturally selected those men whom he could control. The first that recommended himself was one Harold, a youth of inane and plastic character, carried away by the example of an actor, and full of execrable quotations, going to show that he was an imitator of the master spirit both in text and admiration. This Harold was a gunner, and therefore versed in arms; he had traversed the whole lower portion of Maryland, and was therefore a geographer as well as a tool. His friends lived at every farmhouse between Was.h.i.+ngton and Leonardsville, and he was respectably enough connected, so as to make his a.s.sociation creditable as well as useful.

Harold, whose picture I have seen, is a dull-faced, shallow boy, smooth-haired, and provincial; he had no money nor employment, except that he clerked for a druggist a while, until he knew Wilkes Booth, who looked at him only once, and bought his soul for a smile. Harold was infatuated by Booth as a woman by a soldier. He copied his gait and tone, adopted his opinions, and was unhappy out of his society. Booth gave him money, mysteriously obtained, and together they made the acquaintance of young John Surratt, son of the conspiratress.

Young Surratt does not appear to have been a puissant spirit in the scheme; indeed, all design and influence therein was absorbed by Mrs.

Surratt and Booth. The latter was the head and heart of the plot; Mrs.

Surratt was his anchor, and the rest of the boys were disciples to Iscariot and Jezebel. John Surratt, a youth of strong Southern physiognomy, beardless and lanky, knew of the murder and connived at it.

”Sam” Arnold and one McLaughlin were to have been parties to it, but backed out in the end. They all relied upon Mrs. Surratt, and took their ”cues” from Wilkes Booth.

The conspiracy had its own time and kept its own counsel. Murder except among the princ.i.p.als, was seldom mentioned except by genteel implication. But they all publicly agreed that Mr. Lincoln ought to be shot, and that the North was a race of fratricides. Much was said of Brutus, and Booth repeated heroic pa.s.sages to the delight of Harold, who learned them also, and wondered if he was not born to greatness.

In this growing darkness, where all rehea.r.s.ed cold-hearted murder, Wilkes Booth grew great of stature. He had found a purpose consonant with his evil nature and bad influence over weak men; so he grew moodier, more vigilant, more plausible. By mien and temperament he was born to handle a stiletto. We have no face so markedly Italian; it would stand for Caesar Borgia any day in the year. All the rest were swayed or persuaded by Booth; his schemes were three in order:

1st. To kidnap the President and Cabinet, and run them South or blow them up.

2d. Kidnapping failed, to murder the President and the rest and seek shelter in the confederate capital.

3d. The rebellion failed, to be its avenger, and throw the country into consternation, while he escaped by the unfrequented parts of Maryland.

When this last resolution had been made, the plot was both contracted and extended. There were made two distinct circles of confidants--those aware of the meditated murder, and those who might shrink from murder, though willing accessories for a lesser object. Two colleagues for blood were at once accepted--Payne and Atzerott.

The former I have sketched; he is believed to have visited Was.h.i.+ngton once before, at Booth's citation; for the murder was at first fixed for the day of inauguration. Atzerott was a fellow of German descent, who had led a desperate life at Port Tobacco, where he was a house-painter.

He had been a blockade-runner across the Potomac, and a mail-carrier.

When Booth and Mrs. Surratt broke the design to him, with a suggestion that there was wealth in it, he embraced the offer at once, and bought a dirk and pistol. Payne also came from the North to Was.h.i.+ngton, and, as fate would have it, the President was announced to appear at Ford's theater in public. There the resolve of blood was reduced to a definite moment.

On the night before the crime Booth found on whom he could rely. John Surratt was sent northward by his mother on Thursday. Sam Arnold and McLaughlin, each of whom was to kill a cabinet officer, grew pigeon-livered and ran away. Harold true to his partiality, lingered around Booth to the end; Atzerott went so far as to take his knife and pistol to Kirkwood's, where President Johnson was stopping, and hid them under the bed. But either his courage failed, or a trifling accident deranged his plan. But Payne, a professional murderer, stood ”game,” and fought his way over prostrate figures to his sick victim's bed. There was great confusion and terror among the tacit and rash conspirators on Thursday night. They had looked upon the plot as of a melodrama, and found to their horror that John Wilkes Booth meant to do murder.

Six weeks before the murder, young John Surratt had taken two splendid repeating carbines to Surrattville and told John Lloyd to secret them.

The latter made a hole in the wainscotting and suspended them from strings, so that they fell within the plastered wall of the room below.

On the very afternoon of the murder, Mrs. Surratt was driven to Surrattsville, and she told John Lloyd to have the carbines ready because they would be called for that night. Harold was made quartermaster, and hired the horses. He and Atzerott were mounted between 8 o'clock and the time of the murder, and riding about the streets together.

The whole party was prepared for a long ride, as their spurs and gauntlets show. It may have been their design to ride in company to the Lower Potomac, and by their numbers exact subsistence and transportation; but all edifices of murder lack a corner stone. We only know that Booth ate and talked well during the day; that he never seemed so deeply involved in 'oil,' and that there is a hiatus between his supper here and his appearance at Ford's theater.

Lloyd, I may interpolate, ordered his wife a few days before the murder to go on a visit to Allen's Fresh. She says she does not know why she was so sent away, but swears that it is so. Harold, three weeks before the murder, visited Port Tobacco, and said that the next time the boys heard of him he would be in Spain; he added that with Spain there was no extradition treaty. He said at Surrattsville that he meant to make a barrel of money, or his neck would stretch.

Atzerott said that if he ever came to Port Tobacco again he would be rich enough to buy the whole place.

Wilkes Booth told a friend to go to Ford's on Friday night and see the best acting in the world.

At Ford's theater, on Friday night, there were many standers in the neighborhood of the door, and along the dress circle in the direction of the private box where the President sat.

The play went on pleasantly, though Mr. Wilkes Booth an observer of the audience, visited the stage and took note of the positions. His alleged a.s.sociate, the stage carpenter, then received quiet orders to clear the pa.s.sage by the wings from the prompter's post to the stage door. All this time, Mr. Lincoln, in his family circle, unconscious of the death that crowded fast upon him, watched the pleasantry and smiled and felt heartful of gentleness.

Suddenly there was a murmur near the audience door, as of a man speaking above his bound. He said:

”Nine o'clock and forty-five minutes!”