JOHN WILKES BOOTH
In no other situation in life is the character of a man more fully and truthfully brought into view than when he is placed upon the witness- stand and subjected to an examination by counsel or others who aim to support opposite opinions and to reach adverse results. The committees that conducted the investigations were composed of men who entertained opposite views in regard to the reconstruction of the government and in regard to the impeachment of President Johnson. There was also a difference of opinion upon the question of the responsibility of the Confederate authorities for the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. As a consequence of this diversity of opinion the witnesses were subjected to the equivalent of a cross-examination in a court of justice. Some of the impressions of men that I received in the many hearings, and some of the opinions I formed, are recorded here.
In each branch of these comprehensive inquiries there may be found something in the nature of evidence that may appear to have a bearing upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. It is my purpose in these paragraphs to bring in to view the testimony which relates directly to John Wilkes Booth, the most conspicuous and without question the chief criminal in the tragedy of the assassination of President Lincoln, and the attempt upon the life of Mr. Seward.
The first step in the proceedings which culminated in the murder was the deposit at Surrattsville (a place about five miles from Washington, and owned by the Surratt family) of a carbine, two bottles of whiskey, a small coil of rope, a field glass, a monkey wrench, and some other articles.
The house was kept by a man named Lloyd, and neither the character of the house nor that of the keeper could bear a rigid test in ethics. The deposit was made about the first of March by John H. Surratt, Atzerodt and David E. Herold, all of whom were afterwards implicated in the crime. The articles were received and secreted by Lloyd, but only after objections by him, as appears from his testimony. Lloyd connected Mrs. Surratt with the crime by these facts as related by him. She called upon Lloyd the Tuesday preceding the fatal Friday and gave him this message: "She told me to have them ready (speaking of the shooting-iron) that they would be called for or wanted soon, I have forgotten which."
Mrs. Surratt made a second call the afternoon preceding the murder, when this conversation took place, as stated by Lloyd: "When I drove up in my buggy to the back yard Mrs. Surratt came out to meet me. She handed me a package, and told me as well as I remember to get the guns or those things—I really forget now which, though my impression is that guns was the expression she made use of—and a couple of bottles of whisky and give them to whoever should call for them that night."
That night, after the murder, Booth and Herold called, and took the carbine and drank of the whisky. In these facts there is a basis for a reasonable theory. The theory is this. Previous to the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army the Confederate authorities set on foot a scheme for the capture and abduction of Mr. Lincoln. The articles deposited, including the rope and the monkey wrench, might be useful had Mr. Lincoln been abducted, but when the crime became murder the rope and wrench were neglected.
This view derives support from two directions. In Booth's diary is this entry. "April 13-14 Friday. The Ides. Until to-day nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others who did not strike for their country with a heart."
Colonel Baker, a detective, testified that when he was in Canada, engaged in negotiations for the purchase of letters that had passed between the Confederate authorities at Richmond and Clay, Tucker, Thompson and others, he read a letter from Jefferson Davis to Jacob Thompson dated March 8, 1865, in which was this expression: "The consummation of the act that would have done more to have ended this terrible strife, being delayed, has probably ruined our cause."
The scheme for the abduction of Mr. Lincoln was a wild scheme, born of desperation, and its success would have worked only evil to the Confederacy. The purpose of the North would have been strengthened, the public feeling would have been embittered and the friendship of England and of the Continental states would have been suppressed. When Lee had surrendered, when Davis was fleeing from Richmond, when Benjamin was preparing to leave the country, the leaders of the Confederacy could not have entertained a project for the capture of Mr. Lincoln, nor of any injury to him whatever. Their opposition to Mr. Lincoln was not tainted with personal hostility. One fact remains; the persons who had knowledge of the project to abduct Mr. Lincoln and who were engaged in it at Washington, were implicated in the final crime.