O'Laughlin had come to Washington the day before, had sought out his victim (General Grant) at the house of the Secretary of War, that he might be able with certainty to identify him, and at the very hour when these preparations were going on was lying in wait at Rullman's on the Avenue, keeping watch, and declaring, as he did, at about ten o'clock P.M., when told that the fatal blow had been struck by Booth, "I don't believe Booth did it." During the day, and the night before, he had been visiting Booth, and doubtless encouraging him, and at that very hour was in position, at a convenient distance, to aid and protect him in his flight, as well as to execute his own part of the conspiracy by inflicting death upon General Grant, who, happily, was not at the theatre nor in the city, having left the city that day. Who doubts that Booth, having ascertained in the course of the day that General Grant would not be present at the theatre, O'Laughlin, who was to murder General Grant, instead of entering the box with Booth, was detailed to lie in wait, and watch and support him.
His declarations of his reasons for changing his lodgings here and in Baltimore, after the murder, so ably and so ingeniously presented in the argument of his learned counsel (Mr. Cox), avail nothing before the blasting fact that he did change his lodgings, and declared "he knew nothing of the affair whatever." O'Laughlin, who lurked here, conspiring daily with Booth and Arnold for six weeks to do this murder, declares "he knew nothing of the affair." O'Laughlin, who said he was "in the oil business," which Booth and Surratt and Payne and Arnold have all declared meant this conspiracy, says he "knew nothing of the affair." O'Laughlin, to whom Booth sent the despatches of the 13th and 27th of March—O'Laughlin, who is named in Arnold's letter as one of the conspirators, and who searched for General Grant on Thursday night, laid in wait for him on Friday, was defeated by that Providence "which shapes our ends," and laid in wait to aid Booth and Payne, declares "he knows nothing of the matter." Such a denial is as false and inexcusable as Peter's denial of our Lord.
Mrs. Surratt had arrived at home, from the completion of her part in the plot, about half past eight o'clock in the evening. A few moments afterwards she was called to the parlor and there had a private interview with some one unseen, but whose retreating footsteps were heard by the witness Wiechmann. This was doubtless the secret and last visit of John H. Surratt to his mother, who had instigated and encouraged him to strike this traitorous and murderous blow against his country.
While all these preparations were going on, Mudd was awaiting the execution of the plot, ready to faithfully perform his part in securing the safe escape of the murderers. Arnold was at his post at Fortress Monroe, awaiting the meeting referred to in his letter of March 27th, wherein he says they were not "to meet for a month or so," which month had more than expired on the day of the murder, for his letter and the testimony disclose that this month of suspension began to run from about the first week in March. He stood ready with the arms which Booth had furnished him to aid the escape of the murderers by that route, and secure their communication with their employers. He had given the assurance in that letter to Booth, that although the government "suspicioned them," and the undertaking was "becoming complicated," yet "a time more propitious would arrive" for the consummation of this conspiracy in which he "was one" with Booth, and when he would "be better prepared to again be with him."
Such were the preparations. The horses were in readiness for the flight; the ropes were procured, doubtless for the purpose of tying the horses at whatever point they might be constrained to delay and to secure their boats to their moorings in making their way across the Potomac. The five murderous camp knives, the two carbines, the eight revolvers, the derringer, in court and identified, all were ready for the work of death. The part that each had played has already been in part stated in this argument, and needs no repetition.
Booth proceeded to the theatre about nine o'clock in the evening, at the same time that Atzerodt and Payne and Herold were riding the streets, while Surratt, having parted with his mother at the brief interview in her parlor, from which his retreating steps were heard, was walking the Avenue, booted and spurred, and doubtless consulting with O'Laughlin. When Booth reached the rear of the theatre, he called Spangler to him (whose denial of that fact, when charged with it, as proven by three witnesses is very significant) and received from Spangler his pledge to help him all he could, when with Booth he entered the theatre by the stage-door, doubtless to see that the way was clear from the box to the rear door of the theatre, and look upon their victim, whose exact position they could study from the stage. After this view, Booth passes to the street in front of the theatre, where, on the pavement with other conspirators yet unknown, among them one described as a low-browed villain, he awaits the appointed moment. Booth himself, impatient, enters the vestibule of the theatre from the front and asks the time. He is referred to the clock, and returns. Presently, as the hour of ten o'clock approached, one of his guilty associates called the time; they wait; again, as the moments elapsed, this conspirator upon watch called the time; again, as the appointed hour draws nigh, he calls the time; and finally, when the fatal moment arrives, he repeats in a louder tone, "Ten minutes past ten o'clock!" Ten minutes past ten o'clock! The hour has come when the red right hand of these murderous conspirators should strike, and the dreadful deed of assassination be done.
Booth, at the appointed moment, entered the theatre, ascended to the dress-circle, passed to the right, paused a moment, looking down, doubtless to see if Spangler was at his post, and approached the outer door of the close passage leading to the box occupied by the President, pressed it open, passed in, and closed the passage door behind him. Spangler's bar was in its place, and was readily adjusted by Booth in the mortise, and pressed against the inner side of the door, so that he was secure from interruption from without. He passes on to the next door, immediately behind the President, and there stopping, looks through the aperture in the door into the President's box, and deliberately observes the precise position of his victim, seated in the chair which had been prepared by the conspirators as the altar for the sacrifice, looking calmly and quietly down upon the glad and grateful people whom by his fidelity he had saved from the peril which had threatened the destruction of their government, and all they held dear this side of the grave, and whom he had come upon invitation to greet with his presence, with the words still lingering upon his lips which he had uttered with uncovered head and uplifted hand before God and his country, when on the 4th of last March he took again the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, declaring that he entered upon the duties of his great office "with malice toward none—with charity for all." In a moment more, strengthened by the knowledge that his co-conspirators were all at their posts, seven at least of them present in the city, two of them, Mudd and Arnold, at their appointed places, watching for his coming, this hired assassin moves stealthily through the door, the fastenings of which had been removed to facilitate his entrance, fires upon his victim, and the martyr spirit of Abraham Lincoln ascends to God.
"Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further."
At the same hour, when these accused and their co-conspirators in Richmond and Canada, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth, inflicted this mortal wound which deprived the republic of its defender, and filled this land from ocean to ocean with a strange, great sorrow, Payne, a very demon in human form, with the words of falsehood upon his lips, that he was the bearer of a message from the physician of the venerable Secretary of State, sweeps by his servant, encounters his son, who protests that the assassin shall not disturb his father, prostrate on a bed of sickness, and receives for answer the assassin's blow from the revolver in his hand, repeated again and again, rushes into the room, is encountered by Major Seward, inflicts wound after wound upon him with his murderous knife, is encountered by Hansell and Robinson, each of whom he also wounds, springs upon the defenseless and feeble Secretary of State, stabs first on one side of his throat, then on the other, again in the face, and is only prevented from literally hacking out his life by the persistence and courage of the attendant Robinson. He turns to flee, and, his giant arm and murderous hand for a moment paralyzed by the consciousness of guilt, he drops his weapons of death, one in the house, the other at the door, where they were taken up, and are here now to bear witness against him. He attempts escape on the horse which Booth and Mudd had procured of Gardner, with what success has already been stated.
Atzerodt, near midnight, returns to the stable of Naylor the horse which he had procured for this work of murder, having been interrupted in the execution of the part assigned him at the Kirkwood House by the timely coming of citizens to the defense of the Vice-President, and creeps into the Pennsylvania House at two o'clock in the morning with another of the conspirators, yet unknown. There he remained until about five o'clock, when he left, found his way to Georgetown, pawned one of his revolvers, now in court, and fled northward into Maryland.