He had carefully thought the thing over, and concluded that the government would not be able to fix guilt upon him, and so he thought to have the benefit of a seeming willingness to be arrested, as presumptive proof of his innocence. He had gone to Washington on the 13th with three companions, ostensibly to see the parade and illumination in commemoration of the surrender of Lee's army, and to "have a good time," as his companions expressed it in their evidence in his behalf on his defense.
He kept with these companions in the rounds of their drunken carousal and debaucheries enough to blind them as to the real object of his visit. They were drinking freely during the Thursday and Friday of their stay, and were evidently unable to give a connected and reliable account of O'Laughlin's whereabouts during the whole of the time. They thought he spent most of the time in company with one or the other of them; but they admitted that he had had a long interview with Booth at his room at the National Hotel on Friday, the 14th. It was positively proven, however, that he was at the house of Secretary Stanton on the occasion of the reception given to General Grant on the night of the 13th; that he seemed to be in a state of partial intoxication, and pushed himself through the crowd into the hall inquiring for General Grant, saying he wanted to see him. He was told by the Secretary's son that that was no occasion for him to see him, and to step out onto the pavement where the carriage stopped, and he could see him. He stood for some time in the hall looking in through the door at the General. He also said he wanted to see Stanton, and being asked if it was the Secretary he wished to see, he said it was. The Secretary was pointed out to him, but he did not go to him. His manner was so impertinently obtrusive and rude that he was finally requested to leave, and was escorted out of the house by the son of the Secretary. Mr. Stanton at first thought him to be intoxicated, but upon conversing with him concluded he was not. It would appear from all this that the part Booth had assigned to him was the assassination of General Grant, and that his visit to the house of the Secretary was for the purpose of so acquainting himself with the form and features of the General as to be able readily to identify him. Had not the General been called away on that Friday afternoon,—had he accompanied the President to the theatre, as he had intended doing,—there is scarcely a doubt that "Peanuts" would have had two horses to hold, or that some other arrangements would have been made for General Grant's assassination that would have made O'Laughlin a companion of Booth in his flight.
We have now seen the development of Booth's plot, and its partial success, but, as to the real object of it, its entire failure. The thing proposed by the head conspirators, whose agents we have been following up in their efforts for its accomplishment, failed of its realization. They had hoped by the policy of assassination to put the rapidly waning cause of the confederacy on its feet again under new and more favorable auspices.
The cause, at the time of this attempt to thus give it aid, was already lost on the field of military conflict beyond hope of recovery. The whole people, North and South, saw that the war was at an end; that the brief day of the so-called Southern Confederacy was over—that its sun had set; and great as must have been the disappointment of those who had so fruitlessly plunged the country into the greatest civil war that history records, they were quite content to accept and make the best of their failure.
Both parties were glad that the contest had been decided, and of the opportunity to lay down their arms, and return to the pursuits of peaceful life. Had not Booth kept himself as full of whiskey as he was of his fiendish purpose, had he given himself an opportunity to scan the situation in a duly sober frame of mind, we think it even more than probable he would have abandoned the whole project as useless. But both he and his associates were free and constant drinkers, and by their frequent visits to saloons, as shown by the whole run of the testimony before the Commission, it would seem probable that they scarcely ever drew an absolutely sober breath, and so could not realize the true situation of the cause they sought to serve.
MICHAEL O'LAUGHLIN.
The Canada conspirators are in like manner, according to all the testimony, shown to have been free drinkers. All of their diabolical schemes were most probably the products of minds acting under the influence of alcoholic stimulants, and this may in some degree account for the obtundity of their moral perceptions. It has been said by one who was personally cognizant of the fact, that alcohol precipitated the rebellion, and that its leaders in both branches of Congress kept themselves constantly under the excitement of alcoholic stimulants and so were made reckless of consequences.
Arrest of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd.
It will be remembered that in giving the history of Booth's flight, we found him and Herold at the house of Dr. S. A. Mudd, at about four o'clock on the morning of the 15th of April, they having ridden thirty miles in about six hours after leaving Washington. They would no doubt have stopped at Mudd's, even had Booth not needed his services as a surgeon, for a short respite and refreshment, as the doctor was, as we shall hereafter see, a co-conspirator with Booth. Booth's broken leg had by this time become very painful, and this made it necessary that he should stop to have it dressed. Mudd dressed his leg, as he himself said, as well as he could with the means at his command, and giving them refreshments, he placed Booth in a chamber upstairs where he remained until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Mudd and Herold went out, as Mudd said, to find a carriage in which to take Booth on his journey; but it is more likely Mudd was showing Herold a by-way toward the Potomac, at the point where they expected to cross, whilst Booth was resting.