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The place where it happened is one of the loneliest historic sites in America.
I should know. For more than a quarter of a century, I have been making disappointing anniversary pilgrimages to the site. My first was in 1987, my first spring in Washington, D.C., when my future wife and I served in the Reagan administration. After get off work we walked into the then seedy neighborhood surrounding Ford's Theater and discovered Geraldine's Beef House, a restaurant whose only attraction was a table near the front window with a clear view of the Ford to the N.W. 10th Street frontage. We decided to wait and see what would happen while we had dinner. Of course, we imagine, there will soon be a large crowd coming to pay their respects to the most beloved president in American history. No doubt the National Park Service, which has managed the Ford since 1933, will hold a grand ceremony.
Nine o'clock in the evening, nothing. 10 p.m. - About 20 minutes earlier, John Wilkes Booth had fired his single-shot Derrig pistol into the back of the president's head, without changing the nation's fate. Then we saw movement. A station wagon pulled up to Tenth Street. Inside is a postcard of an American family, two sets of parents and two children, a boy and a girl. As the car slowed and coasted by, the driver pointed to the theater window. The children turned their heads to the left and dozed up and down. The car continued to drive.
That's it. This is how the American people honored Lincoln on the night and place of his assassination. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the moment I was writing my book Manhunt: The 12 Days in the Hunt for Lincoln’s Killer. On the following April 14, all
remained unchanged at Ford. In addition to inviting people to the vigil, National Park Service security and police blocked visitors to the anniversary night. In 2013, I was almost arrested in honor of Lincoln.
It was about 9pm. I habitually sat on the front steps of the Peterson House, the boarding house where Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865. It is also part of the Assassination Historic Site managed by the National Park Service. I imagined the doors to the theater across the way burst open and the wild shouts of 1,500 people flooding Tenth Street. I could see in my mind's eye the unconscious president being carried out into the street. I imagined a Peterson resident opening the door at the top of the stairs and shouting, "Bring him in!" The soldiers led him to where I sat. "KDSPE" Across the street, a guard at Ford's Theater pushed a plexiglass door to her security desk and yelled, "Get off those steps!" "You can't sit there. That's private property." I'm going to call the police. "I stood up and crossed the street. I explained to her that tonight was the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination. I had served on the advisory board of the Ford Dramatic Society. I had written a book about what happened. And those steps, I endured I kept reminding her that I belonged to the American people.
She stared at me and didn't understand. Ten minutes later, two police cars pulled up in the parking lot. Officer Johnson reported a homeless man lurking nearby and one officer said: “A lot of people were sitting on the steps and urinating in the house. ". "How do we know you won't do that? "You have no right to sit here." After a tense discussion, the other officer rolled his eyes and suggested I enjoy the night.
Last year, I brought two friends with me for reinforcements. The country is celebrating half a century since its 2011-15 civil war. That will definitely get people out. But no. Less than ten people showed up. I tweeted a disappointing report. No comments were received.
Things promise to be different on April 14, the 150th anniversary of the assassination. Ford's Theater Society and the Park Service will transform 10th Street into a time tunnel, transporting visitors back to the sights and sounds of 1865.
Starting from the morning of April 14, the street will be closed to traffic. The Ford Motor Company will be open for 36 consecutive hours to accommodate a schedule of brief historical plays, readings, musical performances and silences. Street vendors would celebrate the fall of Richmond and the effective end of the Civil War by holding small paper flags just as they did in 1865, right up to the moment of the assassination.
And at 10:20 p.m., everyone will be silent until the trumpet player breaks the spell. Then, for the first time in 150 years, mourners will hold a torchlight vigil in front of Peterson Palace. I will also be attending, marking the culmination of my lifelong obsession with assassinating Abraham Lincoln.
I was born on February 12, Lincoln’s birthday. Since childhood, I have received books and memorabilia about him as gifts. When I was 10 years old, my grandmother gave me a print of Booth's Mocker. Framed with it are clippings from the Chicago Tribune on the day Lincoln died. But the story is incomplete and ends in the middle sentence. I hung it on my bedroom wall and reread it hundreds of times as a child, often thinking, "I want to know the rest of the story." I still have it today.
On weekends, I begged my parents to take me to the Chicago Historical Society so I could visit its most precious relic, Lincoln's deathbed. I longed to visit Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., where my father took me on business. My childhood curiosity led me to become an obsessive, lifelong collector of original documents, photographs, and artifacts from the Lincoln Assassination.
, years later it led to The Manhunt; its sequel, Bloody Crime; and even a young adult book, Chasing Lincoln's Killer. I can’t write without my profile. In fact, I consider myself a crazy collector who happens to write books. I have some amazing things in my collection that make people *squawk. They not only reflect history, they are history. On the 150th anniversary, I've selected my favorite Lincoln assassination relics from my collection, and some of the ones that most bring me to life, what Walt Whitman called "moody, tearful." Night." "Ford's Play (Cade Martin)"
Ford's Play
On April 14, 1865, Mary Lincoln informed Ford's Theater that she and the President would Attended our American cousin's performance that night. Laura Keane is delighted. The show is a "benefit" for the star actress; she will share in the profits, which are likely to grow as word spreads about the first couple's plans. A few blocks away, on D Street near Seventh Street, H. Polkinhorn & Son printed a poster to be distributed on the street that day to solicit ticket sales. But the events of that night give this dramatic short story of an ordinary place an unparalleled significance: it freezes a snapshot of "before." "Before" to me is a snapshot of "before" and the script evokes the opening scene of one of Lincoln's happiest nights: the presidential carriage arrives on Tenth Street and the theater rings with cheers, "To the Chief Salute,” laughter and hissing gaslighting. It also resonated with an eerie sense of foreboding, symbolizing not only Lincoln's death but also the end of Ford's Theater, which would remain dark for more than a century. Lincoln loved theater and came to Ford's company. Whenever I leave home and go there, where I often attend shows and other events, I always glance at the posters hanging in the hallway. It reminds me that Ford is more than just a place to die. Lincoln laughed there too. On his hat is a mourning band for his son Willie, who died in 1862. The coat Lincoln wore at Ford's Theater was made for his second inauguration. (Cade Martin)
Lincoln's Top Hat and Coat
Nothing in a president's wardrobe symbolizes his identity more powerfully than his top hat. Long before Lincoln came to Washington, he adopted a trademark while working as a lawyer in Illinois. He chose an unusual high hat to attract attention and highlight his height. At 6 feet 4 inches, Lincoln already towered over most of his contemporaries; his hat made him look like a 7-foot giant.
It was the hat he wore on April 14, and which he took off as he stood in the Presidential Box at Ford Motor Co. and bowed to greet a jubilant audience.
Lincoln's signature color was black, and during his presidency he wore a white shirt, black pants and a thigh-length dress. The night he went to Ford's Theater, he wore a custom black wool Brooks Brothers coat with grosgrain piping on the collar, lapels and cuffs. The black silk quilted lining is embroidered with the silhouette of a giant American eagle, the Stars and Stripes shield and the motto "One Nation, One Destiny." How fitting that when Lincoln was murdered, his body was draped in clothing bearing the words he gave his life. Booth's gunshot ends the play as Laura Keene walks up to Lincoln (her blood-stained costume) in the third act. (Cade Martin)
Laura Keene's costume sample
After Booth escapes from the Ford, Laura Keene runs from the stage to the President's box, where she Dr. Charles Lyell is found laying Lincoln on the floor. She knelt beside the unconscious and dying president and held his head in her lap. Blood and brain matter seeped from the gunshot wounds onto her silky garments, staining them in festive floral patterns of red, yellow, green and blue. Keane, who preserved her wedding dress with the care of a Victorian bride, cherished her dress on this terrible night. But it soon turns into a morbid curiosity, with strangers trying to keep the flakes as horrific keepsakes, and she ends up banishing the haunted ruins to the care of her family. The dress disappeared long ago, but miraculously five pieces survived. They have been a legend among collectors for more than a century. This example remained unaccounted for until the late 1990s when it surfaced and I obtained it. According to a letter of provenance enclosed by Kane's grandson, the letter was addressed to an old friend. The bright floral pattern is almost as bright as the day clothing maker Jamie Bullock made it in Chicago more than 150 years ago. But the red bloodstain faded long ago and turned into a pale rust color.
I never let this patch of blood out of my sight while I was on the hunt, and I wrote the scene describing what happened in the presidential box after the shooting. As I stared at this bloodstain, I saw everything, paragraphs written out. This vintage print shows the bed and sheets in the bedroom of the Peterson home where Lincoln died. This photo was taken the day after the assassinations of two Peterson family boarders, brothers Henry and Uli Urke. Lincoln's Death Bed
At 7:22 a.m. and 10 seconds on the morning of April 15, Abraham Lincoln died in a back room of the Peterson home on a bed that was close to his Too small for the body. The doctor had to lay him diagonally on the mattress. The soldiers wrapped his naked body in an American flag and placed him in a plain pine box, a rectangular military crate. Lincoln, a former railroad divider, wouldn't have minded such a simple casket. When they brought him back to the White House, sheets, pillows, towels and sheets lay on the bed in the boarding room, stained with the president's blood. Two of Petersen's boarders, brothers Henry and Yuli Urke, one a photographer and the other an artist, set up a tripod camera and followed the morning light from under the eaves through the hallway door all the way back to the small back room. , took this scene. "A sad arena," one writer called Lincoln's final journey. A lock of hair cut by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton before the president's death. (Cade Martin)
Locking Lincoln's Hair
Within an hour of the assassination, Mary Lincoln summoned Mary Jane Wells to the Peterson home. Mary Jane, wife of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells, was one of Mary's few friends in Washington. They bonded over their shared grief: In 1862, Mary Jane helped nurse 11-year-old Willie Lincoln until he died of typhoid; the following year, Wells A family's 3-year-old son died of diphtheria.
On the morning of April 15, Lincoln's death chamber was empty except for one mourner (including Gideon Welles): Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, whom Lincoln called "Mars, the God of War." Stanton was an imperious and widely feared cabinet minister, but he loved the president deeply, and the assassination was a deeply personal tragedy for him. Alone with his fallen leader, Stanton cut a lock of the president's hair and sealed it in a plain white envelope. He knows who deserves to be remembered. After signing his name on the envelope, he addressed it "To Mrs. Wells." When she received the envelope later that day, she carved it with a pencil in her neat little hands: "Hairlock of Mr. Lincoln, M.J.W., April 15, 1865."
She put the lock Housed in an oval gold frame, she collected dried flowers from Lincoln's casket at the White House funeral on April 19. The card that secures the relics behind a glass cover reads "Sacred Relic in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States." This is not the only surviving piece of Lincoln's hair. Mary Lincoln made a request, as did several of the Peterson family's doctors and his autopsy. Others were stolen from Lincoln's head, leading one to wonder how he carried his hair to his grave. But the Stanton/Wells lock, with its unparalleled provenance and intertwined stories of love and loss, is perhaps the most impressive one. Secretary of War Stanton announced a $100,000 reward for the capture of Booth. (Cade Martin)
The $100,000 Reward Poster
Today, it is the most famous reward poster in American history. In 1865, it was a symbol of failure and the increasingly desperate manhunt. When I was 19, this was my first major accomplishment. I've been drooling over these posters since I was 10 years old, and when I was a sophomore at the University of Chicago, I spotted one in a book dealer's catalog and ordered it immediately. I bought a poster, not a used car.
Booth shot Lincoln in front of 1,500 witnesses, fled from Ford's Theater, galloped away on horseback, and disappeared into an unknown place. Thousands of pursuers failed to track down Lincoln's assassin, embarrassing the government. On April 20, six days after the assassination, Secretary of War Stanton announced a reward of $100,000 for the arrest of Booth and his two accomplices. This was a staggering amount, with the average worker earning about $1 a day, and the War Department printed tons of ads. Every penny of the hard-earned money was paid out and divided among the dozens of pursuers believed to be responsible for the capture or death of John Wilkes Booth and his associates. The 12-day manhunt for Booth unleashed a torrent of rage (a defaced portrait) and ended in revenge. (Cade Martin)
Defaced Photo
The day after the assassination, technicians at the Surgeon General's Photographic Laboratory copied a popular on-demand photo of Booth, Multiple examples were printed and distributed to the Assassin's pursuers. This copy was sent to William Bender Wilson, a War Department telegraph operator who was in the field during the manhunt. Wilson inscribed its provenance on the back of the card: "This photograph of J. Wilkes Booth was given to me by the War Department in Washington, D.C., when Booth was a fugitive. Simi. On learning of Booth's death Later, Wilson expressed his disdain for the murderer in a handwritten letter that denigrated Booth's image: "...for the reasons he stated were just. No! Cowardly murder suited him better. This is chivalry, right? He lived like a poisonous snake, died like a dog, and was buried like a dog. "The Assassin," "The Cursed Booth," "Few other relics of the terrorist attack that broke out in April 1865 are so intact that the bullet that killed Lincoln is still there." (Cade Martin)
The bullet that killed Lincoln
Booth fired a lead bullet into Lincoln's head. The bullet entered below the president's left ear, passed diagonally through his brain, and came to rest behind his right eye. Lincoln never regained consciousness.
An autopsy is not necessary to determine the cause of death, but it would be obscene to bury the President of the United States with a bullet in his brain. It must be dug out. Edward Curtis, the coroner's assistant surgeon, described the gruesome task: "I started opening the head and moving the brain into the orbit of the ball. We didn't find it very quickly and started removing the whole brain. When I was lifting the latter out of the skull cavity, the bullet suddenly slipped out of my fingers and fell, breaking the silence in the room, making a clicking sound and falling to an empty box below. In the basin. There it lay on the white porcelain, a small piece of black, no bigger than the end of my finger, dull, motionless, harmless, and yet the cause of so much change in world history, perhaps we never will. Will realize, I heard it echoing in the basin, that Booth had two Colt pistols (including this one) and a Spencer carbine when the Unionists pursued him in Virginia. Lutter Farm. (Cade Martin)
Booth's Arsenal
Booth's Derringers were just a few of the items he purchased for his plot to kidnap the President in March 1865. One of the weapons he soon deployed in the plot to kill Lincoln was two Colt revolvers and a Spencer carbine he gave to George Altzer when Booth was killed. Rod was handed a revolver and a knife, and George was supposed to murder Vice President Andrew Johnson. (Atzerrod ran away drunk, threw the knife into the street, and sold the pistol in a Georgetown store.) Booth loaned Lewis Powell a knife and Whitney revolver, and Powell made a bloody and unsuccessful attempt to kill Secretary of State William Seward (Powell shattered the pistol in the skull of one of Seward's sons, and stabbed Seward and several other members of his family to death) Booth, along with his scoffers, brought a Rio Grande camping knife into Ford's Theater, which he used to stab him in the theater box After injuring Lincoln's guest, Major Henry Rathbone, he jumped on the stage and thrust his head over the heads of all the spectators so that they could see him shouting: "Sic semper Turnis" ("Thus always right Tyrant"). Far from the audience's view are the epigrams etched on the blood-stained blade: "Land of the free/Home of the brave"; "Liberty/Independence". Curiously, both the president and the assassin accepted these Viewpoint. “Our country blamed [Lincoln] for all its troubles,” Booth wrote on the pocket calendar he carried with him during his 12 days on the run: “God made me an instrument of his punishment.” (Cade Martin)
Booth's "Diary"
Contrary to popular belief, Booth never kept a "Diary" of Lincoln's assassination. During the manhunt, he took with him a small bound pocket calendar from 1864, which contained several blank pages on which he wrote several infamous entries. To read this book today is to encounter the thoughts of an assassin full of passion, vanity and delusion: "Our country attributes all its troubles to him, and God only uses me as a tool to punish him"; " Hunted like a dog in the swamps, in the woods, chased by gunboats last night, until I became a strong man" "I am forsaken, the curse of Cain is upon me"; "I bless the whole world". Never hated or wronged anyone. This last one is not wrong unless God thinks it is. It's easy to hear his pencil scribbling final thoughts on the paper. One can imagine soldiers snatching it from him and flipping through its pages by the firelight of a burning tobacco warehouse, or Secretary of War Stanton poring over it after it was brought back to Washington, looking for clues to the assassination. The announcement of Booth's fate. (Cade Martin)
Broadside announces Booth's death
After Booth's death, at sunrise on April 26, one of the patrol leaders who tracked him down Colonel Everton Conger rushed back to Washington to report to his superior, Detective Lafayette Baker. Around 5:30 p.m., they went to Edwin Stanton's house to tell him the news. "We have Booth," Baker told him.
The exhausted War Secretary had no energy for grand language or historic pronouncements. The statement he drafted, and which was carried across the country by a U.S. War Department telegraph operator, contained only the news that the United States had been waiting 12 days to hear. A side profile repeated the report:
Assassin Booth, shot
Washington War Department. April 27, 9:20 a.m.,
Major General Dix, New York:
Booth was driven from the swamps of St. Mary's County, Maryland, by Colonel Backer's troops. ,
Booth took refuge in the barn on Garrett's farm near Port Royal. The barn was fired and Booth was shot. His companion Harold [David Herold] was captured. Harold and Booth's bodies are here now.
E.M. Stanton, Secretary of War.
A unique example, hitherto unknown, appeared at a small regional auction ten years ago and I added it to my archive. It is published here for the first time. Aside from the history written on the head, this snare drum is no different from the thousands of snare drums made during the Civil War. There was also a black mourning ribbon hanging from the bottom edge. (Cade Martin)
Mourning Drums
Abraham Lincoln's final journey began when soldiers placed his body on a special train bound for Illinois from Washington, D.C. Springfield, State, a journey of 1,600 miles, lasting 13 days. One million Americans viewed his body in the great cities of the North, and seven million watched his funeral train pass by. Whenever Lincoln's body was carried off the train for public viewing, troops joined the procession, marching to the beat of drums. The body was placed on display in an open casket for 24 hours in Springfield, where Lincoln had served as a congressman and delivered his famous 1858 "House Divided" speech. At 11:30 a.m. on May 4, 1865, drums beat for the last time as Abraham's father marched through Lincoln's old mansion at Eighth Illinois and Jackson streets. "KDSPE" "KDSPs" are a type of lost relic recently discovered in China, one of those lost to dust and neglect. This is not unlike the thousands of military drums made during the Civil War that were used by teenage drummer boys in companies of a hundred man infantry. It has an unlacquered tulip or ash, calfskin head, lacquered oak edges, twine and leather pulls to adjust the tightness of the head and the brightness of the sound. This one is made in Granville, Massachusetts by the Noble & Cooley Company, which was founded in 1854 and is still in business today. Its oak sides were beaten harder by countless drumsticks than any other Civil War drum I've seen, leaving no trace of which regiment or company the drummer played for. But the remnants of a black mourning ribbon, only a few inches from where the lace drum once was, still hung from the bottom edge. Written in ink above the head is a remarkable piece of history: "This drum was played at President Lincoln's funeral in Springfield." The day I acquired it, I held in my hands a pair of Civil War-era drumsticks, Being careful not to damage the fragile calfskin tip, tap gently to create the deep sound of a funeral march.
Editor's Note: This story originally stated that Booth fired a one-ounce lead ball into Lincoln's head. A plaque beneath Booth's Deringer at Ford's Theater Museum lists the bullet's weight as "nearly an ounce," while the National Museum of Health and Medicine, where the bullet is on display today, says, The weight of the bullet was not recorded and cannot be weighed now because the bullet was permanently mounted. Bullets in the 1860s were not uniform. A firearms expert at the National Museum of American History said that 0.32 ounces is completely within the reasonable range