belonging to the same company with Lieutenant Doherty, Commandant.
LETTER VI.
THE DETECTIVES' STORIES.
Washington, May 2--P. M.
The police resources of the country have been fairly tested during the
past two weeks. Under the circumstances, the shrewdness and energy of
both municipal and national detectives have been proven good. The latter
body has had a too partial share of the applause thus far, while the
great efforts of our New-York and other officers have been overlooked.
In the crowning success of Doherty, Conger, and Baker on the Virginia
side of the water we have forgotten the as vigorous and better sustained
pursuit on the Maryland side.
Yet the Secretary of War has thanked all concerned, especially referring
to many excellent leaders in the long hunt through Charles and St.
Mary's counties. Here the military and civil forces together amounted to
quite a small army, and constituted by far the largest police
organization ever known on this side of the Atlantic.
I think the adventures and expedients of these public servants worthy of
a column. It would be out of all proportion to pass them by when we
devote a dozen lines to every petty larceny and shoplifting.
On the Friday night of the murder the departments were absolutely
paralyzed. The murderers had three good hours for escape; they had
evaded the pursuit of lightning by snapping the telegraph wires, and
rumor filled the town with so many reports that the first valuable
hours, which should have been used to follow hard after them, were
consumed in feverish efforts to know the real extent of the
assassination.
Immediately afterwards, however, or on Saturday morning early, the
provost and special police force got on the scent, and military in
squads were dispatched close upon their heels.
Three grand pursuits wore organized: one reaching up the north bank of
the Potomac toward Chain bridge, to prevent escape by that direction
into Virginia, where Mosby, it was suspected, waited to hail the
murderers;
A second starting from Richmond, Va., northward, forming a broad
advancing picket or skirmish line between the Blue Ridge and the broad
sea-running streams;
A third to scour the peninsula towards Point Lookout.
The latter region became the only one well examined; the northern
expedition failed until advised from below to capture Atzerott, and
failed, to capture Payne. Yet there were cogent probabilities that the
assassin had taken this route; far Mosby would have given them the right
hand of fellowship.
When that guerrilla heard of Booth's feat, said Captain Jett, he
exclaimed:
"Now, by----! I could take that man in my arms."
Washington, as a precautionary measure, was doubly picketed at once; the
authorities in all northern towns advised of the personnel of the
murderer, and requests made of the detective chiefs in Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and New-York, to forward to Washington without delay their
best decoys.
A court of inquiry was organized on the moment, and early in the week
succeeding rewards were offered. An individual, and not the government,
offered the first rewards.
There were two men without whom the hunt would have gone astray many
times.
John S. Young, chief of the New-York detective force, a powerful and
resolute man, whose great weight and strength are matched by boundless
energy, and both subordinate to a head as clear as the keen and
searching warrant of his eye. This man has been in familiar converse
with every rebel agent in the Canadas, and is feared by them as they
fear the fates of Beall and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he
has probably rendered the cleverest services of the war to the general
government. They sent for him immediately after the tragedy, and he
stopped on the way for his old police companion, Marshal Murray. The
latter's face and figure are familiar to all who know New-York; he
resembles an admiral on his quarter-deck; he is a detective of fair and
excellent repute, and has a somewhat novel pride in what he calls "the
most beautiful gallows in the United States."
These officials were ordered to visit Colonel Ingraham's office and
examine the little evidence on hand. They and their tried officers
formed a junction on Sunday afternoon with the large detective force of
Provost-Marshal Major O'Bierne. The latter commands the District of
Columbia civil and military police. He is a New-Yorker and has been shot
through the body in the field.
The detective force of Young and Murray consisted of Officers Radford,
Kelso, Elder, and Hoey, of New-York; Deputy-Marshal Newcome, formerly of
THE WORLD'S city staff; Officers Joseph Pierson and West, of Baltimore.
Major O'Bierne's immediate aids were Detectives John Lee, Lloyd,
Gavigan, Coddingham, and Williams.
A detachment of the Philadelphia detective police, force--Officers
Taggert, George Smith, and Carlin, reporting to Colonel Baker--went in
the direction of the North Pole; everybody is on the _que vive_ for
them.
To the provost-marshal of Baltimore, MacPhail, who knew the tone and
bearing of the country throughout, was joined the zealous co-operation
of Officer Lloyd, of Major O'Bierne's staff, who had a personal feeling
against the secessionists of lower Maryland; they had once driven him
away for his loyalty, and had reserved their hospitality for assassins.
Lieutenant Commander Gushing, I am informed, also rendered important
services to the government in connection with the police operations.
Volunteer detectives, such as Ex-Marshal Lewis and Angelis, were
plentiful; it is probable that in the pitch of the excitement five
hundred detective officers were in and around Washington city. At the
same time the secret police of Richmond abandoned their ordinary
business, and devoted themselves solely to this overshadowing offense.
No citizen, in these terrible days, knows what eyes were upon him as he
talked and walked, nor how his stature and guise were keenly scanned by
folks who passed him absent-faced, yet with his mental portrait
carefully turned over, the while some invisible hand clutched a
revolver, and held a life or death challenge upon his lips.
The military forces were commanded by Colonel Welles, of the Twenty
sixth Michigan regiment, whose activity and zeal were amply sustained by
Colonel Clendenning, of the Eighth Illinois cavalry, probably the finest
body of horse in the service.
The first party to take the South Maryland road was dispatched by Major
O'Bierne, and commanded by Lieutenant Lovett, of the Veteran Reserves.
It consisted of twenty-five cavalry men, with detectives Cottingham,
Lloyd, and Gavigan; these latter, with the lieutenant, kept well in
advance. They made inquiries of a soothing and cautious character, but
saw nothing suspicious until they arrived at Piscataway, where an
unknown man, some distance ahead, observed them, and took to the woods.
This was on Sunday night, forty hours after the murder.
Guided by Officer Lloyd, the little band dashed on, arriving at
Bryantown on Tuesday. Here they arrested John Lloyd, of the hotel at
Surrattsville, of whom they had previously inquired for the murderers,
and he had said positively that he neither knew them nor had seen
anybody whatever on the night of the crime. He was returning in a wagon,
with his wife, whom he had ordered, the day before, to go on a visit to
Allen's Fresh, The Monday afterward he started to bring her back. This
woman, frightened at the arrest, acknowledged at once that in her
husband's conduct there was some inexplicable mystery. He was taciturn
and defiant as before, until confronted by some of his old Union
neighbors.
The few Unionists of Prince George's and Charles counties, long
persecuted and intimidated, now came forward and gave important
testimony.
Among these was one Roby, a very fat and very zealous old gentleman,
whose professions were as ample as his perspiration. He told the
officers of the secret meetings for conspiracy's, sake at Lloyd's Hotel,
and although a very John Gilpin on horseback, rode here and there to his
great loss of wind and repose, fastening fire-coals upon the guilty or
suspected.
Lloyd was turned over to Mr. Cottingham, who had established a jail at
Robytown; that night his house was searched, and Booth's carbine found
hidden in the wall. Three days afterward, Lloyd himself confessed--and
his neck is quite nervous at this writing.
This little party, under the untiring Lovett, examined all the
farm-houses below Washington resorting to many shrewd expedients, and
taking note of the great swamps to the east of Port Tobacco; they
reached Newport at last and fastened tacit guilt upon many residents.
Beyond Bryantown they overhauled the residence of Doctor Mudd and found
Booth's boot. This was before Lloyd confessed, and was the first
positive trace the officers had that they were really close upon the
assassins.
I do not recall anything more wild and startling than this vague and
dangerous exploration of a dimly known, hostile, and ignorant country.
To these few detectives we owe much of the subsequent successful
prosecution of the pursuit. They were the Hebrew spies.
By this time the country was filling up with soldiers, but previously a
second memorable detective party went out under the personal command of
Major O'Bierne. It consisted, besides that officer, of Lee, D'Angellia,
Callahan, Hoey, Bostwick, Hanover, Bevins, and McHenry, and embarked at
Washington on a steam-tug for Chappell's Point. Here a military station
had long been established for the prevention of blockade and
mail-running across the Potomao. It was commanded by Lieutenant Laverty,
and garrisoned by sixty-five men. On Tuesday night, Major O'Bierne's
party reached this place, and soon afterwards, a telegraph station was
established here by an invaluable man to the expedition, Captain
Beckwith, General Grant's chief cypher operator, who tapped the Point
Lookout wire, and placed the War Department within a moment's reach of
the theater of events.
Major O'Bierne's party started at once over the worst road in the world
for Port Tobacco.
If any place in the world is utterly given over to depravity, it is Port
Tobacco. From this town, by a sinuous creek, there is flat boat
navigation to the Potomac, and across that river to Mattox's creek.
Before the war Port Tobacco was the seat of a tobacco aristocracy and a
haunt of negro traders. It passed very naturally into a rebel post for
blockade-runners and a rebel post-office general. Gambling, corner
fighting, and shooting matches were its lyceum education. Violence and
ignorance had every suffrage in the town. Its people were smugglers, to
all intents, and there was neither Bible nor geography to the whole
region adjacent. Assassination was never very unpopular at Port Tobacco,
and when its victim was a northern president it became quite heroic. A
month before the murder a provost-marshal near by was slain in his
bed-chamber. For such a town and district the detective police were the
only effective missionaries. The hotel here is called the Brawner House;
it has a bar in the nethermost cellar, and its patrons, carousing in
that imperfect light, look like the denizens of some burglar's crib,
talking robbery between their cups; its dining-room is dark and
tumble-down, and the _cuisine_ bears traces of Caffir origin; a barbecue
is nothing to a dinner there. The Court House of Port Tobacco is the
most superflous house in the place, except the church. It stands in the
center of the town in a square, and the dwellings lie about it closely,
as if to throttle justice. Five hundred people exist in Port Tobacco;
life there reminds me, in connection with the slimy river and the
adjacent swamps, of the great reptile period of the world, when
iguanadons and pterodactyls and pleosauri ate each other.
Into this abstract of Gomorrah the few detectives went like angels who
visited Lot. They pretended to be enquiring for friends, or to have
business designs, and the first people they heard of were Harold and
Atzerott. The latter had visited Port Tobacco three weeks before the
murder, and intimated at that time his design of fleeing the country.
But everybody denied having seen him subsequent to the crime.
Atzerott had been in town just prior to the crime. He had been living
with a widow woman named Mrs. Wheeler, by whom he had several children,
and she was immediately called upon by Major O'Bierne. He did not tell
her what Atzerott had done, but vaguely hinted that he had committed
some terrible crime, and that since he had done her wrong, she could
vindicate both herself and justice by telling his whereabouts. The woman
admitted that Atzerott had been her bane, but she loved him, and refused
to betray him.
His trunk was found in her garret, and in it the key to his paint shop
in Port Tobacco. The latter was fruitlessly searched, but the probable
whereabouts of Atzerott in Mongomery county obtained, and Major O'Bierne
telegraphing there immediately, the desperate fellow was found and
locked up. A man named Crangle who had succeeded Atzerott in Mrs.
Wheeler's pliable affections, was arrested at once and put in jail. A
number of disloyal people were indicated or "spotted" as in no wise
angry at the President's taking off, and for all such a provost prison
was established.
[Illustration: Maryland.]
A few miles from Port Tobacco dwelt a solitary woman, who, when
questioned, said that for many nights she had heard, after she had
retired to bed, a man enter her cellar and lie there all night,
departing before dawn. Major O'Bierne and the detectives ordered her to
place a lamp in her window the next night she heard him enter, and at
dark they established a cordon of armed officers around the place. At
midnight punctually she exhibited the light, when the officers broke
into the house and thoroughly searched it, without result. Yet the woman
positively asserted that she had heard the man enter.
It was afterward found that she was of diseased mind.
By this time the military had come up in considerable numbers, and Major
O'Bierne was enabled to confer with Major Wait, of the Eighth Illinois.
The major had pushed on Monday night to Leonardstown, and pretty well
overhauled that locality.
It was at this time that preparations were made to hunt the swamps
around Chapmantown, Beantown, and Allen's Fresh. Booth had been entirely
lost since his departure from Mudd's house, and it was believed that he
had either pushed on for the Potomac or taken to the swamps. The
officers sagaciously determined to follow him to the one and to explore
the other.
The swamps tributary to the various branches of the Wicomico river, of
which the chief feeder is Allen's creek, bear various names, such as
Jordan's swamp, Atchall's swamp, and Scrub swamp. There are dense
growths of dogwood, gum, and beech, planted in sluices of water and bog;
and their width varies from a half mile to four miles, while their
length is upwards of sixteen miles. Frequent deep ponds dot this
wilderness place, with here and there a stretch of dry soil, but no
human being inhabits the malarious extent; even a hunted murderer would
shrink from hiding there. Serpents and slimy lizards are the only
denizens; sometimes the coon takes refuge in this desert from the
hounds, and in the soil mud a thousand odorous muskrats delve, with now
and then a tremorous otter. But not even the hunted negro dares to
fathom the treacherous clay, nor make himself a fellow of the slimy
reptiles which reign absolute in this terrible solitude. Here the
soldiers prepared to seek for the President's assassin, and no search of
the kind has ever been so thorough and patient. The Shawnee, in his
strong hold of despair in the heart of Okeefeuokee, would scarcely have
changed homes with Wilkes Booth and David Harold, hiding in this inhuman
country.
The military forces deputed to pursue the fugitives were seven hundred
men of the Eighth Illinois cavalry, six hundred men of the Twenty-second
Colored troops, and one hundred men of the Sixteenth New York. These
swept the swamps by detachments, the mass of them dismounted, with
cavalry at the belts of clearing, interspersed with detectives at
frequent intervals in the rear. They first formed a strong picket cordon
entirely around the swamps, and then, drawn up in two orders of battle,
advanced boldly into the bogs by two lines of march. One party swept the
swamps longitudinally, the other pushed straight across their smallest
diameter.
A similar march has not been made during the war; the soldiers were only
a few paces apart, and in steady order they took the ground as it came,
now plunging to their arm-pits in foul sluices of gangrened water, now
hopelessly submerged in slime, now attacked by Regions of wood ticks,
now tempting some unfaithful log or greenishly solid morass, and
plunging to the tip of the skull in poison stagnation; the tree boughs
rent their uniforms; they came out upon dry land, many of them without a
rag of garment scratched, and gashed, and spent, repugnant to
themselves, and disgusting to those who saw them; but not one trace of
Booth or Harold was any where found. Wherever they might be, the swamps
did not contain them.
While all this was going on, a force started from Point Lookout, and
swept the narrow necks of Saint Mary's quite up to Medley's Neck. To
complete the search in this part of the country, Colonel Wells and Major
O'Bierne started with a force of cavalry and infantry for Chappel Point;
they took the entire peninsula as before, and marched in close skirmish
line across it, but without finding anything of note. The matter of
inclosing a house was by cavalry advances, which held all the avenues
till mounted detectives came up. Many strange and ludicrous adventures
occured on each of these expeditions. While the forces were going up
Cobb's neck, there was a counter force coming down from Allen's Fresh.
Major O'Bierne started for Leonardstown with his detective force, and
played off Laverty as Booth, and Hoey as Harold. These two advanced to
farm-houses and gave their assumed names, asking at the same time for
assistance and shelter. They were generally avoided, except by one man
named Claggert, who told them they might hide in the woods behind his
house. When Claggert was arrested, however he stated that he meant to
hide them only to give them up. While on this adventure, a man who had
heard of the reward came very near shooting Laverty. The ruse now became
hazardous and the detectives resumed their real characters.
I have not time to go into the detail of this long and excellent hunt.
My letter of yesterday described how the detectives of Mr. Young and
Marshal Murray examined the negro Swan, and traced Booth to the house of
Sam Coxe, the richest rebel in Charles county. There is a gap in the
evidence between the arrival of Booth at this place and his crossing the
Potomac above Swan Point, in a stolen or purposely-provided canoe. But
as Coxe's house is only ten miles from the river, it is possible that he
made the passage of the intermediate country undiscovered.
One Mills, a rebel mail-carrier, also arrested, saw Booth and Harold
lurking along the river bank on Friday; he referred Major O'Bierne to
one Claggert, a rebel, as having seen them also; but Claggert held his
tongue, and went to jail. On Saturday night, Major O'Bierne, thus
assured, also crossed the Potomac with his detectives to Boon's farm,
where the fugitives had landed. While collecting information here a
gunboat swung up the stream, and threatened to fire on the party.
It was now night, and all the party worn to the ground with long travel
and want of sleep. Lieutenant Laverty's men went a short distance down
the country and gave up, but Major O'Bierne, with a single man, pushed
all night to King George's court-house, and next day, Sunday,
re-embarked for Chappell's Point. Hence he telegraphed his information,
and asked permission to pursue, promising to catch the assassins before
they reached Port Royal.
This the department refused. Colonel Baker's men were delegated to make
the pursuit with the able Lieutenant Doherty, and. O'Bierne, who was the
most active and successful spirit in the chase, returned to Washington,
cheerful and contented.
At Mrs. Burratt's Washington house, at the Pennsylvania Hotel,
Washington, and at Surrattsville, the Booth plot was almost entirely
arranged. These three places will be relics of conspiracy forever.
Harold said to Lieutenant Doherty, after the latter had dragged him from
the barn.
"Who's that man in there? It can't be Booth; he told me his name was
Loyd."
He further said that he had begged food for Booth from house to house
while the latter hid in the woods.
The confederate captain, Willie Jett, who had given Booth a lift behind
his saddle from Port Royal to Garrett's farm, was then courting a Miss
Goldmann at Bowling Green; his traveling companions were Lieutenants
Ruggles and Burbridge.
Payne, the assassin of the Sewards, was arrested by Officers, Sampson,
of the sub-treasury, and Devoe, acting under General Alcott. The latter
had besides, Officers Marsh and Clancy (a stenographer).
The reward for the capture of Booth will be distributed between very
many men. The negro, Swan, will get as much of it, as he deserves. It
amounts to about eighty thousand dollars, but the War Department may
increase it at discretion. The entire rewards amount to a hundred and
sixty odd thousand. Major O'Bierne should get a large part of it as
well.
This story which I must close abruptly, deserves to be re-written, with
all its accessory endeavours. What I have said is in skeleton merely,
and far from exhaustive.
LETTER VII.
THE MARTYR.
Washington, May 14.
I am sitting in the President's office. He was here very lately, but he
will not return to dispossess me of this high-backed chair he filled so
long, nor resume his daily work at the table where I am writing.
There are here only Major Hay and the friend who accompanies me. A
bright-faced boy runs in and out, darkly attired, so that his fob-chain
of gold is the only relief to his mourning garb. This is little Tad.,
the pet of the White House. That great death, with which the world
rings, has made upon him only the light impression which all things make
upon childhood. He will live to be a man pointed out everywhere, for his
father's sake; and as folks look at him, the tableau of the murder will
seem to encircle him.
The room is long and high, and so thickly hung with maps that the color
of the wall cannot be discerned. The President's table at which I am
seated, adjoins a window at the farthest corner; and to the left of my
chair as I recline in it, there is a large table before an empty grate,
around which there are many chairs, where the cabinet used to assemble.
The carpet is trodden thin, and the brilliance of its dyes is lost. The
furniture is of the formal cabinet class, stately and semi-comfortable;
there are book cases sprinkled with the sparse library of a country
lawyer, but lately plethoric, like the thin body which has departed in
its coffin. They are taking away Mr. Lincoln's private effects, to
deposit them wheresoever his family may abide, and the emptiness of the
place, on this sunny Sunday, revives that feeling of desolation from
which the land has scarce recovered. I rise from my seat and examine the
maps; they are from the coast survey and engineer departments, and
exhibit all the contested grounds of the war: there are pencil lines
upon them where some one has traced the route of armies, and planned the
strategic circumferences of campaigns. Was it the dead President who so
followed the march of empire, and dotted the sites of shock and
overthrow?