Infamous America - BOOTH Ep. 2 | "Wild With Fright"

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

While Booth and Herold hurry toward their first destination, Washington descends into the chaos behind them. Ford's theatre is mayhem as the audience learns of the attack on President Lincoln. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton rushes around the city to discover the extent of the bloodshed and officially begins the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As John Wilkes Booth and David Herald fled into the Maryland countryside, the city they left behind descended into madness. There's never been a night in American history like that of Good Friday, April 14, 1865. Washington City had celebrated for five days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his army of Northern Virginia. The end of the Civil War was in sight. The people of Washington paraded up and down the streets. They sang and cheered and partied. It all led to the grand illumination on the evening of the 13th. It looked like every candle and lamp in the city had been lit at once.

An arsenal of fireworks had launched into the sky. And the celebration continued on the night of the 14th. Candles lit the windows. People cruised through the streets. Merriment was still the order of the day until about 10.30 p.m. It began with the screams of Mary Todd Lincoln and the President's private box at Ford's theater. Spectators had witnessed the wild display of someone leaping from the box down to the stage and then running away. The man might have been the famous actor,

John Wilkes Booth. Many people thought so, but the scene made no sense. Why was Booth, or any man, jumping down from the president's box? He had a knife in his hand, and he shouted something, and then ran away. And that bang they'd heard a moment before. Was that a gunshot? Nobody knew. The audience stared in stunned silence until screams of horror filled the playhouse. Audience members rushed outside and they carried the screams with them. The spectators mixed with the revelers who celebrated in the streets. They shouted the news. The president's been shot. The president's been killed. The second part wasn't true just yet, but it was an example of the common theme of the night. Rumors spread as fast as humanly possible.

They moved from person to person as people raced through the streets telling friends and neighbors and yelling to people who watched from their balconies. Messengers surged through the town like floodwaters. They filled every street and alley. Gossip and speculation mixed with the initial rumors, and the news became scarier with each telling. General Grant had been scheduled to attend the play with the president, but he and his wife had canceled at the last minute. They had taken a train to New Jersey and reportedly on to Philadelphia.

It was now said that Grant had been killed in Philadelphia. And as terrified citizens spread misinformation from Ford's theater like a sickness, they collided with another group of citizens coming from a different direction. The second group added new, gruesome rumors. The Secretary of State and his whole family had been butchered. By midnight, 90 minutes after the spread began at Ford, a reporter noted that there were 10,000 rumors afloat. The celebration turned to panic. People poured out of their homes to find out what was going on. The gossip grew in terrifying

proportions. Now the president's entire cabinet had been slaughtered. The government had been destroyed in a single night. General Robert E. Lee had torn up the surrender and was now marching on Washington like Hannibal marching on Rome. Policemen raced through the city. Cavalry units thundered down the streets. Infantry units marched without coordination. They needed to get somewhere fast, but no one was completely sure where. The instant transition from pure joy to raw terror was too much for some people. While some rushed through town at breakneck speeds, others shut down.

They stumbled through the streets like zombies. The switch from one extreme to another had broken something inside them. Their minds were overwhelmed by the enormity and severity of what they'd heard. Never in American history had a celebration of such size flipped to a scene of chaos with such speed. It was barely midnight. There was a long night ahead. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer.

This is a seven-part series about one of the largest manhunts in American history. The search for John Wilkes Booth after a show. he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. This is Chapter 2, Wild with Fright. At Ford's Theater, moments after Booth jumped down to the stage and sprinted for the back door, Mary Lincoln reached for her husband. He still sat in his chair, but he was motionless. His body was limp, and his head hung down so that his chin rested on his chest.

Mary shouted for him to answer, but he didn't respond. She ran her hands over his body, but couldn't find. any visible wounds. She saw no blood. She couldn't understand what was wrong. Nearby, Major Henry Rathbone was bleeding badly from a knife wound. Booth had slashed the major's left arm and cut him deeply. Rathbone's fiancée, Clara Harris, tried to help contain the bleeding. In the rest of the theater, the crowd broke loose in a panic. There were more than 1,500 people in the theater, and they went crazy. Many people vaulted up onto the stage to get a better look at the president's box. Mary Lincoln shrieked at her husband to respond. Other audience members bolted for the door.

They shoved each other aside in a mad rush to get outside. When they reached the street, they shouted the news, whatever they thought it was, to people who still celebrated General Lee's surrender. In that moment, the mood in the streets began to change. The rumor mill started, and had spun wildly out of control for several hours. Back in the theater, men hurried to the president's box. One of them was a 23-year-old army doctor named Charles Leal. He was seated in the balcony just 40 feet from the president's box. When he heard the screams, he hurtled chairs and pushed aside panicked spectators.

He arrived at the door to the box with other men and found it locked. They pounded on the door and tried to beat it down, but it wouldn't budge. In the box, Major Rathbone went to the door, still woozy from blood loss. He discovered a wooden bar that Booth had used to wedge the door shut. He shouted for the men to stop pushing on the door, and he pulled the wedge free. Dr. Lille was one of the first men in the room. He wasn't wearing a uniform, but he announced that he was a captain and a doctor.

He quickly looked in Rathbone's eyes and saw that the major was not in mortal danger. Leal moved on to the president. Leal had received his medical degree just six weeks earlier, and he was now in charge of the care of the president of the United States. Lincoln's vital signs were low. Leal and others laid the president on the floor. Leal held the president's head and shoulders, and he felt something wet. There was blood on Lincoln's black coat.

It would have been very difficult to see with the naked eye. Major Rathbone had been slashed, and Leal thought Lincoln had been stabbed or cut as well. Leal removed Lincoln's coat and opened his shirt. He couldn't find any knife wounds. Then he lifted one of Lincoln's eyelids and knew immediately that Lincoln had a brain injury. Leal gently ran his fingers through Lincoln's hair

and discovered blood behind his left ear. It came from a small hole that was plugged with a blood clot. Leo removed the clot and some blood flowed from the wound. It relieved some of the present. pressure on Lincoln's brain. Lincoln's breathing had been noisy and intermittent, but when the clot was removed, his breathing began to return to a more regular rhythm. He was still in grave condition, though. Leal and the other men in the box agreed that Lincoln needed to be moved. They needed to get him to a private room with a bed. They picked up the president and began to

carry him out of the theater. President Lincoln was shot tonight and is mortally wounded. More details to follow. That was the telegram sent by Lawrence Gobright of the Associated Press on the night of the 14th. Someone had barged into his office and told him the news. Like many people, he hurried out to investigate. He raced to Ford's theater where he knew the president was attending a play. When he arrived, he learned of another horrifying attack. Less than a mile away, there was a scene of carnage at the home of Secretary of State,

William Seward. Early reports from Seward's house were that the secretary and his whole family had been killed. It was easy to understand why. Seward had been savagely assaulted why he lay helpless in his bed. His sons Frederick and Augustus had also been attacked. They were bleeding in the hallway outside Seward's bedroom. A union soldier had also been beaten and stabbed. He had been watching over Seward while recovering from battle wounds,

and now he was badly injured again. A random messenger who stopped by the house during the attack had also received a slash wound to the back when the assailant, Louis Powell, fled the scene of the crime. A young black man worked for the Seward's. He had answered the door when Lewis Powell arrived. Powell had roughed him up, but hadn't stabbed him. The only person who remained unharmed was Seward's 20-year-old daughter Fanny. But now her dress was covered with her father's blood as she tried to help him after the attack. To the people who arrived moments after the assault, it must have looked like a slaughterhouse, which was why the first reports said that Seward and his entire family had been murdered.

The reports about Seward and Lincoln reached the doorstep of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton at nearly the same time. Stanton was a complex figure. He was a small man, 50 years old with a long beard. He was honest, patriotic, generous, and incorruptible, and he was also terrestrial. tyrannical, stubborn, vindictive, and gruff. And he was just about to go to bed when two messengers pounded on his door. Stanton bellowed in response. He demanded to know why they were there. One of them said that Lincoln and Seward had been assassinated. Stanton had heard many such rumors over the last couple years. He calmly asked for more detail. But then another messenger

arrived with information about the attack on Seward. Now Stanton grew. concerned. He had visited the Secretary of State earlier that night. It was hard to believe that such a tragedy had been fallen right after he left. He ordered his carriage brought around and he hurried to Secretary Seward's house. At almost the same time, the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Wells, learned of the attacks from a runner who had awakened him at his home. The story sounded too crazy to believe. The messenger said Lincoln, Seward, and Seward's son had all been killed. Wells lived right on the other side of Lafayette Park from Seward. He hurried the short distance to Seward's house and arrived right before Secretary Stanton.

The two men rushed into the house and up the stairs to Seward's bedroom. They found the secretary heavily bandaged after his attack. His bed was soaked with blood, but he was still alive. The whole family was alive. Many were badly injured and all were traumatized, but they were alive. Stanton and Wells quickly exchanged rumors. They had both heard that the president had been shot and killed, but they'd also heard that Seward had been assassinated, and that turned out to be false. Both men wanted to go to Ford's theater to check on the president. Seward's house was packed with government officials, and many of them protested the trip, but the secretaries were insistent. Then an army major rode up. He had just come from

Ford's and he told them not to go. He said the streets were packed with thousands of people, but Stanton and Wells were determined. They organized an army escort and pushed their way through the crowds to Ford's Theater about a mile away. As news of the attacks spread through the city, they reached Grover's National Theater where a performance of Aladdin was in progress. Tad Lincoln, the president's 12-year-old son, was in attendance. Tad loved Grover's Theater, It was his home away from home, and he chose to go to Aladdin instead of Our American Cousin with his parents. The stage crew at Grover's was preparing the final act of the play. While they worked, a singer performed for the audience.

She was about to do an encore when a door at the back of the theater burst open. A man rushed into the auditorium and shouted that the president had been shot at Ford's Theater. There was a lot of confusion at first, but most people shrugged in the auditorium. off as a crazy rumor. Tad Lincoln did not. He wailed hysterically and ran out of the auditorium. His tutor, who was his chaperone for the evening, raced to catch up. The theater manager stepped onto the stage and confirmed the rumor. He told the crowd that President Lincoln had, in fact, been shot at Ford's Theater. The audience needed to exit quietly and in good order. Grovers was about to close.

The audience didn't move. A reporter who was there said the house was as still as death. The audience sat dumbstruck for a moment, and then rose as one group and shuffled out of the theater. For the next 30 minutes, Washington City was a churning maelstrom of rumor, speculation, and panic. The reporter from Grover's Theater said the city was, quite simply, wild with fright.

In the melee, Stanton and Wells pushed through, the crowded streets to Ford's Theater. While they negotiated the chaos, the transportation of President Lincoln began. Dr. Charles Lille and several men carried President Lincoln out of the private box. The president's shirt had been virtually stripped away in an attempt to find stab wounds,

so they draped a coat over his upper body as they moved into public. The street outside the theater was packed with nervous people. The men who carried Lincoln forced their way across the street to the home of William Peterson. They took the president to a back bedroom and laid him diagonally across a small bed.

At that point, doctors and surgeons converged on the house from all over the city. The single bullet fired by John Wilkes' booth was lodged behind the president's right eye. Pressure was beginning to build around the bullet and doctors performed emergency procedures to try to relieve the problem. But no one was hopeful.

When Stanton and Wells arrived at the people, Peterson home, they found the place packed with congressmen, government officials, soldiers, doctors, family members, and onlookers. Mary Lincoln and some family members and attendants were crammed into the front parlor. Mary was inconsolable. Stanton asked a doctor about the president's condition and the doctor said it was grave. The president might not last another three hours. It was 11 p.m., 30 to 45 minutes after President Lincoln had been shot.

At that moment, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton began the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. In the parlor at the back of the Peterson home, Stanton huddled with other officials. He wanted to interview witnesses immediately. Time was of the essence, and he knew it would also take too long to write down every word of the testimony in longhand. He needed someone who was trained to take shorthand notes, but no one in the room could do it. Word spread quickly through the Peterson home and beyond that they needed someone who knew shorthand stenography. In a matter of moments, 21-year-old James Tanner was sitting in the parlor next to Stanton,

pencil in hand. Tanner has a remarkable personal story. He was a former Union soldier who had been severely injured in the first major engagement of the war, Bull Run, or Manassas as the Confederates called it. A shell sliced through his legs and they had been amputated below the knee. He survived the surgery and then the grueling hours of physical therapy to learn to walk on artificial legs that were made of wood and steel. Four years later, he lived at a boarding house right next to the Peterson home. And he worked for the War Department while he went to business school, where he studied shorthand stenography.

On the night of April 14th, he wanted to see our amendment. American cousin at Ford's Theater. But a friend invited him to see Aladdin, so he honored his friend's request and made the journey to Grover's Theater about a mile away. He was in the audience when a man burst in and shouted that the president had been shot. He watched as Tad Lincoln screamed and ran out of the building. He left the theater with everyone else when the manager closed it for the night. Tanner made the arduous trek back home, navigating through hordes of people on shaky legs with the help of only a cane. He made it to his boarding house and out onto the balcony

just in time to see Stanton and Wells arrive at the Peterson home. Within minutes, words circulated that Stanton needed a stenographer who could take shorthand notes. One of Tanner's co-workers was in the Peterson home and essentially volunteered Tanner for the job. The co-worker knew Tanner lived right next door. Soldiers found Tanner and brought him to the Peterson House. house. A general led him down the hallway to the parlor where Stanton worked. Stanton's scribbled orders for generals and departments all over the country. A judge began questioning witnesses at Ford's

theater, including actor Harry Hawk, who had uttered the now famous line that gave Booth the cover to fire the shot. James Tanner dutifully recorded the sessions in shorthand. Tanner wrote later that in just 15 minutes, he had enough testimony to hang John Wilkes' Booth. While the investigation began at the Peterson home, people still flocked to the area around Ford's theater. One of those people was Lawrence Gobright, the reporter for the Associated press who had sent one of the first telegrams about the attack. Somehow, he made it inside the theater and up to the president's box. As the lamps ran out of gas, the theater grew dark. Gobright surveyed the grim scene in the box, and someone found the pistol that Booth had used.

for the attack. Gobright took it and passed it to the chief of police. As Gobright left the theater, he heard rumors of the attack on Secretary Seward. He hurried to the secretary's house, but at that point it was under heavy guard and he couldn't get in. He did hear something about a man named Payne who had assaulted the secretary. Gobert heard more rumors that attacks had been attempted on the vice president and others, but he couldn't find any reliable sources for the information. Finally, he rushed back to his office and wrote a long telegram that detailed the events of April 14th as he knew them. He didn't mention Booth or the mysterious Mr. Payne by name, but less than two hours after the attacks, he had learned an incredible amount of detail.

It wouldn't take long for the identities of the attackers to be known worldwide. In the Maryland countryside, John Wilkes Booth could not have understood the full extent of the chaos that reigned in Washington City. As his horse trudged toward a spot called Soper's Hill, and the city retreated in the distance behind him, he would have had to use his imagination. But more likely, he was focused on his throbbing left ankle and his destination. The hill was the meeting spot for he and David Harold. Booth found it and settled in to wait. Eventually, Harold made it to the rendezvous point and the two men set out for Mary Sarat's tavern. The tavern was 13 miles from Washington, and it was a combination in and saloon.

The Surrott family had lived there until 1864 when they'd moved to Washington. At that point, Mary rented the tavern to John Lloyd. In the area, the little stopover place was known as Sarattsville, and it was a safe haven for Confederate operatives. Today, it's the small city of Clinton, Maryland. On the night of April 14, 1865, Booth and Harold rode up to the tavern somewhere around midnight. Harold dismounted and pounded on the door. A sleepy John Lloyd got out of bed and grabbed the supplies that were hidden in the saloon, two rifles and a set of field glasses.

Booth had stashed the rifles with Lloyd several weeks ago when he planned to kidnap the president, and he'd sent the binoculars out to the tavern with Mary Surat earlier that point. day. Mary had instructed Lloyd to keep the items handy. He would receive visitors that night. The visitors had arrived, and they took one rifle and the binoculars. Before Booth and Harold continued their journey south, Booth told Lloyd something that Lloyd would never forget. The actor bragged that they had assassinated the Secretary of State and the President of the United States that night. Then they spurred their horses and headed south to find a doctor for Booth's leg.

Next time on Infamous America, Booth and Harold begin their escape in earnest, and Stanton begins the manhunt in earnest. Investigators swarm Washington and arrest anyone who might have had anything to do with the assassination. And the nation mourns the loss of its first murdered president. That's next week on Infamous America. Research for this season was provided by Joey McAdams.

Editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your writer and host, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Please visit our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details, and join us on social media.

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