JWB: Plans

In the summer of 1864, Booth began formulating plans to kidnap Abraham Lincoln.

On March 15, Booth and his most of his fellow conspirators met at a Restaurant three blocks from Ford's Theatre to plan their abduction of the President. Booth heard that the President would be attending a matinee performance of Still Waters Run Deep on March 17 at the Campbell Hospital on the outskirts of Washington. This, he decided, would the perfect opportunity for a kidnapping--Booth's plans were foiled, however, when the President changed his plans.

Booth then turned to plan to kidnap the President at a future performance at Ford's Theatre, where the actor had several friends, but the plan failed to win the support of some of his co-conspirators, who dismissed it as infeasible.

On April 14, 1865, after the fall of Richmond rendered moot his kidnap scheme, Booth set in motion his final plan--one of assassination.

Booth tried to convince several of his co-conspirators to participate in his plot to kill several high government officials ( including the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and probably General Grant), but found few willing.

Around 10:15, as the President and the First Lady watched a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre, Booth, showed a card to a presidential aide and was allowed entry through a lobby door leading to the presidential box. Reaching the box, Booth pushed open the door. The President sat in his armchair, one hand on the railing and the other holding to the side a flag that decorated the box, in order to gain a better view of a person in the orchestra. From a distance of about four feet behind Lincoln, Booth fired a bullet into the President's brain as he shouted "Revenge for the South!" (according to one witness) or "Freedom!" (according to another). Major Rathbone, seated with the President in the State Box, sprang up to grab the assassin, but Booth wrested himself away after slashing the general with a large knife. Booth rushed to the front of the box as Rathbone reached for him again, catching some of his clothes as Booth leapt over the railing. Rathbone's grab was enough to cause Booth to fall roughly on the stage below, where he badly fractured his leg.

Rising from the stage, Booth shouted "Sic semper tyrannus!" and ran across the stage and toward the back of the theatre. Booth rushed out the back door of the theatre to a horse being held for him by Joseph Burroughs (better known as "Peanuts"). Booth mounted the horse and swept rapidly down an alley, then to the left toward F Street--and disappeared into the Washington darkness.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lincolnconspiracy/booth.html#Biographic



It is very apropos that Wilkes' first kidnapping attempt took place at a theatre. Lincoln had scheduled to attend a performance of Jack Cade, or The Kentish Revolution on the evening of January 18, 1865, at Ford's Theatre. That evening, the State Box, overlooking stage left, was decorated in flags and bunting, awaiting the President's arrival.
The conspirators assembled early to take their positions. At a particular moment in the play, one man would extinguish the house gas lamps; at the same time, two others (including Wilkes) would enter the private box (habitually unguarded and unlocked); while one man held the other occupants at bay, Wilkes would knock the President unconscious and lower him in darkness onto the stage below where the remaining abductors would drag the ragamuffin out to a covered buckboard. Then, it would be a bee-line out of Washington, across the Anacostia Bridge and on a direct route towards Virginia. Abettors' residences would conceal them along the way.

Detained by business, the President never showed. But, to the would-be kidnappers, his absence meant one thing. They were suspect! Scrambling out, they retreated to their own abodes where, alone, they expected reprisal. After the night passed without further incident, however, they realized their paranoia and reconvened the following day.

Days turned into weeks and no other opportunity presented itself. Lincoln, having won a second term of Office, was reinaugurated on March 4. Shielded under the Capitol's gargantuan portico from a downpour, he addressed a throng blackening the plaza with umbrellas. 'With malice toward none and charity for all..." His words swept on the wind and into the annals of history. Above him on a buttress, within spitting distance, was Wilkes, one in a crowd of dignitaries with free passes. Silently, Wilkes listened to the man whose words of reconciliation and forgiveness meant nothing. "What an opportunity I had to kill him!" Wilkes reported later.

But, he had chosen to wait, and watch. And continue to court the dark-haired Bessie Lambert Hale, daughter of a New Hampshire senator, whom he met the previous year. It was through her he had received the ringside spot at the Inauguration.


On March 20, as things became more desperate for the South — Richmond was now besieged and expected to surrender any day — Wilkes called his "enterprise," as he called it, together one more time. He had read that Lincoln was to attend a benefit at the U.S. Soldiers Convalescent Home in suburban Georgetown. The path the executive carriage would take, Wilkes learned, would be through a stretch of woodland on the outskirts of the city. But, as the company waited at a deserted crossing at a half-way point, Lincoln had changed his agenda. Instead, he chose to attend a function back in Washington...in the lobby of Wilkes' hotel.

Wilkes learned of the President's coming when he stopped at Ford's at noon to pick up his mail, where he kept a post box. He noticed carpenters preparing Box 7 with the usual regalia and understood what that meant. He raced out to find his brigands.

Arnold and O'Laughlen, he learned, had returned to Baltimore, disinterested in further enterprise. John Surratt was nowhere to be seen. (Actually, he was in Canada on a final mission for the Underground.) Wilkes was able to locate Paine, David Herold and George Atzerodt to prepare them for an evening they had not expected.

His plan was spontaneous, it was bloody, and it was hellish. Comparing them to soldiers who must avenge their stricken South, he assigned each of them a human target to kill that night — one of a "senate of butchers" most responsible for the South's defeat. Paine would slay Secretary of State William H. Seward who was at home bed-ridden after a carriage accident days earlier; he would make an easy prey. David Herold's quarry was Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton who, Wilkes said, never went out nights. And Atzerodt's target was Vice President Andrew Johnson, who resided at the Kirkwood House, where the German was also staying.

But Wilkes chose for himself the starring role as the Brutus of this play, the man who would take the life of the dictator. He would bring down the Colossus of Rhodes at last.

At about 9:30 p.m. the evening of April 14, that assassin sauntered into the Star Saloon next door to Ford's Theatre and ordered a shot of whisky. Peter Taltavul, the establishment's owner, thought it curious that Wilkes, a habitual brandy drinker, should suddenly order whisky. "Nevermind that," Wilkes smiled. "Do you plan on seeing the show tonight? You ought to. You'll see some damn fine acting!" With that, he checked the wall clock and left.

The President's carriage was parked on 10^th Street outside the theatre; Forbes the coachman dozed in the driver's seat. A slight drizzle dampened the streets. Once inside the foyer, Wilkes checked the time again: three-quarters to ten. He nodded at ticket taker John Buckingham and ascended the stairs to the dress circle. From within the auditorium he could hear muffled echoes of stage dialogue. He recognized the lines he knew so well. He knew Our American Cousin; he knew that in Act III, Scene 2 — at any moment now — only one actor would be left alone onstage. That would be his cue.

Across Washington, the other conspirators synchronized their timepieces. Their plan was to strike all at once, to throw the city into confusion, thus making their egress from the city more possible. In Lafayette Square, adjacent to the Seward home, Paine checked his tools of trade: a revolver and a Bowie knife. A few blocks away, David Herold shivered in a fine mist that sent chills through him there in the gloom of Stanton's yard. He gulped, panic tightening his throat. George Atzerodt was drunk. He had no intention of killing anyone. When he discovered his bottle was empty, he left the Kirkwood House in search of the nearest tavern. Damn the Vice President.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/assassins/booth/8.html