Between the Lines Part 35

There was no white person about. We ate and visited, she questioning us about the murder, and we cautioning her. Finally, when we were about to leave, we told her we knew Mr. Arnold. She said he had gone away some days since to Old Point Comfort. Our purpose was accomplished. It is not necessary to say we hurried.

Everybody bound for Old Point had to get a pa.s.s at our office. A record was kept of each, together with the name of a person as reference. An examination of the register disclosed at once Samuel B. Arnold's name, vouched for by Mr. Wharton ("Wickey" Wharton), whom we knew; he was sutler at Old Point. We wired to him to know where Arnold was. He replied: "A clerk in my employ." We then wired for his arrest.

He was arrested and sent to Baltimore on the Bay Line boat, reaching Baltimore on the 18th.

The following was my order to go to Washington with him:

Headquarters, Middle Department, 8th Army Corps.

Office Provost Marshal, Baltimore, Apl. 18, 1865.

Lieut. H. B. Smith (in citizen's clothes) and officer Babc.o.c.k, will accompany the officer in charge of S. B. Arnold, to Washington, to aid in securing Arnold's safe delivery. The duty performed they will return to these headquarters without delay.

By command of Bvt. Brigadier General Morris.

JOHN WOOLLEY, Lt. Col. Chf. Staff Prov. Mar.

Arnold was sentenced to Dry Tortugas for life. Following is a copy of Arnold's letter, found in Booth's trunk:

Hookstown, Baltimore County, Md., March 27, 1865.

Dear John:

Was business so important that you could not remain in Baltimore till I saw you? I came in as soon as I could, but found you had gone to W----n. I called also to see Mike, but learned from his mother he had gone out with you, and had not returned. I concluded, therefore, he had gone with you.

How inconsiderate you have been. When I left you, you stated we would meet in a month or so. Therefore I made application for employment, an answer to which I shall receive during the week. I told my parents I had ceased with you.

Can I then, under existing circ.u.mstances, come as you requested? You know full well that the G----t suspicions something is going on there; therefore the undertaking is becoming more complicated. Why not, for the present desist, for various reasons? which, if you look into, you can readily see without my making any mention thereof to you. Nor anyone can censure me for my present course. You have been its cause, for how can I now come after telling them I had left you?

Suspicion rests on me now, from my whole family, and even parties in the country. I will be compelled to leave home, anyhow, and how soon I care not.

None, no, not one, were more in favor of the enterprise than myself, and to-day would be there, had you not done as you have--by this, I mean, manner of proceeding.

I am, as you well know, in need. I am, you may say, in rags, whereas to-day I ought to be well clothed.

I do not feel right stalking about without means, and more from appearance a beggar. I feel my independence; but even all this would be, and was forgotten, for I was one with you.

Time more propitious will arrive yet. Do not act rashly or in haste. I would prefer your first query, "Go and see how it will be taken at R----d," and ere long I shall be better prepared to again be with you. I dislike writing; would sooner verbally make known my views, yet you know writing causes me thus to proceed.

Do not in anger peruse this, weigh all I have said, and as a rational man and a friend, you cannot censure or upbraid my conduct. I sincerely trust this, nor naught else that shall or may occur, will ever be an obstacle to obliterate our former friendship and attachment.

Write me to Baltimore, as I expect to be in about Wednesday or Thursday, or, if you can possibly come on, I will Tuesday meet you in Baltimore at B----. Ever I subscribe myself,

Your friend, SAM.

Notwithstanding the opprobrium attaching to the name, Arnold, in American history, I have always looked upon this Arnold with some feelings of pity.

The following account of Paine's arrest is borrowed from Mr. Osborn H.

Oldroyd's "a.s.sa.s.sination of Abraham Lincoln":

The doorbell of Mrs. Surratt's house, No. 541 (now No. 604) H Street, N. W., was rung by Major H. W. Smith, in company with other officers, about eleven o'clock Monday night, the 17th.

When the bell rang, Mrs. Surratt appeared at the window and said: "Is that you, Mr. Kirby"? The reply was that it was not Mr. Kirby, and to open the door. She opened the door, and was asked: "Are you Mrs. Surratt?" She said: "I am the widow of John H. Surratt." The officer added, "And the mother of John H. Surratt, Jr.?" She replied: "I am." Major Smith said: "I come to arrest you and all in your house, and take you for examination to General Augur's headquarters." No inquiry whatever was made as to the cause of arrest. Mr. R. C. Morgan, in the service of the War Department, made his appearance at the Surratt house a few minutes later, sent under orders to superintend the seizure of papers and the arrest of the inmates. While the officers were in the house a knock and ring were heard at the door, and Mr. Morgan and Captain Wermerskirch stepped forward and opened the door, and Lewis Payne stepped in with a pickax over his shoulder, dressed in a gray coat and vest and black trousers. As he had left his hat in the house of Secretary Seward, he had made one out of the sleeve of a shirt or the leg of a drawers, pulling it over his head like a turban. He said he wished to see Mrs. Surratt, and when asked what he came that time of night for, he replied he came to dig a gutter, as Mrs. Surratt had sent for him in the morning. When asked where he boarded, he said he had no boarding house, that he was a poor man, who got his living with the pick. Mr. Morgan asked him why he came at that hour of the night to go to work? He said he simply called to find out what time he should go to work in the morning. When asked if he had any previous acquaintance with Mrs Surratt, he answered, "No," but said that she knew he was working around the neighborhood and was a poor man, and came to him. He gave his age as twenty, and was from Fauquier County, Virginia, and pulled out an oath of allegiance, and on it was "Lewis Payne, Fauquier County, Virginia." Mrs. Surratt was asked whether she knew him, and she declared in the presence of Payne, holding up her hands: "Before G.o.d, I have never seen that man before; I have not hired him; I do not know anything about him." Mrs.

Surratt said to Mr. Morgan: "I am so glad you officers came here to-night, for this man came here with a pickax to kill us."

From Mrs. Surratt's house Payne was taken to the provost marshal's office. Mrs. Surratt was informed that the carriage was ready to take her to the provost marshal's office, and she, with her daughter Annie, Miss Honora Fitzpatrick, and Miss Olivia Jenkins (the latter two boarded at the house), were driven away.

The telegram received on Sat.u.r.day morning the 15th, giving a description of the person who tried to kill Secretary Seward, was quite accurate, considering it was made by persons under great excitement. The oath of allegiance which Paine pulled out of his pocket when arrested, was the doc.u.ment issued from our office. He had erased, however, the restriction which ordered that he was to "go north of Philadelphia and remain during the war."

Before telling of what I did after discovering Paine to be the person I had released on March 14th, I want you to read the account Mr. Oldroyd gives of his clumsily brutal attack on Secretary Seward:

"Lewis Payne (his real name was Lewis Thornton Powell), boarded at the Horndon House, corner Ninth and F Streets, where the Loan and Trust Building now stands, for two weeks, leaving there on the afternoon of April 14th. He paid his bill at four o'clock, and requested dinner before the regular time, and it was served to him.

Very little is known of his whereabouts from that time until 10 P. M., when he rang the bell of the Seward mansion, which stood on the ground now occupied by the Lafayette Opera House.

When the door was opened by the colored doorkeeper, Payne stepped in, holding a little package in his hand, saying that he had some medicine for Secretary Seward, sent by Dr. Verdi, which he was directed to deliver in person and give instructions how it was to be taken.

The doorkeeper informed him that he could not see Mr. Seward, but he repeated the words, saying he must see him. He talked very roughly for several minutes against the protest of the doorkeeper, who said he had positive orders to admit no one to the sick-chamber.

The doorkeeper finally weakened, thinking perhaps he was sent by Dr. Verdi, and let him ascend the stairs. When at the top, he met Mr. Frederick Seward, a son of the Secretary's to whom he told the object of his visit, but Mr. Seward told him that he could not see his father; that he was asleep, but to give him the medicine and he would take it to him. That would not do; he must see Mr. Seward; and then Mr. Seward said: "I am the proprietor here, and his son; if you cannot leave your message with me, you cannot leave it at all."

Payne started downstairs, and after taking a few steps, suddenly turned around and struck Mr. Frederick Seward, felling him to the floor. Sergeant George F. Robinson, acting as attendant nurse to Mr. Seward, was in an adjoining room, and on hearing the noise in the hall opened the door, where he found Payne close up to it. As soon as the door was opened, he struck Robinson in the forehead with a knife, knocking him partially down, and pressed past him to the bed of Mr. Seward, where he leaned over it and struck him three times in the neck with his dagger.

Mr. Seward had been out riding shortly before the fatal day, and had been thrown from his carriage with great violence, breaking an arm and fracturing his jaw. The physician had fixed up a steel mask or frame to hold the broken bones in place while setting. The a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger cut his face from the right cheek down to the neck, and but for this steel bandage, which deflected two of the stabs, the a.s.sa.s.sin might have accomplished his purpose.

The carriage disaster was after this night almost considered a blessing in disguise. Frederick Seward suffered intensely from a fracture of the cranium. The nurse attempted to haul Payne off the bed, when he turned and attacked him the second time.

During this scuffle Major Augustus H. Seward, son of Secretary Seward, entered the room and clinched Payne, and between the two they succeeded in getting him to the door, when he broke away and ran downstairs and outdoors.

The colored doorkeeper ran after the police or guards when Frederick Seward was knocked down, and returned and reported that he saw the man riding a horse and followed him to I Street, where he was lost sight of.

In some way Payne's horse got away from him, for a little after one o'clock on the morning of the 15th Lieutenant John F. Toffey, on going to the Lincoln Hospital, East Capitol and Fifteenth Streets, where he was on duty, found a dark bay horse, with saddle and bridle on, standing at Lincoln Branch Barracks. The horse no doubt came in on a sort of byroad that led to Camp Barry, which turned north from the Branch Barracks towards the Bladensburg road. The sweat pouring from the animal had made a regular puddle on the ground. A sentinel at the hospital had stopped the horse. Lieutenant Toffey and Captain Lansing, of the 13th New York Cavalry, took the horse to the headquarters of the picket at the Old Capitol Prison, and from there to General E. O. C. Ord's headquarters. After reaching there, they discovered that the horse was blind of one eye, which identified it as the one Booth purchased in November, 1864, from Squire George Gardiner."

Immediately upon the identification of Paine I arrested the Bransons and all the occupants of their fashionable boarding house, No. 16 North Eutaw Street. Following is a list of the persons arrested:

Mrs. M. A. Branson, Miss M. A. Branson, Miss Maggie Branson, Mrs. Early, Mrs. Croyean, Miss Croyean, Mrs. Thomas Hall, Miss Josephine Hall, Mr. Joseph Branson, Jr., Mr. C. H. Morgan, Mr. C. S. Shriver, Mr. Chas. Ewart, Mr. C. E. Barnett, Mr. J. C. Hall, Mr. W. H. Ward, Mr. E. A. Willer, Mr. C. H. Croyean, Mr. Aug. Thomas, Mr. Winchester, Mr. Thos. Hall, Mr. S. T. Morgan, Mr. H. D. Shriver.

I began my examination of the individuals in the house, seeking to find who, if any, were intimate with Paine, and might, therefore, have had some knowledge of the crime "before the fact."

Not all of these people were known to be disloyal. Messrs. C. H. Morgan, S. T. Morgan, C. S. Shriver and H. D. Shriver are marked on my list as "loyal," and there may have been others.

I have a lead pencil memorandum of the examination in the house (No. 16 North Eutaw Street) but it is so disjointed as to be unintelligible, and I will not put it in here. Finding that the most valuable source of information was the Bransons, I released all others, resuming the examination of Miss Maggie Branson in my office where I could be more deliberate.

Her statement is mixed and disjointed and there are repet.i.tions. It took me much time to elicit the facts. She broke down and wanted me to destroy a great part of her statement and let her replace it with a truthful one, which I refused, requiring that all she had said should be put down.

Examination of Miss Maggie Branson.

"I was at the General Hospital at Gettysburg about six weeks in 1863. I was there in the capacity of nurse. I don't know any of the surgeons except Dr. Simley, of Philadelphia, who would remember me. I went there to a.s.sist all the wounded soldiers. While there I saw a man known as Lewis Payne; he went by the name of "Doctor" and "Powell," he wore a pair of blue pants, I think, and a slouch hat; I did not have much talk with him while there.