Now the nation slept. Tenth Street was deserted. Washington City was quiet. So were Ashtabula and Asbury Park. The few who were acquainted with the tragedy slept as soundly as the many who had yet to hear of it. Night trains roared through the countryside with wide-awake engineers, and milk wagons clanked to stores east and west and north and south, and policemen in fawn helmets yawned at street corners, but still the nation slept.
Even young Anna Surratt and Honora Fitzpatrick had long since exhausted the giggles in remembering the fierce detective who had pulled back the bedclothes a little. They too slept. Atzerodt slept. Major Rathbone slept. So did little Tad Lincoln, who had been in bed at the White House since 8 P.M.
This hour was the quiet one.
In Petersen House, Stanton decided that a second news bulletin should go at once to General Dix in New York. He still bustled at his work. Corporal Tanner yawned and pretended to be thinking, with eyes closed, of his notes. Justice Cartter sat, with crossed legs, staring out a back window which, by daylight, gave little view, and at night none. Stanton wanted to send this notice to Dix so that he could rectify an early mistake and name the assassin.
Washington City
No. 458 Tenth Street, April 15, 1865
3 a.m.
Major-General Dix,
The President still breathes, but is quite insensible, as he has been ever since he was shot. He evidently did not see the person who shot him, but was looking on the stage as he was approached behind.
Mr. Seward has rallied, and it is hoped he may live. Frederick Seward’s condition is very critical. The attendant who was present was stabbed through the lungs, and is not expected to live. The wounds of Major Seward are not serious. Investigation strongly indicates J. Wilkes Booth as the assassin of the President. Whether it was the same or a different person that attempted to murder Mr. Seward remains in doubt. Chief Justice Cartter is engaged in taking the evidence. Every exertion has been made to prevent the escape of the murderer. His horse has been found on the road, near Washington.
Edwin M. Stanton
Secretary of War
He sent this to Bates, at the War Department Telegraph Office at once. Little time was wasted on any of Stanton’s messages. Troopers at the curb in front of Petersen House were given the dispatches, and rode at top speed down to E Street, across E to the south White House grounds, and up Seventeenth to the department. Here, young soldiers waited at the curb to take messages upstairs to Bates and, at the same time, to give messages to the troopers for Stanton.
It was an efficient system. The message above was sent over the wires at 3:20 A.M. By 4 A.M. it had been read to the New York press. The dispatch itself is significant only because it shows that Stanton was beginning to change his mind. He had begun with the notion that Washington was seething with assassins and arsonists; that a reign of terror had overtaken the city and death was to overtake many people before dawn.
Now, almost five hours later, he had a suspicion that the Federal Government was fighting one man. “Every exertion has been made to prevent the escape of the murderer. His horse has been found. . . .” If the new thesis was correct, then Stanton, with all the majesty and power of the United States Government behind him, was a damned fool. He had been outwitted, was being outwitted, and might continue to be outwitted by a lone actor. Because of this, and for no other reason, the Secretary of War would, in the days ahead, insist that this was all part of a huge conspiracy, inspired and approved by the defunct Confederate States Government. He could not admit, even to himself, that he was not battling Davis and Benjamin and Seddon and Stephens. It was big, or Stanton was ridiculous.
Speed wanted to leave the premises for a while, and he brought to Stanton the letter which would notify Johnson that the President had died. Stanton placed it on Corporal Tanner’s table, and the young man read it:
Sir:
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was shot by an assassin last evening at Ford’s Theatre, in this city and died at the hour of—.
About the same time at which the President was shot an assassin entered the sick chamber of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and stabbed him in several places—in the throat, neck, and face—severely if not mortally wounding him. Other members of the Secretary’s family were dangerously wounded by the assassin while making his escape.
By the death of President Lincoln the office of President has devolved under the constitution upon you. The emergency of the government demands that you should immediately qualify according to the requirements of the constitution, and enter upon the duties of President of the United States. If you will please make known your pleasure such arrangements as you deem proper will be made.
Your obedient servants,
Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy
W. Dennison, Postmaster-General
J. P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior
James Speed, Attorney General
To Hon. Andrew Johnson,
Vice President of the United States.
At police headquarters, Major Richards wrote an order of small importance to any but drinkers:
Washington City, April 15, 1865
Three o’clock a.m.
In view of the melancholy events of last evening, I am directed to cause all places where liquor is sold to be closed this entire day and night. The sergeants of the several precincts are instructed that this order is enforced.
A. C. Richards,
Superintendent.
General Augur received a report of the raid on Surratt House before he could organize his forces, and the news about the Surratt family was forwarded to Stanton with the news about the stableman who serviced Booth’s horse, the letter from Sam Arnold to Booth, and other late data including Atzerodt’s peculiar behavior at Kirkwood House. For the first time, a tavern in southern Maryland, at Surrattsville, came into focus.
Stanton and Cartter went over each report with care, and the more the two men listened and read, the more it became apparent that they were battling two or three men—or at most, a half dozen—all of whom had an affinity for southern Maryland or for Baltimore. The best news of all was the letter from Sam Arnold to Booth, because that established, beyond argument, that there was a plot; it established that such a plot had existed for weeks; it established that Arnold thought that Booth should not move until he first heard from “R d——.”
At once, the Secretary of War began to work on a new dispatch for General Dix.