Weekly View » Lincoln assassination

Abraham Lincoln at the Irving Theatre

Al Hunter — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 05:08:44 +0000

Well, not in the flesh, but Lincoln will surely be there in spirit. Anyone familiar with my writings and ramblings knows that I have one special obsession: Abraham Lincoln. I’ve written several articles, papers and literary works on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln over the past 15 years or so. Once again, we will meet and discuss the assassination of Lincoln and the resulting legend of the ghost train at the Irving Theater this Saturday, April 14th at 5 p.m. This date is important as it is the 153rd anniversary (to the day) of the Lincoln assassination. In my opinion, that night changed the face of America forever.
It has been eight years since I hosted my last Lincoln talk. Three things motivated me for this return presentation. One: I’ve promised Irving Theatre owner Dale Harkins for years that I would do it again. Two: I’ve picked up a whole bunch of new Abraham Lincoln relics that, pardon the pun, I’m dying to show off. And three: The Irvington Food Bank at Gaia Works is empty. Admission is free but we do ask that you bring an unopened food item or personal care item as a donation to the Irvington food bank.
Please consider bringing transportable, healthy snacks. Individually wrapped items like granola bars and energy bars, crackers and meat sticks. Personal care items like toothbrushes, deodorants and band-aids are much needed. If you are like most people, you have a bag or a box of those little soaps and shampoos from hotel vacations past. We’ll take ‘em! Socks and gloves are also much prized. Blue jeans too tight or too loose? We’ll take them off your hands. Open your heart to your less fortunate neighbors. Do it for Abraham Lincoln. As a thank you, I will hand out copies of the official April 30th, 1865 Lincoln Funeral train timetable through the Hoosier State for you to take home as a souvenir (that is, until I run out of them).
The Lincoln funeral train is consistently the most asked for story on the ghost tours. It is the event that gathers the most attention from admirers and devotees of the 16th President. Although we’ll discuss the route of the train this Saturday evening, there are specific details about the train that rarely seem to make their way into public view.
When the train came through Indiana, the official “Travel Log” of the train notes that it arrived in Greenfield at 5:48 a.m., Philadelphia at 5:57 a.m., Cumberland at 6:30 a.m., the Engine House (identified as “Thorne” in Irvington) at 6:45 a.m. before finally arriving in Indianapolis at 7:00 a.m. The previous day’s rain had stopped just after midnight as the train approached the Indiana border, revealing a beautiful starlit sky backdrop for the sad processional and lifting the hopes of the trackside witnesses. However, the telltale slap/pop sound of hard raindrops hitting roofs and dirt roads reappeared in the predawn hours and by 6 a.m., a hard rain blanketed the Hoosier countryside. Although it was dark and rainy, the area along the tracks was well lit by torches and bonfires tended by loyal Lincolnites as the train crept towards Indianapolis at less than 10 miles per hour.
In Greenfield, the depot was choked with people wishing to gaze upon the face of the departed leader one last time. The train was not officially scheduled to stop in Greenfield, but the mood among the citizens was that perhaps the engineer might be persuaded to stop when he witnessed the tremendous outpouring of trackside emotion at the depot. The local newspaper described among those expectant gatherers “a knot of three boys, hands in pockets chattering back and forth with each other while pacing up and down the railroad tracks. Two older fellows were standing together, each arm around the other, probably soldiers remembering what it means to be a comrade.” The depot porch was filled to overflowing with women in long dresses, old soldiers in uniforms of blue and a sea of men dressed entirely in black. The telegraph operator in Charlottesville wired that the train had just passed and was heading towards Greenfield.
A sentinel was perched atop the station to alert the citizens below of the train’s approach. In a few moments, a cloud of silver phosphorescent smoke appeared above the tree tops that parallels the exact route of the present day Pennsy trail. “Here it Comes” was the cry from above and immediately the crowd below hushed and gazed eastward expectantly. For several moments, the only sound that could be heard on the platform was the muffled weeping of the gathered mourners. The crowd asked Captain Reuben Riley to read aloud excerpts from Lincoln’s second inaugural address as the train slowly approached. As if in response to the impromptu ceremony, the train paused briefly at the station and the engineer removed his cap in respect to the reverent gathering.
Fortuitously, Reverend Manners stepped from the crowd and led the group in a prayer that began with “Thank God for the life of Abraham Lincoln.” The people now openly wept as the nine car train departed westward towards Indianapolis. Unfortunately, there are no witness accounts from the train’s sojourn through Irvington. But judging by the records from other towns and cities along the route, it is easy to imagine that the depot that once stood near the intersection of present day Bonna Avenue and South Audubon Road was likewise bedecked in black mourning cloth, lit by trackside bonfires and oil lamps, it’s platform choked with adoring masses.
The train came to it’s final west bound destination under cover of a sheltered structure at Union Station in the Hoosier Capitol City. As the train arrived, guns were fired every minute, every city bell chimed continuously, and the Indianapolis city band played dirges at trackside. The train slowed to a stop as the smokestack puffed and hissed under the massive hipped roof of the old station, enveloping the platform and gathered dignitaries in a ghostly fog. As the final slow hiss of boiler steam escaped the bowels of the Lincoln funeral train, the President of Chicago & Indiana Central Railway, D.E. Smith issued the following telegraph, “The funeral train arrived here precisely on time. There was a perfect torchlite along the along the whole route. Every farm house had its bonfire in order to see the train. Urbana, Piqua, Greenville and Richmond turned out their entire population. Nearly every town had arches built over the track.”
Extensive preparations had been made for receiving the President’s remains that Governor Oliver P. Morton decreed were to be “Consistent with the dignity and reputation of the state.” While Morton planned the festivities meticulously, leaving no stone unturned, he could not control the weather. As rains poured forth at daybreak, the bunting, mourning signs and decorations were soaked and, in most places, sadly dragging the ground. However, the rains did not deter the sorrowful pilgrimage of mourners packing the streets from Union Station to the Statehouse. The military guard was drawn up in a solid blue line on both sides of the street, posed with bayonets forward for five blocks from Illinois up Washington Street to the Statehouse doors. The heavy rain forced the cancellation of a much larger, planned official processional. Lincoln’s body was transferred by a guard of honor from the train into a hearse topped by a silver-gilt eagle, drawn by six white horses with black velvet covers, each bearing black and white plumes.
The body was escorted by Governor Morton and General “Fighting Joe” Hooker to the Indiana State House. Legend claims that we owe the title affixed to present day “ladies of the evening” to Gen. Hooker, an avowed ladies’ man. As proof of his affinity for the opposite sex, when the coffin was opened in preparation for public viewing, Hooker observed eight rosebuds clinging to the dead President’s body inside. He carefully plucked the flowers, believed to have been placed there while the body was in New York, and distributed them personally among several ladies present for the ceremonies. These women prized the memory of their encounter with the General as well as the flowers for decades after the event.
News traveled slowly in those days and Indianapolis was the first major city to hear the news that the President’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been captured and killed a few days before. The news buzzed through the excited crowd as they waited outside in the rain. The doors were opened at 9 a.m. as an estimated 120,000 people passed by Lincoln in less than 13 hours of public viewing. Roughly 155 people per minute (or 9,300 Hoosiers an hour) passed by the open casket as it rested in the old Capitol Building. By the time Mr. Lincoln’s body arrived in Indianapolis, his face was almost black from decomposition. A local newspaper reporter wrote that Lincoln looked, “…a good deal discolored and emaciated — wearing a haggard and careworn look, but otherwise rather natural.”
Among the most noteworthy visitors that day were the “Colored Masons” who formed a respectable procession lead by a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and carrying banners reading “Colored Men, always loyal” and “Slavery is dead.” By 9 p.m., the crowds diminished, allowing those remaining mourners the luxury of having a long look at the remains. The doors of the State House were ordered closed at 10 p.m. and once again the soldiers were assembled and posted along the return route to Union Station. At 11:50 p.m. the Lincoln train left Indianapolis bound for Chicago. During the night the train passed through Augusta at 12:30 a.m., Zionsville at 12:47 a.m., Whitestown at 1:07 a.m., Lebanon at 1:30 a.m., Thorntown at 2:10 a.m., Lafayette at 3:35 a.m. and Battle Ground at 3:55 a.m. In Michigan City at 7:40 a.m., an impromptu funeral was held and Mr. Lincoln’s coffin was opened one last time in the Hoosier State as mourners filed through the Lincoln train car to view the dead President.
The May 1, 1865 edition of the “Indianapolis Daily Sentinel” newspaper reported on the ceremonies of the previous day. “All in all the multitude presented the most grotesque and ridiculous appearance we have ever witnessed. Wet, tired, cold and famished, bedaubed with mud and filth, they presented a sorry sight indeed. No more inclement and uncharitable day could have been, and no more enthusiastic mass of sightseers could have been collected together.” Ironically, while the crowds waited in the rain-soaked muddy streets for one last glimpse of Lincoln, pickpockets worked the crowds. Abraham Lincoln would have appreciated the irony in that.

Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.

The Lincoln Assassination 150 Years Later, Part 6

Al Hunter — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 05:08:29 +0000

My 150th Abraham Lincoln assassination commemoration tour was coming to a close. I had participated in as many of the official events and ceremonies as I could. I just finished visiting the final resting places of six of the ten conspirators and now, as I prepared for the 10-hour drive home it occurred to me that I still had time on my hands. Eureka! I could finagle a few hours to head up to Baltimore and visit the graves of the remaining conspirators. Including the devil’s own minion, John Wilkes Booth.
After Booth’s death at the Garrett farmhouse, his body was wrapped in a U.S. Army blanket and unceremoniously tied to the side of an old farm wagon for the trip back to Northern Virginia. There, his corpse was taken aboard the ironclad USS Montauk for identification and autopsy. Booth’s body was then placed in an empty gun box and buried under the stone floor at the Old Penitentiary where it remained for two years. Later, like the bodies of the other four hanged conspirators, it was moved to a warehouse at the Washington Arsenal on October 1, 1867.
Two years later in 1869, Booth’s remains were released to his family. At the time of the reburial, it was noted that, like fellow conspirators Powell and Herold before him, the skull was detached from the body. The assassin’s reburial was attended by over 40 people. The night time graveside services were presided over by Rev. Fleming James, an Episcopal minister visiting from New York. When his parishioners learned that he officiated at the reburial of Lincoln’s killer, James was fired.
At the June 26, 1869 re-internment, Booth’s corpse was positively identified by John T. Ford and Henry Clay Ford (owners of Ford’s Theatre) and several members of the Booth family. Edwin Booth purchased the plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore and had his grandfather, father, three infant siblings, and brother John Wilkes buried together there. John Wilkes Booth grave was left unmarked at the request of his brother Edwin. Shortly after Booth’s death, Edwin wrote to his sister Asia, “Think no more of him as your brother; he is dead to us now, as he soon must be to all the world.”
Booth’s grave at Green Mount cemetery is by far the most ornate of all of the Lincoln assassination crew. It consists of a 10-foot-tall obelisk with the name “Booth” in prominent letters under a carved profile image of family patriarch, Junius Brutus Booth. The irony is immediately striking to all visitors who take time to read the monument as they realize that the father of the murderer of Abraham Lincoln was named after the lead assassin of Julius Caesar.
I spent a long time at Green Mount visiting and talking (yes, talking) to John Wilkes Booth. I knew that I would never again travel to this spot and didn’t want my visit to be confused as an honoration. I was alone in the old boneyard and wanted Booth to know just how badly he messed things up with his dastardly deed. In my opinion, Booth’s bullet beget the misdeeds and unjust treatment of the South after the Civil War, and thereby bore the subsequent abuse and prejudice experienced by African Americans, Native Americans, women and all other immigrants in this country. When Abraham Lincoln died, the south lost the best friend it could have ever had.
Although unmarked, Booth’s body is believed to be buried with the ashes of three siblings in the empty area just behind the obelisk. Visitors often leave offerings to him on an unmarked headstone within the plot. Most believe the small stone to be John’s, but it is that of his sister Asia. Traditionally, visitors leave Lincoln head pennies all over the grave and the day I visited was no exception. The small marble footstone was covered by pennies. Legend states that visitors delight in placing the pennies face down so that Lincoln is staring at Booth as he moulders in the grave. Whether true or not, the symbolism was not lost on me.
I didn’t have to travel far to visit two of the last three conspirators on my list. Samuel Arnold and Michael O’Laughlen are also buried in Green Mount cemetery. Both of these men were schoolmates of Booth who became involved in the failed plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. When the plot to kidnap became a plot to assassinate, childhood friends or not, the two men backed out. They, along with Mudd and Spangler, were tried and convicted for the crime.
Dr. Mudd, Arnold and O’Laughlen were sentenced to life imprisonment at Fort Jefferson in Florida’s Dry Tortugas. There, O’Laughlen contracted yellow fever and died in September of 1867. He was initially buried on an island adjacent to Fort Jefferson.
After the surviving conspirators were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in February of 1869, O’Laughlen’s body was retrieved and transported back to Baltimore. He was interred in the family plot on December 14th, 1870. Like Booth’s, O’Laughlen’s family plot is marked by a large obelisk with the family name prominently displayed upon it, Michael’s name neatly chiseled onto its side. And, like his boyhood chum Booth, O’Laughlen’s grave is often festooned with Lincoln head pennies.
Samuel Arnold was the last member of his family to be buried in the family plot at Green Mount. After Arnold returned from prison, he lived quietly out of the public eye for more than thirty years. Arnold died on September 21, 1906 of pulmonary tuberculosis. Sam Arnold’s stone is a small brick sized block with his last name carved neatly into the top. Today it lies mostly overlooked by all but those who literally trip over it in the tall grass.
The last conspirator on the list is John Surratt, son of hanged conspirator Mary Surratt. Most believe that Mary was unjustly hanged as a substitute for her son John, who fled to Canada after the assassination, arriving in Montreal two days after the assassination. He remained in hiding in a Catholic church there while his mother was arrested, tried and hanged.
Surratt eventually landed in England, and then Rome, serving for a time as a guard for the Pope in the Pontifical Zouave in the Papal States. Surratt was arrested by U.S. officials on November 23, 1866. He was returned to the U.S. (still wearing his Papal Zouaves uniform) in early 1867.
Eighteen months after his mother Mary was hanged, Surratt was tried in a Maryland civilian court, not before a military commission, as his mother and the others had been. After listening to testimony from 170 witnesses, the trial ended in a hung jury; eight jurors voting not guilty, four voting guilty. Surratt was released on $25,000 bail and immediately embarked on a controversial public lecture tour proclaiming his innocence. The federal government eventually dropped all charges.
Surratt died of pneumonia on April 21, 1916, at the age of 72. He outlived Abraham Lincoln for over a half century (almost 51 years to the day, actually) and was buried in the New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore. The last of the conspirators, he is buried under a plain stone cross bearing the name “Surratt.” The grave is as unremarkable as the man himself and I purposely did not spend much time there.
However, the John Surratt grave is located on Highway 40, the very same road we know as Washington Street here on the east side. Located just a short 10-minute drive west on highway 40 is another famous grave. And this one is a bucket lister. Westminster Cemetery sits about as downtown in Baltimore as downtown can get. It is the final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe.
Perhaps as mysteriously as the man himself, Poe has two graves located there. His original massive pillar stone, purchased for him in 1875, rests in the forefront of the cemetery. It can almost be touched from the busy streets surrounding it. The imposing monument features a classic 3-D bronze relief medallion of Poe on its side. The newer stone, placed there in 1913, rests in the back of the cemetery at the site of his previously unmarked grave where Poe rested unknown for 36 years. Some will argue that this stone is more in tune with the macabre poet’s reputation. It has a dark Gothic look with a Raven carved into the top above the famous “Nevermore” quote.
Ironically, on this my final stop, while attempting to take one last photo of myself beside the newer stone, the selfie-stick I had been using without fail for the past week, snapped off, rendering it unusable. As an homage, I left a cigar and a wine glass. It was a fittingly eerie way to end my trip to be sure. Little did I know, the very next day (Saturday, April 18th) citizen protests would begin over the April 12th arrest and subsequent death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. He died of his injuries on Sunday April 19th sparking racial unrest on the streets just outside of Poe’s dual grave sites. Seems I came within an eyelash from being an observer of history to a participant.
Footnote: A week after my return from DC, I took a previously planned family trip to the Wisconsin Dells. In a land of waterparks and pools, it snowed everyday. Luckily the weather drove Rhonda and I into a local antique mall. There, resting in a case near the front door, Rhonda found a pair of priceless relics for me. One was a newspaper special edition card from April 15, 1865 announcing the death of Abraham Lincoln at 7:22 that morning. The other was a small fragment of the wood removed from the scaffold upon which the conspirators were hanged. It came with a handwritten note from the soldier on guard who collected and saved it 150 years ago. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.

The Lincoln Assassination 150 Years Later, Part 4

Al Hunter — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:08:14 +0000

I went to Washington D.C. to participate in small part in the 150th anniversary ceremonies of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. I attended as many of the official ceremonies as I could, including most of the events connected with the National Parks Service 36-hour marathon at Ford’s Theatre they called “The Lincoln Tribute.” Although bleary-eyed and dragging, I then embarked on a trip I had been dreaming about since I was a young I.P.S. student; retracing the escape route of assassin John Wilkes Booth. I shared those experiences with you in three parts over the past few weeks.
Now, on this the final day of my trip to our nation’s capitol, I found myself with unexpected time on my hands; a luxury that seems to be very rare for me and one that I was sure not to waste. I had seen and visited all of the sites most commonly associated with the assassination of our sixteenth President. But what of his assassins and their aftermath? Most of them were born and raised in the region I now found myself wandering aimlessly through. I decided to spend my last day “digging” them up.
Like many American history buffs, I often find myself purposely walking in the footsteps of history. For whatever reason, I just as often find myself tramping through graveyards to eventually stand over the mortal remains of those whose exploits and deeds I have read about in books and pamphlets. It is a rare thing indeed to think that here lies the body of a noteworthy American from generations past with just a whisper between our own mortality and his (or her) eternity. Before you judge me ghoulish, keep in mind that cemeteries were originally designed much the same as parks, with the intention of accommodating visitors in the same fashion, albeit with expected respect and reverence for the more permanent residents.
On the first day of my trip, I visited one of my heroes, Lincoln collection curator and decorated Civil War soldier Osborn H. Oldroyd at Rock Creek cemetery. The cemetery is located a few miles north of the White House just a stone’s throw from the Lincoln Cottage where Mr. Lincoln sought retreat from the rigors of his job and the “heat” of D.C. Oldroyd rests not far from authors, actors, politicians, cabinet members and Supreme Court Justices. He also rests a short walk from one of the Lincoln conspirators, Lewis Thornton Powell, whose headless body rests in an unmarked grave nearby.
Powell, alias Paine, is surely the most intriguing, and arguably the most sympathetic, of the doomed quartet of conspirators. Powell, a true son of the south from extreme North Central Florida via Alabama and Georgia, enlisted in the Confederate army and was wounded during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. He served as an orderly in the soldier’s hospital located there for several weeks after his capture, earning the nickname “Doc.” He escaped and eventually hooked up with John Wilkes Booth and his gang. He would attack and seriously wound Secretary of State William H. Seward on the night of Lincoln’s assassination. Seward would live, but Powell would be hanged for his part in the conspiracy.
Ever the rigid rebel soldier, Powell’s body would swing ramrod straight for 30 minutes after the trap door dropped. His body, along with his three fellow conspirators, was buried unceremoniously near the scaffold in a wooden gun case with the only identifier being his name written on a scrap of paper pinned to his shirt. There it remained until 1867 when the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of the executed lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in the basement of Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. In February 1869, after much pleading from the Booths and Surratts, President Johnson agreed to turn the bodies of the co-conspirators over to their families. I visited the hanging site on this trip. Now located on the grounds of Fort Lesley J. McNair, south of Washington (near the Washington Senators stadium), the site is now a tennis court with no hint of it’s former nefarious historical significance.
Powell’s family declined to retrieve his body which was eventually buried in an unmarked grave at Rock Creek Cemetery. In 1991, a Smithsonian Institution researcher discovered Powell’s skull in the museum’s Native American skull collection. It appears that sometime in 1885, the skull was donated to the Army Medical Museum and ironically housed in the basement of Ford’s Theatre with their collection of artifacts, apparently unbeknownst to, and certainly unacknowledged by the curators. At that time, it was stenciled with the number 2244 and a capital “P.” The museum’s documentation showed that the skull belonged to a male erroneously named “Payne,” a criminal who had been executed by hanging. The Army gave the skull to the Smithsonian on May 7, 1898, and somehow it became mixed with their Native American collection. Almost a century later, on November 12, 1994, Lewis Powell’s skull was returned to his family and buried next to the grave of his mother, Caroline Patience Powell, at Geneva Cemetery in Florida. But now, here at Rock Creek cemetery, his headless body rested eerily beneath my feet. A sad, somehow fitting end to an even sadder life of a misguided soldier.
I then went in search of the grave of conspirator Mary Surratt in Mount Olivet Cemetery, not far from Rock Creek. Mt. Olivet is the largest Catholic burial ground in the District of Columbia, and like Rock Creek, it includes the graves of D.C.’s rich and famous. Mary Surratt, who most believe was guilty solely based on the fact that she owned the D.C. boarding house where the conspirators met, was the first woman hanged by the U.S. government. In my opinion, she was hanged as a substitute for her active participant conspirator son John Surratt, who had fled to Canada, thereby leaving his mother to walk his plank. Mrs. Surratt’s lonely, isolated grave is sadly symbolic of her fate and rests stark and solitary in the back of the cemetery. The stone that rests there today is a replacement of the original which was broken into many pieces by means unknown generations ago. Today it rests in the Surratt House museum.
Ironically, 100 yards from Mary Surratt’s grave is the final resting place of her former employee John Lloyd. Lloyd was the drunken innkeeper left to mind the Surratt Boarding House in Surrattsville, Maryland on the night of the assassination. He delivered the rifles, hidden in the attic of the boarding house, to Booth and Herold when they appeared there on the first leg of their escape. Lloyd’s dubious testimony at the trial was chiefly responsible for the conviction of Mrs. Surratt. I feel certain that his is a restless eternal slumber.
However, Mary Surratt is not the only infamously hanged Civil War figure buried at Mt. Olivet cemetery. Within a short walk are the uneasy remains of Henry Wirz, former commandant of the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia. Wirz was hanged for war crimes four months after Mary Surratt on a similar scaffold and in the same courtyard. Like Surratt, Powell and their fellow conspitators, Wirz’s neck did not break and he slowly strangled to death. Like Surratt, many believe Wirz was a substitute scapegoat for a much larger crime. Hopefully you see now why I find cemeteries so interesting.
Next week, I’ll continue the conspirators graveyard tour.