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.
