Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1882-10-07

forth to save her. President johnson.
therefore, refused to grant her pardon,
and she was hung with Atzerodt, who
was to have murdered President john
son; Harold, the companion of Booths
flight, and Payne, who stabbed MIR.
Seward. Regrets were felt that q wOm-
an should suffer SO ignominiously, and
President johnson and Judge Advocate
Holt long afterward had sharp contro-
versy on the subject. Both were South
ern Unionists-Holt, a native of Ken
lucky, and johnson from Tennessee.
The question now occurs as to how
Booth was to get himself off after he
had accomplished the forty miles to the
Potomac river, Virginia having disband-
ed her troops in the meantime. The
public will observe that it was only on
the 18th of April that the army Of Lee
surrendered at Appomuttox. Mr.. Lin
coin was murdered on the night of the
l4th of April. 1t was not till the 18th
OF April that the remaining great army
of the Confederacy surrendered i'll North
Carolina. Booth, therefore, believed he
would have an armed Confederacy to
escape to- His feelings, intensified by
the surrender of Lee on the 18th, which
he did not know of tih the 18th, were
brought locally upon the purpose on
the morning OF the 14th, when he heard
that Lincoln was to visit the theater ill
honor of Lees surrender. For six
months Booth had studied all these
roads and avenues of escape, and bad
spent nearly all the money that he pos
sessed in keeping his band together,
and there was still chance that Joe
Johnston would hold out, or at any rate
there would be guerrilla warfare
through the mountains, and the Con-
federates would rally again in the Gulf
States or Texas. No doubt he said to
himself, "I will kill this man in the
very moment of his celebrating Gen.
Lees conquest, and it will be an easy
thing for me to reach the Potomac be-
fore next morning and fall in with the
disbanded Coniederates, who are going
to their homes, and they will pass me
along to the mountains, and can work
my way into Mexico, or, at the
worso, surrender with the rest"
Booth had scarcely any education, ex-
cept that of a man of the world; knew
nothing OF law, particularly of interna-
tional law, and had never heard of any
body being hung in the war except his
friend, John Beall, and the hotel bum
mer Kennedy. He was desperate, dlssi-
pated, out of pocket, and had nursed up
this conspiracy until it possessed his in
tellect. He saw it all slipping away, and
he resolved to deal q blow. His plan
was to shoot Mr.. Lincoln after Mrs. Sur
ratt had come back from Surrattsville,
show himself to the audience as the his
trionic avenger, vanish through the the
ater and have the scenes bar the way
behind him. and 60 out the back door
into the alley where his horse was wait
ing, and then mount andride to the navy
yard bridge, where he was to meet Har-
old, and in the morning, before day, he
wonld be at DR.. Mudd's. Meantime At
zerodt was to stab johnson at the Kirk
wood House, and Payne to stab Seward,
and these two were to cross the upper
bridge of the eastern branch, which
would compel them to make q detour of
three or four miles, but they would join
him either at Surrattsville or at Mudd's,
and then the four were to take to the
water, cross into King Georges county,
Va, and by 10 o'clock next morning the
Rappahannock river would be between
them and the Potomac. The fortifica-
tions of Washington would be forty or
fifty miles behind them to the northeast,
the army Of Grant was away down below
the Appomattox river, and there was an
open and friendly country to go through
to escape to Southwestern Virginia and
Tennessee. This was probably Booths
programme.
But Atzerodt was coward and va
grant, and he got drunk, talked the
murder, rode his horse around town,
and, instead of joining Booth, he ran
away up into Western Maryland among
the native Dutch of his connections, and
was caught there some time after ward.
Harold waited for Booth somewhere
about Capitol hill, and they crossed the
Eastern branch bridge almost within
sight Of each other. Payne undertook
to find the upper bridge, but in the
night, the roads cut up and leading in
every direction by reason of the military
encampments, he could not find the lane
leading to the bridge, and finally, seeing
that he could not catch Booth, he re-
turned to Mrs. Surratt's house three
nights after the murder.
Mr.. Lincoln had been killed Friday,
and on Monday night, about midnight,
Payne repaired back to this doomed
woman's. It is probable that on Satur-
day, Sunday and Monday he had been
trying to make connections with Booth,
but the whoia country being up, and
Lower Maryland filled with soldiery,
and he, perhaps, unacquainted with the
country, he knew not what to do with
himself. and came back to Mrs. Surratt's
to see If he could make connection with
John Surratt. whom he knew tn he on