Killing Lincoln - Bill O'Reilly [66]
The alley is known as Baptist Alley, due to Ford’s origins as a house of worship. A maid at Ford’s hears the sound of galloping hooves coming from the alley. When she looks outside, she sees a most unusual sight: the famous actor John Wilkes Booth racing a horse north up the alley from E Street, then galloping out the other end on F Street. He does this twice. The maid, Margaret Rozier, watches as Booth dismounts after the second dry run of his escape, not in a million years imagining what she has just witnessed. When he is done, Booth stops at Ford’s stage door, where he invites stagehands Jim Maddox and Ned Spangler to join him for a drink next door at Jim Ferguson’s Greenback Saloon.
As they come back outside after their drink, Booth mounts the bay and says hello to Jim Ferguson himself. Ferguson has heard about the Lincolns and is making plans to see Our American Cousin tonight. “She is a very nice horse,” Booth says, noting the way Ferguson admires her. “She can gallop and can almost kick me in the back.”
Booth prods her with his spurs and gallops back to the National Hotel, his errands complete. The energy whooshes out of him as the alcohol wears off and the brute realization of what he is about to do hits him hard. His face is so pale that the desk clerk inquires about his health.
Booth says he’s fine, orders a cup of tea, and heads upstairs to rest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865
WASHINGTON, D.C.
3:30 P.M.
“Crook,” Abraham Lincoln says to his bodyguard, “I believe there are men who want to take my life. And I have no doubt that they will do it.”
The two men are walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, on their way back to the War Department for their second meeting of the day. Lincoln wants a short session with Stanton to discuss the fate of a Confederate ringleader who very recently made the mistake of crossing the border from Canada back into the United States. Stanton is in favor of arresting the man, while Lincoln prefers to let him slip away to England on the morning steamer. As soon as Lincoln makes his point, he aims to hurry back to the White House for the carriage ride he promised Mary.
William Crook is fond of the president and deeply unsettled by the comments.
“Why do you think so, Mr. President?”
Crook steps forward as they come upon a group of angry drunks. He puts his body between theirs and Lincoln’s, thus clearing the way for the president’s safe passage. Crook’s actions, while brave, are unnecessary—if the drunks realize that the president of the United States is sharing the same sidewalk, they give no notice.
Lincoln waits until Crook is beside him again, then continues his train of thought. “Other men have been assassinated,” Lincoln says.
“I hope you are mistaken, Mr. President.”
“I have perfect confidence in those around me. In every one of you men. I know that no one could do it and escape alive,” Lincoln says. The two men walk in silence before he finishes his thought: “But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it.”
At the War Department, Lincoln once again invites Stanton and telegraph chief Major Thomas Eckert, the man who can break fireplace pokers over his arms, to attend Our American Cousin that night. Both men turn him down once again. Lincoln is upset by their rejection, but he doesn’t show