Killing Lincoln - Bill O'Reilly [83]
In the midst of all this, a lone rider galloping away from the chaos at Ford’s would most certainly attract attention. So Booth guides the mare slowly up and down the streets and alleys of Washington, even as his veins course with adrenaline and euphoria, and pandemonium breaks out all around him. Despite his considerable celebrity, Booth blends in and proceeds unmolested through the streets. It is Friday night, after all, a time when Washington comes to life. There are plenty of men trotting horses through town. It’s only when Booth finally nears the end of his three-mile journey to the Navy Yard Bridge that his fears about being caught force him to spur the horse and ride hard to freedom.
It is ten forty-five when Booth pulls back on the reins once again and canters up to the wooden drawbridge by the Navy Yard—almost thirty long minutes since the Deringer did its deadly job. Booth approaches like a man confident that his path will go unblocked. “Where are you going, sir?” cries the military sentry. His name is Silas T. Cobb, and his long and boring shift will be over at midnight. He notices the lather on the horse’s flanks, a sign that it’s been ridden hard.
“Home. Down in Charles,” Booth replies.
“Didn’t you know, my friend, that it is against the laws to pass here after nine o’clock?” Cobb is required to challenge anyone entering or exiting Washington, but the truth of the matter is that the war has ended and with it the formal restrictions on crossing the bridge after curfew. He wants no trouble, just to finish his shift in peace and get a good night’s sleep.
“No,” lies Booth. He explains that he’s been waiting for the full moon to rise, so that he might navigate the darkened roads by night. And, indeed, a waning moon is rising at that very moment.
“I will pass you,” Cobb sighs. “But I don’t know I ought to.”
“Hell, I guess there’ll be no trouble about that,” Booth shoots back. Ignoring the rule that horses be walked across the bridge, he trots the mare into the night.
Booth is barely across the Potomac when David Herold approaches Silas T. Cobb. He gives his name as just “Smith.” Once again, after a brief discussion, Cobb lets him pass.
One more rider approaches Cobb that night. He is John Fletcher, the stable foreman who is following David Herold. Fletcher can clearly see Herold on the other side of the bridge, now disappearing into the Maryland night.
“You can cross,” Cobb tells him, “but my orders say I can’t let anyone back across the bridge until morning.”
The Maryland countryside, with its smugglers and spies and illicit operatives, is the last place John Fletcher wants to spend the night. He turns his horse’s reins back toward his stable, settling on the hope that Herold and the missing horse will one day make the mistake of riding back into Washington.
In fact, Fletcher will never see the horse again, for it will soon be shot dead, its body left to rot in the backwoods of Maryland—yet another victim of the most spectacular assassination conspiracy in the history of man.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865
WASHINGTON, D.C.
10:20 P.M.
Lincoln’s life is slipping away. Mary Lincoln lays her head to the president’s breast as Major Rathbone uses his one good arm to yank the music stand from its notch in the doorway. Booth’s knife missed a major artery by just one-third of an inch. Otherwise Rathbone would now be dead.
The major swings open the outer door of the state box. Dozens of unruly theatergoers fill the dress circle and try to fight their way into the state box. “Doctors only!” Rathbone shouts as blood drips down his arm and pools on the floor. The truth is that the major needs medical attention, but all eyes are on Lincoln.
“I’m bleeding to death!” Rathbone shouts as a twenty-three-year-old doctor, Charles Leale, fights his way forward. Dr. Leale came to the theater solely because he wanted to see Lincoln in person. Now he