The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Jim Bishop

signed it, assured himself of a place in the history books, and hurried back to Washington. He sent to Baltimore for two boyhood friends, Michael O’Laughlin and SamArnold. Both were Confederate veterans, and both were hardened to the rigors of war, but they were shocked when their old friend told them the mission. Arnold was so frightened that he spent time trying to convince Booth that the scheme had to fail.
    Neither of these recruits was bright. They were poor Baltimore boys who looked upon Wilkes as a rich and influential friend. The actor convinced them that they were part of a big secret band.
    The rest of the group—Arnold and O’Laughlin had not met them yet, nor even heard their names—consisted of George A. Atzerodt, a carriage maker from Port Tobacco; David Herold, a young drug clerk who wearied of a matriarchal world; and John Surratt, Confederate courier, whose mother managed a boardinghouse.
    Mr. Atzerodt is worth some special comment here, since he was later “assigned” to kill the Vice President. He was a German who worked by day with wood and wheels—a small man with small sly eyes and a drooping mustache; a man with features as malleable as warm putty; a man who always looked dirty and was conscious of it. At night, he ferried Southerners back and forth across Pope’s Creek and, if a Northerner wanted to get through the blockade, George would ferry him too. The kindest thing that was ever said about Mr. Atzerodt was that he was a man who would not resent an insult.
    He was pitifully anxious to make a friend, and to this end he bought drinks for barflies and laughed at their jokes, but, the moment any of them challenged something that he had said, Mr. Atzerodt jammed his brown beaver hat on his head and left.
    Booth had five men, in two groups. Each was in the plot to “capture” the commander in chief of the Union; none wanted to kill; two were in serious doubt about the propriety and feasibility of capture. Sam Arnold was afraid of any plot involvingLincoln. John Surratt, who had risked his life for the Confederacy as a courier, started as a member of the band by entertaining the notion that the arch-conspirator was insane. However, Booth visited the H Street boardinghouse and charmed Surratt with his candor and absence of condescension, and convinced the courier that the very brazenness of the idea would help to effect complete surprise, plus the fact that “capture” was a legal act.
    Still Booth needed an actor, a theater-wise person who could turn out all the lights in a theater on cue, and, having been turned down by Sam Chester, he tried to enlist the services of a small-parts actor in Washington named John Matthews. Mr. Matthews was conscious of his own smallness in the world of the American theater, and, although he worked the full season at Ford’s Theatre, his habit was not to drink with actors at Taltavul’s saloon because he might be expected to buy drinks in return. He drank in a small place a block away from the theater.
    Booth tried to interest Matthews in the plot and the little actor recoiled. He turned it down at once and advised the star to forget it. “Matthews,” said Booth later, “is a coward and not fit to live.” The actor would not forget his contempt of Matthews, and would try to hurt him.
    The conspirators—with the exception of Arnold and O’Laughlin—met infrequently at Mrs. Surratt’s boarding-house. They whispered, consulted in upstairs rooms, wrestled with knives on a bed, bought pistols and became acquainted with their workings, and rode off into the country. The widow Surratt got to know them and once, in a moment of reflection, she asked her son John why these men were trooping into the house at odd hours and John said that they were all interested in a common oil speculation. Mrs. Surratt admired Booth, the courtly gentleman who attracted the eye of her seventeen-year-old daughter;