The Darkest Dawn

Thomas Goodrich

Description

A gripping account of one of the most shocking events in American history—the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

"While waves of laughter echoed through the theater, James Ferguson kept his eyes focused on Abraham Lincoln. Although the president joined the crowd with a 'hearty laugh,' his interest seemingly lay more with someone below. With his right elbow resting on the arm of his chair and his chin lying carelessly on his hand, Lincoln parted one of the flags nearby that he might see better.

"As the laughter subsided, Harry Hawk stood on the stage alone with his back to the presidential box. Before he could utter another word, a sharp crack sounded. As the noise echoed throughout the otherwise silent theater, many thought that it was part of the play. But just as quickly, most knew it was not." —from Chapter Twelve

"Among the hundreds of books published about the assassination of our 16th president, this is an exceptional volume. . . . [It captures] a you-are-there feeling. . . ." —Frank J. Williams, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, founding Chair of The Lincoln Forum, and member of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

It was one of the most tragic events in American history: The famous president, beloved by many, reviled by some, murdered while viewing a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. The frantic search for the perpetrators. The nation in mourning. The solemn funeral train. The conspirators brought to justice. Coming just days after the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has become etched in the national consciousness like few other events. The president who had steered the nation through its bloodiest crisis was cut down before the end, just as it appeared that the bloodshed was over. The story has been told many times, but rarely with the immediacy of The Darkest Dawn. Thomas Goodrich brings to his narrative the care of the historian and the flair of the fiction writer. The result is a gripping account, filled with detail and as fresh as today's news.

Preface
I
Prologue: The Omen
1. Three Electric Words
2. The White City
3. The Last Man
4. Star of Glory
5. The President and the Player
6. Sic Semper Tyrannis
7. Towards an Indefinite Shore
8. The Clown and the Sphinx
9. One Bold Man
II
10. A Night to Remember
11. Terror on Lafayette Park
12. The Last Bullet
13. Murder in the Streets
14. A Spirit So Horrible
15. The Darkest Dawn
16. Hemp and Hell
17. This Sobbing Day
18. Black Easter
19. A Double Disaster
20. In Dungeons Dreadful
21. The Wrath of God and Man
22. The Curse of Cain
23. The Mid-week Sabbath
24. Oh! Abraham Lincoln!
25. The Fox and the Hounds
26. Blade of Fate
27. The Bad Hand
28. The Hate of Hate
29. The Heart of Israel
30. Dust to Dust
III
31. Old Scores
32. The Living Dead
33. The Most Dreadful Fate
34. Beads on a String
Epilogue: The Haunted Stage
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Civil War Period
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• United States
• Civil War
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 février 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253111326
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

THE DARKEST DAWN

THE DARKEST DAWN
L INCOLN , B OOTH, AND THE G REAT A MERICAN T RAGEDY
THOMAS GOODRICH
This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
2005 by Thomas Goodrich All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodrich, Th. The darkest dawn : Lincoln, Booth, and the great American tragedy / Thomas Goodrich. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-253-32599-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865-Assassination. 2. Booth, John Wilkes, 1838-1865. I. Title. E457.5.G66 2005 973.7 092-dc22 2004015980
1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06 05
Tearfully-and joyfully-have we witnessed these events.
- Horatio Nelson Taft, May 30, 1865
CONTENTS

Preface
PART I
Prologue: The Omen
1. Three Electric Words
2. The White City
3. The Last Man
4. Star of Glory
5. The President and the Player
6. Sic Semper Tyrannis
7. Towards an Indefinite Shore
8. The Clown and the Sphinx
9. One Bold Man
PART II
10. A Night to Remember
11. Terror on Lafayette Park
12. The Last Bullet
13. Murder in the Streets
14. A Spirit So Horrible
15. The Darkest Dawn
16. Hemp and Hell
17. This Sobbing Day
18. Black Easter
19. A Double Disaster
20. In Dungeons Dreadful
21. The Wrath of God and Man
22. The Curse of Cain
23. The Mid-week Sabbath
24. Oh! Abraham Lincoln!
25. The Fox and the Hounds
26. Blade of Fate
27. The Bad Hand
28. The Hate of Hate
29. The Heart of Israel
30. Dust to Dust
PART III
31. Old Scores
32. The Living Dead
33. The Most Dreadful Fate
34. Beads on a String
Epilogue: The Haunted Stage
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE

W ITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of one or two screaming infants, I was undoubtedly the most disgruntled and agitated person in the audience. While the excited, noisy chatter among the pre-teens and tour groups rose to a roar as the curtain call approached, I sat mostly mute. Deb and I had come to Washington the day before to conclude research on a book we d been pounding out for nearly a year, The Day Dixie Died . The story unrolls with Lincoln s assassination and describes the horrific conditions in the South following the Civil War, caused in large part by the murder of the sixteenth president. We still had plenty of material to go over, perhaps several days worth of work, and, as anyone who has spent time in the capital knows, D.C. in high season is anything but cheap. Hence, the meter was ticking. Every minute tarried added to our bills-and my woes.
At almost any other time I would have loved to be sitting in Ford s Theater-it had been a desired destination of mine for years. And at almost any other time I would have died to view a live performance on this historic stage-it is what every American historian dreams of. But today? Time was short, we needed to be busy, and here we were in a noisy theater playing tourists for a matinee musical of dubious quality. A half-hour run through the Ford s museum below would now mushroom into a half-day downtime in the theater above.
Excuse me, sir, said a lady who had approached us earlier as we stepped from the theater onto the busy sidewalk. I have these two tickets to Reunion that we can t use. . . . It s about the Civil War. Would you like to buy them?
Before I had time to think and answer No, thanks, Deb was counting out twenty dollars. The good lady was no scalper-the tickets were clearly marked $10 each. But as I sat in the packed theater, not only was I miffed at missing a day s worth of research, I also was upset that I hadn t forced Deb to dicker down the woman to, say, five dollars a ticket or, depending on her desperation, a much more appealing five dollars for both. To compound my chagrin, as we hiked back into the crowded lobby, another lady stepped forward and offered us tickets- free tickets! And so, when the curtain went up and the hall finally quieted, I, the historian, sat stewing in my seat, more or less determined not to enjoy myself.
Two hours later, when much of the audience had filed out, Deb and I remained in our seats, lost in thought. During those two hours, something exciting had seized both of us and stirred us to our historical bones. Reunion was spectacular-worth every cent of that ten-dollar ticket and more. But when, toward the end, the theater had quieted and dimmed and the spotlight had cut through the darkness upward to the box- the box -we, like everyone else in the audience, had sat spellbound. Since childhood, we had seen the paintings, sketches, and movies of that box; we had thought of that box and imagined that box until that box had become a part of ourselves as much as anything else in our history: the dark, bearded president, the happy first lady, the fatal shot, the assassin s leap, the confusion, the horror-and here, with our own eyes, we were staring into that box where perhaps the most memorable of American events took place.
Silly as it may sound, from that moment I knew I wanted to do something on Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and the circumstances surrounding what I have come to call Our Great American Tragedy. Despite dozens of books on the subject-some brilliant and wonderfully told-I decided to set to work. From the start, it was not my intention to unravel conspiracies, real or imagined, or to delve into hairsplitting minutiae. My hope instead was not only to add something new to the story, but also to tell the tale in such a way that the reader became emotionally invested in the drama, much as I was.
To my surprise, Deb also was fired by that day at Ford s-so much so that she went to work on First Widows , an account of the four women whose husbands were murdered while serving as president.
And so, indeed, that day at Ford s Theater cost us a good deal more than twenty dollars and a few hours lost. When tallied, the day drew from us a cumulative five years in research and writing time, more money than I care to consider, and thousands of miles of sometimes great and sometimes grim wandering. All said and done, it might have been better for all parties concerned had we never entered the theater that day; but for my effort, at least, you the reader will in the end decide.
PART ONE
P ROLOGUE

THE OMEN

T HOSE WHO WITNESSED THE PHENOMENON that day would never forget it. The sight was so sudden and unexpected that most could only look to the sky, then to their neighbors, then shake their heads in stony disbelief. Some, those of a religious strain, stared in awe and considered what they were witnessing as nothing short of a heavenly message sent from on high. Others in the throng, those earthbound souls less prone to flights of fancy, nevertheless viewed the event as utterly amazing. Whichever the persuasion, whoever the viewer, no one in the crowd that day would ever forget what they beheld at noon, Saturday, March 4, in the year of their Lord 1865.
The day was all the more remarkable because it had such an evil onset. The sun did not smile down on Washington that morning. At 6 A.M ., following a week of nearly uninterrupted gray and gloom, a furious storm burst upon the nation s capital from the south. 1 Although the blast-which uprooted trees and toppled outbuildings-ended in only a matter of minutes, torrential rain soon followed in its wake. 2 When the deluge eased around nine that morning, it seemed to many as if the worst had passed. A short time later, though, as thousands of elegantly dressed men and women ventured cautiously up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, again the rain came. 3
Such a wet, dirty morning as this . . . hardly ever dawned upon Washington, wrote one depressed reporter covering the day s ceremony. [T]he proverbially filthy streets of the political metropolis [are] filthier and more unpleasant than ever. 4
Mud, mud everywhere, cursed another journalist, and not a dry spot to set foot upon. 5
For the tens of thousands of men and women who had arrived by train throughout the week from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and all points north, there was little to do but tuck pants into boots or loop hoop skirts and endure the agony in mute misery. About them on the wide street, rain-soaked flags and bunting drooped in soggy silence.
For many of these Americans, some of whom had made the very same trek four years earlier, the irony was inescapable. Back then, although the weather was dry, high winds had swept the streets. 6 Even to those at the time, the dusty tempest sending dirt and grit into everyone s eyes seemed to presage an awful accounting ahead-an omen of a terrible scourge awaiting America. And for sure, a mighty maelstrom of blood, fire, and iron did indeed ravage the face of the land soon after. Now, four years later, the very heavens seemed to be