out, "He has shot the President."

From the CHAP. XIV.

audience, at first stupid with surprise, and after- Apl. 14, 1865. wards wild with excitement and horror, two or three men jumped upon the stage in pursuit of the flying assassin; but he ran through the familiar passages, leaped upon his horse, which was in waiting in the alley behind, rewarded with a kick and a curse the call-boy who had held him, and rode rapidly away in the light of the just risen

moon.

The President scarcely moved; his head drooped forward slightly, his eyes closed. Colonel Rathbone, at first not regarding his own grievous hurt, rushed to the door of the box to summon aid. He found it barred, and on the outside some one was beating and clamoring for entrance. He opened the door; a young officer named Crawford entered; one or two army surgeons soon followed, who hastily examined the wound. It was at once seen to be mortal. It was afterwards ascertained that a large derringer bullet had entered the back of the head on the left side, and, passing through the brain, had lodged just behind the left eye. By direction of Rathbone and Crawford, the President was carried to a house across the street and laid upon a bed in a small room at the rear of the hall, on the ground floor. Mrs. Lincoln followed, half distracted, tenderly cared for by Miss Harris. Rathbone, exhausted by loss of blood, fainted, and was carried home. Messengers were sent for the members of the Cabinet, for the Surgeon-General, for Dr. Robert K. Stone, the President's family physician; a crowd of people rushed instinctively to the White House and, bursting through the doors,

shouted the dreadful news to Robert Lincoln and CHAP. XIV. Major Hay, who sat gossiping in an upper room, Apl. 14, 1865. Mr. Nicolay being absent at Charleston, at the flag-raising over Sumter. They ran downstairs. Finding a carriage at the door, they entered it to go to Tenth street. As they were driving away, a friend came up and told them that Mr. Seward and most of the Cabinet had been murdered. The news was all so improbable that they could not help hoping it was all untrue. But when they got to Tenth street and found every thoroughfare blocked by the swiftly gathering thousands, agitated by tumultuous excitement, they were prepared for the worst. In a few minutes those who had been sent for, and many others, were gathered in the little chamber where the chief of the state lay in his agony. His son was met at the door by Dr. Stone, who with grave tenderness informed him that there was no hope. After a natural outburst of grief young Lincoln devoted himself the rest of the night to soothing and comforting his mother.

The President had been shot a few minutes past ten. The wound would have brought instant death to most men, but his vital tenacity was extraordinary. He was, of course, unconscious from the first moment; but he breathed with slow and regular respiration throughout the night. As the dawn came, and the lamplight grew pale in the fresher beams, his pulse began to fail; but his face even then was scarcely more haggard than those of the sorrowing group of statesmen and generals around him. His automatic moaning, which had continued through the night, ceased; a look of

CHAP. XIV. unspeakable peace came upon his worn features. Apl. 15, 1865. At twenty-two minutes after seven he died.

Stanton broke the silence by saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." Dr. Gurley kneeled by the bedside and prayed fervently. The widow came in from the adjoining room supported by her son and cast herself with loud outcry on the dead body.

CHAPTER XV

THE FATE OF THE ASSASSINS

OOTH had done his work efficiently.

BOOTH

Doster's
Speech,
Pitman,

p. 314.

name was

Lewis

Thornton
Powell.

His CHAP. XV. principal subordinate, the young Floridian Apl. 14, 1865. called Payne, had acted with equal audacity and cruelty, but not with equally fatal result. He had made a shambles of the residence of the Secretary of State, but among all his mangled victims there was not one killed. At eight o'clock that night he received his final orders from Booth, who placed in his hands a knife and revolver, and a little package His true like a prescription, and taught him his lesson. Payne was a young man, hardly of age, of herculean strength, of very limited mental capacity, blindly devoted to Booth, who had selected him as the fitting instrument of his mad hatred. He obeyed the orders of his fascinating senior as exactly and remorselessly as a steel machine. At precisely the moment when Booth entered the theater, Payne came on horseback to the door of Mr. Seward's residence on Lafayette Square. Dismounting he pretended to be a messenger from the attending physician, with a package of medicine, and demanded immediate access to the sick-room of the Secretary. Mr. Seward had been thrown from his carriage a few days before and his right arm and jaw were fractured. The servant at the

In 1890 the residence

Blaine, Secretary of State.