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An assassin's last day
History buffs boarded a bus Saturday to retrace the 10-day escape route of John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Lincoln in 1865. The 10-hour tour followed the killer's footsteps from the murder scene at Ford's Theatre to the dramatic capture at the Garrett Farm in Bowling Green. Guide Michael Kauffman used 30 years of research to fill in the gaps. By LISA CHINNDate published: 4/13/2001
ON April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth crept into the unguarded balcony box at Ford's Theatre, unloaded his single-shot derringer into Abraham Lincoln's skull and fled through the backstage door. That much nearly any student of American history knows. The details of the 10-day manhunt that followed--until authorities caught up with Booth at a Bowling Green barn--are more of a mystery. Saturday, guide Michael Kauffman took a busload of history buffs on a trip back in time to unravel the 1865 saga. Kauffman is a member of the Surratt Society, a group named after a convicted Booth co-conspirator and devoted to studying the assassination. The 10-hour tour, sponsored by the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation Inc., wound through two states and Washington, D.C., crossed two rivers, and followed every twist and turn of Booth's escape route. The group stopped at the places where Booth sought treatment, refuge and supplies. The small theater in Washington where the actor from Maryland fired the fatal shot seemed strangely suspended in time during last weekend's tour. Winding steps led to a view of the rocking chair in the balcony box where the 16th U.S. president sat with his wife and guests. Flags still drape the railing as they did that night--although souvenir hunters stole the original items long ago. The gun used to commit the first assassination of an American president is sealed in glass in the basement. Tour participant Reed Smith of Stafford County joked that he hoped to find the boots that belonged to an ancestor of his who was in the audience that night. He had slipped off the boots to relax during the show and left them behind in the commotion after the murder. "That's the story that has been handed down," Smith said. Detailed insurance records have helped historians maintain the Civil War look of the Surratt Tavern in Clinton, Md., where Booth stopped to pick up supplies. An interpreter wearing a hoop skirt stood in front of a shelf full of wine jugs and passed around a plug of pressed tobacco. She doled out tidbits about the life and business of Mary Surratt, who was found guilty of conspiring to kill the president and hanged. At the nearby novelty shop, posters promised big money for Booth's capture.
Date published: 4/13/2001
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