April 23, 1865---Booth flees South

APRIL 23, 1865:  

“Panic has seized the country” --- Jefferson Davis

I

The body of President Lincoln remained on view in Philadelphia. 

II

Captain Silas Soule of the First Colorado Cavalry, who testified against Colonel John Chivington at the Sand Creek Massacre Hearings, is murdered on the street in Denver, Colorado.

Stoneman’s Raid reaches Hendersonville, North Carolina, and has a major skirmish --- almost big enough to qualify as a “Last Battle of the Civil War” --- with local militia before despoiling the town.

A large “action” --- again, just not quite big enough to qualify as a “Last Battle of the Civil War” --- occurs at Munford’s Station, Alabama, between Confederate and Federal troops.

The Confederate “Florida Blues” enter into an armistice with Federal troops at St. Augustine. Armed resistance in north central Florida comes to an end. The “Blues” were a force made up of Minorcans, Spaniards, Sicilians, Italians, and Greeks, many the descendants of Sephardic Jews. Formed in 1860, even before Florida’s secession, units of the “Blues” fought at  Atlanta, Jonesboro and Bentonville, under General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A..

III

John Wilkes Booth and David Herold managed to cross the Potomac River this day. 

Once on “friendly” Virginia soil they both expected greater aid and comfort. However, after Herold slogged an hour across swampy land to reach the property of the Confederate underground agent Mrs. Elizabeth Quisenberry (whose “safe house” had been recommended by Thomas Jones) Mrs. Quisenberry refused to aid the two fugitives. She refused their offer of Jones’ boat in trade, refused payment for a horse, refused to shelter them, and sent Herold on his way back to Booth (who, with his broken leg had stayed near their landfall at Gambo Creek). At the last minute, perhaps looking with a motherly eye at the woebegone boyish Herold, she did provide them food.

She also contacted one Thomas Harbin. Harbin was another Confederate agent who happened to be an acquaintance of Dr. Samuel Mudd. Harbin and Booth had met before, in late 1864.  

Harbin was willing to help the President’s assassin. Harbin hired a horse, wagon and driver to take Booth and Herold to “Cleydahl,” the estate home of Dr. Richard Stuart. 

 

 

Doubtless, Booth expected some medical attention from Stuart, but other than feeding Booth and Herold, Stuart ordered them gone. There is no direct evidence that he knew who they were, but the doctor undoubtedly had read the papers and knew there was a Federal manhunt underway for a “lame man.”

Booth and Herold went off, at his direction, to the cabin of the Lucas family, free blacks.

Evicting William Lucas and his family from their own home at knifepoint and gunpoint, the two exhausted conspirators holed up for the remainder of that day and overnight. The Lucases, fearing that Booth would kill them as he’d threatened (unsurprisingly, he hated blacks, and hated the fact that he was in a black home), did not report the two men to passing Federal authorities. 

April 22, 1865---Requiem For A President: Abraham Lincoln's Philadelphia Funeral

APRIL 22, 1865:       

“I prefer peace to war” --- General William Tecumseh Sherman

I

In the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) Pro-Union “Free Riders” clash with Confederate bushwhackers under the command of William Quantrill.

In Kansas, bushwhackers fight jayhawkers at Fort Zarah.

In western North Carolina, Stoneman’s Raid reaches Howard’s Gap after the burning of Rutherfordtown on the 21^st.

In Alabama, the Union occupies Talladega.

Brigadier General James Dearing C.S.A. and Colonel Francis Washburn U.S.A. both die of the wounds they inflicted on each other at the Battle of High Bridge. They are the last senior Commissioned Officers to die in the Civil War.

Dearing (top) and Washburn

   

II

General William Tecumseh Sherman, once Provost (President-in-fact) of what would become Louisiana State University writes to an old friend, D.L. Swain, President of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, N. C., April 22, 1865.

Hon. D. L. Swain, Chapel Hill, N. C.:

MY DEAR SIR:

Yours of April nineteenth was laid before me yesterday, and I am pleased that you recognize in General Atkins a fair representative of our army.

The moment war ceases, and I think that time is at hand, all seizures of horses and private property will cease on our part. And it may be that we will be able to spare some animals for the use of the farmers of your neighborhood. There now exists a species of truce, but we must stand prepared for action; but I believe that in a very few days a definitive and general peace will be arranged, when I will make orders that will be in accordance with the new state of affairs.

I do believe that I fairly represent the feelings of my countrymen—that we prefer peace to war; but if war is forced upon us, we must meet it; but if peace be possible, we will accept it, and be the friends of the farmers and working classes of North-Carolina, as well as actual patrons of churches, colleges, asylums, and all institutions of learning and charity. Accept the assurances of my respect and high esteem.

I am, truly yours, W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General Commanding. 

III

President Lincoln’s funeral train leaves Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at 9:00 A.M. and arrives at Philadelphia at 4:50 P.M.  The President’s body is moved to Independence Hall, where he is laid out in the same room where the Declaration of Independence was signed. A two day public viewing commences. 300,000 mourners pass by the catafalque.

 

 

The stop is not without incident. A specially-arranged “private viewing” for Philadelphia’s civil leaders and Main Liners causes tremendous resentment among the crowds of ordinary people. Given the vastness of the throngs, people begin to fear that they will not get to see the President. Emotions run high, and street fights erupt. The Philadelphia papers are critical of the City Fathers, blaming them for the unrest, stating that Lincoln “the Champion of the People” would not have given preference to the rich and powerful; most likely, they are right. The lesson is learned. All subsequent “private viewings” are cancelled for the remainder of the journey.