Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Chapter 1: The Apotheosis

The Apotheosis Now he belongs to the ages. The voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that the next talk on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln would begin in two minutes. Like ants drawn to sugar, the crowd of tourists began streaming toward the orchestra section of the theater from many directions. Some had been looking at the special box where the president sat that fateful night. Others were downstairs in the exhibit area, viewing the various artifacts that explained the who and why of his death. Still others had been browsing the small gift shop that carried books and memorabilia about the sixteenth president. As the crowd made its way into the orchestra area it began filling up the rows of seats closest to the stage. Standing at center stage, a man dressed in the green and grey uniform of a park ranger patiently waited for the people to settle down. Like a fussyschoolteacher standing before his class,the ranger stood motionless waiting for his chatty students to give him their undivided attention. After a few minutes a hush fell over the crowd. The ranger continued to wait, allowing the anticipation to slowlybuild as he surveyed the faces spread out before him. Satisfied that his audience was properly attentive, the ranger spoke: "Good afternoon,ladiesand gentlemen,and welcome to Ford's Theatre. This afternoon I want to tell you what happened in this special place on the night of April 14, 1865." Turning slightly to his left, he motioned to a point twelve feet above the stage to the special box reserved for the president on his visits to the theater. A pair of white lacy curtains elegantly framed two large openings in the box. A pair of American flags were draped over the balustrade as if they had been hurriedly placed with little attention to symmetry. A large engraving of George Washington separated the flags. Over the engraving a blue flag hung loosely from a pole fastened to the column just above the picture. Not visible to the audience, but tucked behind one of the lace curtains, was the red upholstered rocking chair that Lincoln sat in the night of his murder. In reality, the rocker was a reproduction of the original rocker that was on displayin the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. In fact, the presi- 12 Blood on the Moon dential box and all of the theater, except for its outer skin of bricks, was a reproduction, or as the Park Service would say, an authentic restoration. Looking back at his audience, the ranger continued, "At approximately twenty minutes past ten o'clock on that fateful night of ,April 14, 1865, the famous actorJohn Wilkes Booth entered the box above you and fired a bullet from a small derringer pistol into the brain of L4brahamLincoln."' The ranger paused and looked down into the faces that were staring up at the box where the president had been seated. For twelve years he had stood on this stage, and for twelve years he had delivered his little speech. And for twelve years he listened patiently to their questions. They were always the same: "Why was Booth allowed in the box?" "Why wasn't Lincoln guarded that night?" "Was it true that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was behind Lincoln's murder?" "Why did the telegraph mysteriously go dead minutes after Lincoln was shot?" "Didn't Booth really escape and live for many years afterward?" America's fascination with conspiracy has remained unquenchable. No amount of facts could persuade the multitude that the bodyguard didn't abandon his post, or that Edwin Stanton loved Abraham Lincoln and would never act to harm him, or that Booth was really killed in a barn located on a small Virginia farm twelve days after shooting Lincoln, or that the military telegraph never went dead at any time during the night. The ranger, sensing he had captured his audience's undivided attention , continued his story. He described how several soldiers cradled the dying president in their arms as they carried him from the box across the rear of the balcony and down the steps to the lobby. Emerging onto the sidewalk in front of the theater, the men were not sure what to do. Suddenly they were beckoned by a flickering light from across the street. The ranger raised his arm high over his head as if he were holding a candle. The audience's eyes looked up at the ranger's hand...