Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer. Booth and Herold escape across the river into Maryland where they hide in the Zekiah Swamp.
Lafayette Baker was desperate. No one knew Booth’s hideout. If anyone else apprehended him first, Baker could not save the assassin’s life would be lost. And the plot would be disclosed. Baker cringed with shame when he thought of his role in the abduction of Lincoln and the subsequent murders. He did not want the nation or his family to know how evil lurked in his soul. Each day he wandered the Department of War halls, listening for any snippets he might overhear about the location of Booth. If anyone seemed on the verge of breaking a lead in the investigation, Baker created an excuse to have that man arrested. He ordered two men to Montreal, Canada, to follow up on reports Booth had accomplices there.
Finally, on April 24, Baker read a telegram from General Grant’s cipher clerk Samuel Beckwith to Major Eckert on the sighting of two men crossing the Potomac to White Point, Virginia. Perhaps this was the break he wanted. Before anyone else had a chance to read it, Baker grabbed the telegram and took it back to his investigation headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. When he walked in his office door office, he saw his cousin Luther Baker sitting back in a chair smoking a cigar.
“Put that damn thing out,” Baker huffed as he stormed in. “We’ve got work to do!”
Luther looked up, his brow furrowed, and tapped out the cigar. “What’s going on?”
Baker sat behind his heavy wooden desk and pushed the telegram across to his cousin. “We’ve got good proof Booth and his man are in Virginia.”
“Are you sure?” Luther picked up the paper to read it, moving his lips silently.
“Dammit, man, nobody’s sure about anything, but I know—I know in my gut this has to be Booth.” He paused to allow his cousin to finish taking in the contents of the telegram. “Luther, do you trust me?”
His cousin looked at him with a wicked, twisted grin. “Hell, no. I know you too well.”
“If I told you the whole damned country would go to hell if you didn’t do exactly as I said, would you do it?”
Luther sobered and looked into Baker’s eyes. “Lafe, are you going crazy again?”
Baker leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands together as though in prayer. “I may be, but I swear to you the future of the United States rests on your faith in me.”
“All right,” Luther replied after a long pause. “What is it?”
“John Wilkes Booth must escape. He must not be captured or killed. If he went to trial information will come out that will destroy the government. All that we have fought for in the last four years will be for naught. If he is killed, God’s justice will be subverted.”
“God’s justice—what the hell are you talking about?”
“This is where you have to trust me,” Baker whispered. “Too many people have died. The killing must stop.” He stood and went to the door to make sure no one was lingering in the hall. Once he was sure they were alone, he shut it firmly. Returning, he sat on the edge of the desk, looming over his seated cousin. “I want you to lead the search party into Virginia. Select your officers carefully. Choose men who will accept the fact that secrecy and fabrication are essential. The other men in the unit must be chosen for their unquestioning loyalty. Among them will be a soldier who will participate in the manufactured assassination of John Wilkes Booth. Is this possible? Remember, there is a generous reward for the assassin.”
“Of course, Lafe,” his cousin replied soberly. “Anything is possible.”
They spent the rest of the day assembling the entourage, Col. Everton Conger and lst Lt. Edward Doherty. They decided on the twenty-six men from the 16th New York Cavalry, battle-forged veterans. As for the person who would swear he shot Booth, Luther suggested a sergeant who was the topic of many drunken conversations in the barracks, a man named Boston Corbett.
“He’s older than most, thirty-four and recognized for bravery so you can be sure he won’t shirk from duty in any situation,” Luther said, “but he’s crazy as a loon. His wife died while carrying their first child and that seemed to drive him over the edge. He found religion, let his hair grow out so he’d look like Jesus and swore off ever being with a woman again. He even cut off his balls with scissors. Spent two weeks in the hospital recovering. Tough as nails. He survived Andersonville.”
“Good, very good,” Baker replied. He stared into his cousin’s face. “I have one other detail you must accept without question. I have a corpse I will bring to the scene. No one must know, but I will be shadowing your movements so that when you corner Booth, I will be there to substitute the body for him.”
“Dammit, Lafe. How the hell are you going to be able to plan this operation down to the last detail so you can even substitute a corpse that people will believe is John Wilkes Booth?”
Baker leaned back and smiled. “If you knew what I had contrived in the last two and a half years and succeeded in keeping secret, you would not ask that question.”