Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 225... I think I have done well, I do not repent the blowI struck.As Booth lay there writing, three thousand detectives and tenthousand cavalrymen were scouring every nook and corner ofsouthern Maryland, searching houses, exploring caves, ransackingbuildings, and fine-tooth-combing even the slimy bogs ofZekiah Swamp, determined to hunt Booth down and bring himin, dead or alive, and claim the various rewards—approximatinga hundred thousand dollars, offered for his capture. Sometimeshe could hear the cavalry who were hunting him, gallopingby on a public road only two hundred yards away.At times he could hear their horses neighing and whinnyingand calling to one another. Suppose his and Herold's horsesshould answer them. That would probably mean capture. Sothat night Herold led their horses down into Zekiah Swamp andshot them.Two days later buzzards appeared! Specks in the sky at first,they winged closer and closer, finally wheeling and soaring andsoaring and wheeling directly above the dead animals. Boothwas frightened. The buzzards might attract the attention of thepursuers, who would almost certainly recognize the body ofhis bay mare.Besides, he had decided that he must somehow get to anotherdoctor.So the next night, Friday, April 21—one week after the assassination—hewas lifted from the ground and put astride ahorse belonging to Thomas A. Jones, and once more he andHerold set out for the Potomac.The night was ideal for their purposes: dense with a mistyfog, and so dark that the men literally had to feel for oneanother in the inky blackness.Jones, faithful dog that he was, piloted them from theirhiding-place to the river, stealing through open fields, over apublic highway, and across a farm. Realizing that soldiers andSecret Service men were swarming everywhere, Jones wouldsteal ahead fifty yards at a time, stop, listen, and give a lowwhistle. Then Booth and Herold would advance to him.In that way, slowly, startled by the slightest noise, they traveledfor hours, reaching at last the steep and crooked path thatled from the bluff down to the river. A stiff wind had beenblowing that day; and, through the darkness, they could hear