Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•233and absurd" contraption "which rattled like approaching dissolution."It not only "rattled like approaching dissolution," butunder the strain and speed of the trip, the rickety old wagonactually began to dissolve there on the roadway. A king-boltsnapped, the wagon pulled apart, the front wheels tore awayfrom the hind ones, the front end of the box fell to the groundwith a thud, and Booth's body lurched "forward as if in a lasteffort to escape."Lieutenant Baker abandoned the rickety old death-car, commandeeredanother wagon from a neighboring farmer, pitchedBooth's body into that, hurried on to the river, and stowed thecorpse aboard a government tug, the John S. Ide, which chuggedaway with it to Washington.At dawn the next morning the news spread through the city:Booth had been shot. His body was lying that very minute onthe gunboat Montauk, riding at anchor in the Potomac.The capital was thrilled, and thousands hurried down to theriver, staring in grim fascination at the death-ship.In the middle of the afternoon Colonel Baker, chief of theSecret Service, rushed to Stanton with the news that he hadcaught a group of civilians on board the Montauk, in directviolation of orders, and that one of them, a woman, had cut offa lock of Booth's hair.Stanton was alarmed. "Every one of Booth's hairs," he cried,"will be cherished as a relic by the rebels."He feared that they might become far more than mere relics.Stanton firmly believed that the assassination of Lincoln waspart of a sinister plot conceived and directed by Jefferson Davisand the leaders of the Confederacy. And he feared that theymight capture Booth's body and use it in a crusade to fire theSouthern slaveholders to spring to their rifles once more andbegin the war all over again.He decreed that Booth must be buried with all possible haste,and buried secretly; he must be hidden away and blotted outof existence, with no trinket, no shred of his garments, no lockof his hair, nothing left for the Confederates to use in a crusade.Stanton issued his orders; and that evening, as the sun sankbehind a fiery bank of clouds, two men—Colonel Baker andhis cousin, Lieutenant Baker—stepped into a skiff, pulled overto the Montauk, boarded her, and did three things in plain sightof the gaping throng on the shore:First, they lowered Booth's body, now incased in a pine gun-