Lincoln, the unknown

234 •LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNbox, over the side of the ship and down into the skiff; next,they lowered a huge ball and heavy chain; then they climbedin themselves, shoved off, and drifted downstream.The curious crowd on the shore did precisely what the detectiveshad expected them to do: they raced along the bank,shoving, splashing, talking excitedly, determined to watch thefuneral ship and see where the body was sunk.For two miles they kept even with the drifting detectives.Then darkness crept up the river, clouds blotted out the moonand the stars, and even the sharpest eyes could no longer makeout the tiny skiff in midstream.By the time the detectives reached Geeseborough Point, oneof the loneliest spots on the Potomac, Colonel Baker was surethat they were completely hidden from view; so he headed theskiff into the great swamp that begins there—a malodorousspot, rank with rushes and slough weeds, a burial-ground wherethe army cast its condemned horses and dead mules.Here, in this eerie morass, the two detectives waited for hours,listening to find out if they had been followed; but the onlysounds they could hear were the cry of bullfrogs and the rippleof the water among the sedges.Midnight came; and, with breathless quiet and the utmostcaution, the two men rowed stealthily back up-stream, fearingto whisper, and dreading even the lisping of the oars and thelapping of the water at the gunwales.They finally reached the walls of the old penitentiary, rowedto a spot where a hole had been chopped in the solid masonrynear the water's edge to let them in. Giving the countersign tothe officer who challenged them, they handed over a white pinecasket with the name "John Wilkes Booth" printed on the lid;and, half an hour later, it was buried in a shallow hole in thesouthwest corner of a large room in the government arsenalwhere ammunition was stored. The top of the grave was carefullysmoothed over, so that it looked like the rest of the dirtfloor.By sunrise the next morning excited men with grapplinghookswere dragging the Potomac, and raking and proddingamong the carcasses of dead mules in the great swamp behindGeeseborough Point.All over the nation millions were asking what had been donewith Booth's body. Only eight men knew the answer—eightloyal men who were sworn never to disclose the secret.