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Booth's coat was also found there, showing conspired flight in company, and in it three boxes of cartridges, a map of Maryland, gauntlet for riding, a spur and a handkerchief marked with the name of Booth's mother a mother's souvenir for a murderer's pocket! Atzerott fled alone, and was found at the house of his uncle in Montgomery county.
Payne, with his feet firmly laced together, stood straight as one of the scaffold beams, and braced himself up so stoutly that this in part prevented the breaking of his neck. Harold stood well beneath the drop, still whimpering at the lips, but taut, and short, and boyish. Atzerott, in his grovelling attitude, while they tied him began to indulge in his old vice of gabbing.
The third condemned, although whimpering, had far more grit than I anticipated; he was inquisitive and flippant-faced, and looked at the noose flaunting before him, and the people gathered below, and the haggard face of Atzerott, as if entirely conscious and incapable of abstraction. Harold would have enjoyed this execution vastly as a spectator.
Her house was used by Booth, Payne, Atzerott, and Harold as a meeting place. Her son went to Richmond and then to Canada with information, and he had only returned immediately before the assassination. He was in Washington that day and night, and four days later had reached Montreal.
The former I have sketched; he is believed to have visited Washington once before, at Booth's citation; for the murder was at first fixed for the day of inauguration. Atzerott was a fellow of German descent, who had led a desperate life at Port Tobacco, where he was a house-painter. He had been a blockade-runner across the Potomac, and a mail-carrier. When Booth and Mrs.
Harold, three weeks before the murder, visited Port Tobacco, and said that the next time the boys heard of him he would be in Spain; he added that with Spain there was no extradition treaty. He said at Surrattsville that he meant to make a barrel of money, or his neck would stretch. Atzerott said that if he ever came to Port Tobacco again he would be rich enough to buy the whole place.
Sam Arnold was of respectable appearance, about thirty years of age, with dark hair and beard and a good countenance. Spangler, the stage-carpenter, was a chunky, light-haired, rather bloated and whisky-soaked looking man. Atzerott had a decided lager beer look, with heavy blue eyes, light hair, and sallow complexion.
They pretended to be enquiring for friends, or to have business designs, and the first people they heard of were Harold and Atzerott. The latter had visited Port Tobacco three weeks before the murder, and intimated at that time his design of fleeing the country. But everybody denied having seen him subsequent to the crime. Atzerott had been in town just prior to the crime.
There were made two distinct circles of confidants those aware of the meditated murder, and those who might shrink from murder, though willing accessories for a lesser object. Two colleagues for blood were at once accepted Payne and Atzerott.
Butler then made a similar return of thanks on behalf of George A. Atzerott for kindness received from his guards and attendants, and concluded with an earnest invocation in behalf of the criminal, saying that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, and asking that God Almighty might have mercy upon this man.
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