James Rowan O Beirne and Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth

Transcription

1 James Rowan O Beirne and Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth Sunday April 16, 1865 Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton was in his office dealing with the sudden blow of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln Friday evening April 14, 1865 at Ford s Theater. He pondered how to hunt down and capture the conspirators, for in addition to the President Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward was attacked and almost killed lying in his sick bed and his son desperately wounded. He came to a sudden decision, he sat at his desk, grabbed paper and pen, jammed the pen into an inkwell and began to write his strong strokes blotting the paper. Major O Beirne, you are relieved of all other duty at this time and directed to employ yourself and your detective force in the detection and arrest of the murderers of the President and the assassins who attempted to murder Mr. Seward and make report time to time. So ran the opening of the article that appeared in the December 7, 1930 edition of the New York Magazine Sunday 26 th April marks the 150 th anniversary of the death of John Wilkes Booth. The death of the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln on 14 th April culminated the experience of O Beirne s service in the Civil War. September 25, 1840 Eliza Rowan O Beirne and Michael Horan O Beirne became the proud parents of James Rowan O Beirne the subject of this article. He was born in Ballagh, Elfin Parish County Roscommon, Ireland. His father descended from an ancient Irish family. Michael a lawyer by avocation immigrated to New York in 1832 and became a member and later partner of the Roche brothers. His mother Eliza also descended from ancient Irish stock. Her uncle Gregory Dillon, first President of the Irish Immigrant Savings Bank, and cousin of Robert J. Dillon one time District Attorney of New York City. He arrived in New York City when nine months old according to a biography which appeared in the New York Metropolis. His early schooling was at St. Francis Xavier and later matriculated to St. John s College (now Fordham University); He was awarded an A.M. atrium majister, Master of Art) in 1853; he was selected Valedictorian of his class. He later received degree of LLD (legume doctor; Doctor of Laws). His father Michael passed the same year he graduated and he entered the firm Roche, O Beirne & Company. He left shortly after and started a practice of his own. It can be seen that the O Beirne s were not typical of the thousands Irish pouring into America as a result of the Great Hunger. His father was a contemporary of Michael Doheny, Richard O Gorman, Thomas Francis Meagher, John Mitchel, and Smith O Brien, leaders of Young Ireland Movement. Evidence is lacking but the O Beirnes must have known or associated with leaders of the Irish Republican Union formed in response to the British clumsy bungling of Famine Relief and its efforts to create a liberation army to free Ireland. The firing on Fort Sumter by Confederate troops in Charleston Harbor April 13, 1861 and the subsequent call for 75,000 militia by the President to put down the rebellion, O Beirne enlisted as a Private 17 April 1861 in Company I of the famed Seventh New York Infantry. He left for Washington with the regiment. He mustered out with the regiment June 3, We next find him in the Thirty Seventh New York Volunteer Infantry as an Ensign. His muster rolls show he joined the regiment when it arrived in Washington. He was promoted First Lieutenant and Captain of Company C. he fought in every action the regiment participated in, Siege of Yorktown, Williamsburg, cited for meritorious conduct, Seven Pines where again cited for gallantry in holding the line, Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was hit in the head and stunned by Minnie ball during the III Corps midnight attack to regain the main Union line and May 2 and again the following by a bullet through the right lung. He was discharged while still convalescing from his wound June 22, He was in the city during the

2 New York City Draft Riots. The rioters were predominantly Irish immigrants who resented the fact that a man with three hundred dollars could buy his way out of the army. James undertook the task of convincing New York s Irish citizens to vote Republican. In mid-july he appeared before a Medical Board and pronounced unfit for field service. This seemed to signal O Beirne s active participation in the war. He pondered his options on how to contribute to the nation s efforts to end the rebellion; possibly as a full time speaker for New York s Republican Party. O Beirne already had experience in the no holds bar take no prisoners tumult that was New York City politics. According to a hand written resume He returned to New York City at the request of Thurlow Weed, a friend and political advisor to William H. Seward and Lincoln s Secretary of State, and Governor Edwin Dennison Morgan, and Quartermaster General of the New York State Militia Chester A. Arthur a future President. His mission penetrate the heavily Democratic precincts of the city and convince its predominantly Irish voters to enlist and stifle what O Beirne called treasoning and plotting against the Union government. He spoke to the recent immigrants of the Erin to show the rest of the nation that the Irish deserved the full rights of citizenship as reward for the blood sacrifice Irishmen had already made on the altar of freedom and Union. The Army discovered a way for him to remain in uniform and aid the crushing of the Rebellion. Summer of 1863 the manpower of pool that fed the Union armies was drying up. The enormous casualties suffered for no apparent gain, especially the futility the Army of the Potomac fighting battles they consistently lost against a weaker army, poorly supplied, but with a superb chief leading it, had twice taken the war north of the Potomac River, the last into Pennsylvania where at a small town named Gettysburg, his supreme gamble, failed with horrendous losses, had managed to evade the killing blow the North expected and slipped back over the river to Virginia. Battle losses and the expiration of many regiments enlistment, particularly among the New York Volunteers, had weakened the Army. Another facet were the loss of men like James O Beirne wounded or by reason of sickness could no longer take the field, were discharged. The normal wastage to regiments of the line providing men to act as guards for military prisons, prisoner of war camps, and administrative and logistical left thousands of otherwise fit men unable to take the field. Why not, it was argued, rather than lose men unable to stand the test of combat anymore, use these men to perform duties in the rear and release men able to fight rejoin their commands. The Invalid Corps was the answer. This name was soon changed as the soldiers with wry humor used the I.C. Inspected and Condemned to mark everything from salt beef and pork barrels, to label an item useless. The name was quickly changed to Veterans Reserve Corps. Initially two battalions, the First performed guard duty and provost duty in the towns and cities across the Union; the Second performed staffed offices of various departments and hospitals. O Beirne wrote the War Department asking for transfer into the new corps. His application strongly endorsed by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Colonel Samuel B. Hayman former Colonel of the Sixty-ninth now serving on the staff of the V Corps as did numerous other senior officers with the Army of the Potomac. July 22, 1863 O Beirne commissioned Captain in the Invalid Corps. He reported for duty in the Office of the Invalid Corps under Colonel R.H. Rush. His first assignment to organize the re-enlisted men into companies and regiments. General Orders No.111 redesignated the Invalid Corps the Veteran Reserve Corps. We next find him in the position of Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia commanded by Colonel Moses N. Wisewell formerly of the Twenty-eighth New Jersey Infantry. His first task conduct the draft in Washington City. While performing this onerous duty, he convinced the War Department that Washington s quota was too high. He succeeded in having the quota adjusted down. O Beirne received the thanks of Mayor Richard Walbach and the city alderman. His next assignment to transmit to headquarters Army of the Potomac at City Point, Virginia $3,380, in substitute payment monies from the New England states. As shown above, that men drafted and not wanting to serve could hire a

3 substitute. These men entitled to any bounty monies offered by the city, town, county, state, and federal bounties. O Beirne promoted Major Twenty-second Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps and assigned as the Provost Marshal of the defenses north of the Potomac River that protected Washington. It was here that active duty found him. Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early invaded Maryland in July 1864 in an effort to draw the Army of the Potomac from besieging the Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg, Virginia hasten north to Washington. He defeated a hastily gathered Federal force at Monocacy River near Frederick, Maryland and marched toward the capital. Panic reigned in the city. The enormous losses of the Army of the Potomac fighting its south to Richmond had led Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union armies to strip the Washington defenses of many of its troops that manned the defenses. O Beirne armed, equipped, and organized convalescent soldiers, government clerks, and any other men he could lay hands on to assist opposing Early s army until help could be sent north from the Army at Petersburg. Among the troops O Beirne pushed into the line were troopers of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, an outfit he would closely with in the months ahead. O Beirne was in Fort Stevens when Early s men assaulted the post. When President Lincoln arrived to view the fighting, O Beirne was within a few feet of Lincoln when the bullets started whizzing over the parapet. When Early withdrew, O Beirne saw to their wounded and prisoners. He paroled the wounded, sent the prisoners off to prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland, and buried the dead rebels. The end of the invasion scare left him exhausted. He had been in the saddle continuously for twelve days. At this point Stanton ordered him into Maryland and Pennsylvania to follow the rebel army and report their intentions. O Beirne took twelve men climbed wearily back into the saddle and followed Early s troops. He captured several prisoners near Woody, Maryland. He returned to Washington eight days later reporting that Early had returned to the Virginia side of the Potomac. O Beirne was next tasked with the capture of Colonel John Singleton Mosby, The Gray Ghost of the Confederacy. O Beirne and the Eighth Illinois Cavalry scoured the heart of Mosby s Confederacy Fairfax, Fauquier, and Loudon Counties seeking the Fox s lair. Late October 1864 O Beirne roused from his bed and told Mosby with a report that Mosby was at Upperville, Virginia. He immediately set off for his quarry. After fifteen hours in the saddle they reached Upperville October 30, 1864; a sharp fire fight erupted as Mosby s men fought to delay O Beirne s party long enough for Mosby to decamp. They missed Mosby but captured his horse, saddle, and equipment. The regimental history of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry confirms an engagement at this time and place, but does not mention whether they were in pursuit of Mosby. All cavalry units in this area were involved fighting Mosby s partisan rangers was an election year and the remainder of the fall 1864 O Beirne took to the stumps championing Lincoln and the Republicans of New York City and State again campaigning in the heavily Democratic wards of the cities of the city and state. He founded a Republican workers movement among Irish laborers. O Beirne s civilian summary of his activities shows he also stumped for Lincoln and other Republican candidates for national, state, and local officer in Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania appealing to the Irish voters in these states cities. With Lincoln safely reelected O Beirne returned to his duties in Washington. January 4, 1865 the Provost Marshal General James B. Fry, directed O Beirne to relieve Captain Putnam as Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. O Beirne recalled his primary mission to purge the office of corrupt officers and officials and restore public confidence in the office. He overhauled the department, firing clerks, and transferring officers guilty of questionable practices and corruption. His efforts earned him brevet promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. As Provost Marshal O Beirne was responsible for the safety of the President and his family. The night of Friday April 14, O Beirne acceded to Mrs. Lincoln request he assign John Parker, a

4 soldier with a bad record to guard the President s box during the performance of Our American Cousin. Parker left his post and cleared the way for John Wilkes Booth to shoot Lincoln. O Beirne arrived at the Peterson House where the dying President had been taken. Stanton arrived and ordered O Beirne to bring the Vice President to the house. O Beirne hurried to Kirkwood House where Vice President Andrew Johnson lived. Johnson and his servant related that they heard footsteps in the room above of someone pacing. The news of the attempted assassination of Seward and his son planted the germ of a vast conspiracy to murder the President and the members of his administration decapitating the head of the Union government. O Beirne advised they wait for an armed escort, but Johnson angrily ordered they proceed to the house where Lincoln lay dying. Johnson and O Beirne walked through crowded streets growing more congested as people reacted to the news of the shooting of the President, the attempted murder of the Sewards. They arrived safely and joined the gathering of the Cabinet and leading members of the Congress. Saturday morning the fifteenth at 7:30 a.m. Lincoln breathed his last and Andrew Johnson sworn in as the seventeenth President of the United States. O Beirne returned to the Kirkwood house and inquired who stayed in the room above the Vice President s. He was informed that a gentleman named George Atzerodt booked the room. O Beirne demanded the manager take him there. O Beirne s search of the room yielded a pistol, knife, and the bank book of John Wilkes Booth and other information that allowed O Beirne to name the conspirators. It was already known that Lincoln s murderer was Booth, a scion of a celebrated family of American actors. He had been identified when he leaped from the President s box after shooting him. He turned the bank book and the names John Wilkes Booth, Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, Davey Harold, John and Mary Surratt. Stanton that Sunday ordered O Beirne to take his detectives and hunt down the conspirators. They quickly arrested Mary Surratt and Paine at Mrs. Suratt s Boarding House. O Beirne s task was aided by a map found in Atzerodt s room, he followed the assassin s escape route of escape. He took a steamer to Chapel s Point, Maryland where there was a Union garrison. Throughout the war the Eastern Shore of Maryland provided a discreet, somewhat secure avenue to pass contraband items and intelligence to Confederate agents on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. Union troops patrolled the both shores and the Federal Navy patrolled the river seeking to disrupt the pipeline with varying degrees of success. O Beirne ordered Lieutenant Lafferty, commanding the post with twenty-five men to follow him to Port Tobacco, Maryland where Atzerodt owned a shop. Here an acquaintance of conspirator, provided where he could be found. O Beirne wired Washington that Atzerodt was hiding in Montgomery, Maryland. He was quickly captured. An exhaustive of the countryside, creeks, streams, and swamps failed to turn up any trace of Booth and Herold. O Beirne believed they had crossed the river into Virginia. James took a trooper of the Eight Illinois and crossed to the Virginia countryside along the Potomac. The remainder of his party proceeded to Port Tobacco, Maryland. Local legend has that one of O Beirne s detectives Captain William Williams offered a one hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to the capture of Booth and Herold. He had no takers it appeared. Meanwhile O Beirne developed further information that placed Booth and Herold near Prince George Courthouse. He proceeded thither and heard that Booth and Herold had come out of strip of wood and spoke with a colored girl and asked for food. They asked if anyone was in the house and asked for water. The girl returned to them with a message to come up to the house. They declined and went back into the wood, moving toward the east. What to do? As seen O Beirne believed strongly that Booth and Herold succeeded in crossing to the Virginia side of the river. But, he could not ignore this tip. It must be followed up. This error ensured that O Beirne would not reap the fame of capturing John Wilkes Booth. He had been within ten miles of Booth. The assassin and his accomplice were

5 ensconced in a tobacco barn on the Garret Farm. O Beirne paused to wire Stanton his findings and requested permission to search the Port Royal area. In reply O Beirne ordered to return to Washington as a second force commanded by Colonel Lafayette Baker would take over the operations. Baker s party of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry discovered Booth and Herold in a barn located in Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia. Herold gave himself up. Booth refusing to surrender was shot and mortally wounded. O Beirne had been an ace in capturing Booth. As he ran down the conspirators and their accomplices and developed the intelligence and kept Stanton informed with the intelligence that allowed Baker to reap the glory of capturing the murderer of President Lincoln, he set the stage for the conclusion of one darkest episodes of the tragic war that settled the original sentiment of the conceived in liberty.