The band struck up "Hail to the Chief," the actors ceased
playing, the audience rose, cheering tumultuously, the President bowed
in acknowledgment, and the play went on.
From the moment he learned of the President's intention, Booth's every
action was alert and energetic. He and his confederates were seen on
horseback in every part of the city. He had a hurried conference with
Mrs. Surratt before she started for Lloyd's tavern. He intrusted to an
actor named Matthews a carefully prepared statement of his reasons for
committing the murder, which he charged him to give to the publisher of
the "National Intelligencer," but which Matthews, in the terror and
dismay of the night, burned without showing to any one. Booth was
perfectly at home in Ford's Theater. Either by himself, or with the aid
of friends, he arranged his whole plan of attack and escape during the
afternoon. He counted upon address and audacity to gain access to the
small passage behind the President's box. Once there, he guarded against
interference by an arrangement of a wooden bar to be fastened by a
simple mortise in the angle of the wall and the door by which he had
entered, so that the door could not be opened from without. He even
provided for the contingency of not gaining entrance to the box by
boring a hole in its door, through which he might either observe the
occupants, or take aim and shoot.
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