and up a flight of stairs. He made his escape out of a
door directly in the rear of the theatre, mounted a horse, and rode off.
The above all occurred in the space of a quarter of a minute, and at the
time I did not know the President was shot."

Scarcely had the horror-stricken audience witnessed the leap and flight
of the asassin when a woman's shriek pierced through the theatre,
recalling all eyes to the President's box. The scene that ensued is
described with singular vividness by the poet Walt Whitman, who was
present: "A moment's hush--a scream--the cry of murder--Mrs. Lincoln
leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry,
pointing to the retreating figure, '_He has killed the President!_' And
still a moment's strange, incredulous suspense--and then the
deluge!--then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty--(the sound,
somewhere back, of a horse's hoofs clattering with speed)--the people
burst through chairs and railing, and break them up--that noise adds to
the queerness of the scene--there is inextricable confusion and
terror--women faint--feeble persons fall and are trampled on--many cries
of agony are heard--the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a
dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival--the audience rush
generally upon it--at least the strong men do--the actors and actresses
are there in their play costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright
showing through the rouge--some trembling, some in tears--the screams
and calls, confused talk--redoubled, trebled--two or three manage to
pass up water from the stage to the President's box--others try to
clamber up. Amidst all this, a party of soldiers, two hundred or more,
hearing what is done, suddenly appear; they storm the house, inflamed
with fury, literally charging the audience with fixed bayonets, muskets,
and pistols, shouting, 'Clear out! clear out!'.... And in the midst of
that pandemonium of senseless haste--the infuriated soldiers, the
audience, the stage, its actors and actresses, its paints and spangles
and gaslights,--the life blood from those veins, the best and sweetest
of the land, drips slowly down, and death's ooze already begins its
little bubbles on the lips."

It appears that Booth, the assassin, had long been plotting the murder
of the President, and was awaiting a favorable moment for its execution.
He had visited the theatre at half-past eleven on the morning of the
14th, and learned t