His ascendancy over his fellow-conspirators seems to have been complete.  After the surrender of Lee, in an access of malice and rage akin to madness he called them together and assigned each his part in the new crime which had risen in his mind out of the abandoned abduction scheme.  This plan was as brief and simple as it was horrible.  Powell, alias Payne, the stalwart, brutal, simple-minded boy from Florida, was to murder Seward; Atzerodt, the comic villain of the drama, was assigned to remove Andrew Johnson; Booth reserved for himself the most conspicuous role of the tragedy.  It was Herold’s duty to attend him as page and aid him in his escape.  Minor parts were given to stage-carpenters and other hangers-on, who probably did not understand what it all meant.  Herold, Atzerodt, and Surratt had previously deposited at a tavern at Surrattsville, Maryland, owned by Mrs. Surratt, but kept by a man named Lloyd, a quantity of arms and materials to be used in the abduction scheme.  Mrs. Surratt, being at the tavern on the eleventh, warned Lloyd to have the “shooting-irons” in readiness, and, visiting the place again on the fourteenth, told him they would probably be called for that night.

The preparations for the final blow were made with feverish haste.  It was only about noon of the fourteenth that Booth learned that the President was to go to Ford’s Theater that night to see the play “Our American Cousin.”  It has always been a matter of surprise in Europe that he should have been at a place of amusement on Good Friday; but the day was not kept sacred in America, except by the members of certain churches.  The President was fond of the theater.  It was one of his few means of recreation.  Besides, the town was thronged with soldiers and officers, all eager to see him; by appearing in public he would gratify many people whom he could not otherwise meet.  Mrs. Lincoln had asked General and Mrs. Grant to accompany her; they had accepted, and the announcement that they would be present had been made in the evening papers; but they changed their plans, and went north by an afternoon train.  Mrs. Lincoln then invited in their stead Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, the daughter and the stepson of Senator Ira Harris.  Being detained by visitors, the play had made some progress when the President appeared.  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