Lincoln's Grave Robbers

On the cold, overcast morning of November 7, as traffic pours into town for Election Day, Tyrrell and John Stuart, chairman of the Lincoln Monument Association, drive to Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site of Lincoln’s tomb. John Carroll Power, the tomb’s caretaker and guide, greets them, and he and Tyrrell examine the grounds and interior of the Monument to plan their strategy. Power shows Tyrrell the “labyrinth” of narrow corridors that make up the main structure of the Monument, which is separated from the catacomb portion by a brick wall. In the labyrinth, dripping water has made the corridors muddy and dank, which is a result of the Monument’s shoddy construction. Tyrrell ascertains that when he raps his knuckles on Lincoln’s sarcophagus, it can easily be heard on the labyrinth side of the brick wall. Tyrrell tells Power that the Hub gang will probably be visiting the Monument that day and suggests that he answer all their questions honestly.

At the Hub gang’s hotel, Swegles lies to Hughes and Mullen that Brown has gone into a nearby town to get a wagon and horses, by theft if necessary. For a while, the Hughes and Mullen wander the bustling streets of Springfield. Hughes goes into a cobbler’s to have a hole in his shoe mended. When Swegles meets up with them later, Mullen tells the two of them to visit the Monument without him since he does not want to be identified later. As Hughes and Swegles board the streetcar for the cemetery, they are tailed by the detectives McGinn and Hay.

At the Monument, Power gives them a tour of the tomb, answering their many questions. He tells them that Lincoln’s body is protected by two coffins within the sarcophagus: one wooden, one lead. Hughes is heartened by his glimpse of the sarcophagus, which he thinks can be easily smashed. Back at their hotel, he and Mullen map out their strategy: If the lead coffin proves too heavy for them to carry to the wagon, they can simply double up the president’s body and carry it out in a sack. From there, the men plan to submerge the body in the Sangamon River a couple of miles out of town, or else bury it under a bridge. This will spare them having to drive 220 miles to Lake Michigan, as originally planned. Mullen has yet another new idea: Since the authorities may demand prosecution to save face, he asks if Swegles would be willing to go to jail for a year or so, in exchange for a large sum of money. Swegles, of course, agrees.

Claiming he needs to check up on Brown, Swegles goes to Tyrrell and tells him that they have set the time for the break-in as 8:30 pm. They are joined by Elmer Washburn, a Secret Service agent named John McDonald, and John English, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. English, who learned about the graverobbing plot by chance, will go on to write the most thorough eyewitness account of what follows. Tyrrell outlines his plan for the men: He, Washburn, and the Pinkerton detectives will conceal themselves in the Monument to lie in wait for the thieves. Once Hughes and Mullen enter the catacomb and begin to tamper with Lincoln’s sarcophagus, Swegles is to slip away and whisper the password “Wash” (for Washburn) at the main door of the Monument. At this point, the burglars will be caught in the act, with no avenue of escape.

Over dinner at the St. Charles Hotel, Swegles claims to his partners that Billy Brown has found a wagon and horses, and he suggests he go ask him to pick them all up for the ride to Oak Ridge. As he knew they would, the two men refuse, saying it would be far too risky. Mullen tells Swegles to have Brown come to the cemetery all by himself at 9:30 pm and to tie the wagon up in the woods until they need it.

At around six o’clock, Tyrrell and his men arrive at Memorial Hall, the large circular chamber that leads into the tomb’s labyrinth. The overcast sky bodes an extremely dark night. The lawmen decide to wait inside the Monument until it is time to act, since hiding outside might put them in the way of the thieves when they arrive. The group feels their way through the inky black corridors until it is safe to light a lantern; Tyrrell continues on to the brick wall that adjoins the catacomb, telling all of them to be as quiet as possible since every echo can be heard from outside. He stations the reporter John English by the brick wall, giving him the task of alerting the others at the first sound of the sarcophagus being prized open. Then, he places lit lanterns in the corridors so he and his men can leave in a hurry. Everyone settles down to wait.

About two hours later, Swegles, Hughes, and Mullen arrive at the cemetery, scaling the fence just to be sure that they are not seen. Peering into the windows of Memorial Hall and seeing nothing but darkness, they sneak around to the catacomb side, where Mullen begins to laboriously saw through the steel lock. Meanwhile, Swegles slips back to the hall door and whispers the code word “Wash.” Determined not to “pounce” until the thieves are actually breaking into the sarcophagus, Tyrrell tells Swegles in a whisper to go back and help. The wait is long: Mullen’s saw breaks in two, and the thieves are forced to shatter the door lock with a three-cornered file and a pair of pliers—this takes a lot of effort. As Hughes and Mullen probe the marble sarcophagus, looking for flaws, Swegles considers making a run for it; however, fearing his “partners” may shoot him, he resolves to play his role a little longer. When Mullen raises his axe to smash the sarcophagus, Swegles suggests that the lid may simply lift off, which proves correct; this way, he says, they can cover up their crime by replacing the lid after stealing the body. It will also give Swegles more time to slip away, as the thieves must now chisel through the cement seam that secures the sarcophagus’s second lid.

On the other side of the brick wall, John English hears the sound of chisels and steals through the maze to alert Tyrrell and his men that the graverobbers are now at work on Lincoln’s sarcophagus. However, Tyrrell, determined to wait until the thieves have their hands on the coffin, refuses to “pounce,” to the surprise and consternation of the others.

In the catacomb, Swegles and the two thieves pool their strength to heave the second slab from the sarcophagus and drag the coffin out about a foot; while doing so, they discover that it weighs, at most, about 400 pounds. Mullen tells Swegles to go look for Billy Brown, whose arrival he thinks must be imminent, so they can quickly load the coffin onto his cart. Instead, Swegles ducks through the woods, cuts around to Memorial Hall, and whispers to Tyrrell the news he has been waiting for—that the burglars have pulled the coffin from the sarcophagus. Quickly, Tyrrell signals his men to draw their pistols and commence the ambush. Unfortunately, as the lawmen sprint outside, George Hay’s gun accidentally goes off, alerting the burglars. By the time Tyrrell gets to the catacomb door and kicks it open, the perpetrators have fled, leaving their tools behind.

Tyrrell shouts to his men to search the grounds, then sprints up the Monument’s outer stairs onto the terrace surrounding the obelisk, where he gets into a shootout with two dark figures, who turn out to be his own detectives, Hay and McGinn. Luckily, no one is injured; but the burglars have made a clean getaway through the woods. Though Tyrrell later pins the blame for this bungled ambush on Hay, whose gun accidentally discharged, his own slowness to act was equally a factor, as was his decision not to post any men outside to guard the catacomb door. Once Hughes and Mullen had pulled Lincoln’s coffin partly out of its sarcophagus and gauged its weight, they naturally stepped outside to wait for Billy Brown and his cart: To wait inside the catacomb’s enclosed space would have made them sitting ducks had anything gone wrong. Following their “crook’s instincts,” they fanned out and lay on the grass, keeping their eyes and ears open; it was at this point that they sighted the dark silhouettes of their pursuers, and heard the loud report of Hay’s pistol. Knowing the jig was up, they fled through the woods, scaled the cemetery fence, and ran straight out of town. Not daring to return to Springfield, they fled north along the road for many miles, hiding in ditches or behind brush whenever they heard a vehicle.

Back at the Monument, Tyrrell and the others bring lanterns into the catacomb, and find, to their relief, that Lincoln’s coffin (and body) are intact, and damage to the sarcophagus is minimal. John Carroll Power reflects that Tyrrell might have been lucky not to corner the thieves in the dark catacomb, where (he thinks) they would have had the advantage when Tyrrell came charging in. To continue the pursuit, Tyrrell proposes that he, McDonald, and Hay take the next train back to Chicago, where Hughes and Mullen are bound to turn up eventually. Washburn and McGinn will stay behind in Springfield to scout the crime scene by daylight and gather eyewitness accounts.

Spotting Swegles on the train—but not Hughes or Mullen—Tyrrell discreetly offers him $10 for his further help in the capture of the two graverobbers. Back in his office, he writes to Chief Brooks that the arrest of the fugitives is just a matter of time. Meanwhile, the two men in question, filthy, hungry, and exhausted, wander the outskirts of Sherman, Illinois, almost 200 miles from Chicago. Seeing a couple of farmers, they beg them for food, claiming to be members of a posse looking for a gang of killers. The farmers refuse, curious why these bedraggled strangers would be hunting for murderers on foot. After pointing the way to the nearest train station, the farmers debate whether to tell the police about these suspicious characters, but they finally decide not to bother.

That morning, in addition to headlines reporting Democrat Samuel J. Tilden’s (apparent) victory in the presidential election, the Chicago Tribune runs John English’s expose of the “Dastardly Attempt to Despoil the Lincoln Monument” (149). Back at the crime scene, detectives document the copious evidence, which includes lanterns, tools, and footprints, while Power reassures the many curiosity-seekers that Lincoln’s body has not been burgled. In the catacomb, Lincoln’s coffin remains just where the thieves left it, projecting a foot out of the rifled sarcophagus. In Chicago, meanwhile, Tyrrell consults with Robert Lincoln, then asks Lewis Swegles to go back to the Hub to seek out Hughes and Mullen, who (he thinks) will eventually return to their usual haunts and friends, as most fugitives do. This is a dangerous mission for Swegles, since the Hub’s co-owner and planner of the failed heist, Jim Kennally, will be angry and looking for answers. On the other hand, avoiding the Hub might make Swegles look guilty. The roper agrees to take the risk.

At Chestnut, about 40 miles from Springfield, the penniless Hughes and Mullen jump a northbound train, telling the conductor an unlikely tale about blowing all their cash on a big cattle purchase. Hughes offers the conductor his gun as collateral until they can raise the money for their tickets. The two men get off at Melvin and walk to the farm of Hughes’s father, where Hughes decides to lie low for a while. The restless Mullen, however, soon boards a train for Chicago.

Back at Oak Ridge Cemetery, John Carroll Power prevails upon the Monument Association to do something about Lincoln’s coffin, which is still projecting out of the sarcophagus. The Association hires workers to restore the coffin to the sarcophagus and seal it up again, but this does not placate Power or John Stuart, a member of the Association, and together, the two men devise a temporary solution. With great secrecy, a five-man team—Stuart, Power, a marble dealer named Adam Johnston, and two other members of the Association—carry Lincoln’s heavy coffin deep into the Monument’s labyrinth, where they construct a huge wooden box around it. The task demands backbreaking labor in a confined, almost airless space; but now, at last, the late president’s body is thoroughly hidden from anyone who might try to steal or desecrate it.