Lincoln's Grave Robbers: Chapters 9–14

In fact, Ben Boyd was sitting in prison without any idea of the elaborate efforts being made to win his freedom!

Also, he needed permission to spend a little extra money on train fare and hotels. “It will be attended with considerable expense, which I will not incur without your authority.”

Also, he needed permission to spend a little extra money on train fare and hotels. “It will be attended with considerable expense, which I will not incur without your authority.”

“Oh, what a desperate undertaking!”

It is talked of with a spirit of pride by the man Mullen, he is elated with the prospect of negotiating for the return of President Lincoln’s remains, and thereby secure about two hundred thousand dollars and the release of Ben Boyd, for further use, in counterfeiting.

“Four men together might prove singular,” he said—too memorable to potential witnesses, if things went wrong.

When the train slowed down to pass through Burlington, he jumped off. From the side of the tracks, Brown watched the red light hanging from the caboose shrink and vanish.

Brown had picked up what Swegles described as a “rattling good pair of bay horses and a three-spring wagon.”

“The sun had not been visible during the whole of the day,” he remembered, “and thick clouds hung like a pall over the earth, making it so dark as early as six o’clock that a man could scarcely have seen his hand before him.”

“The sun had not been visible during the whole of the day,” he remembered, “and thick clouds hung like a pall over the earth, making it so dark as early as six o’clock that a man could scarcely have seen his hand before him.”

“It was deemed advisable to remain in this room,” explained John English, the Chicago Tribune reporter.

“If the officers were scattered around the monument, lying among the bush, the thieves were liable to step on them.”

“Imperative silence was demanded,” English recalled. “The slightest movement produced an echo which might give an alarm.”

Swegles lifted the bull’s-eye and pointed a shaft of light right through the door window.

On the opposite side of the monument, Mullen pried open the outer, wooden door leading to the catacomb.

In an arc above the name were the famous words of his second inaugural address: WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL.

In an arc above the name were the famous words of his second inaugural address: WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL.

They began hacking at the cement seam with the axe and chisels.

“Parties escaped. Temporarily baffled but confident of arrest soon.”

As an exhausted Tyrrell hunched over his office desk in Chicago, Hughes and Mullen trudged on through the chilly morning somewhere near the town of Sherman, Illinois.

As they later told newspapers, they were instantly wary of these dusty travelers.

“There was a row in Springfield last night,” Hughes said, pitching the story he and Mullen had concocted to explain their tired eyes and dirty clothes.

Not until readers reached page five did they see a story from Springfield, with this headline: “Dastardly Attempt to Despoil the Lincoln Monument: Thieves Trying to Steal the Bones of the Martyr President.”

Not until readers reached page five did they see a story from Springfield, with this headline: “Dastardly Attempt to Despoil the Lincoln Monument: Thieves Trying to Steal the Bones of the Martyr President.”

“If human ingenuity can track them it will be done,” he stated.

“It is earnestly hoped that the double-distilled perpetrators of this attempted robbery of the remains of America’s most loved President will soon be brought to justice.”

“It is earnestly hoped that the double-distilled perpetrators of this attempted robbery of the remains of America’s most loved President will soon be brought to justice.”

This was a dicey assignment for Swegles.

He’d surely be fuming about the fiasco in Springfield—and very eager to know how the police had just happened to be there.

“It was exceedingly hard work for two men,” Power said, “and the atmosphere we had to breathe was almost stifling for want of ventilation.”