“Hearing that President Lincoln would be attending Ford’s theatre, Loring purchased a ticket and looked forward to an enjoyable evening.”

By Richard E. Quest

ON APRIL 14, 1865 Union Navy Lt. Benjamin W. Loring limped down the street to Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

After purchasing a ticket, he sat in the orchestra level directly across from the presidential box so he could have an unobstructed view of the “Great Emancipator” himself.

As the orchestra struck up Hail to the Chief, Loring directed his attention to the presidential box and saw Mrs. Lincoln, the President, and another couple whom he did not recognize enter the box and seat themselves. Loring found himself glancing at the President often, but soon was enjoying the raucous comedy on stage.

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., the crack of a gunshot stole his attention and his head snapped toward the sound as he stared directly at the presidential box. A man leaped from the balcony to the stage and exited out the back of the playhouse.

Loring reacted immediately and rushed to the stage running toward the box. Climbing into the box he realized he was only the second man to reach the President. A man of action, Loring pointed and ordered the first man, Lt. William Flood of the USS Primrose to help him slide the President out of a rocking chair to the floor.

Loring, unsure of the precise nature of the President’s injury, reached into his pocket pulled out his ever-present penknife and cut Lincoln’s necktie hoping to help ease the victim’s labored breathing. Still barking orders as others entered the box, Loring was mistaken for a Navy surgeon. Coordinating with three others he helped to carry Lincoln out of Ford’s Theatre and across the street to the Peterson House.

Interestingly, Loring’s role in the events at Ford’s Theatre stand as a noteworthy albeit overlooked chapter of the U.S. Civil War, yet it was not his only remarkable experience of the era.

Union Navy Lt. Benjamin W. Loring enlisted in the United States Navy in early 1862. He commanded a guns division onboard the USS Galena during the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff and a year later fired the first shots at the Confederate-held Fort Sumter from the monitor USS Weehawken. Promoted to lieutenant for gallantry in action, he took command of the tinclad USS Wave.

After several pleas to naval authorities in New Orleans to send coal to refuel his ship Loring and his crew of 59 were anchored with cold boilers the morning of May 6, 1864. With no warning from his pickets, 350 Texas Confederates attacked the Wave and its sister ship the USS Granite City. The latter capitulated after a 30-minutes struggle. However, Loring and his crew held the rebels at bay for an hour and a half. Only after it was clear that further action was fruitless, and with only half his crew able to still man the guns, he surrendered his ship. Loring and his entire crew were captured and sent to Camp Groce, a Texas POW camp.

Loring and his men endured wretched conditions, starvation and abuse. Yet despite the deprivations, he did what he could to care for his men and maintain their morale while he planned his own escape. In the early morning hours of July 5, 1864 Loring and an ensign named Peter Howard squeezed through the walls of Camp Groce and raced south toward Matagorda Bay and freedom. Traveling 200 miles in 10 days, they were recaptured only 10 miles from freedom. The commanding officer of Camp Groce, Colonel Gillespie, vowed to punish Loring. After months of starvation, sickness and the deaths of hundreds of prisoners, Loring realized that any hope of survival lay in another escape attempt.

On Nov. 13, 1864 Loring and Lt. Colonel Aaron Flory of the 46th Indiana Regiment walked out the front gate of Camp Groce with written permission to collect dried grass to use for bedding. Their passes were forgeries. Using smuggled Confederate uniforms, the fugitives disguised themselves as Rebel soldiers. They spend the next 25 days trekking across the scrubby countryside posing as Texas soldiers heading home on furlough.

Reaching the Sabine River and the border with Louisiana, the pair headed south. Continuing on, the men navigated by the heavens, waded through swamps, endured torrential storms before turning south toward the coast. Bluffing their way through encounters with locals and evading the Confederate Home Guard, as well as packs of wild dogs, the two subsisted on parched corn and the generosity of those they encountered along the way. With his boots completely worn out and his feet badly blistered, Loring used his penknife to fashion a pair of moccasins from his rubber blanket.

It was during a raging storm Loring and his companion finally reached safety. With their strength nearly completely exhausted, Loring heard the faint bell of a Union gun ship in Berwick’s Bay, Louisiana, only five miles away. The two crossed the final river by sliding along a telegraph pole and then swimming the last 50 feet to reach Union forces. Holding each other up, the men stumbled to the edge of the brackish waters of the Atchafalaya River and desperately hailed the Union Navy ships just a few hundred yards off shore. With no response from the ships, the men had to find shelter fast or they would surely die of exposure. After a restless night, the two emerged to find a contingent from the USS Carrabassett had been sent to investigate the calls for help the previous night. They had finally reached safety.

After recovering from his ordeal, Loring was ordered to report to the Washington Navy Yard where he learned that his reputation had been ruined following his surrender of the USS Wave. Hoping to salvage his good name, Loring wrote a detailed description of the Battle of Calcasieu Pass and sent it to Admiral Farragut.

As his health improved, Loring again contributed to the war effort as commanding officer of the Naval Rendezvous at the Washington Navy Yards. With the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia it appeared that war was nearly over. Hearing that President Lincoln would be attending Ford’s theater, Loring purchased a ticket and looked forward to an enjoyable evening.

Richard E. Quest is the founding president and executive director of the charitable nonprofit organization Books in Homes USA. Quest is a member of the Loudoun County Civil War Round Table and is a guide at the Ball’s Bluff Battlefield Regional Park in Virginia. He recently relocated to northern Virginia. His book, I Held Lincoln: A Union Sailor’s Journey Home is now available at nebraskapress.unl.edu/Potomac-Books or wherever books are sold.