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John Wilkes Booth

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John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American actor infamous for the assasination of Abraham Lincoln. He was a successful professional stage actor of his day, and a member of the Booth family of actors. He was also a Confederate sympathizer who was dissatisfied with the outcome of the American Civil War.

Background and early life

John Wilkes Booth was born in 1838, in a log house near Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland. The farm was purchased by Junius Brutus Booth in 1822. The house still stands today and was recently purchased by Harford County and is expected to become a memorial to the Booth family and their influence on Shakespearean acting in 19th century America. His parents, Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes both moved to the United States from England in 1821. He was named for the famous British revolutionary John Wilkes, whom the family claimed was a distant relative. Junius himself was an actor, as were his other sons Edwin Booth and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.

Booth appeared to have led a happy childhood. He received an education in the classics and in particular Shakespeare. In 1850-1851, he attended Milton's Boarding School for Boys located in Sparks, Maryland (the building is now a restaurant called the Milton Inn). As described by Booth's sister, Asia Booth Clarke in her book entitled "The Unlocked Book," the future actor met an old gypsy woman in the woods near the school who gave him a grim assessment of his life and said he would die young. In 1851, at age 13, Booth attended St. Timothy's Military Academy in Catonsville, Maryland, near Tunisia. In the early 1860's, Booth attended the Bel Air Academy located in the town of Bel Air, Maryland.

Theatrical career and Civil War

John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 1864.

At the age of 17, Booth played the Earl of Richmond in Shakespeare's Richard III At his request he was billed as "J.B. Wilkes", a pseudonym meant to divert attention away from his famous thespian family. In 1858 he became a member of the Richmond Theatre, and his career started to take off. He was referred to in reviews as "the handsomest man in America." He stood 5 feet, 8 inches tall, had jet-black hair, and was lean and athletic. He was also an excellent swordsman. His performances were often characterized by his contemporaries as acrobatic and intensely physical. A fellow actress once recalled that he occasionally cut himself with his own sword, and routinely slept covered in steaks to tend to the bruises inflicted on the stage.

In 1859, Booth happened to be preparing for a theatrical engagement in Richmond, Virginia, a few weeks before the scheduled execution of the famous abolitionist John Brown. In October, Brown had raided the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (in present-day West Virginia) in an unsuccessful attempt to start a state-wide slave insurrection. Upon hearing of the verdict, Booth headed to Charles Town, bought a Richmond Gray militia uniform from state officers, and stood guard along the gallows as Brown was hanged.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860, Booth wrote a long speech that decried what he saw as Northern abolitionism and made clear his strong support of the South and the institution of slavery. On April 12, 1861, the Civil War broke out, and eventually 11 Southern states seceded from the Union. Booth's family was from Maryland, a border state which remained in the Union during the war despite a slaveholding population that was strongly sympathetic to the Southern cause. Along with the fact that Maryland shared a border with Washington, D.C., Lincoln had declared martial law in the state, a move that many, including Booth, viewed as unconstitutional and an abuse of executive power.

Booth, like many in Maryland, was pro-Confederate. However, most of his family were staunch Unionists, and Booth made an early promise to his mother that he would not enlist in the Confederate Army. Instead he lived out the war mostly in Washington D.C., travelling North and South as a performer and as far west as Indiana. Booth was outspoken in his love for the South, and equally outspoken in his hatred for Lincoln. In early 1862, Booth was arrested and taken before a provost marshal in St. Louis for making anti-government remarks.

Booth and Lincoln crossed paths on several occasions. Lincoln was an avid theater-goer and especially loved Shakespeare. On November 9, 1863, President Lincoln saw Booth playing Raphael in Charles Selby's The Marble Heart at Ford's Theatre in Washington. At one point during the performance, Booth shook his finger in Lincoln's direction as he delivered a line of dialogue. Later, Lincoln requested to meet the actor after the play, but Booth refused. Lincoln sat in the same "presidential box" in which he would later be assassinated.

Booth made another appearance at Ford's. That occurred on March 18, 1865, when he played Duke Pescara in The Apostate in what was the last appearance of his career. However, Booth's family was long time friends with John T. Ford, the theater's owner, and Booth was in and out of the theater so often during the war that he even had his mail sent there. This granted Booth complete access to Ford's Theatre, day and night.

Hatching the plot

By 1864, the tide of the war had shifted in the North's favor. The North halted prisoner exchange in an attempt to diminish the size of the Confederate Army, and because the Confederates refused to exchange captured African-American soldiers. Booth began devising a plan to kidnap Lincoln from his summer residence at The Soldiers' Home outside of Washington and smuggle him across the Potomac and into Richmond. He would be exchanged for the release of around 10,000 Southern soldiers held captive in Northern prisons. He successfully recruited his old friends Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin as accomplices. At this time, Booth had been also speculating in oil in Pennsylvania.

Possible ties to the Confederacy

In the summer of 1864, Booth met with several well-known Confederate sympathizers at The Parker House in Boston, Massachusetts. In October 1864 he made an unexplained trip to Montreal. At the time, Montreal was a well known center of clandestine Confederate activities. It is known that he spent ten days in the city and stayed for a time at St. Lawrence Hall, a meeting place for the Confederate Secret Service, and met at least one blockade runner there. It is possible that it was here that he also met Confederate Secret Service director James D. Bulloch as well as George Nicholas Sanders, a one-time US ambassador to Britain.

There has been much scholarly attention devoted to why Booth was in Montreal at this time, and what he was doing there. No solid evidence has ever linked Booth's kidnapping or assassination plot to a conspiracy involving any elements of the Confederate government, although this possibility had been explored at some length in two books; Nathan Miller's Spying For America and William Tidwell's Come Retribution: the Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln.

The kidnapping attempt

Booth began to devote more and more of his energies and finance to his plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln after his reelection in early November, 1864. He assembled a loose-knit band of Southern sympathizers, including David Herold, George Atzerodt, John Surratt, and Lewis Payne. They began to meet routinely at the boarding-house of Surratt's mother, Mrs. Mary Surratt.

On November 25, 1864, John Wilkes performed for the first and only time with his two brothers, Edwin and Junius, in a single engagement production of Julius Caesar at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. The proceeds went towards a statue of William Shakespeare for Central Park which still stands today. The performance was interrupted by a failed attempt by clandestine Confederate agents to burn down several hotels, and by extension the city of New York, with Greek fire. One of the hotels was next door to the theater, but the fire was quickly extinguished. The following morning, Booth argued bitterly with his brother, Edwin Booth, about Lincoln and the war.

Three months later, Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865 as the invited guest of his secret fiancée, Lucy Hale. (Lucy's father, John P. Hale, was Lincoln's minister to Spain.) In the crowds below were Powell, Atzerodt, and Herold. There seems to have been no attempt to kidnap or assassinate Lincoln during the inauguration. Later, however, Booth remarked about "what a wonderful chance" he had to shoot Lincoln, if he had so chosen.

On March 17, Booth learned at the last minute that Lincoln would be attending a performance of the play "Still Waters Run Deep" at a hospital near the Soldier's Home. Booth assembled his team on a stretch of road near the Soldier's Home in the attempt to kidnap Lincoln en route to the hospital, but the president never showed. Booth later learned that the President had changed his plans at the last moment to attend a reception at the National Hotel in Washington, which ironically was where Booth lived.

Artist's depiction of Lincoln's assasination.

The plans, the assassination, and the aftermath

Main article: Abraham Lincoln assassination

On April 10, after hearing the news that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Booth told Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Surratt, and a boarder at Mary Surratt's house that he was done with the stage and that the only play he wanted to present henceforth was Venice Preserv'd. Although Mr. Weichmann didn't understand the reference, Venice Preserv'd is about an assassination plot.

On April 11, Booth was in the crowd outside the White House when Lincoln gave an impromptu speech from his window. When Lincoln stated that he was in favor of granting suffrage to the former slaves, Booth turned to Lewis Powell and urged him to shoot the president on the spot. Powell refused. Booth declared that it would be the last speech Lincoln would ever make. It would appear that even though the civil war was officially over on April 9 and the South had capitulated the next day, the fact that known Confederate sympathizers were loose in the capital was mostly ignored. The Union victors had let their guard down just 5 days later, and would pay the price.

On the morning of Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Booth learned that the President and Mrs. Lincoln would be attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater. He immediately set about making plans for the assassination, which included a getaway horse waiting outside, and an escape route. Booth informed Powell, Herold and Atzerodt of his intention to kill Lincoln. He assigned Powell to assassinate Secretary of State William H. Seward and Atzerodt to assassinate Vice-President Andrew Johnson. Herold would assist in their escape into Virginia. By targeting the President and his two immediate successors to the office, Booth seems to have intended to decapitate the Union government and throw it into a state of panic and confusion. Booth also planned to assassinate the Union commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant; however, Grant's wife had promised to visit family and so they were heading to New Jersey. Booth had hoped that the assassinations would create sufficient chaos within the Union that the Confederate government could reorganize and continue the war.

The night of the assassination, a man named William G. Johnson kept trying to warn people that the president would be in danger if he attended the play. Booth found Johnson and drugged him so he wouldn't interfere with his plans.

As a famous and popular actor, Booth was a friend of the owner of Ford's Theater, John T. Ford, and had free access to all parts of the theater. Boring a spyhole into the presidential box earlier that day, the assassin could see if his intended victim had made it to the play. That evening, at around 10 p.m., as the play progressed, John Wilkes Booth slipped into Lincoln's box and shot him in the back of the head with a .44 caliber Deringer. Booth's escape was almost thwarted by Major Henry Rathbone, who was present in the Presidential box with Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln, and Rathbone's fiancée, Clara Harris. Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth after the fatal shot was fired, but was stabbed and slashed by a dagger that Booth had carried with him in addition to his pistol.

Booth then jumped from the President's box and fell to the stage, reputedly breaking his leg after it was snagged by an American flag bunting used as a decoration. At least one researcher, Michael Kauffman, now believes, however, that Booth actually broke his leg when his horse fell on him later in the escape, and that Booth's "diary" entry claiming it occurred jumping to the stage is a typical Booth dramatization (though it is unlikely Booth would have fabricated that it was due to being thrown off-balance by an American flag). Some witnesses said he shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" (Latin for "Thus always to tyrants" the Virginia state motto) from the stage, while others said he shouted "The South is avenged." He fled to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who treated the broken leg. Mudd was later convicted of treason before a military court and sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas region of Florida, but released early for his efforts in stemming a yellow fever epidemic. Interestingly, one of the other plotters and fellow prisoners, whom he took into his care when he returned home, survived him. Booth was surprised when he found little sympathy for his action, and wrote in his journal on April 21, 5 days before his capture, [W]ith every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for ... And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat. (Booth had appeared with his brothers in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in New York just 6 months before.)

Wanted poster for Booth, Surratt, and Herold

Union soldiers, led by Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty (the unit was from the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment), pursued Booth through Southern Maryland and across the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers to Richard Garrett's farm, near Bowling Green, Caroline County, Virginia. He had been housed in the barn with the assistance of Captain Willie Jett, of Mosby's Command (Virginia Partisan Rangers). Early in the morning of April 26, 1865, the soldiers caught up with Booth. Trapped in a tobacco barn owned by Richard H. Garrett, David Herold surrendered. He was tackled by soldiers and tied to a tree. Booth refused to surrender and Everton Conger ordered the soldiers to set the barn ablaze. Sergeant Boston Corbett fired at Booth and fatally wounded him in the neck. Booth was dragged from the fire and died on the porch of the farmhouse. The bullet had severed his spinal cord and he was paralyzed. For three hours he lay on the porch of the Garrett's home, slowly dying. Several times he said, "Tell my mother that I died for my country." and asked the soldiers to kill him. His last words were spoken as he stared at his outstretched immoveable hands, his last words reportedly being, "Useless, useless."

Booth's body was taken to the ironclad USS Montauk at the Washington Navy Yard for identification and an autopsy. His cousin, actress Blanche Chapman, was among the people to identify him. The body was then buried in a cell in the Old Penitentiary at the Washington Arsenal. In 1867, the body was exhumed, placed in a pine box, and locked in a warehouse at the prison. In 1869, the body was once again identified before being released to the Booth family, where it was buried in an unmarked location in the family plot at Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore.

"Booth escaped" theories

Historic Site marker on Route 301 near Bowling Green, VA

An early popularizer of "Booth Escaped" theories was Finis L. Bates who claimed to have met Booth in Granbury, Texas in the 1870s and later to have taken possession of Booth's body after his suicide in Enid, Oklahoma in 1903. He toured the mummified body in carnival sideshows and wrote The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1908) in order to authenticate the mummy.

Some believe that Booth escaped the tobacco barn at Garrett's farm, with a look-alike double agent named James William Boyd dying in his place, and the government going to great pains to cover up the blunder. These theories remain unproven and are regarded by most historians as having no substance.

The Lincoln Conspiracy (ISBN 1-56849-531-5) details the assassination, the Boyd plot, and Booth's escape to the swamps. The Curse of Cain: The Untold Story of John Wilkes Booth (ISBN 1-58006-021-8) continues with the claim that Booth escaped, sought refuge in Japan and eventually returned to the United States where he died in Enid, Oklahoma in 1903. Another is that a man claiming to be Booth lived into the 1900s in Missouri. In recent years, attempts to exhume the grave where Booth is presumed buried in order to compare it with DNA of living relatives have been blocked by Baltimore county judges, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, and members of the family, leaving the question of escape open to theory.[1] FBI records made public give no information to support the escape theory, however.[2]

  • Booth is a critical character in the musical Assassins by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman. He is referred to as "the pioneer" of presidential assassinations. He is portrayed as being more sane than the other Assassins, and he successfully leads them against the Balladeer in Another National Anthem. His own song, the Ballad of Booth, is a traditional Civil War song, a slow and almost saddening rendition that contrasts sharply with the later ballad which the Balladeer sings for Booth's friend Czolgosz. He argues with the Balladeer (who refers to him as "Johnny" throughout the song), and later kills himself.
  • Rob Morrow stars as John Wilkes Booth in the 1998 made-for-television movie The Day Lincoln Was Shot while President Lincoln is played by Lance Henriksen. This movie, based on the book of the same title by Jim Bishop, also shows Payne's stabbing of Secretary of State Seward and Atzerodt's abortive attempt to shoot Vice-President Andrew Johnson during that same fateful night, as well as Lincoln's final few hours and Booth's own end, more than a week later, at the burning barn.
  • In the Line of Fire, a 1993 film starring Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich about a Secret Service agent attempting to stop a planned presidential assassination, has repeated references to John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln assassination. The antagonist, reluctant to reveal his real name in repeated telephone conversations with Clint Eastwood's character, uses the alias "Booth".
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, the Springfield Elementary School performs a stage play about Lincoln's assassination. Bart Simpson, playing the role of Booth, steps onto the stage wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses, and shouts, "Hasta la Vista, Abie," before shooting. This is a reference to the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In a different episode, Homer fantasizes about saving Lincoln. He yells "Duck, Mr. President!" and "karate chops" Booth as he enters the box. Later in the episode, Homer and Lincoln attack Lee Harvey Oswald before he can shoot John F. Kennedy. Booth also appears in one of the annual Halloween episodes as a member of the Jury of the Damned, selected by the Devil to determine the true owner of Homer Simpson's soul.
  • On the short-lived comedy television series "Police Squad!", there was a running joke about Lincoln. During the opening credits of each episode, a voice-over announcer intoned, "And Rex Hamilton As Abraham Lincoln!" who was then fired upon by Booth, only to have Lincoln get up and return fire.
  • In the movie Bedazzled, Elliot (Brendan Fraser) wishes to be President, only to find himself as Lincoln on the night of his assassination. Just before Booth can fire on him, Elliot manages to use his pager to return to the real world.
  • American hard rock band Clutch have a song on their self-titled album entitled "I Have the Body of John Wilkes Booth".
  • In an episode of Family Guy the Griffin family watches a television commercial for Mentos brand breath mints. John Wilkes Booth chews a mint and sneaks into the theatre, going up the stairs and shooting Abraham Lincoln through the middle of his top hat. Abraham Lincoln reacts by pointing both index fingers at Booth (a gesture common to Mentos commercials as a greeting or humorous response). Wilkes Booth holds up a pack of the mints. The Griffin family say negative things about the commercial and subliminal messages in advertising, after which Peter Griffin, in a robotic voice, stands up and says, "Must... kill... Abraham... Lincoln."
  • In the 2001 film Zoolander, John Wilkes Booth is used as an example of male models being hired to kill political figures. The film purports that the real reason for the assassination was to keep clothing prices low by preserving slave labor.
  • On the daytime drama Passions, a flashback scene of witch Tabitha Lenox revealed that an unnamed ancestor of Rebecca Hotchkiss Crane arranged for her former lover John Wilkes Booth to assassinate her "new lover the president". Though Booth does not appear, the ancestor mentions that he owes her a favour and proceeds to send a letter to him.
  • In the upcoming 2007 film National Treasure: The Book of Secrets, the plot revolves around the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and a supposed 18 pages missing from John Wilkes Booth's journal.

Trivia

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Francis J. Gorman. "Exposing the Myth that John Wilkes Booth Escaped".
  2. ^ FBI. "John Wilkes Booth".
  3. ^ R.J. Norton. "A Booth Saves A Lincoln".
  4. ^ R.J. Norton. "John Wilkes Booth".

Books

Manhunt: The 12-day chase for Abraham Lincoln's Killer, James L. Swanson. (ISBN 0-7499-5134-6)

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