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<A HREF="http://www.crimelibrary.com/booth/boothmain.htm">Colossus of Rhodes
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John Wilkes Booth:
A Brutus of His Age
by Joseph Geringer
Colossus of Rhodes
"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff..."
Julius Caesar
"Of the Seven Wonders of the World, can you imagine how famous a man
might be who could pull down the Colossus of Rhodes?"
Such was the meandering of 10-year-old Johnny Booth, whose quixotic
upbringing by an overpassionate mother and an insane Shakespearean
father were, inadvertently, already stirring rabid visions of fame,
glory and immortality in his head.
By early adulthood, John Wilkes Booth became one of the most popular
actors of his day, respected by men for his swashbuckling reputation and
adored by women for his handsome face, but those boyhood dreams of fame
were never satisfied. That is, until an opportunity finally presented
itself in the form of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Here he found
the chance he had been craving, where he could fashion real scoundrels
and heroes from air, both becoming so vivid and definable. Choosing the
side of the underdog Southern Confederacy, he opted to become their
Brutus and, like that character in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, dethrone
the despot who wielded an unjust scepter. The "despot" in this case was
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.
By pulling down this Colossus of Rhodes, Booth believed his name would
parallel with folklore’s most romantic heroes. He failed to foresee that
his immortality would, rather, be cast front-row into the chorus of the
world’s greatest villains.
=====
Skeletons in the Closet
"What’s in a name?"
Romeo and Juliet
John Wilkes Booth was born on May 10, 1838 in a large log cabin set in a
clearing among the lilac-strewn primeval forests of northern Maryland,
not far below the Pennsylvania border. He was the ninth child of pretty,
raven-haired Mary Ann Holmes and Junius Brutus Booth, a barrel-chested
stage actor who had made a name for himself as a fine interpreter of
Shakespeare. It was said he ruled his family with a presence "as
constant as the Northern star," a line taken from Julius Caesar. As a
child, Wilkes (as he preferred to be called) would tag along with his
family on occasional carriage trips to the nearest villages of Bel Air
and Hickory. In town, he would listen wide-eyed to the stories of old
men who had taken part in the American Revolution; he found their
courage in the face of British bayonets fascinating.
His parents promoted this sort of inspiration, his father being related
to England’s agitator-statesman John Wilkes (for whom Wilkes was named)
and his mother a hopeless romantic. In fact, the latter had told him
that, on the night he was born, she had asked God to give her a hint of
what her son’s future held in store for him. In answer, she saw the
flames in the open hearth form the image of letters that, as she studied
them, spelled the word "country." This, she believed, meant that he was
to endure the fires of persecution, but emerge as patriot in the final
act.
In her memoirs of her brother, Asia Booth recalls this episode in verse:
"...I implore to know on this ghostly night
Whether t’will labor for wrong, or right,
For -- or against Thee?
The flame up-leapt
Like a wave of blood, an avenging arm crept
Into shape; and COUNTRY shone out in the flame..."
Indeed, his life began on a discordant note, despite this romantic
nurturing. He learned as a boy the necessity of having to defend his
familial name against scandal. Although his father had earned the
respect of his profession -- as he was a recognized headliner in his
native Britain who successfully carried his craft to the States -- their
Maryland neighbors (as did many in the early 1800s) regarded actors as
nomads and voyeurs. One simply did not hang with stage people lest he or
she suffered the same social indentations.
Fueling the fire, the American public had learned that Junius had
deserted a wife in England and fled to the new country with this Mary
Ann Holmes, a flower peddler he had met outside London’s Covent Street
Theatre. More so, Junius and Mary Ann, even after conceiving 10 children
in total, had never exchanged marriage vows! Eventually the couple
married -- probably more out of social pressure than desire -- but
outrage lives on. Many of their neighbors in town continued to forbid
their children association with the Booth brood. For Wilkes and his
striplings, life was often lonely.
=====
Squire Booth
"Though this be madness...:
Hamlet
The Booth children were, figuratively and literally, born under a
crooked star. Their father was branded "mad" by many, even in his own
profession. Indeed, he was peculiar. While on the theatre circuit, the
great Shakespearean often had fits of melancholia that lasted for days,
sometimes brought on by the rum he consumed like water. It wasn’t
uncommon for the star to waddle onstage inebriated, yet in full control
of character.
His moods swung like an unhinged fence gate in a gale. Content one
minute, he would suddenly take to locking himself in an armoire in his
dressing room moments before opening curtain and refuse to perform, for
no comprehensible reason. He could charm his audiences or, when in the
cup, make them feel like he was doing them a favor by performing for
them. Once, when sensing an inattentive audience, he broke character,
stormed to the apron of the stage and crowed, "Pay attention, you
low-lived bastards!" and slid back into character as if nothing had
happened to break it. Another time, he found himself playing to a
lukewarm house; to stir up the audience, he beat a fellow actor into
bloody pulp during what was supposed to be mere choreographed
fisticuffs.
A production of Richard III was canceled at Albany, New York’s Odeon
Theatre after its star, Mr. Booth, vanished. Later that evening,
stagehands found him in a local gin mill, the bar counter his stage,
reciting the entire play -- his and everyone else’s lines -- for the
amusement of the clientele.
A confirmed vegetarian, Junius believed animals had souls. To kill them
would mean damnation, as if killing a human being. He would switch
religions as constantly as he did his moods, espousing the doctrines of
the Jewish faith one week, the Koran the next, then preaching
Catholicism before the month was ended.
In all due credit, however, he was his most stable when home on "The
Farm," as he called his property in Maryland. There he was a
hard-working husband, excellent farmer and doting father.
While Wilkes was still young, Junius built another magnificent two-story
home adjacent to the original cabin homestead. He called it, in all its
elegance, Tudor Hall. Designed by one James Gifford after the mode of
the country manor houses in Booth’s native England, it was resplendent
with cross-pane windows and a Romeo and Juliet-style balcony facing the
rising sun. A neighbor, Edmund Spangler, provided most of the labor.
Oddly enough, both Gifford and Spangler were later to serve as carpenter
and scene shifter at Ford’s Theatre in Washington City (D.C.), where
Wilkes would receive his ultimate notoriety.
The private grounds around Tudor Hall resembled a pastel illustration in
a Sir Walter Scott novel. A half-mile in from the carriage road, they
were surrounded by dense yews and brooding willows, babbling brooks,
caves, wandering silver fox and turkeys. The children would hunt for and
frequently uncover arrow heads on the property, reminders of its history
as an Iriqouisian habitation. A small graveyard edged the property; here
lay several of the Booth children (Henry, Mary Ann, Frederick and
Elizabeth) who died when yellow fever swept the East. An ethereal fog
seemed to always hang over The Farm and the desolate quiet thundered
imaginations of all kinds.
After the farming work was done for the day, Squire Junius brought his
family together before Tudor Hall’s roaring parlor fire to pour over
dramas and sagas from the Booth bookshelves. He demanded that his brood
be well-versed in the arts and social graces. He would make his
surviving children -- Junius, Rosalie, Edwin, Asia, Wilkes and Joseph --
memorize sonnets and soliloquies from Shakespeare and other masters,
then recite them evenings for the rest of the family. Son Edwin, who was
five years older than Wilkes and who often "chaperoned" his father on
the road, had no trouble learning them. Neither did Wilkes, who it was
said memorized entire dramas as most children his age learned nursery
rhymes.
That Wilkes was his father’s pet was no secret, not even to Edwin. He
showered the boy with compliments and gifts, calling him a beautiful
boy, and fostering what he saw as a high spirit, reminiscent of the
patriot John Wilkes he was christened after. The other children did not
complain, for they too saw in their brother the same dramatic fire and
energy that moved their own beloved "Papa June."
Junius Brutus Booth died in 1858, prompting poet Walt Whitman to write,
"there went the greatest and by far the most noble Roman of them all."
The liquor he consumed had finally poisoned his system. But, after the
family buried him in Baltimore Cemetery his charismatic presence
remained. The legacy he left -- to preserve the Booth name into
immortality -- remained "as constant as the Northern star."
=====
A Gypsy's Prophecy
"The spirit I have seen may be the devil..."
Hamlet
During the winter seasons, the Booth children attended boarding school
in Cockeysville, Md., where Wilkes seemed to be more interested in
causing mischief than studying. His friends called him "Billy Bowlegs"
to tease him; they knew that he wore long coats whenever possible to
conceal that trait. But, he was nonetheless their leader and captained
many pranks throughout the school halls, much to the chagrin of its
Quaker principal, Professor Lamb.
During summers on The Farm, however, he had few friends. Most of his
siblings were older than he (Edwin had embarked on a stage career of his
own), and Wilkes often turned for entertainment to the many ballades and
novels his father had given him. On these glorious pages he discovered
Ivanhoe, Hawkeye, William Tell, Robin Hood, Sir Lancelot, Don
Quixote...heroes of the highest caliber whose colorful lives he wanted
to emulate. His closest friend became his sister, Asia, to whom he
confided his dreams of adventure. She would often see him midsummer
nights, ripping his father’s horse Peacock down Churchville Road, a twig
for a lance, shouting oaths to the trees that he fashioned as
fire-breathing dragons or Cyclopes.
It was with Asia that he attended a carnival in Harford County one
autumn evening. Townsfolk from Bel Air and other neighboring burghs came
out to enjoy the festivities. One of the sideshows that attracted the
teenage Wilkes was a Gypsy fortune teller; amusedly, he wandered into
her wagon. But, once she began reading his palm, his smile faded. Her
prophesy was one of bad fortune: "Your lines are all criss-crass," she
told him. "You will live a charmed life, but it will be brief and you
will die violently."
The old hag’s words frightened him. Asia laughed off the experience, but
to Wilkes, who recalled his mother’s vision the night he was born --
those rhetorical flames -- the Gypsy’s words were all too poignant.
But, Asia had been observing something else in her brother’s character,
even stranger than what any Gypsy could have predicted. While her family
had never shown any prejudice toward the few Negroes they hired out
seasonally to harvest the fields -- indeed Junius had always treated
them like his sons -- Wilkes began complaining of having to eat his
meals with them after the day’s work. This sudden haughtiness, she felt,
seemed to mirror the "master" and "slave" relationships of the Deep
South.
What they both did not understand at the time was that this prejudice
was the first visible evidence of a bad root slinking below the surface
towards what the Gypsy said would become manifest.
=====
Stage Struck
"...Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."
MacBeth
Brother Edwin, now a full-blown matinee idol, was fast inheriting his
father’s thespian mantle, for the spotlights were now shining bright
onstage wherever he appeared. Billed as the son of the great Junius
Brutus Booth, people flocked to see this new genius. Letters sent home
from Edwin described the mining camps and cow towns he played, then the
great theatres in goliaths like Denver and San Francisco. He wrote of
great rivers and snow-capped mountains, of a vast desert and the Pacific
Ocean, of wealthy and exciting patrons of the arts.
Wilkes, at home, grew dizzy with jealousy. "Fame, I must have fame!" he
would rave to anyone who listened.
Since her husband had passed, Mrs. Booth spent less time at Tudor Hall
and more time in convenient Baltimore, where they lived on Exeter
Street. Asia had by this time acquainted the city’s top theatrical
comedian, J. Sleeper Clarke, and Wilkes began pestering Asia to have
Clarke procure for him a role in one of his productions.
Persistence paying off, Clarke talked the city’s Charles Street Theatre
into offering Wilkes, then 17, the hefty role of Lord Richmond in
Richard III.
The much-awaited performance of the latest Booth was a shambles. Wilkes
moaned and droned his lines like an amateur. Critics were kind, but
audiences brutalized him with insulting laughter and catcalls. The farce
reached even Edwin, playing the Sierra Nevadas in California.
Wilkes hid his face in shame. He swore he would never return to the
platform. But, Sleeper Clarke, on Asia’s persistence, tutored him to
refine the rough edges. After Clarke and Asia married and moved to
Philadelphia in 1859, Clarke convinced the management of the Arch Street
Theatre to cast Wilkes in a potpourri of supporting roles where he could
sharpen his craft hands on. Of his own volition, the boy chose to use
the moniker John Wilkes so as not to dishonor the Booth name further.
The venture nearly ruined Clarke’s credibility, for if audiences didn’t
laugh his pupil offstage they hissed him off. One time, in The Gamester,
fellow actors had to carry Wilkes off after he froze with stage fright.
Then there was the time he was played an Italian courtier named
Petruchio Pandolfe in the play, Lucretia Borgia. During the previous
months, he had begun to show an emerging talent; as well, women theatre
goers alarmed at his dark good looks and would tarry near the stage
entrance after performances to steal a closer peek as he exited. Maybe
the country had a new star after all! But...then came opening night of
Lucretia Borgia and Wilkes entered to the roll of drums: "Allow me to
offer my services, Countess of the House of Borgia, for I will fight the
enemy battering your borders! I am yours! I am Petru...." and he
blanked. Mumbling incoherences, he finally lost composure, turned to a
fellow actor and blurted, "Drat it! Who the hell am I?"
A tumult of guffaws sent him racing for the wings. His star seemed to
have crashed before it had a chance to shine.
=====
The Romantic South
"There is a tide in the affairs of men..."
Julius Caesar
The turning point in his life was one step away. John Wilkes Booth was
about to discover, and fall in love with, the South.
His brother Edwin had come forward with a proposition to give Wilkes’
sagging career a boost. Peopling a theatre troupe for an upcoming tour,
he invited Wilkes to join him. The troupe would perform in several major
cities in the geographic South and, because Edwin headlined it, the
press promised generous column space. Wilkes could recite Shakespeare
backwards and Edwin figured he might come off more splendidly under the
tutelage of a caring brother. Edwin offered one condition: that Wilkes
no longer hide behind an illegitimate name, but come out fighting and
give the world all he had. After all, Edwin told him, the Booth name
could open many new doors. It was a powerful name, Booth.
John Wilkes Booth (Library of Congress)
He instilled Wilkes with confidence and Wilkes accepted the challenge.
On the tour, no one laughed at this "J. Wilkes Booth" this time. Rather,
he displayed a figure and an aire that glowed Stage Presence.
Edwin, writing to older brother, Junius, who was a theater entrepreneur
in the West, told him, "I don’t think (our brother) will startle the
world...but he is improving fast, and looks beautiful on the platform."
His sudden onstage elegance, nurtured no doubt by Edwin, fit well with
the romantic-minded Southern society that saw in him one of their own.
Backstage, he became the darling of many Southern actresses.
Wilkes developed, almost overnight, a kinship with the South because of
the laurels expended on him there. He soon began to let its very nature
enfold him like a newborn babe caressed in the tender loving arms of its
mother. He became a devotee of their own devotions -- of preserved
traditions and states’ rights -- and soon became a political bedfellow.
He linked to them, and they to him. He became their Adonis, the epitome
of the Southern gentry in silk stock tie and with gifted swordhand.
Secreted political parleys supporting slavery, games of whist dealt in
posh riverboat salons, masqued balls, moonlight kisses under magnolias,
and ruffled petticoats...he hadn’t trouble getting involved in any of
them.
Fate was playing overtime. Beyond the proscenium stage a script, a
tragedy greater than that of a King Lear or a Hamlet, was being written
that would involve Wilkes as a central character. Political views on
state sovereignty and, especially, slavery had reached boiling point
between North and South. Advocates of total democracy in the North
feared that, as the west opened beyond the Mississippi River, Southern
plantation owners would carry their tradition of slavery into the new
territories. Southerners, in turn, saw no reason why they shouldn’t.
Many people on both sides foresaw a great turbulence festering and
attempted peaceful solutions. A popular Illinois legislator named
Abraham Lincoln stood up in the Sangamon County Courthouse to advise, "A
house divided against itself cannot stand."
That foundation of the house continued to crack, nevertheless.
Abolitionist John Brown had come from Kansas to incite slave rebellion
in the South. The government, in hopes of diluting growing controversy,
arrested Brown and tried him for insurrection. He was sentenced to hang
in Charlestown, Virginia.
While riding the crest professionally, Wilkes straddled the political
fence for a direction and, weighing the balance, came to the conclusion
that the North was the bully. He often made his opinions public, much to
the embarrassment of Edwin, a staunch Unionist. He argued how Southern
voice was muffled in Congress; how tradition should be maintained
despite modernity’s pressures; how Northern abolitionists like Brown had
no right to interfere with the way others lived below Mason and Dixon’s
Line. And when the acting troupe came to Richmond, Va., he quickly
joined a local militia called the Richmond Greys, a political party
founded on the preservation of the Old Tradition. When the Greys were
summoned to serve as Honor Guard at Brown’s execution, Wilkes donned his
uniform of gold and gray and marched alongside his brethren to the
Charlestown train, fifes and drums blaring and a mob cheering them
onward.
But, he later reported, he found the experience of watching Brown hang
to be an auspicious moment. The "old man up there" spoke of a
forthcoming torch that would spark the gunpowder of war. For the first
time, Wilkes felt himself being enmeshed in something much bigger than
the death of one mad abolitionist. The Gypsy’s prophesy haunted him once
again.
=====
Civil War
"...Seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth"
As You Like It
In April of 1861, the South seceded and the Confederate States of
America were officially born. Confederate troops under General
Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter in Carolina Bay. The infant wailed. Time
had come to douse talk and replace it with action. The last straw had
been the election of Abraham Lincoln as 16th President of the United
States; he was a confirmed and vocal enemy of slavery. The South, in
retaliation, let it be known that they would no longer tolerate the blue
uniform of the Northern Army within any of the 13 states that had
adopted the Confederate doctrine. Major General Robert Anderson,
defending Sumter, was forced to surrender.
Civil war in America had started. Less than 90 years old, the nation
faced a crucial test of survival.
President Lincoln called his country to war. What would turn into a
four-year conflagration and take more American lives than two subsequent
world wars together was expected by many at first to be no more than a
"show of power" exhibited by both factions that would end in quick
compromise. But, it soon became apparent that the South would not
bargain. It didn’t matter that the industrial North was considered
unbeatable with its larger population and its iron factories able to
churn out artillery by the carloads. The pride of the South was wounded,
and the scars were enough to inspire its men to victory in the first
several engagements, including the Battle of Manassas just outside
Washington City.
Wilkes did not enlist to fight, and that fact rankled his conscience.
There were two reasons he did not. First, he had promised his mother to
avoid the battlefield; she still grieved over the death of Junius and
could not face the possibility of losing her sons. Also, he had become a
major theatrical star who, as he himself recognized, owed much of his
popularity to his looks. A scarred face would ruin that.
But, because he was a star, he also realized he could use his influence
to benefit his beloved Confederacy. Theatres on the circuit included The
Holliday in Baltimore, The Academy in Cleveland, Wood’s in Cincinnati,
McVicker’s in Chicago, and other playhouses throughout the North. He
moved in and around high society with grace and at any time of day or
night, in any neighborhood, he could travel unquestioned. The name
Booth, as Edwin suggested, opened doors. Who better than he could relay
messages back and forth to and from Confederate agents planted
throughout the North?
He joined a network of spies and smugglers known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle, operating between Richmond and Montreal, Canada.
Relentlessly, the group implemented many underground activities,
including blockade-smashing efforts along the East Coast and the
disbursement of medicines (largely quinine and laudanum) down from
Canada, through Union lines, thence to Virginia. The Knights also
managed a secret mail route throughout the North and were largely
responsible for inciting the New York Draft Riots that burned down
blocks of Manhattan.
That Wilkes was a Southern sympathizer was common knowledge. He made his
opinions known vocally throughout especially Washington City and wore
his sentiments like a gaudy cloak. For this reason, fewer and fewer
theatre managers refused to put him on their bill. At a production of
The Apostate at Ford’s Theatre, Wilkes learned that Lincoln was in the
private box stage left; whenever his character Pescara spoke of
oppression or revenge, Wilkes intentionally threw those lines in
Lincoln’s direction. Mary Todd, Lincoln’s wife, was reported to have
commented that the experience left her uncomfortable.
When in Washington, he resided at the elite National Hotel on 6th
Street, not far from the Capitol Building. Its saloon was a hangout for
"Secesh" -- or Secessionist -- gentlemen of leisure. Day and night it
rumbled with war talk. It was here that, under iridescent glow of oil
lamp, many an intrigue was hatched by members of the Knights of the
Golden Circle.
=====
A Strange Conspiracy
"Action is eloquence."
Coriolanus
It may have been in the smoke-filled saloon at the National Hotel that
the wildest conspiracy of all time began. No one knows for sure where or
when exactly it evolved. But, sometime around Christmas of 1864, when
the nation had already bloodied itself by four years of war, Wilkes
devised a plan to kidnap President Lincoln.
Direction of the war had turned against the Confederacy; they were
losing one battle after another; most of the gray uniforms were ragged,
many infantry walked barefoot; food was scarce; artillery was in demand;
ammunition low. Atlanta had fallen, so had Savannah -- two major
strongholds. All had been downhill since mid-1863 when Confederate
General Robert E. Lee suffered a humiliating defeat at Gettysburg.
William Tecumseh Sherman, the North’s tactical genius, poured salt on
the wound by marching through the heart of the South like a tornado,
destroying rail lines, factories, cities, cutting the Confederacy supply
arteries.
"Something great and decisive had to be done," Wilkes wrote in his
diary. He determined that if Lincoln were captured and hustled away to
Richmond, Va. -- the Confederate capital 100 miles south of Washington
-- he would draw quite a large ransom. Specifically, terms would demand
return of all captured Confederate soldiers rotting in Union prison
camps, as well as desperately needed artillery and powder. Their
manpower rejuvenated and their armament restored, the South would have a
renewed chance to regain control. Wilkes ascertained that the Union,
joltingly discouraged by its setback, might wish to compromise.
It was a mad, balloon-headed plan. But Wilkes, who saw himself as a hero
in those novels he read as a child, believed he could pull it off.
Strangely enough, it now appears that he had been fluent enough to
convince even the brilliant leaders of the Southern Underground for
support, though not necessarily garner the approval of the Confederate
legislature.
It was a last-ditch stand. In Washington, he assembled a local crew of
devoted but motley allies to staff his kidnapping plot. This small band
consisted of: Samuel Blaine Arnold and Michael O’Laughlen, two boyhood
friends from Baltimore who had served in the war but had had enough of
starving and death; George Atzerodt, a drunken German immigrant who ran
a ferry boat, something they would require to carry their prize across
the Rappahanock River into Virginia; Lewis Paine, a drifter from
Florida; and David Herold, an immature star-struck boy from the
tenements of Washington. Wilkes also had the fortune to befriend John
Harrison Surratt, a young but respected member of the Knights of the
Golden Circle. Surratt served as emissary between Wilkes and the
Southern Underground.
George Atzerodt and David Herold (Library of Congress)
Their loyalty to Booth was insured by money, and Booth could pay
handsomely for services well done. In 1865, his yearly salary neared
$12,000, a tremendous sum for the mid-19th Century.
The conspirators usually met at Surratt’s mother’s boarding house at 541
H Street, near the federal district of the city. Whether or not Mary
Eugenia Surratt took part in the plot is still debated. But, one fact is
certain: the three-story lead gray house served as a haven for
Confederate couriers riding through Washington.
Wilkes was a welcomed guest at Surratt House. After all, the Surratts
and their lodgers were workaday people, and what middle-class family
wouldn’t be thrilled to have the most glamorous actor of his day as a
house guest? A letter from John Surratt to his cousin reads, "...I have
just taken a peep in the parlor. Would you like to know what I saw
there?…Hark, the doorbell rings, and J.W. Booth is announced. And listen
to the scamperings...Such brushing and fixing."
It is very apropos that Wilkes’ first kidnapping attempt took place at a
theatre. Lincoln had scheduled to attend a performance of Jack Cade, or
The Kentish Revolution on the evening of January 18, 1865, at Ford’s
Theatre. That evening, the State Box, overlooking stage left, was
decorated in flags and bunting, awaiting the President’s arrival.
Mary Surratt (Surratt Society)
The conspirators assembled early to take their positions. At a
particular moment in the play, one man would extinguish the house gas
lamps; at the same time, two others (including Wilkes) would enter the
private box (habitually unguarded and unlocked); while one man held the
other occupants at bay, Wilkes would knock the President unconscious and
lower him in darkness onto the stage below where the remaining abductors
would drag the ragamuffin out to a covered buckboard. Then, it would be
a bee-line out of Washington, across the Anacostia Bridge and on a
direct route towards Virginia. Abettors’ residences would conceal them
along the way.
Detained by business, the President never showed. But, to the would-be
kidnappers, his absence meant one thing. They were suspect! Scrambling
out, they retreated to their own abodes where, alone, they expected
reprisal. After the night passed without further incident, however, they
realized their paranoia and reconvened the following day.
Days turned into weeks and no other opportunity presented itself.
Lincoln, having won a Second Term of Office, was reinaugurated on March
4. Shielded under the Capitol’s gargantuan portico from a downpour, he
addressed a throng blackening the plaza with umbrellas. ‘With malice
toward none and charity for all..." His words swept on the wind and into
the annals of history. Above him on a buttress, within spitting
distance, was Wilkes, one in a crowd of dignitaries with free passes.
Silently, Wilkes listened to the man whose words of reconciliation and
forgiveness meant nothing. "What an opportunity I had to kill him!"
Wilkes reported later.
But, he had chosen to wait, and watch. And continue to court the
dark-haired Bessie Lambert Hale, daughter of a New Hampshire senator,
whom he met the previous year. It was through her he had received the
ringside spot at the Inauguration. What has since evaded the logic of
historians is why Wilkes would, despite her charm, chase the daughter of
a Northern senator. After all, his own station allowed him social
approval; he didn’t require a liaison. But, court her he did, and sought
and won betrothal. Marriage plans were put on hold because her father
had just received a commission as Ambassador to Spain and wanted his
family to accompany him for a while, at least until he was settled.
What tender words he whispered in her ears obviously hid his
double-life. On March 20, as things became more desperate for the South
-- Richmond was now besieged and expected to surrender any day -- Wilkes
called his "enterprise," as he called it, together one more time. He had
read that Lincoln was to attend a benefit at the U.S. Soldiers
Convalescent Home in suburban Georgetown. The path the executive
carriage would take, Wilkes learned, would be through a stretch of
woodland on the outskirts of the city. But, as the company waited at a
deserted crossing at a half-way point, Lincoln had changed his agenda.
Instead, he chose to attend a function back in Washington...in the lobby
of Wilkes’ hotel.
=====
Over the Edge
"...The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves..."
Julius Caesar
Headlines on April 10, 1865, splashed the celebratory words sea to sea:
WAR IS ENDED. To the North, it was splendid news. To the South, it was
bittersweet -- their cause was lost, but they had borne the brunt of
ruin and poverty and death. They were thankful if their sons, brothers
and fathers were coming home alive. To a few the news brought
resentment. To Wilkes it brought rage.
To avoid being bottlenecked in crumbling Richmond, General Lee had made
a vainglorious attempt to sidestep the surrounding Union Army besieging
Richmond. For a week, Northern General Ulysses S. Grant pursued closely.
Then, near the little village of Appomatox, Va., he lassoed the fox.
Unable to retreat, Lee surrendered.
Washington turned out to party. Makeshift torchlight parades of
well-wishers, banner carriers and streamer throwers sprouted at street
corners; brass bands played patriotic songs well into the wee hours. No
one slept. There was laughter and there was tintinnabulation. The great
locomotives on the B&O line whistled as they cut through the city;
barges on the Potomac tooted shrill horns. On the White House grounds
the frenzy reached a delightful high when President Lincoln appeared in
an upstairs window to greet the crowds that formed outside. Wilkes
remained with co-conspirator Lewis Paine behind the mob and scowled,
"That is the last speech he will ever make."
During the war, whenever pressure overwhelmed, President Lincoln would
escape with his wife to one of Washington’s two central playhouses,
Ford’s or Grovers. Some considered this behavior irreverent in the wake
of a shooting war. But, no one criticized him now that the conflict had
ended. He had aged terribly in four years, the pain of worry scarring
his features, so when it was announced on Friday, April 14, that he
would attend Ford’s Theatre to see the celebrated comedy, Our American
Cousin, the nation considered his respite well earned. Tonight, Lincoln
would rest.
Wilkes learned of the President’s coming when he stopped at Ford’s at
noon to pick up his mail, where he kept a post box. He noticed
carpenters preparing Box 7 with the usual regalia and understood what
that meant. He raced out to find his brigands.
Arnold and O’Laughlen, he learned, had returned to Baltimore,
disinterested in further enterprise. John Surratt was nowhere to be
seen. (Actually, he was in Canada on a final mission for the
Underground.) Wilkes was able to locate Paine, David Herold and George
Atzerodt to prepare them for an evening they had not expected.
Abraham Lincoln
His plan was spontaneous, it was bloody, and it was hellish. Comparing
them to soldiers who must avenge their stricken South, he assigned each
of them a human target to kill that night -- one of a "senate of
butchers" most responsible for the South’s defeat. Paine would slay
Secretary of State William H. Seward who was at home bed-ridden after a
carriage accident days earlier; he would make an easy prey. David
Herold’s quarry was Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton who, Wilkes said,
never went out nights. And Atzerodt’s target was Vice President Andrew
Johnson who resided at the Kirkwood House, where the German was also
staying.
But, Wilkes chose for himself the starring role as the Brutus of this
play, the man who would take the life of the dictator. He would bring
down the Colossus of Rhodes at last.
=====
Assassination
"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself."
Henry VIII
Lincoln had had a dream that haunted him his last several days on earth.
In the dream, he had awakened to hear sounds of sobbing in the White
House. He followed the noise to the East Room. "There I met with a
sickening surprise," he told Ward Lamon, a friend. "Before me was a
catafalque, on which rested a corpse. ’Who is dead in the White House?’
I demanded of one of the soldiers.
‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin.’"
At about 9:30 p.m. the evening of April 14, that assassin sauntered into
the Star Saloon next door to Ford’s Theatre and ordered a shot of
whisky. Peter Taltavul, the establishment’s owner, thought it curious
that Wilkes, a habitual brandy drinker, should suddenly order whisky.
"Nevermind that," Wilkes smiled. "Do you plan on seeing the show
tonight? You ought to. You’ll see some damn fine acting!" With that, he
checked the wall clock and left.
Derringer used to shoot Lincoln (Natl Park Service)
The President’s carriage was parked on 10th Street outside the theatre;
Forbes the coachman dozed in the driver’s seat. A slight drizzle
dampened the streets. Once inside the foyer, Wilkes checked the time
again: three-quarters to ten. He nodded at ticket taker John Buckingham
and ascended the stairs to the dress circle. From within the auditorium
he could hear muffled echoes of stage dialogue. He recognized the lines
he knew so well. He knew Our American Cousin; he knew that in Act III,
Scene 2 -- at any moment now -- only one actor would be left alone
onstage. That would be his cue.
Across Washington, the other conspirators synchronized their timepieces.
Their plan was to strike all at once, to throw the city into confusion,
thus making their egress from the city more possible. In Lafayette
Square, adjacent to the Seward home, Paine checked his tools of trade: a
revolver and a Bowie knife. A few blocks away, David Herold shivered in
a fine mist that sent chills through him there in the gloom of Stanton’s
yard. He gulped, panic tightening his throat. George Atzerodt was drunk.
He had no intention of killing anyone. When he discovered his bottle was
empty, he left the Kirkwood House in search of the nearest tavern. Damn
the Vice President.
Within Box 7, the Lincolns and their evening’s guests -- Major Henry
Rathbone and his fiancee Clara Harris -- were immersed in the zany
goings-on below the balustrade. Lincoln leaned over in his rocker toward
the stage and was roaring. Beside him, wife Mary was pleased just to
watch her husband finally at ease. Their backs were toward the box door.
No one detected their visitor now standing behind them, his hand
reaching inside his coat.
It was now time to fell the Colossus of Rhodes. Fifteen feet below,
comedian Harry Hawk stood mid-stage, the entire platform his, still
howling retorts in the direction of the other characters who had just
exited stage right. The house was in stitches.
Wilkes did what he always enjoyed. He stole the scene. In one movement,
he drew his derringer, fired a leaden ball into Lincoln’s skull, and
threw a leg over the balustrade to jump. Major Rathbone, half-realizing
what had happened, grappled at the intruder, then recoiled when a dagger
slashed his arm.
But, the major’s action had thrown Wilkes off balance so that, in
thrusting himself from the railing, one boot spur tangled with a
decorative government flag hanging there. Instead of taking the graceful
leap intended, his body twisted sideways until it dropped, deadweight,
onto the stage. Harry Hawk turned around at the noise, stunned. The
spectators twittered...what is this? what does this have to do with the
scenario? isn’t that J. Wilkes Booth?
Something was wrong with his left leg. Wilkes sensed it immediately. The
ankle ached like the devil, and it didn’t want to support him.
Nevertheless, the actor he was, he found time to deliver his line...a
phrase actually, the motto of the State of Virginia..."Sic semper
Tyrannis!" Latin for "Thus may it be it ever to tyrants!" He turned his
back on his last audience and hobbled past an opened-mouthed backstage
crew until he reached the alley door where his bay roan waited.
It wasn’t until he was gone that the realization of what had happened
seeped in. It came in the form of Mary Lincoln’s scream for help.
=====
The Final Curtain
"...For you and I are past our dancing days."
Romeo and Juliet
Riding his horse as if it were winged Pegasus in zig-zags though
Washington, Wilkes came to the rendezvous point at the Anacostia Bridge.
He had told his men to meet him there no later than 10:30 p.m., as he
was the only one who knew the direct route to safety. After a few
moments, Herold appeared, announcing that his chore was undone. He had
rung Stanton’s front doorbell; when no one answered, and a passing
patrolman began eyeing him suspiciously, he absconded. As for Paine,
when he failed to show, Wilkes and Herold rode off. They couldn’t tarry
lest the soldiers at the bridge might receive a telegraphic warning of
the assassination and an order to detain any riders leaving the city.
Back in Lafayette Square, the brutishly built Paine had pushed himself
past several household members into the Secretary’s bed-chambers to use
the man as a butcher might use a beef hide. Neighbors saw him moments
later running from the Seward home, yelling "I’m mad! I’m mad!" before
he disappeared into the darkness on horseback. Now Paine was lost,
having taken a wrong turn somewhere. He chose to spend the night in a
place no living person would hunt for him, the Washington Cemetery.
Lincoln had been carefully removed from the theatre to a boarding house
across the street. Examining him, doctors announced that the bullet had
shattered his skull and was embedded in Lincoln’s brain. The wound was
mortal
Lewis Paine (Betty Ownsbey)
.Throughout the night, men such as Vice President Johnson, Secretary of
War Stanton, Naval Secretary Gideon Welles and Quartermaster General
Montgomery Meigs came to the back bedroom in that conservative little
boarding house on 10th Street to bid their friend goodbye. A crowd that
had gathered outside to pray for the life of their President, recognized
each of their faces as they alighted their carriages. In the same
strange twist of fate that leads the Booth family history throughout, it
is fact that Wilkes Booth once stayed in that room during a hurried trip
through Washington...and slept in the same bed.
Mary Lincoln was administered a drug to keep her hysteria down.
Twenty-one-year-old Robert Lincoln, the President’s son, and Our
American Cousin star Laura Keene, remained with her upstairs to help
quiet her. It wasn’t until a little after seven the following morning
she was brought down by recommendation of the doctors. At 7:22 a.m.,
Lincoln died. "Now," said Stanton, "he belongs to the ages."
Wilkes had hoped that when he struck out the South would rally behind
him. But, that did not happen. Instead, the Southern heart wept for the
man who didn’t deserve to be shot in the back. The man who -- they could
see clearly now that the smoke of battle had cleared -- had only stuck
to his principles and died for them. Wilkes became not their Brutus, but
their blot of shame. John Wilkes Booth became the most hated man in
America.
>From testimony put forth by immediate witnesses who knew Wilkes’
company, and suspected their actions over the last several months, the
government was able to frame the story of the kidnapping and the
assassination. Almost overnight, the members of the enterprise, along
with Mary Surratt who owned the boarding house where they often
gathered, were apprehended. Herold was still on the lam with Wilkes. A
warrant was issued for him and John Surratt who could not be found. A
few days after the assassination, authorities also charged a Dr. Samuel
Mudd of Bryantown, Md., for complicity after he admitted setting the
actor’s broken leg. They doubted he had no knowledge of the murder.
Dr. Mudd (Richard E. Sloan)
Before the summer was out, the Great Conspiracy Trial of 1865 would hang
Paine, Atzerodt, Herold and Mrs. Surratt. for complicity to murder
(although evidence against the woman seems now to have been greatly
perjured). Dr. Mudd and Wilkes’ two boyhood chums, O’Laughlen and
Arnold, were handed life sentences. John Surratt, who was to remain
elusive for another two years, would be eventually tried by a less
hostile government and be released by a hung jury.
Hanging of Paine, Atzerodt, Herold and Surratt (Library of Congress)
But, for two weeks following the assassination, Wilkes and Herold dodged
the detachments of cavalry scouring Maryland and Virginia. In hiding,
Wilkes realized he was without friend and turned to the only recourse
left to still make him a hero, even posthumously: his diary. In it, he
wrote,
"I am in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for - what
made Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than
they ever knew, I am looked upon as a common cut-throat. My action was
purer than either of theirs...I hoped for no gain. I knew no private
wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned
beneath this tyranny...and yet now behold the cold hand they extend
me...I bless the entire world. Have never harmed or wronged anyone. This
last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so..."
By chance, the 27th New York, riding thorough Port Royal, Va., heard
about two men fitting Wilkes’ and Herold’s descriptions who had crossed
the Rappahanock River and were staying overnight at a nearby farm owned
by Richard Garrett. They surrounded the place before sunrise of April 26
and sought out farmer Garrett. He told them that, as far as he knew, his
guests were two weary Confederate soldiers homeward bound, and yes, one
of them did walk with a crutch. Garrett pointed to the small tobacco
shed where he had put them up. The smell of lilacs permeated the
pre-dawn.
Summoned to come out, Wilkes roared back that he would never surrender.
The soldiery than knew that they had found their man. David Herold could
be heard whimpering from within the unlit shed; after what sounded like
debate among the two fugitives, he shuffled out, hands up, into the
darkness. Two soldiers grabbed him and drew him into their ranks. Still
Wilkes dared the soldiers to come and get him.
Flames splattered the night as several blue uniforms darted forward to
toss torches against the shed. Singed tobacco leaves staled the air. The
glare of the torchlight punctuated Wilkes’ silhouette through the open
vents of the hut. "One more stain on the old banner, eh, boys!" the form
shouted. Then...a revolver cracked. Against orders to take him alive,
one of the troopers shot in anxiety. The silhouette collapsed. On
command, the others overtook the shed to drag the body out.
One wonders if perhaps in his final moments, the scent of lilacs in the
air, he might have imagined he was a boy again, atop his father’s horse
Peacock, galloping down Churchville Road, shouting oaths to the dragons
encircling him. Or if he dreamed he had the Colossus of Rhodes by the
tail. But, one thing is certain. He had enough time to look at his palms
and, with the eloquence of a despairing Hamlet, utter
"Useless...useless."
Copyright 1999, Dark Horse Multimedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
=====
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Information for this biography of John Wilkes Booth has come from many
sources. Theories surrounding the Lincoln assassination continue to
change, and new information on Booth’s early years occasionally
surfaces. Sometimes trying to separate facts from romance is difficult.
The following list of titles is not inclusive of the "best" sources of
the assassination itself, but rather on the man Booth. Concentrating on
him and his family, not his infamous deed -- that is, not on the
oft-complex reasons why he did what he did -- I referred to works that
most thoroughly examine the psyche of the central character. These are
listed by alphabetical order:
Bak, Richard The Day Lincoln Was Shot. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co.,
1998.
Bishop, Jim The Day Lincoln Was Shot. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Chamlee, Roy Z. Lincoln’s Assassins. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.,
1990.
Clarke, Asia Booth The Unlocked Book. New York: Arno Press, 1971.
Furstwangler, Albert Assassin on Stage. Chicago & Urbana, IL: The
University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Gutman, Richard J.S. & Kellie O. John Wilkes Booth Himself. Dover, MA:
Hired Hand Press, 1979.
Kimmell, Stanley The Mad Booths of Maryland. New York: Dover
Publications, 1969.
Smith, Gene American Gothic. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Weichmann, Lewis J. (Risvold, Floyd J., ed.) A True History of the
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy Trial of 1865.
New York: Alfred E.Knopf, Inc., 1975.
CRIME LIBRARY HOME PAGE
Copyright 1999, Dark a Horse Multimedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
-----
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Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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