Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth

by Alford, Terry

  Booth was constantly in and about the theater during these weeks. William Ferguson, Ford’s callboy, saw him often there or across Tenth Street in the house of the tailor William Petersen, where John Mathews and Charles Warwick of the stock company rented a back bedroom. Delivering parts of a play for these cast members to study, Ferguson found half a dozen actors in the room, all chatting in high spirits. “Lying lazily on the bed, a pipe in his mouth, his handsome hair disheveled, was John Wilkes Booth,” Ferguson recalled. He rested on the bed in which Abraham Lincoln would later die.50

  Booth intended to take Lincoln during the engagement of Edwin Forrest.51 The great Forrest, though past his prime, remained the preeminent American actor, and his name on the marquee would bring Lincoln to the door, as Booth knew. Judge Barnett of the National Intelligencer wrote that during Forrest’s engagement it was “quite an ordinary thing to witness the President and members of his cabinet, Foreign Ministers, Senators, Representatives, and distinguished strangers, as well as the world of literature of Washington, ornamenting the private boxes and orchestra chairs.”52 Harry Ford said that “when Forrest was there, [Lincoln] came very often—4 nights out of 6.”53

  Forrest’s visit reunited Booth with John McCullough, who toured with the aging star and took second leads. McCullough detested the war, declaring “he would never fight against the South—that if drafted, would die first—those who were fighting in the Union cause were d—— fools and men of no brains—and Lincoln was too ignorant for the position and should be put out of the way.”54

  “Booth, no doubt, would have opened his heart to McCullough and endeavored to draw him into that general plan of abducting or killing Mr. Lincoln,” wrote Townsend, who interviewed Booth’s brother actor extensively in later years, but he knew it would have been wasted effort. The amiable Irishman was a poor hater.55 He wanted humanity to laugh and to love. Nevertheless, Booth gained some advantage from sharing his room at the National Hotel with McCullough and with Joseph McArdle, Forrest’s manager.56 This kept him informed on the daily ins and outs of Forrest’s engagement.

  At the same time, Booth continued familiarizing himself with his southern Maryland flight path. “He visited the houses of the people, paid no little attention to the girls, stood unlimited whiskey to the men, and made himself generally popular.”57 He became acquainted with John Lloyd, the hard-drinking tenant who leased the tavern from Mary Surratt. Booth and Lloyd were “mighty thick,” according to Rachel Hawkins, a former slave who cooked for the Surratts. Hawkins remembered the actor fondly for his liberality to the servants. That same generosity bought drinks and confidences from the locals at T.B., an oddly named village south of Surrattsville on the road to Bryantown. And Booth was on the best of terms with Father Peter Lenaghan, the parish priest of the Mudd family. Lenaghan warmly recommended Booth to his congregants, not surprising for a clergyman who subscribed to the fiercely anti-Lincoln New-York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register.58

  Meanwhile Booth stepped up the pressure on Chester. He prevailed on Matthew Canning to urge John T. Ford to employ Chester at Ford’s Theatre, even offering to pay the actor’s salary. Chester was talented, so Ford agreed if Chester could get clear of his Winter Garden commitment.59 “You must come to Washington. We cannot do without you,” Booth wrote Chester during the first week of January. Chester refused, and Booth replied by return mail, “You must come.” He sent fifty dollars for Chester’s traveling expenses and directed his friend to be in Washington by the evening of Saturday, January 14, 1865.

  Surratt, for his part, had been unable to secure leave from his job at the Adams Express Company.60 He decamped on the fourteenth for the town of Port Tobacco in Charles County, where he met with Harbin and Atzerodt. M. E. Martin, a New York broker attempting to cross the Potomac to purchase cotton and tobacco, saw Surratt eat a quick supper, then hurry off on his return to the city on a night ride.61 Surratt made it back to Washington safely, but he never returned to his office and even failed to pick up his final paycheck. To the puzzled Weichmann, Surratt made clear that there were things more important than money. He told the friend that if he succeeded in his current speculation, “his country would love him forever and that his name would go down green to posterity.”62

  Martin, who was paying a liberal retainer to Atzerodt to get him across the river, overheard enough of the boatman’s conversation with Surratt to realize he had just been bumped off the priority list. The New Yorker confronted Atzerodt at the Port Tobacco hotel, complaining that he had paid plenty and received nothing in return. Atzerodt denied that anyone was crossing at that time due to high winds and ice in the river. When Martin repeated his charge of duplicity and called Atzerodt a scoundrel, the boatman disclosed that on Wednesday, January 18, a large party of ten to twelve persons would cross. He had been engaged all day in preparations for it. “They were going to have relays of horses on the road between Port Tobacco and Washington.” Atzerodt said he would be absent perhaps ten days as he was to meet this group in Washington and accompany it all the way to Richmond.

  Anticipating Martin’s next remark, Atzerodt added, “It would be impossible for [you] to cross with this party.”

  “What does this mean?” asked Martin.

  “O, I cannot tell you,” was the reply.

  Martin guessed aloud that a group of Confederate officers were about to escape prison and cross. Atzerodt paused for a moment. “Yes,” he responded dismissively. “That is it, and I am going to get well paid for it.”63

  On January 18, as Atzerodt and the boat team stood by, Edwin Forrest starred in Jack Cade. One of Forrest’s signature plays, it brought the largest audience of the season to Ford’s. Lincoln was expected to be present, according to Helen Truman, the stock company’s fledgling who carefully noted the president’s visits to the theater.64 But the only unscripted excitement occurred when a drunken patron loudly insisted that it was his right as an American citizen to screech and holler from his seat in the audience.65 The kidnappers, wherever they were, made no move.

  Why? One theatergoer stated that Lincoln went to Grover’s that night and to Ford’s the following evening; if so, the conspirators’ plans were foiled by the president himself. Thomas A. Jones wrote that the plot failed due to the roads, made impassable by rain and the traffic of heavy army wagons.66 Booth complained that other people had let him down. One would think that he referred to Chester, who failed to come to Washington as summoned, but Booth made the comment to Chester, indicating that he put the blame elsewhere. Whatever operation was intended, and whatever complication arose, the plot simply never got off the ground. Mrs. Surratt went out to the tavern to inform Harbin, Atzerodt, and John, who were readying the route below Washington, to stand down.67

  Discouraged, Booth returned to New York. He renewed his courtship of Chester. Rebuffed again, he relieved his friend enormously by releasing him from the plot. “He said he honored my mother [Lydia, of Baltimore] and respected my wife [Annie, an actress] and told me to make my mind easy,” Chester declared. “He would trouble me about it no more.”

  The conspiracy had cost him four thousand dollars out of pocket, Booth grumbled. Earlier he had told Chester to keep the fifty he sent, but now, short of cash, he retrieved it. Booth spoke of giving up the entire project.

  “Thank God for your sake, John,” exclaimed Chester. “I always liked you and am glad that you are clear of it.”

  Booth remained determined to quit the North, however. “I am going to Richmond,” he declared firmly.68

  Frustrated in his efforts to nab Lincoln, Booth had at least proven adept in capturing someone else. Lucy Hale was the younger daughter of Senator John P. Hale and his wife, Lucy Lambert. Hale was a three-term New Hampshire Republican who had been the antislavery candidate for president on the Free Soil Party ticket of 1852.69 He resided with his wife and their daughters, Elizabeth and Lucy, at the fashionable National Hotel, located on Pennsylvania Avenue as did Booth. Daughter Lucy was one of Washing
ton’s great beauties. Nature had blessed her with lustrous black hair, lovely blue-gray eyes, and a flawless complexion. These complemented a spirited and social temperament. One minute a cool aristocrat, the next a singer of silly songs, the next a romping playmate with her dogs, Lucy combined radiance, remarkable charm, and powerful seductiveness. Young men clamored for her dance card. John Hay, one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., officer of a Massachusetts infantry regiment, were among those who sought Lucy’s attention. Suitors of such quality were so plentiful, in fact, that the vivacious young woman was heedless of them. She threw her dazzling smiles about freely, but they meant far less to her than to the lucky man upon whom they fell.70

  Lucy met Booth during his Washington performances in 1863, when she rewarded his Charles De Moor with a bouquet of flowers.71 Now, both were living at the National, and Lucy could scarcely be missed as she maneuvered her sweeping skirts past him on the hotel’s broad staircase.

  Her interest in Booth needs little explanation. A Washington journalist who saw him at the hotel wrote that he was “a handsome, dark, melodramatic fellow, and among a certain set here he was a great favorite socially.” Since Lucy went against type, his interest in her is intriguing. At twenty-four she was older than those who customarily caught Booth’s eye. And James R. Ford, business manager of Ford’s Theatre, who boarded at the National, added ungallantly that she was “rather stout.” Ford backpedaled to explain he meant only that she was a little larger than her older sister, Elizabeth.72 A photograph of Lucy, her head on Lizzie’s shoulder, confirms this. But it also shows the perfect face and come-hither look that overwhelmed all other considerations.

  One evening there was a dance at the National. Chairs were aligned along the black marble pillars of the lobby for parents and chaperones, while tables were cleared away in the grand dining room to create a dance floor for the young and the young-at-heart. “The hotel was a blaze of light,” recalled a guest who watched Booth and Lucy dancing. “Between the waltzes everyone was good-naturedly gossiping at the devotion of a couple who walked up and down the rooms, apparently oblivious of place and surroundings. They were a very attractive pair. There were some who caviled at her choice, but the young girl’s sweet face seemed excuse for any infatuation.”

  There is no truth to an 1878 story that at this or another ball Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s son, stole Lucy’s favor in front of a glowering Booth. Lincoln specifically denied this tale. “I never saw John Wilkes Booth in my life,” he stated.73 The younger Lincoln, an officer on Grant’s staff at the front in Virginia, was rarely in Washington that winter. Anyway, he loved and perhaps was already engaged to Mary Harlan, an Iowa senator’s daughter whom he later married. More to the point, Booth was not one to pout on a dance floor. “He was not a man to act toward a rival in any such manner,” scoffed John Mathews at this story. “He was bold and daring and would have assaulted him openly had such been his intention.”74

  Mathews witnessed the agony this distracting romance with Lucy caused Booth. “Were you ever in love?” Booth asked him one afternoon in Mathews’s room at Petersen’s.

  “No, I never could afford it,” the friend responded.

  “I wish I could say as much. I am a captive. You cannot understand how I feel.”

  “Booth loved her as few men love,” explained Mathews. “He had a great mind and a generous heart, and both were centered upon this girl.” Booth said that Lucy had told him her only objection to him was that he was an actor, and he had told her his only objection to her was she was an abolitionist. But love conquers all, Booth continued, and he intended to marry her.

  Throwing himself on Mathews’s bed, Booth exclaimed, “If it were not for that girl, how clear the future would be to me! How easily could I grasp the ambition closest to my heart—the release of the Confederate prisoners. If it were not for her, I could feel easy. Think of it, John, that at my time of life—just starting [over] as it were, I should be in love. I am. I am in love!”75

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  Come Weal or Woe

  john yates beall, a daring Confederate agent based in Canada, was executed at Governors Island in New York harbor on February 24, 1865. Beall had been captured at Niagara Falls after attempting to derail a train in order to rob it and free rebel prisoners of war in transit. He sought to establish himself as a lawful combatant by virtue of his rank as an acting master in the Confederate navy. A military commission rejected this justification, however, and condemned Beall for spying and waging “irregular and unlawful warfare as a guerrilla.” Beall’s last words were “Tell my mother that you saw her son die without craven fear and without bravado. I die in the service and defense of my country.”1

  Surprisingly, President Lincoln had received extraordinary appeals on Beall’s behalf from a number of prominent Northerners. Former U.S. senator Orville H. Browning, one of Lincoln’s oldest and closest friends, brought the president a petition of clemency signed by eighty-five members of the House of Representatives and six members of the Senate. None of these Union men wished Beall freed, of course, but they sought a stay of sentence or possibly a commutation to imprisonment. Some felt his trial too hasty. Others wished Beall given time to appeal or to prepare to meet his Maker. Still others feared the rebels would seek revenge, as anonymous letters were sent to the president threatening his life if Beall were executed. Small wonder that the first thought Browning had upon learning of Lincoln’s assassination was that Beall’s friends had done it.2

  Even Booth joined the clemency parade, according to an extraordinary but apocryphal story that sprang up after Lincoln’s death. Being a bosom friend of Beall, Booth supposedly made a personal appeal to Lincoln for the agent’s life. To add spice to the tale, Booth was accompanied on his White House visit by Senator Hale, Lucy’s father. At an interview lasting until 4:00 a.m., Booth confessed his plot to kidnap the president. He knelt before Lincoln, clasping the president’s knees with his hands, and, “weeping like a child, besought him to pardon Beall.” Deeply moved, a tearful Lincoln agreed. But the next morning Seward or Stanton—pick a villain—coerced the kind-hearted but weak president into reneging on his promise. Stunned by Lincoln’s perfidy, the story concludes, Booth greased his pistol.3

  The facts are much less colorful.4 Booth met the condemned man in 1859 when Beall sold provisions to the commissary office of the 1st Virginia Regiment at the time of John Brown’s hanging. Far from being devoted friends, the pair were mere acquaintances. They did not room together at the University of Virginia, nor did Beall bankroll Booth’s stage career, nor were they cousins, as Edwin Booth let the public know shortly after Lincoln’s murder. Booth did recognize Beall’s name, however, and remember him. Beall came to his attention often during the war as the rebel hero of naval exploits on the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie, and the actor empathized deeply with the doomed man as he awaited his fate. The story of Booth and Beall as entwined souls of the Damon and Pythias variety persisted for years, however. It appealed to the Copperhead editor and the Confederate memorialist because it made sense of the assassination. Revenge for a friend was a motive everyone could understand, if not approve, and it eased the consciences of those whose hatred of Lincoln had fed the flames of fanaticism.

  Lincoln acted shrewdly in the Beall case. He threw the question of mercy back to General John Adams Dix, who oversaw Beall’s trial, and Dix, still seething over the attempted arson of New York, let the execution proceed. The details of Beall’s death were gruesome. He was hanged on a bizarre device that jerked his body upward, breaking his neck. Few who read the account of his last moments were unmoved. In Virginia, Confederate Major Robert W. Hunter, who had known both Beall and Booth at Charlestown in 1859 at the time of John Brown’s execution, introduced a resolution in the state’s House of Delegates denouncing Beall’s death as an outrage to humanity. A Canadian friend of the dead man promised, “We’ll make the damned Yankees howl.”5

  Boot
h was concerned enough with this case to make an effort—the substance of which is unknown—to effect a pardon, and when his effort failed and Beall was executed, it hit him hard. He fainted, according to Beall’s fiancée, Martha O’Bryan, and then had an attack of “brain fever,” understood as a lapse into a frantic and disordered state of mind.6 It was similar to the mental disturbance that struck him in Montgomery, Alabama, during the secession winter of 1860. His enmity toward the president hardened, Joe Simonds informed their oil-country friend A. W. Smiley. John McCullough, a man with whom Booth was intimate, said, “Booth damned Old Lincoln for a murderer and said somebody would one day give it to him.”7

  Booth was at the National Hotel in Washington on the afternoon that Beall was executed. Once again he was sharing digs with McCullough, and it was there in room 231 where his fellow actor heard these remarks. Booth had wasted most of February, his principal accomplishment being the composition of a Valentine’s Day poem for Lucy Hale. His anger at the execution and the approaching second inauguration of Lincoln seemed to reenergize him. With the exception of the occasional interlude for romance, Booth would be increasingly absorbed with the conspiracy thereafter.

  New recruits joined the crew. David E. Herold was a small, slightly stooped young man with black hair and a spray of mustache. Weichmann described him as “a seedy, frowzy, monkey-faced boy.”8 A native of the District of Columbia, he grew up in a middle-class family living near the Navy Yard, where his father, Adam, worked as a clerk. After preparatory studies at Georgetown College and Rittenhouse Academy, Herold worked at pharmacies in the city. He met Booth in 1863 when the actor underwent surgery. Herold was one of those people to whom Booth jested that the tumor Dr. May removed from his neck was actually the bullet Canning had fired into his thigh. Good-natured Davy seemed younger than his twenty-two years.9