Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth
Page 49
91
New York Times, Oct. 31, 1859.
92
Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859.
93
Taylor, “Brown,” p. 2.
94
New York Sun, Feb. 13, 1898.
95
Townsend, Life, Crime, and Capture, p. 22.
96
Clarke, Booth, pp. 88, 108; Henry A. Wise, Seven Decades of the Union (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1881), p. 244.
97
New York Daily Tribune, Dec. 3, 5, 1859; New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, Dec. 6, 1859; Norfolk Southern Argus, Dec. 6, 7, 1859; Charlestown Free Press, Dec. 8, 1859; Spirit of Jefferson (Charlestown, Va.), Dec. 3, 1859; John Brown Reference File, Connecticut State Library, Hartford; John H. Zittle, “A Correct History of the John Brown Invasion at Harpers Ferry, Va., October 17, 1859,” manuscript, n.d., VHS; and three letters written from Charlestown on Dec. 2, 1859, as follows: J. T. L. Preston to wife, in Elizabeth P. Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), pp. 111–17; T. J. Jackson to wife, in Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1985), 130–32; and Thomas G. Pollock to mother in Fireside Sentinel, Jan. 1989, 5.
98
Bill of Redman and Gibson, Charlestown, to the regimental quartermaster, accepted Feb. 13, 1860, Auditor of Public Accounts, Entry 145, Harpers Ferry Fund, Box 449, RG 48, LOV.
99
William Couper, One Hundred Years at V. M. I., 4. vols. (Richmond: Garrett and Massie, 1939), vol. 2, p. 20.
100
Elijah Avey, The Capture and Execution of John Brown: A Tale of Martyrdom (Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Pub., 1906), p. 38.
101
Affidavit of John Avis, Charlestown, W. Va., April 25, 1882, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 13 (1885), p. 341.
102
Virginia Free Press (Charlestown), Dec. 8, 1859.
103
Whitlock, “Recollections,” pp. 87, 152.
104
Parke Poindexter, “The Capture and Execution of John Brown,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, vol. 43 (Jan. 1889), p. 125.
105
Avis affidavit.
106
Wise to Taliaferro, Richmond, Nov. 24, 1859 (copy), in Box 477, Executive Papers, John Brown’s Raid, Expenses, RG 3 (Wise), LOV.
107
Clarke, Booth, p. 81.
108
Richmond News Leader, Jan. 14, 1927.
109
Wheeling Intelligencer, Nov. 18, 1869; interviews with Cleon Moore, Charles Town, W. Va., Sept. 26, 1938, and B. D. Gibson, Charles Town, W. Va., July 5, 1938, Micou-Daniels Papers.
110
“Crime of Lincoln’s Murder,” n.p.
111
Spirit of Jefferson, May 13, 1925.
112
Hawks to Valentine, Ruxton, Md., June 4, 1925, Valentine Papers, VRHC; Hawks’s biographical file in the Records of the Superintendent, Virginia Military Institute Archives, Lexington, Va.
113
Washington Star, Dec. 5, 1859; Richmond Daily Enquirer, Dec. 5, 1859.
114
New York Press, May 21, 1893; Richmond Daily Enquirer, Dec. 5, 1859; New York Daily Tribune, Dec. 5, 1859.
115
Clarke, Booth, p. 81; Oswald G. Villard, John Brown, 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After (1910; rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1965), pp. 284–85.
116
Clarke, Booth, pp. 81, 88, 108; Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me,” p. 60.
117
“The John Brown Raid,” Wheeling Intelligencer, n.d. [1869], copy in T. T. Perry Papers, VHS; Townsend, Life, Crime, and Capture, p. 22; Charlestown Free Press, Nov. 25, 1869.
118
Boston Daily Globe, March 7, 1909.
119
New York Clipper, Sept. 4, 1858; Baltimore Sun, Jan. 26, 1885; Kunkel, “Partnership of Kunkel and Moxley,” pp. 6ff.
120
Boston Transcript, Oct. 7, 1905.
121
Mary Devlin to Edwin Booth, n.p., Nov. 28, 1859, in The Letters and Notebooks of Mary Devlin Booth, ed. L. Terry Oggel (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1987), p. 22.
122
New York Press, May 21, 1893.
123
Alfriend, “Recollections,” p. 603.
124
Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859.
125
Baltimore Sun, Nov. 4, 1906.
126
Richmond Times, March 24, 1895.
127
New York Clipper, April 10, 1858.
128
Jefferson’s remark in Bates, The Drama, vol 19, p. 19.
129
New York Mercury, Oct. 15, 1887, and Sept. 13, 1891; New York Play-Bill, April 21, 1865.
130
Robert F. Batchelder graciously furnished me with a copy of the acrostic. White in New York Clipper, June 30, 1860.
131
New York Clipper, Dec. 24, 1859; Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 8, 1859; Fife, “The Theatre during the Confederacy,” pp. 138, 339. Jennifer D. Lee, “The Wren Family” (Honors History Paper, Northern Virginia Community College, 1989), author’s collection, contains an interview with Eliza’s great-granddaughter.
132
Pittsburgh Gazette Times, July 14 and Aug. 4, 1907; Washington Capital, April 11, 1880. There is no evidence Booth was ever married.
133
Richmond Whig and Richmond Enquirer, both Feb. 4, 1859; Second Annual Directory for the City of Richmond 1860, p. 186; Richmond Enquirer and Examiner, Feb. 22, 1868. Nancy Lowry, a Redford descendant, and Emma Coley, custodian of records for the Central United Methodist Church, Manchester, were most helpful in my research.
134
John did not tell Rose what the insult was, and there are no additional details of the incident. Rose Booth to Edwin Booth, Philadelphia, March 12, 1860, Booth-Grossman Family Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Library, New York Public Library.
135
New York Clipper, June 23, 1860. The couple was living in the Richmond home of Joseph Myers at the time of the 1860 census, where Kunkel and Moxley were also found.
136
Dissolution Agreement, April 19, 1860, John F. Sollers, “The Theatrical Career of John T. Ford,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1962), p. 116. Newspaper advertisements indicate the departure of Ford several weeks previous to the date of this agreement.
137
Fuller, “Kunkel and Company,” pp. 145–48; New York Clipper, March 3, 1860.
138
Oggel, Letters and Notebooks of Mary Devlin Booth, p. 45, with spelling modernized.
139
Voucher No. 7421, Accounts and Vouchers, Auditor of Public Accounts, Entry 145, Harpers Ferry Fund, Box 448, RG 48, LOV. Booth served eighteen days, counted as nineteen in this document, from Nov. 19 to Dec. 6, 1859. However, he was paid three months’ salary (at $21 per month) plus $1.58 clothing allowance. The file also contains certificates dated April 13, 1860, by R. A. Caskie, acting quartermaster of the 1st Regiment, stating, “John Wilkes Booth did serve in the Quarter-Master department of the 1st Reg. of Va. Volunteers while on duty at Charlestown,” and by Col. Thomas P. August declaring, “I saw Mr. Booth frequently at the Department, and I am satisfied from the certificate of Mr. Caskie that he performed service for the time mentioned in his certificate.”
140
Philadelphia Daily News, April 17, 1865.
141
Daily Enquirer, May 31, 1860.
142
Daily Enquirer, June 4, 1860; Barbee, “Lincoln and Booth,” p. 247; New York Dramatic News, June 15, 1878. Kathleen M. Ward, “James W. Collier: A Man of Many Talents” (Honors History Paper, Northern Virginia Community College, 1990), author’s collection, is an excellent review of this actor’s career.
143
New York Clipper, April 22, 1865.
144
Clarke, Booth, p. 79, 85. Also contains “They loved him” and “idealized city.”
145
Catherine Reignolds, Yesterdays with Actors (Boston: Cupples and Hurd, 1887), p. vii.
146
Petition of Miles Phillips et al., Richmond, April 3, 1850, HTC.
147
Philadelphia Daily News, April 17, 1865.
148
Mary Beale Wahoske to David R. Barbee, Portland, Oregon, Nov. 14, 1945, Folder 280, Box 5, Barbee Papers, Georgetown University Library.
149
Townsend, Life, Crime, and Capture, p. 22.
150
Wilson, Booth, pp. 38–39.
151
New York World, April 16, 1865.
CHAPTER 4. THE UNION AS IT WAS
1
Marriage record of Edwin Booth of Philadelphia, Pa., and Mary Devlin of [no town given], N.J., July 7, 1860, Municipal Archives, City of New York.
2
Oggel, Letters and Notebooks of Mary Devlin Booth, p. xxviii; Chester autobiography in Alonzo May, “May’s Dramatic Encyclopedia of Baltimore,” MdHS.
3
Asia B. Clarke to Jean Anderson, Philadelphia, July 11, 1859, Clarke Letters, MdHS.
4
Baltimore Sun, Dec. 30, 1906.
5
Adam Badeau, “Edwin Booth on and off the Stage: Personal Recollections,” McClure’s Magazine, vol. 1 (Aug. 1893), p. 263.
6
Alfriend, “Recollections,” p. 604 (emphasis added); “Edwin Booth’s Domestic Troubles,” n.d., n.p., laid into a copy of The Elder and the Younger Booth, Brown Collection, Boston Public Library.
7
Alex. K. Johnston in Philadelphia Item, Sept. 3, 1890; New York Dramatic Mirror, Sept. 6, 1890; Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch, Aug. 9, 1857; Washington National Republican, Feb. 16, 1874.
8
New York Clipper, Sept. 3, 1859.
9
Cincinnati Enquirer, Jan. 19, 1886; New York Clipper, Oct. 21, 1860; Capt. John H. Jack, 186th Penn. Vols., statement, n.d. [April 1865], 5/49–57, NA M599.
10
Baltimore American, Feb. 12, 1909; “The Stage,” clipping, n.d., Booth Scrapbook, p. 192, Fawcett Theatre Collection, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Ward, “Collier,” pp. 3–4.
11
John H. Jack, statement, n.d. [1865], 5/49–57, NA M599; New York Clipper, Oct. 21, 1860.
12
Helen B. Keller, “The History of the Theater in Columbus, Georgia, from 1828 to 1865” (M.A. thesis, University of Georgia, 1957), p. 142.
13
Richard and Kellie Gutman, John Wilkes Booth Himself (Dover, Mass.: Hired Hand Press, 1979) contains more than three dozen photographs of Booth. Several others have been discovered since the book’s publication.
14
Clarke, Memoir, p. 77.
15
New York Clipper, Nov. 24, 1860.
16
Sources agree the shooting was accidental. The Daily Sun, Oct. 13, 1860, identifies Dr. Stanford and states that Canning “was loading the pistol and when pressing on the cap it discharged, the contents entering Mr. Booth’s thigh, causing a severe wound.” Albany Atlas and Argus, April 19, 1865; Columbus Daily Enquirer-Sun, Sept. 15, 1885.
17
“Brief Biography of J. Wilkes Booth, found on the person of M. W. Canning when arrested by the Provost Marshal, D.C.,” n.d. [April, 1865], 2/36–39, NA M599.
18
“Wilkes Booth Myth Is Still Food for Thought,” clipping, n.d., Birmingham Age-Herald, Louise Wooster Scrapbook, Birmingham, Ala., Public Library Archives. According to an acquaintance of Charles F. Crisp, whose father was Canning’s partner, “the two men were in a bedroom having a friendly tussle” when the accident happened. “Murmur of the World,” clipping, n.d., in Nellie J. Spinks, “Every Star a Drop of Blood,” manuscript (1970), Birmingham Public Library Archives. Frank P. O’Brien, “Passing of the Old Montgomery Theatre,” Alabama Historical Quarterly, vol. 3 (Spring 1941), p. 9.
19
Keller, “History of the Theater in Columbus,” p. 147; Daily Sun, Oct. 15, 1860; recollections of Arthur Benoit of the Holliday Street Theatre in Baltimore American, Feb. 14, 1909.
20
Philadelphia Daily News, April 17, 1865.
21
Philadelphia Item, Sept. 3, 1890.
22
Keller, “Theater in Columbus,” p. 150.
23
Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 15 and 24, 1907.
24
New York Clipper, June 30, 1860; La Margaret Turnipseed, “The Ante-Bellum Theatre in Montgomery, Alabama, 1840–1860” (M.S. thesis, Auburn University, 1948), for context.
25
Arthur F. Loux, “The Accident-Prone John Wilkes Booth,” Lincoln Herald, vol. 85 (Winter 1983), p. 263.
26
Wilkes’ Spirit of the Times, Feb. 23, 1861.
27
E. D. Saunders to J. B. Fry, Philadelphia, April 24, 1865, 2/197–98, NA M599.
28
Montgomery Weekly Post, Oct. 31, 1860.
29
Samples, Lust for Fame, p. 49.
30
Philadelphia Daily News, April 17, 1865, New York Clipper, Dec. 15, 1860.
31
New York Graphic, June 12, 1875.
32
Canning, “Brief Biography.”
33
“James Lewis,” clipping in Scrapbook 1, p. 101, General Mss., Laurence Hutton Papers, Princeton University Library.
34
Lynda L. Crist, ed., and Mary S. Dix, coeditor, The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 6 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989) accounts for his time elsewhere. I am indebted to Ms. Crist for help on this point and many others.
35
Whitton, Wags of the Stage, p. 71; Reignolds, Yesterdays with Actors, p. 136.
36
Montgomery Daily Mail, issues of Nov. 15 and 16, 1860.
37
New York Mercury, Nov. 12, 1887; Kate’s characterization in New York Dramatic Mirror, Dec. 31, 1913.
38
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 6, 1865; Washington Sunday Herald, Jan. 25, 1874. Of particular value is Gayle Harris, “Sir Henry Irving’s Favorite Leading Lady,” a speech given on July 15, 1995, at the Theatre Museum, London.
39
Booth to “Dear Miss,” Montgomery, Ala., n.d., copy courtesy of my late friend John K. Lattimer.
40
“James Lewis,” Hutton Papers, Princeton University Library.
41
Burlington (Vt.) Free Press and Times, March 21, 1874.
42
Will. McMinn to “Dear Sir,” Montgomery, Nov. 27, 1860, printed letter with envelope addressed to Booth, 7/242, NA M599.
43
Samples, Lust for Fame, p. 51.
44
Crutchfield to Edward Valentine, Richmond, July 5, 1909, VM.
45
New York Clipper, March 16, 1861. “Montgomery is said to be noted for presentations. Taking the population of Montgomery into consideration, the city is said to be the best theatrical place in the South.”
46
New York Clipper, Nov. 24, 1860.
47
Washington Post, Jan. 5, 1902.
48
“Lincoln Assassination,” clipping from the “Cincinnati Correspondence of the Courier-Journal, July 1, 1882,” LFFRC.
49
Wooster’s interview, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 20, 1890, and Pittsburgh Dispatch of the same date. Copies of both articles, together with other Booth matter, were compiled by Wooster in a scrapbook housed in the Birmingham, Ala., Public Library Archives. The Autobiography of a Magdalen by “L. C. W.” (Birmingham: Birmingham Pub. Co., 1911) is important. Her 1890 interview contains serious historical errors absent in the autobiography. James L. Baggett, ed., A Woman of the Town: Louise Wooster, Birmingham’s Magdalen (Birmingham: Birmingham Publi
c Library Press, 2005) reprints the autobiography with valuable biographical details.
50
“Lou,” as she was known, was the most famous Alabama courtesan of her generation. The federal census of Montgomery (1st Division, p. 88), enumerated on July 16, 1860, found Louise and her sister Margaret living with Jenny Davis, a madam. The only residents of this house were eight young women ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-five and identified—delicately—as seamstresses. In the 1870 Montgomery census (5th Ward, p. 506) Louise, named as a schoolteacher, resides in a brothel with a number of other young women. By their names the census taker has written “House of Ill-Fame” in the margin. She was recorded as a “Bawdy House Keeper” in Birmingham in the Jefferson County census of 1900.Wooster threw her home and purse open to nurse the sick during the 1873 cholera epidemic in Birmingham. Her courage and generosity at the time won admiration, even from those who shunned her socially. She died a wealthy although an unhappy woman. Obituary in Birmingham News, May 17, 1913, mentioning Booth. W. Stanley Hoole, “The Madame Was a Lady,” Dixieland (the magazine section of the News), May 3, 1970. Alabama friends Sandy Watson and James Walker contributed useful insights on this topic.