Tidwell, Hall, and Gaddy, Come Retribution, and William A. Tidwell, April ’65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War (Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, 1995).
64
Booth did not tell Chester that the rebel government would pay him for Lincoln, but Chester concluded, from the tenor of their conversation, that such was his plan. This led Colonel Henry S. Olcott, Chester’s inquisitor, to leap to the conclusion that his scheme “had the knowledge and cooperation of the insurgent leaders.” Chester, testimony, May 12, 1865, in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, vol. 1, p. 47.
65
Booth to “My dear Sir,” n.p., n.d. [1864], Records of the Attorney General’s Office, General Records, Letters Received Files (1809–1870), General Records of the Department of Justice, RG 60, National Archives, Archives II, College Park, Md. Conveniently available in Clarke, Booth, pp. 106–10, where the writer believes he erred in dating the letter to November 1864.
66
Chester, testimony, May 12, 1865, in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, vol. 1, pp. 48.
67
“V” [Clarence Cobb], “More Reminiscences of Wilkes Booth,” clipping [1885], laid inside copy of The Elder and the Younger Booth, Brown Collection, Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library.
68
Clarke, Booth, pp. 82–83, 85.
69
Washington Daily Constitutional Union, January 18, 1865. Ann H. Holcombe, a Gautier descendant, generously provided information about this well-regarded Washington family and business. Frederick Hatch, “The Meeting at Gautier’s Restaurant,” Journal of the Lincoln Assassination, vol. 26 (2012), pp. 2–9.
70
Statements of Miles and of Thomas Manning, both May 5, 1865, 5/285–94, NA M599.
71
Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1870; Arnold in his Memoirs and his Defence and Prison Experiences; John Horner, Lincoln’s Songbird: Wilson G. Horner (1834–1864), a Brief Life of Melody and Harmony (Gettysburg, Pa.: author, 1998), p. 40.
72
Weichmann, True History, p. 98.
73
The Trial of the Assassins and Conspirators at Washington City, D.C., May and June, 1865, for the Murder of President Abraham Lincoln (Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Bros., 1865), p. 20; Boston Daily Globe, Dec. 25, 1904. Green denied his home was part of the planning. Washington Star, May 24, 1890. James M. Goode, Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington’s Destroyed Buildings, 2nd ed. (Washington and London: Smithsonian Books, 2003), p. 34.
74
Steers, The Trial, p. 390; Eaton G. Horner, testimony, May 18, 1865, in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, vol. 1, p. 432; John C. Brennan, “The Three Versions of the Testimony in the 1865 Conspiracy Trial,” Surratt Society News, vol. 8 (March 1983), p. 4.
75
Honora Fitzpatrick, testimony, June 21, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, p. 234, and her testimony, May 22, 1865, in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, vol. 2, pp. 89–91; Thomas J. Raybold, testimony, June 2, 1865, in Poore, The Conspiracy Trial, vol. 3, pp. 39–40.
76
Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, Jan. 18, 1869.
77
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 3, 1865.
78
Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 3, 1884.
79
Col. H. H. Wells to Col. J. H. Taylor, Headquarters, Military District of the Patuxent, April 28, 1865, 458/408, M619 NA; Victor L. Mason, “Four Lincoln Conspiracies,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. 51 (April 1896), p. 895; Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1881; Atzerodt’s statement of May 1, 1865.
80
Washington Daily National Intelligencer, March 22, 1865; Washington Evening Star, Sept. 20, 1892, and April 28, 1940; Washington Star, Sept. 17, 1944; Boyd’s Washington and Georgetown Directory … 1865 (Washington: Hudson, Taylor, 1865), pp. 39, 137.
81
Cast list in the Intelligencer, March 18, 1865.
82
Rhinelander (Wisc.) News, Feb. 12, 1927.
83
Arnold, Defence and Prison Experiences, pp. 47–48; Weichmann, True History, pp. 111–16; Davenport in Chicago Inter Ocean, Aug. 27, 1893; William Hanchett, “The Ambush on Seventh Street Road” (1981), rev. ed., in In Pursuit of … Continuing Research in the Field of the Lincoln Assassination (Clinton, Md.: Surratt Society, 1990), pp. 151–61. The Park Hotel is located on the A. C. E. Boschke map (1859) at 7th Street and Boundary Avenue line.
84
Washington Daily National Intelligencer, March 18, 1865; New York Herald, March 18, 1865; Walter Lowenfels, ed., Walt Whitman’s Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), pp. 261–62.
85
“The Lincoln Tragedy,” New York Herald, June 19, 1878.
86
William D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton, 2 vols. (Indianapolis and Kansas City: Bowen-Merrill, 1899), vol. 2, pp. 4–5.
87
Weichmann, True History, pp. 101–2, and his testimony in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, pp. 399–400.
88
Washington Evening Star, Feb. 12, 1951. The punch could have happened during a political dispute.
89
Weichmann, True History, p. 119.
90
D. H. L. Gleason, statement, April 18, 1865. 4/374–80, NA M599.
91
Ownsbey, Alias “Paine,” pp. 45–50.
92
Provost Marshal James L. McPhail to C. A. Dana, Ass’t Secretary of War, Baltimore, Md., April 15, 1865, 458/337–39, M619 NA.
93
James O. Hall, “The Saga of Sarah Slater,” Surratt Courier, vol. 7 (Jan. 1982), pp. 3–6, and (Feb. 1982), pp. 2–6; Atzerodt’s statement of May 1, 1865.
94
J. B. Booth Jr., diary, March 25, 1865, Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University; J. B. Booth Jr., statement, May 5, 1865, in Clarke, Booth, pp. 119–20.
95
Lizzie Hale to father, New York, N.Y., March 27 and 31, 1865, and to mother, same, March 30, 1865, Hale Papers, New Hampshire Historical Society.
96
Providence Journal, May 3, 1865; Brooklyn Eagle, May 3, 1865. An extradition treaty was ratified and entered into force in 1877, providing specifically for the delivery of persons charged with assassination.
97
Clarke, Booth, p. 66; Arnold, Defence and Prison Experiences, p. 21; Mary Booth to J. W. Booth, New York, N.Y., March 28, 1865, 2/352, NA M599. In opening the envelope containing this note, Booth tore away letters from several words along the right-hand margin of the page. I have reconstructed these.
98
Martha Murray, testimony, June 22, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, pp. 246–47; Booth telegrams of March 23 and 27, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, pp. 118, 121, 223.
99
Washington Evening Star, March 27, 1865; Mary T. Lincoln to Charles Sumner, Executive Mansion, March 23, [1865], in Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, ed. Justin G. Turner and Linda L. Turner (New York: Knopf, 1972), pp. 209–10.
100
Townsend, “Crime of Lincoln’s Murder”; B. H. Strother, statement, April 22, 1865, 4/413–16, NA M599.
101
Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1870; Arnold to Booth, Hookstown, Md., March 27, 1865, 15/343–46, NA M599.
102
Arnold, Memoirs, pp. 28–29.
CHAPTER 10. THIS ONE MAD ACT
1
On his escape Booth made entries in a small memorandum book commonly known as his diary. The original volume is in the care of the National Park Service at Ford’s Theatre. The text may be found as part of the testimony of Everton J. Conger, June 25, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, pp. 310–11. William Hanchett reproduces the text with useful notes in “Booth’s Diary,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 72 (Feb. 1979), pp. 39–56.
2
“Presidential reelections have of late years been utterly disregarded. A popular sentiment had set in against them which almost had the force o
f constitutionallaw.” New York Times, May 28, 1864. Joseph George Jr., “Trial of Mrs. Surratt: John P. Brophy’s Rare Pamphlet,” Lincoln Herald, vol. 93 (Spring 1991), p. 20; Clarke, Booth, p. 88. For background, see Noel Henning Mayfield, Puritans and Regicide: Presbyterian-Independent Differences over the Trial and Execution of Charles (I) Stuart (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988), pp. 65–66; Francis J. Bremer, “In Defense of Regicide: John Cotton on the Execution of Charles I,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., vol. 37 (Jan. 1980), pp. 103–24; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 371, 377–78, and illustration facing p. 257. In the 1840s Whigs sought to limit the presidential tenure of office to four years. Frank L. Klement, “ ‘Brick’ Pomeroy and the Democratic Processes: A Study in Civil War Politics,” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, vol. 51 (1962), p. 160.
3
Fayette Hall, The Copperhead; or, The Secret Political History of Our Civil War Unveiled (New Haven: n.p., 1902), p. 47.
4
Illinois State Register (Springfield), Aug. 7, 1864, quoted in Michael W. Kauffman, “Booth, Republicanism, and the Lincoln Assassination” (Special Scholars thesis, University of Virginia, Dec. 1980), p. 32.
5
Neely, The Fate of Liberty, pp. xii–xvi; Frank L. Klement, The Copperheads in the Middle West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); John Niven, Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 395.
6
Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 8, p. 101.
7
New-York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register, March 16, 1863.
8
Charles Warren, “Lincoln’s ‘Despotism’ as Critics Saw It in 1861,” New York Times, May 12, 1918; Terry Alford, “Why Booth Shot Lincoln,” in Lincoln and His Contemporaries, ed. Charles M. Hubbard (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1999), pp. 123–24.
9
Edward S. Evans, The Seals of Virginia: Published as a Part of the Report of the Virginia State Library for 1909–1910 (Richmond: State of Virginia, 1911), pp. 31–46; Chicago Evening Journal, April 23, 1865.
10
William M. Wermerskirch, testimony, July 2, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, p. 488.
11
Ruth Anne Tucker, “M. M. ‘Brick’ Pomery: Forgotten Man of the Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, History, Northern Illinois University, 1979), p. 99. Lobdell wrote and published the editorial containing this sentence while Pomeroy was absent in Chicago. Pomeroy, customarily identified as the author of these words, did not disavow them.
12
Hanchett, Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, p. 25. In a similar vein, Thomas N. Conrad resolved early in the war to assassinate General Winfield Scott. Discouraged by rebel authorities, Conrad concluded that “sober second thought would not justify the course.” Terry Alford, “The Silken Net: Plots to Abduct Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War,” speech delivered to the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., April 21, 1987. “All nations in all ages have refused to admit private murder as a lawful mode of waging war upon a public enemy,” stated a New York Times editorial on April 18, 1858.
13
Weichmann, True History, p. 131. Thomas Otway’s tragedy Venice Preserved; or, A Plot Discovered (1681) was performed through Europe and in the United States. Booth did the play on March 27, 1858, at the Arch Street Theatre.
14
Transcription of an account by Barron, Box 4, Alonzo May Papers, MdHS.
15
Bates, The Drama, vol. 19, p. 268.
16
Douglas C. Wilson, “Web of Secrecy: Goffe, Whalley, and the Legend of Hadley,” New England Quarterly, vol. 60 (Dec. 1987), pp. 515–48, and communication from Mr. Wilson, Dec. 12, 1987, on this theme in nineteenth-century New England fiction.
17
The Everyman Shakespeare edition of this play (London: J. M. Dent, 1993), with its stellar editor’s introduction and text notes by my friend John F. Andrews, is most valuable. See also Andrews’s remarks at the symposium “Lincoln: Leader and Martyr,” Chambersburg, Pa., Feb. 11, 1995; his “Blame It on Shakespeare,” Humanities, vol. 10 (March–April 1989), pp. 30–32; and his “Was the Bard behind It? Old Light on the Lincoln Assassination,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 266 (Oct. 1990), pp. 26, 28, 32.
18
“Saw Lincoln Shot,” clipping, n.p. [1934], Assassination File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University; MacCulloch, “This Man Saw Lincoln Shot,” p. 115.
19
Clarke, Booth, p. 55; Rhodehamel and Taper, “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me,” p. 150.
20
Alfriend, “Recollections,” p. 604; Baltimore Sun, Jan. 20, 1907.
21
“Lincoln’s Assassination,” n.d. [1883], Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University.
22
The set of Abbott’s Napoleon Bonaparte mentioned in chap. 4.
23
Clipping, n.p. [1865], Atwater Scrapbook, Chicago Historical Society.
24
New York Times, April 18, 1858; Norma B. Cuthbert, ed., Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot, 1861, from Pinkerton and Related Papers (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1949), p. 37; Morning Cleveland Herald, April 28, 1865.
25
New York Clipper, Feb. 21, 1874.
26
New York Clipper, April 29, 1865.
27
Baltimore American, June 8, 1893.
28
James F. Moulton Jr. to his uncle William, Baltimore, April 17, 1865, in Surratt Courier, vol. 16 (Feb. 1991), p. 5.
29
Clarke, Booth, pp. 35–36.
30
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Journal GL” (1861–62), in The Real War Will Never Get in the Books, ed. Louis P. Masur (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 121–41.
31
Hanchett, “Booth’s Diary,” p. 40.
32
Miller, Booth in the Pennsylvania Oil Region, p. 72; Philadelphia Press, April 17, 1865.
33
Chicago Post, April 16, 1865; John T. Stafford interview, New Orleans Times-Democrat, Jan. 11, 1891. “The ambitious youth” is actually “the aspiring youth” in Cibber’s version.
34
Cleveland Leader, April 17, 1865.
35
Robson, “Memories of Fifty Years,” chap. 1, p. 88; Phelps, Players of a Century, p. 326; Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Aug. 4, 1907.
36
Simonds to Booth, Franklin, Pa., Feb. 21, 1865, 7/38, NA M599.
37
Chester, statement, April 28, 1865, 4/140–70, NA M599; National Police Gazette (New York), April 22, 1865.
38
John T. Ford, “The 14th of April, 1865,” Washington Evening Star, April 18, 1885; Harry Ford, statement, April 20, 1865, 5/484, NA M599.
39
Clarke, Booth, pp. 81–82.
40
Montreal Witness, June 7, 1865; Department of Marine, RG 42, A 1, vol. 177, p. 131, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa; Quebec Gazette, June 7, 1865; “Wilkes Booth’s Wardrobe,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 1891; W. H. F. Gurley to Edwin Stanton, Quebec, June 7, 1865, 7/225ff., NA M599.
41
Lewis J. A. McMillan, testimony, July 2, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, p. 483, and Stephen F. Cameron, testimony, July 16, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 2, p. 794.
42
Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1881; “To Whom It May Concern” letter, Clarke, Booth, p. 110.
43
Minneapolis Journal, April 27, 1914; New York Telegraph, May 23, 1909; Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2, 1885.
44
New York Herald, April 10, 1910; Washington Times, Feb. 27, 1910; “Biographical Memoranda” (1903) in Gordon’s hand, Gordon Subject File, Miss. Dept. of Archives and History, Jackson. For the Jan. 2
5, 1865, capture of the Blenheim by the USS Tristram Shandy, and his name as a prisoner transferred to the USS Rhode Island on Feb. 17, 1865, see the logs of these vessels in RG 24, Stack Area 18W4, NA; New York Herald, Feb. 1, 1865. Gordon registered at St. Lawrence Hall on March 8, 1865, per the hotel register (Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, from microfilm copy, JOH). My interview with Dr. Robert L. Gordon, James Gordon’s grandson, on Jan. 2, 1988, was highly informative. To the late Bob Gordon and his gracious wife, Caroline, I am also indebted for the opportunity to examine family documents as well as photographs of Gordon and Thompson and for many other courtesies. I happily acknowledge a particular gratitude for the friendship, assistance, and hospitality of Dr. Forrest T. Tutor, owner of Lochinvar, the Gordon home near Pontotoc, Mississippi. Tutor’s Gordons of Lochinvar (Lulu.com, 2008) brings numerous Gordon documents together.
45
James Gordon to Mildred L. Rutherford, Okolona, Miss., Aug. 11, 1894, Miss Rutherford’s Scrapbook, vol. 2 (Jan. 1924), p. 4; clippings in Gordon Scrapbook (1909–12), compiled by Ella N. Gordon, copy in author’s possession. It has not been recognized that Booth made this second trip to Montreal.
Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth Page 56
