29
The historian David R. Barbee found these marks when he examined the boot in 1940. Barbee memoranda, May 18, 1940, Folder 182, Box 4, Barbee Papers, Georgetown University Library. New York Clipper, Feb. 16, 1861, explains how a skate was fixed in place.
30
“Saw Edwin Booth Identify Brother,” clipping [1903], Wooster Scrapbook, Birmingham Public Library Archives.
31
Wilson, Booth, p. 295.
32
Chapman statement, Schenectady, N.Y., Dec. 31, 1912, Boos Collection, photocopy in author’s possession.
33
New York Times, Feb. 18, 1869.
34
Knoxville (Iowa) Journal-Express, Feb. 11, 1920.
35
Entry of Feb. 18, 1869, Green Mount Cemetery Mortuary Stub Book, 1868–72, manuscript, fLin 2806.3, William Whiting Nolen Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, courtesy of my friend Thomas A. Horrocks. I am indebted to Elisabeth Potter for her insights into funeral iconography.
36
Certificate of ownership, June 13, 1869, copy in JOH.
37
New York Clipper, June 26, 1865.
38
Elizabeth Rogers to W. Stump Forward, Baltimore, Md., Aug. 16, 1886, Manuscript Division, LOC.
39
Identifications in Baltimore Sun of March 27, 1906; Aug. 21, 1889; July 6, 1901; June 30, 1907.
40
Baltimore Sun, Dec. 27, 1931.
41
Merchants’ Exchange Reading Room Record Books, Arrivals, vol. 24, MdHS.
42
Birmingham Age-Herald, April 17, 1895.
43
Baltimore Sun, Feb. 5, 1897.
44
John H. Weaver’s “second bill” to Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, June 26, 1869, for expenses at lots numbered 9–10, Dogwood Section, interment permit 16821, photocopy in JOH.
45
Dudley’s statement to Mrs. DuPont Lee, n.d., Wilkerson Papers, LFFRC; Baltimore Sun, June 28, 1869; entry of June 26, 1869, Register of Marriages, Baptisms, and Burials, Christ Church (1828–1871), microfilm CR-Bal-2, MdHS.
46
The service was short, and the lesson, usually given in church, was dispensed with. The 1848 standard edition of The Book of Common Prayer was then in use.
47
New York Times, July 2, 1869.
48
New York Clipper, July 3, 1869; Baltimore American, March 2, 1902.
49
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 6, 1886; Baltimore American, Sept. 30, 1901; New York Sun, Jan. 18, 1903; Kilby, “Some Newly-Collected Facts About John Wilkes Booth,” Seymour Collection, Princeton University Library; Ella Mahoney, manuscript note, n.d. [1930s], from a conversation with Weaver, HCHS.
50
Baltimore American, June 9, 1870.
51
Baker, History of the United States Secret Service, pp. 507–8.
52
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 20, 1865.
53
Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, lst Session, July 28, 1866, p. 4292.
54
Chicago Record-Herald, Feb, 14, 1908.
55
Wise, End of an Era, pp. 454–55.
56
Wilkes-Barre Times, Dec. 19, 1894.
57
Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 21, 1885.
58
Ford, statement, n.d. [1885], Box 4, Ford Papers, LOC.
59
C. Wyatt Evans, The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004); Finis L. Bates, The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth … (Memphis: Historical Publishing, 1907).
60
St. Louis Democrat, March 29, 1925.
61
Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1911.
62
Louisville Courier-Journal, Aug. 15, 1917.
63
C. Wyatt Evans, “Of Mummies and Methodism: Reverend Clarence True Wilson and the Legend of John Wilkes Booth,” Journal of Southern Religion, vol. 5 (2002), accessed March 16, 2014, at http://jsr.fsu.edu/2002/Evans.htm.
64
William Hanchett, The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 226–33.
65
Francis J. Gorman, “The Petition to Exhume John Wilkes Booth: A View from the Inside,” [University of Baltimore Law School] Law Forum, vol. 27 (Spring 1997), pp. 47–57.
66
Washington Post, Oct. 6, 1994.
67
Eleanor Atkinson, “Lincoln’s Boyhood,” American Magazine, vol. 65 (Feb. 1908), p. 369.
68
Robert W. Daly, ed., Aboard the USS Florida, 1863–5: The Letters of Paymaster William Frederick Keeler, U.S. Navy (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, 1968), p. 212.
69
Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. 3 (New York: McClure, 1908), p. 141.
70
Charles Deamude to father, Cleveland, Tenn., April 16, 1865, Manuscript Department, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield.
71
Wise, End of an Era, pp. 454–55.
72
Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle and Constitutionalist, July 10, 1877.
73
Impressions of Lincoln and the Civil War: A Foreigner’s Account by the Marquis Adolphe de Chambrun (New York: Random House, 1952), p. 102.
74
Nathan H. Chamberlain, The Assassination of President Lincoln (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1865), p. 20.
75
John Bigelow to William Seward, Paris, May 5, 1865, William Henry Seward Papers, Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester.
76
Scott D. Trostel, The Lincoln Funeral Train: The Final Journey and National Funeral for Abraham Lincoln (Fletcher, Ohio: Cam-Tech, 2002).
77
“Letters to SPK,” Kimmel Collection, Macdonald-Kelce Library, University of Tampa.
78
Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), for an overview of these themes. Hay quote at p. 206.
79
Horace White, “Abraham Lincoln in 1854,” Putnam’s Monthly, vol. 5 (March 1909), p. 728.
80
Bert Sheldon, “A Trip over the Booth Escape Route in July,” Lincoln Fellowship Group of Washington, D.C., Assassination File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University.
81
Alford, “Booth and Townsend”; Townsend: Life, Crime, and Capture, p. 40.
NOTE ON SOURCES
....
Abraham Lincoln Assassination Bibliography: A Compendium of Reference Materials (1997), compiled by Blaine V. Houmes, makes a traditional bibliography unnecessary. Houmes’s book contains citations of some three thousand primary and secondary sources and is a necessary starting point for research.
If we don’t “stand on the shoulders of giants”—largely because we can’t get up there—we are certainly indebted to our predecessors for their pioneering research, and I found the collected papers of the following historians most useful and informative: David Rankin Barbee (the assassination), Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.; Ella Mahoney (Booth family), HSHC; George Bryan (the assassination), New York Public Library; James O. Hall (the assassination), Hall Center, Surratt House Museum, Clinton, Maryland; Stanley Kimmel (Booth family), Macdonald-Kelce Library, University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida; and Constance Head ( John Wilkes Booth), author’s possession.
While no comprehensive biography of John Wilkes Booth has been published until now, several valuable books treat aspects of his life. Asia Booth Clarke, his sister, wrote reminiscences of her brother in 1874. John Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir (1996), which I edited, presents this text with a biography of the author. First published as The Unlocked Book (1938), her m
emoir is uneven, indulgent, and occasionally confounding, but it remains vital to understanding her brother’s childhood. Arthur F. Loux’s John Wilkes Booth—Day by Day (2014) reconstructs Booth’s life in a calendar format with short biographical notes. “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth (1997), edited by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper, brings together Booth’s letters and political statements. Deirdre L. Kincaid’s “Rough Magic: The Theatrical Life of John Wilkes Booth” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hull, 2000), with its perceptive interpretations, supersedes Gordon Samples’s Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth (1982).
Two Booth family members have been well served by biographers. Stephen Archer’s Junius Brutus Booth, Theatrical Prometheus (1992) is the standard life of the father. Dan Watermeier’s American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth (2015), a volume long awaited by scholars, is a rewarding cradle-to-grave treatment of John’s older brother. Arthur W. Bloom’s Edwin Booth: A Biography and Performance History (2013) provides many new facts and interpretations. Brothers (2012), by George Howe Colt, reflects upon the nature of brotherhood among the Booth sons. David Grimsted’s Melodrama Unveiled: American Theater and Culture, 1800–1850 (1968) considers in masterly fashion the social and theatrical currents of the world in which Booth lived and worked, and Don B. Wilmeth’s books provide a critical context to the theatrical aspects of this biography.
Studies of the Lincoln assassination contain special insights into Booth and his conspiracy. In Blood on the Moon (2001) Edward Steers Jr. presents a careful overview of Lincoln’s murder while laying low many misconceptions about the event. Michael W. Kauffman’s American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (2004) recounts Booth’s intrigues and their aftermath in a highly original fashion. Anthony S. Pitch’s “They Have Killed Papa Dead!” (2009) is an animated retelling of the assassination plot, execution, and aftermath. My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy (2010) by Nora Titone speculates on purported professional and personal conflicts between the brothers, set in the rich cultural panorama of the times. Timothy S. Good’s We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (1995) is a handy sourcebook of witness statements, while Thomas A. Bogar’s Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination: The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford’s Theatre (2013), draws back the curtain on those inadvertently caught up in the murder of the president. James Swanson’s Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (2006) provides a riveting account of Booth’s escape and the murder’s expiation.
The assassination, broadly considered, is the focus of William Hanchett’s The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies (1983), reviewing more than a century of historical writing on the assassination. Thomas R. Turner’s Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1982) examines the reaction of the American people and their government in the aftermath of the murder, as does Elizabeth D. Leonard’s Lincoln’s Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War (2004). One of Booth’s acquaintances caught up by the dragnet following the murder is the subject of Kate Clifford Larson’s The Assassin’s Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (2008). Jay Winik’s April 1865: The Month That Saved America (2001) provides a sweeping narrative setting for this troubled time.
Notable Web resources include Angela Smythe’s www.antebellumrichmond.com, a rich trove of facts and images connected with the host’s efforts to identify Booth in group photographs of the Richmond Grays taken at Charles Town, Virginia, in 1859. Also highly recommended are Roger J. Norton’s www.rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln.html, a lively board with features on many assassination topics, and Randal A. Berry’s www.lincoln-assassination.com, with its variety of interesting material. Dave Taylor’s blog, www.boothiebarn.com, is an enjoyable read and gathering spot.
A helpful context for understanding Booth’s actions is gained from Jonathan W. White’s Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman (2011), which examines the challenge of disloyalty in Booth’s home state of Maryland. Jennifer L. Weber’s Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (2006) thoughtfully analyzes the Northern antiwar movement, which Booth fully supported. And David C. Keehn’s Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War (2013) speculates on Booth’s possible connection with this secret Southern society.
James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), which covers the war with exceptional clarity and acumen, gives us a full view of the national ordeal during the period in which Abraham Lincoln became Booth’s preoccupation, then his obsession. To those who wish to understand who Lincoln was and what he meant to contemporaries like his assassin, Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008) is an absolute treasure. Ronald C. White Jr.’s A. Lincoln: A Biography (2009) is a concise life by a thoughtful writer. Doug Wilson’s Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and The Power of Words (2006) examines Lincoln’s most formidable weapon—timeless ideals, memorably expressed—while Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) demonstrates how he wielded those ideals to transforming effect among his own associates. Allen Guelzo’s Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) skillfully delineates the mind and spirit of Lincoln in the context of his times. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) by Eric Foner traces with astute steps Lincoln’s path to emancipation and beyond, an illuminating contrast to the course of his assassin. John McKee Barr’s Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present (2014) surveys Lincoln’s image among those, like Booth, who considered him a terrible president—if not a criminal who defied the Constitution. These studies may be supplemented by Frank Williams’s Judging Lincoln (2002), a series of essays with fresh perspectives on many facets of the president’s life, and Harold Holzer’s Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004), an insightful book about a critical moment in the career of the great president’s life.
INDEX
....
Abbott, John S., 248
abolitionism Booth’s hatred of abolitionists, 4, 82, 97, 101–3, 111, 151, 218, 233, 370n63
and the Emancipation Proclamation, 189–90
and the Lincoln abduction plot, 233
and Mudd, 192
and onset of the Civil War, 97, 101–2
and Pomeroy, 165
Abraham Lincoln: A History (Nicolay and Hay), 338
Adams, Edwin, 62–63
Adams Express Company, 205, 215
African Americans and Booth’s childhood, 15
Booth’s opinion of, 27
and Booth’s politics, 36
confrontations with Booth, 184
and the Emancipation Proclamation, 166
and folklore of Booth, 1
and Lee’s surrender, 257
and New York draft riots, 2
and theater construction, 91
and voting rights, 6, 256–57
Albany Evening Journal, 106
Albaugh, John W., 88, 89, 105
alcohol use, 16–17, 96–97, 251, 261, 276
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 150
Alexander II, 230
Alfriend, Edward M. and attempts to recover Booth’s remains, 325
and Booth’s acting career, 55–56, 60
and Booth’s assassination plans, 87
on Booth’s physical appearance, 62
and the John Brown affair, 68–69, 82
and the Richmond Grays, 65–66, 71–72, 76
on stage influence on Booth’s politics, 248
Allen, E. M., 111
Allen, Jerry, 185
“Alow Me Speech” (Booth), 115, 370n63
Ambler, Lucy, 74
American Party (Know Nothings), 35–36
Anderson, Jean and Booth family dynamics, 119, 134–35, 137
and Booth’s acting caree
r, 45
and Booth’s relationships, 58
and impact of assassination on Booth family, 324
and onset of the Civil War, 116
Anderson, Mary Jane, 268
Andersonville prison, 308, 324
Andrews, Billy, 28
Andrews, Sally, 147
Antietam, battle of, 134
anti-immigrant sentiment, 35–36
antislavery legislation, 208
The Apostate, 89, 91, 105, 120, 132
Archer, James, 113
Archer, Robert, 113
The Architect (Ranlett), 29
Arch Street Theatre Booth hired by, 88
and Booth’s acting career, 39–41, 44–45, 46, 49–50, 64, 135, 137
and Clarke, 37
and Howell, 108
Army Medical Museum, 319
Army of Northern Virginia, 178
Arnold, Benjamin B., 212
Arnold, Burrill, 143–44
Arnold, Edwin, 17–18
Arnold, George, 31
Arnold, Samuel and Booth’s childhood, 30–31
and Booth’s escape from Washington, 272
on Booth’s leadership, 3
captured, 283–84
and the Lincoln abduction plot, 176–82, 200, 206, 208, 211, 213–14, 231–39, 241–42, 243
pardoned, 325
trial and sentence, 323
Arnold, William, 176
arson plots, 193–98
Ashbrook, John T., 196
Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth Page 60
