American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  Ibid., 104; Alfriend, “Assassin Booth,” Washington Sunday Globe, February 9, 1902; Edwin Booth to Richard H. Stoddard, January [22,] 1863, quoted in Otis Skinner, The Last Tragedian: Booth Tells His Own Story (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1939), 71.

  Raymond in “Raymond’s Recollections,” The Washington Star, April 7, 1883; Wyndham in the New York Herald, June 27, 1909; Kate Reignolds Winslow, Yesterdays with Actors (Boston: Cupples and Co., 1887), 140.

  Earl Schenck Miers, Lincoln Day by Day (Washington: Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, 1960), passim. The plays Lincoln saw were Richard III, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice / Don Cesar de Bazan, Hamlet, Richelieu, The Fool’s Revenge, and Richard III again. Fanny Seward wrote a detailed account of the March 11 meeting, and it has been preserved with her diary. Anna told Fanny that she always felt predestined to marry Edwin Booth, but married Frederick Seward instead. Seward Papers, University of Rochester Library.

  Booth letter to “Dear John,” dated June 17, 1864. Illinois State Historical Library, John Wilkes Booth collection, SC 157.

  Bradley Tyler Johnson, “My Ride Around Baltimore in 1864,” Journal of the United States Cavalry Association 2:6 (September 1889): 250, 253–55.

  Ibid., 256–57.

  A copy of the letter is in the Abraham Lincoln papers in the Library of Congress, and was published in Basler, Collected Works, 7:451; Confederates denied initiating the episode. See Clement C. Clay’s report to Judah P. Benjamin, O.R. IV:3, 584–87.

  Chapter 8: “My profession, my name, is my passport”

  Johnson, “My Ride Around Baltimore in 1864,” 257.

  Booth traveled while still recovering from erysipelas that summer. His August 22 letter to “Dearest” [Isabel Sumner], evidently written in New York, says, “My arm is a little better,” and other sources show him in Philadelphia and Baltimore with the same condition. Virginia Historical Society, MSS1 D9345a 29; Clarke, Unlocked Book, 119, 115–16. A letter was sent to the Confederate War Department by “Dr. J. W. Booth,” but only an index entry was found, and not the letter itself. House Report 104, Thirty-ninth Congress, First Session (1866), 13.

  All mileages given here are a bare minimum, based on modern road travel. Steamship and rail travel would have added to the distances, but we do not always know what form of transportation Booth used. His travel sequence is taken from Loux, John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day.

  For draft numbers, see McPherson, Political History. The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid, which was broken up on March 2, has been covered extensively in several books, among them Virgil Carrington Jones, Eight Hours Before Richmond (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1957). For a good discussion of the hard war policy, see Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  For more on prisoner exchanges, see O.R. II:3, 222–24, and II:4, 174, 266–68. The cartel was formalized in General Orders 142, Adjutant General’s Office, on September 25, 1862. The issue of exchanges was also complicated by the administration’s wish to avoid any formal recognition of the Confederacy. When the general exchange was halted in 1863, commanders were given “field discretion” to issue paroles and thus avoid the responsibility of caring for their captives. See House of Representatives, Executive Document no. 124, Thirty-seventh Congress, Second Session. Grant’s quote is from a letter to Gen. Ben Butler, August 18, 1864, in O.R. II:7, 607. He expressed a similar view the following day in a letter to Seward. O.R. II:7, 614–15. The contents of Lincoln’s pockets are in the Library of Congress, and include several newspaper clippings.

  Stanton to the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, May 4, 1864. O.R. II: 7, 110.

  O.R. II:7, 111. Prisoners on both sides suffered from diseases such as typhoid fever, and not only from starvation, as charged. O.R. III: 5, 523. Stanton recommended “precisely the same rations and treatment” for rebel officers. O.R. II: 7, 113. In ordering retaliation, Stanton was supported by a list of senior officers who endorsed the cut in rations. O.R. II: 7, 150–51, and O.R. II:7, 183. Stanton’s own figures showed that 26,436 Confederates died, out of 220,000 held in captivity, while 22,576 of 126,940 Union prisoners died in the South. House Report no. 152, Thirty-ninth Congress, First Session, July 28, 1866.

  The circumstances leading up to Booth’s reunion with Arnold are unknown, but inferred by Ford’s knowledge of Billy Arnold as a “bad boy” who got drunk around the theater, and by Booth’s known habit of dropping by the same theater when in town. John T. Ford in LAS 5:441.

  Statement of Samuel B. Arnold, sworn on December 3, 1867, Benjamin F. Butler Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress (hereinafter Arnold-Butler). Arnold attended St. Mary’s Seminary, St. Timothy’s Hall, and Georgetown College. Though some of these were Catholic schools, Arnold was a Methodist. His January 1864 request for a pass to return to Baltimore noted that Arnold and his brother Charles had done honorable service and were “still ardently devoted to the cause.” RG 109, Confederate Records, M-437, file 23A 1864, National Archives. My thanks to Michael Musick. Switching sides, as Arnold tried to do, was not uncommon; in 1865 alone, 1,955 captured Confederate soldiers were released upon joining their former enemies. O.R. III: 5, 531–32.

  Samuel B. Arnold, Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1996), edited by Michael W. Kauffman, 42–43.

  Arnold, Memoirs, 43. Both sides took hostages during the war, the legality of which was recognized in sections 54 and 55 of General Orders No. 100, the army’s guide to the laws of war.

  New York Herald, June 20, 1867; Thomas Nelson Conrad, A Confederate Spy (New York: J. S. Ogilvie, 1892), 69. Conrad believed there was a Mosby plan, but the story he cited appears to have come from a dubious source. According to John B. Jones of the Confederate War Department, proposals to assassinate Lincoln were never answered. Jones mentioned an 1863 letter from Henry Clay Durham, whom he called “a mad private, and Northern man.” Davis sent his letter to the War Department without comment. A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1866), 2:24. 13. Conrad, Confederate Spy, 69–75. Conrad attributed the sudden vigilance to a security leak by drunken soldiers involved in the Mosby plot. He got this story from William H. Crook, an unreliable source who called himself a friend and bodyguard to the president.

  Seward’s letter quoted in John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life (New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1909), 2:547–48.

  In September 1862, Companies D and K of the 150th Pennsylvania were assigned to the Soldiers’ Home as well as the White House. Thomas Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (Philadelphia: F. McManus, Jr. & Co., 1905), 38–41. My thanks to Michael Cavanaugh. The Union Light Guard of Ohio did not actively guard the president until the fall of 1864, though some of its members recalled doing so much earlier. See George Ashmun, “Recollections of a Peculiar Service,” Magazine of History 3 (April 1906). Depredations on the White House were reported regularly. On December 24, 1864, for example, the Evening Star said that gilded tiebacks, cords, and tassels from the curtains had all been carried away by tourists. For the Cabinet meeting incident, see Gideon Welles, Diary, February 19, 1864.

  Washington Hands listed Harry Inloes Jackson, Charles Clark, Charles Claiborne, and John Rooney as members of the Baltimore Light Artillery, and as residents of Booth’s block on Exeter Street. “Civil War Note-book of Washington Hands,” Manuscripts Department, Maryland Historical Society.

  Gen. Lew Wallace, in Baltimore, had issued General Orders No. 30 in April 1864, stepping up confiscation in Maryland. The War Department’s policy was spelled out in General Orders No. 257, O.R. III:4, 721. Joseph H. Simonds, LAS 2:739; Booth’s quitclaim deed giving the shares to Junius was executed on October 21, 1864. It is in the Pearce Collection at Navarro College, Corsicana, Texas. Richard and Kellie Gutman, “Boston: A Home for John Wilkes Booth?” Surratt Society News 10 (September 1985): 6–7.

 
; Joseph H. Simonds letter to Capt. David V. Derickson, April 25, 1865, in LAS 2:738. Simonds said that the property given to June and Rosalie had since become “moderately valuable.”

  L.P.D. Newman in LAS 2:574 and LAS 2:928.

  The slaves in question ranged in age from four to forty-five. The Baltimore Sun, March 10, 1864.

  Election results were 29,536 to 27,541 against the constitution, exclusive of absentee votes, and the final count was 30,174 to 29,699 in favor. Reverdy Johnson, Opinion of the Honorable Reverdy Johnson (Baltimore: n.p., 1864); Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906), 674, and Henry Bascom Smith, Between the Lines (New York: Booz Brothers, 1911), 80. Smith points out that Wallace was the only commanding general in Baltimore who was never sued for false arrest. New York World, October 20, 1864; New York Daily News, October 10, 1864.

  The estimate of Confederate strength in Canada probably included escaped prisoners. H. Rossman, “To whom it may concern,” dated September 29, 1864, in Joseph Holt Papers, 45:5925, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress; Regarding the Kane plan, Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis on June 26, 1864, urging caution. Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee (New York: Bramhall House, 1961), 808. On October 25, 1864, Lee wrote to Davis swearing off on a project of Reverend Stewart’s. “I have not a high opinion of Mr. Stewarts Discretion, & could not advise any one to join him in his enterprize.” Douglas Southall Freeman and Grady McWhiney, eds., Lee’s Dispatches: Unpublished Letters of General Robert E. Lee, CSA, to Je ferson Davis (New York: Putnam, 1957), 302–4.

  Jacob Thompson report to Judah P. Benjamin, December 3, 1864, in O.R. I:43 (1), 930–36. This document summarizes all of Thompson’s activities in Canada during 1864.

  St. Lawrence Hall Arrival Book, Ms. Group 28, Public Archives, Ottawa.

  Poore, 2:268–74; It has been asserted that Martin wrote a letter of introduction to Dr. Samuel Mudd as well. However, the evidence for this consists of a secondhand account of what Arnold said at the time of his capture. But his remarks were transcribed and signed at the time, and they said nothing of the kind. When asked years later, Arnold said he didn’t remember whether the letter had been written to Dr. Mudd or Dr. Queen. Testimony said it was Dr. Queen. See Steers, Blood on the Moon, 73; Testimony of Eaton G. Horner in Poore, 1:430, and Arnold-Butler. In the New York Daily Graphic, March 22, 1876, and the Cincinnati Enquirer, April 18, 1892, George Alfred Townsend mentions an interview with Kane, who said he destroyed his letter. It will be remembered that Booth once said he was a friend of Kane’s, but this letter would have shown that claim to be false. Kane never divulged its contents.

  Cincinnati Enquirer, April 18, 1892; Robert Anson Campbell in Poore, 2:87–88, and Surratt Trial, 1:193. Booth’s application for the bill of exchange is in LAS 3:139. A Mr. Davis was also with Booth at the bank; he was never identified. Booth covered his Montreal trip with a false story about having an engagement at the Theatre Royal. See Thomas B. Florence in the New York Sun, April 19, 1865, 1.

  The New York Times, May 28, 1864, 2. Many examples came to the public’s attention only after the assassination. The Syracuse parade mottoes were copied from the Syracuse Courier into the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 25, 1865.

  In the popular vote, Lincoln received 2,330,552 votes to McClellan’s 1,835,985. The electoral vote was 212 to 21, and the soldier vote was 116,887 to 33,748, which reversed the outcomes in New York and Connecticut. Lincoln also took Maryland with 40,171 votes to his opponent’s 32,739. The soldier vote there was 2,799 to 321 in favor of the president.

  This was reported to the War Department only after the assassination. Most of the Enquirer article was directed at Seward. LAS 4:186.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 124.

  Occupation forces in Maryland were usually commanded by prewar Democrats: Ben Butler, George Cadwallader, Nathaniel Banks, John A. Dix, Robert Schenck, and Lew Wallace. Banks, who arrested the state legislators in 1861, had been a Know-Nothing before becoming a Republican. Forney, Philadelphia Press, July 30, 1862; Hunter, August 31, 1863, letter to Stanton, O.R. III:2, 740. Stanton did not reply. Booth evidently believed that Seward was still in charge. In one of his political tantrums, he told Asia, “Other brains rule the country.” Clarke, Unlocked Book, 124.

  Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years with Grant (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), 231–32.

  In Charles County, Nathan Burnham’s presence was deemed “intolerable” in a public resolution, while the other five Lincoln supporters were conditionally forgiven “as an earnest expression of our moderation.” Port Tobacco Times, December 27, 1860, 2. Burnham later joined the 196th Pennsylvania Infantry. Gen. John A. Dix to S. P. Chase, O.R. I:51 (1), 442, and T. B. Robey to the State Department, O.R. II:2, 864–68; Report of E. J. Allen [Allen Pinkerton] to Andrew Porter, October 26, 1861, in O.R. II:2, 866.

  Information on smuggling was supplied by Rev. Lemuel Wilmer and others in letters to the War Department. O.R. II:2, 863, 864. The author has rowed these waters, and was surprised to learn how easily one loses sight of a boat on the river. See The Washington Post, April 18, 1999, F5. Plugs in the boats were mentioned in Smith, Between the Lines, 67–68; Quote from General Robert Schenck in Wallace, Autobiography, 675; For a good account of a “commercial” smuggling trip, see Philip Whitlock’s notebook, Virginia Historical Society, 111–20. The river was blockaded by executive proclamation; 12 Stat. 1262, August 16, 1861. Acts of July 13, 1861, May 27, 1862, and March 12, 1863, could also be invoked in the Maryland smuggling cases. The confiscation law was disseminated to troops in General Orders No. 257, O.R. III:6, 722. William P. Wood, the keeper of the Old Capitol Prison, claimed to have put a stop to Baker’s depredations, thus earning the gratitude of local citizens. Washington Sunday Gazette, November 4, 1883, 1. According to Jeremiah T. Mudd, few citizens were much inclined to talk about the war in the last two years. Poore, 2:265.

  Thompson in Poore, 2:270. A recent account of this visit claims that Booth had arranged to meet Dr. Queen, because the doctor’s son came up to get him in Bryantown. However, eighteen to twenty-four hours passed between Booth’s arrival at the tavern and Joseph Queen’s arrival to pick him up. That was more than enough time to notify the doctor that he had a visitor in town, and far too much time to keep someone waiting intentionally. If the Queens had prior knowledge of Booth’s intentions and whereabouts, they would have hustled him out of town as quickly as possible. See Steers, Blood on the Moon, 74; J. Dominick Burch was the son of Henry Burch, the tavern’s owner. He was about the same age as Booth, and the two apparently got on well during the latter’s visit. The friend who lived on Fayette Street has never been identified, and there are many possibilities. Special Collections, Georgetown University Library; This scenario leaves out the visit to Dr. Mudd, which has traditionally been seen as a part of the November visit. I no longer believe Booth met Mudd on this occasion. See chapter 9, note 9, below.

  Booth’s Jay Cooke & Company bankbook, Chicago Historical Society, entry for November 16. For the conspiracy assumptions, see Steers, Blood on the Moon, 73. An alternate explanation was given by Sam Arnold, who said that Booth told him the money he got there was borrowed.

  The original four officers were Sgt. John R. Cronin, and Privates Alphonso T. Donn, Thomas F. Pendel, and Alexander C. Smith. Later, William H. Crook and John F. Parker replaced Pendel and Cronin. The character of these men is drawn from their police service files in Record Group 351, National Archives. Examples of vandalism were given in the Washington Evening Star, December 24, 1864, 1. White House watchmen were subsequently paid directly by the commissioner of public buildings. 1866 appropriations, 13 Stat. 206.

  Chapter 9: “I have a greater speculation . . . they won’t laugh at”

  Owen Fawcett Scrapbook, Kefauver Library, University of Tennessee; Clarke, Unlocked Book, 126–27.

  Junius Booth, Jr., in LAS 4:118; Edwin Booth to Nahum Capen, July 28, 1881, quoted in Edwina Boo
th Grossman, Edwin Booth: Recollections by His Daughter (New York: The Century Co., 1894), 227; Clarke, Unlocked Book, 118. The feelings remained for many months, as John Wilkes referred to them in a letter to June, dated January 17, 1865, in the Seymour Collection, Princeton University. The question of Booth family loyalties was deliberately clouded after the assassination. John Wilkes and Joseph were unambiguously pro-Southern, and it might be argued that Mary Ann, Junius, and Asia showed some Democratic leanings.

  The Winter Garden is described in Joseph Jefferson, Autobiography, 158; Both quotes: Julius Caesar, III.i.

  Edwin Booth served on the fund committee with William Wheatley and Leonard Grover. His correspondence mentions several attempts to book John Wilkes in the summer of 1864, but scheduling problems kept him from committing to a date. June’s diary entry for November 26 said the Julius Caesar performance had raised $3,500, while the New York World, on November 28, put the figure at “almost $4,000.” Other benefits held at the same time raised a total of $22,000. Anthony Deering, “L. Grover Busy at 94,” undated clipping in the Aloysius Mudd Theatre Collection, Historical Society of Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth was never tied to the hotel-burning incident.

  New York Press, May 7, 1893, 25. Adding to his success was his ownership of the Winter Garden, which Edwin and Clarke bought in August. They already owned the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and were negotiating to buy the Boston Theatre. Together, they were the probably the wealthiest men in the theater business. For a full discussion of the Booth-Clarke dealings, see Donald E. LaCasse, Jr., “Edwin Booth: Theatre Manager” (Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1979).

  Chester in LAS 4:144–47.

  There has been some dispute over the date of Mudd’s introduction to Booth. John C. Thompson testified that it occurred “by chance” in November, but he did not say how he fixed the date in his mind. Two sisters of Dr. Mudd’s confirmed the November date, but both got it from reading the testimony, not from personal knowledge. The church meeting, house visit, horse purchase, and return to Bryantown clearly describe a sequence of related events. But Booth did not own that horse until December, and that is when he bought a saddle and bridle for it in Bryantown. If the introduction took place in November, then we have no idea what he did in the second half of that meeting, or in the first half of a second one. It is easier to assume that Thompson was mistaken, and that the introduction to Mudd took place in December. All witnesses agreed there was only one meeting in Bryantown between the two men. See Thompson in Poore, 2:271.