Rebel Rebel

Notorious son of the South -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Students of American history are well-versed in the details of the 1865 Lincoln assassination. An embittered Confederate sympathizer, actor John Wilkes Booth, shot the president in the back of the head, then jumped to the stage uttering “Sic simper tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants”). By most accounts, he broke a leg in his dramatic leap. He fled by horseback into the remote Maryland woods, later crossing the Potomac into Virginia where Union soldiers tracked him down and shot him a few days later. This is the compressed kernel of the Booth saga, and yet it leaves out many compelling details of this deranged Southern scion.

The handsome John Wilkes hailed from a well-heeled Maryland family, the famous Booths – known for several Shakespearean actors in their clan. John’s older brother Edwin introduced him to the theater at the tender age of 17. At first, John played second banana roles in plays such as Richard III and Hamlet until his good looks, athleticism and natural hamminess propelled him to center stage. Edwin conceded that the younger Booth had the looks and star power – he let John start taking more of the lead roles. Booth became a superstar in short order. He soon was earning $20,000/year (big money in 1860). Booth received bags of fan mail from adoring women each day. He headlined in most of the large American cities (North and South) sometimes appearing in as many as 80 plays a year. Booth was dubbed the “handsomest man in America” and even Walt Whitman (himself a literary lion of the era) gushed that John Wilkes Booth had “flashes of real genius”. In what would later be a sad, strange irony, it was revealed that the Lincoln family was also enamored of JWB. Lincoln had already seen Booth in other plays such as The Marble Heart.

Booth had enormous ambitions and appetites – he might have even been slightly bipolar considering his many enthusiastic projects. His large income allowed him to invest in several enterprises – Boston real estate, a music company and even an oil company. His oil company ran into technical issues (an oil well was accidentally destroyed by explosives) and Booth lost $81,000. He became disenchanted with business and placed his focus on the growing Civil War debacle. He laid the blame for his business problems and all his travails at the feet of Abe Lincoln. In fact, Booth became a man obsessed – he was strident in his Confederate sympathies and Union hatred.

Booth’s career started to tank, due to his rants. He was tossed out of an Albany theater when he lambasted the Union from the stage. In St. Louis, he was thrown in the clink for bad-mouthing the president while appearing there. His sister Asia and brother Edwin were both Union sympathizers -- they tried to get their firecracker brother to lower his voice in public. In fact, Edwin finally had to banish his brother from his house until he could be more mannerly. Booth smoldered as events unfolded; he also began to keep company with equally unhinged Dixie zealots -- he never actually returned to a “mannerly” self.

As the Civil War came to its conclusion, Booth clung desperately to a couple of ideas:

• Southern General Joseph E. Johnston still had a regiment fighting, even after Lee’s surrender… to Booth, this meant the war was still ongoing
• The Union government could be “decapitated” by simultaneously taking out the President, Vice President and Secretary of State. A weakened union would then cave to the Confederacy

It’s been suggested that Booth hatched out this delirious plan (2nd bullet, above) with the Confederate Secret Service but nothing was ever proved. The plot was likely confined to maybe a dozen Rebel diehards; considering the incompetence of its execution, it couldn’t be the product of any military masterminds. According to the plan, Booth’s cohort George Atzerodt was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and friend Lewis Powell was to kill Secretary of State William Seward. Coconspirator David Herold was to facilitate Booth’s escape from the Ford Theater.

The plot fell apart miserably from the outset– two of the three planned assassinations failed off the bat. Powell stabbed Seward (who was in bed, recovering from a carriage accident) but the wound was only superficial and Seward quickly recovered. It was more of a jab than a stab. Atzerodt chickened out of his role and ducked into a local tavern for drinks. He never made an attempt on Johnson’s life.

Booth succeeded in his effort – he was a star in the Ford Theater and was never questioned anywhere on the premises. He shot Lincoln in the now-familiar scenario, leapt to the stage, and uttered his famous epithet. He also tripped as he crashed to the floor, breaking his leg. He and Dave Herold fled into the theater alley, mounted their horses, and galloped into the dark, swampy terrain of southern Maryland. They stopped at Surratt’s Tavern nine miles along the way, to stock up on guns and supplies -- Mary Surratt was a coconspirator later hanged for her part in the assassination (first woman in the US to be hanged on federal charges). They went from there to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who tended to Booth’s broken leg. Some argue whether the Mudd connection was coincidental but historians have established a year-prior relationship where Booth had purchased a horse and had drinks with Mudd. Mudd got off easy with just a life sentence for his involvement in the events.

From Mudd’s house they traveled to the tobacco farm of Confederate sympathizer Samuel Cox. Cox would only allow them to sleep in his barn, he didn’t want to be implicated. Also, at this point there was a $100,000 bounty on Booth and federal agents were combing the nearby woods.

At length, Booth and Herold ended up at Richard Garrett’s Virginia farm. The Garrett’s were also southern sympathizers but also would only allow the fugitives space in the family’s barn. It was here, getting news updates from the Garretts that Booth must have fallen off of his manic cloud:

• Joseph E, Johnston had surrendered – all war efforts were over
• Both Robert E. Lee and Johnston had strongly condemned the assassination
• Newspapers that had lambasted Lincoln decried his death (Booth thought he’d be welcomed as a savior and hero)
• Southerners in general were fearful about occupation and reconstruction – they feared that Booth’s violent act would bring more vengeance from the North
• Several of Booth’s cohorts were already arrested and Federal agents were hot on his trail

Union Lieutenant Edward Doherty and his scouts found Booth and Herold on April 26th, holed up in the Garrett’s barn. Doherty’s men surrounded the barn and even set fire to it. Herold surrendered, but Booth was defiant. Booth was shot in the neck and paralyzed for 3 hours until he died from the wound. His dying words were, “Tell my mother I died for our country”. He had pictures of 5 young women, including his recent fiancée, Lucy Lambert Hale, in his wallet.

CONCLUSION
John Wilkes Booth, an incredibly handsome, successful, wealthy and beloved stage actor threw it all away for his half-baked scheme to save the Confederacy. The actions he took bespeak an Old South mentality which was arrogance defined – a monstrous hubris which indulged equally monstrous fantasies. These fantasies made deities of plantation owners and chattel of their servants. In hindsight we judge Booth’s actions as those of a crazy man, and yet his level of crazy wasn’t that far removed from the South Carolina politicians who voted to secede five years earlier.

Flim-flam artists quickly took hold of the Booth events; one person authored a book claiming that Booth had escaped and died many years later in Granbury Texas. The idea was even carried into the late 20th century, with 1977’s The Lincoln Conspiracy. In fact, Booth’s body was positively identified by his mother, brother and sister shortly after his death – his body is now interred at the family Green Mount cemetery in Maryland. None of these mere facts discouraged county fairs and traveling shows from displaying the “real, mummified” body of John Wilkes Booth in years that followed.

The real facts surrounding this scion of the South are unusual enough by themselves -- we needn’t add any fiction to the story of this ignoble actor and Presidential assassin.

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