John Wilkes
Booth was born in Bel Air, Maryland, on 10th
May, 1838. He was the ninth of ten children born to the famous actor,
Junius Brutus Booth.
Booth made his acting debut at the age of seventeen in Baltimore.
He toured throughout America and soon became one of America's leading
actors and was especially acclaimed for the work he did with the Shakespearean
company that was based in Richmond.
Unlike the rest of his family, Booth was an ardent supporter of slavery.
In 1859 he joined the Virginia militia company that assisted in the
capture of John Brown at Harper's
Ferry.
Although Booth had a deep hatred for President Abraham
Lincoln and the Republican Party,
he did not join the Confederate Army
on the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Instead he worked as a secret agent and also helped to smuggle medical
supplies from the North to the Confederate forces in the South. As
a touring actor Booth had the perfect cover for this work.
In 1864 Booth devised a scheme to kidnap Abraham
Lincoln in Washington. The plan
was to take Lincoln to Richmond and
hold him until he could be exchanged for Confederate
Army prisoners of war. Others involved in the plot included Lewis
Powell, George Atzerodt, John
Surratt, David Herold, Michael
O'Laughlin and Samuel Arnold. Booth
decided to carry out the deed on 17th March, 1865 when Lincoln was
planning to attend a play at the Seventh Street Hospital that was
situated on the outskirts of Washington.
The kidnap attempt was abandoned when Lincoln decided at the last
moment to cancel his visit.
On 9th April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee
surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant
at Appomattox. Two days later Booth attended a public meeting in Washington
where he heard Abraham Lincoln make a
speech where he explained his views that voting rights should be granted
to some African Americans. Booth was furious and decided to assassinate
the president before he could carry out these plans.
Booth persuaded most of the people who had been involved in the kidnap
plot to join him in his plan. Booth discovered that on 14th April,
Abraham Lincoln was planning to attend
the evening performance of Our American Cousin at the Ford
Theatre in Washington. Booth decided he would assassinate Lincoln
while George Atzerodt and Lewis
Powell would kill Vice President Andrew
Johnson and Secretary of State William
Seward. All attacks would take place at approximately 10.15 p.m.
that night.
Booth, armed with a derringer pistol and a hunting knife, arrived
at the theatre at about 9.30 p.m. John Burroughs, a boy who worked
at the theatre, was asked to hold his horse while he went to a nearby
saloon for a drink. He entered Ford's Theatre soon after 10.00 p.m.
and made his way to the State Box. John
Parker, Lincoln's bodyguard from the Metropolitan Police Force,
had left his position outside the State Box to get a drink. Inside
was Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary
Lincoln, and two friends, Major Henry
Rathbone and his future wife, Clara
Harris.
At 10.15 p.m. Booth entered the State Box and shot Abraham
Lincoln in the back of the head. When Rathbone attempted to grab
Booth he was slashed with the hunting knife. Booth then jumped about
11 feet onto the stage below. He landed badly and snapped the fibula
bone in his left leg just above the ankle. Booth waving his hunting
knife at the audience, hobbled outside and got on his horse and rode
out of the city.
Meanwhile Lewis Powell had attacked William
Seward in his house. Although badly wounded, he survived. George
Atzerodt, lost his nerve, and never made his assassination attempt
on Andrew Johnson. The plan was for
the conspirators to meet at the boarding house owned by Mary
Surratt in Surrattsville, Maryland. After a brief stop to pick
up supplies Booth and David Herold left
and headed for the Deep South.
At 4.00 a.m. Booth and Herold arrived at the home of Dr.
Samuel Mudd who treated Booth's broken leg. With the help of other
sympathizers they reached Port Royal, Virginia, on the morning of
26th April. They hid in a barn owned by Richard Garrett. However,
federal troops arrived soon afterwards and the men were ordered to
surrender.
David Herold came out of the barn but Booth refused and so the
barn was set on fire. While this was happening one of the soldiers,
Sergeant Boston Corbett, found a large
crack in the barn and was able to shoot Booth in the back. His body
was dragged from the barn and after being searched the soldiers recovered
his leather bound diary. The bullet had punctured his spinal cord
and he died in great agony two hours later.
On 29th June, 1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis
Powell, George Atzerodt, David
Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael
O'Laughlin, Edman Spangler and
Samuel Arnold were found guilty of being
involved in the conspiracy to murder Lincoln. Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt
and Herold were hanged at Washington Penitentiary on 7th July, 1865.
Surratt, who was expected to be reprieved, was the first woman in
American history to be executed.
Forum Debates
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
(1)
John
Surratt,
lecture on the Abraham
Lincoln
conspiracy at Rockville, Maryland (6th December, 1870)
In
the fall of 1864 I was introduced to John Wilkes Booth, who, I was
given to understand, wished to know something about the main avenues
leading from Washington to the Potomac. We met several times, but
as he seemed to be very reticent with regard to his purposes, and
very anxious to get all the information out of me he could, I refused
to tell him anything at all. At last I said to him, "It is useless
for you, Mr. Booth, to seek any information from me at all; I know
who you are and what are your intentions." He hesitated some
time, but finally said he would make known his views to me provided
I would promise secrecy. I replied, "I will do nothing of the
kind. You know well I am a Southern man. If you cannot trust me we
will separate." He then said, "I will confide my plans to
you; but before doing so I will make known to you the motives that
actuate me. In the Northern prisons are many thousands of our men
whom the United States Government refuses to exchange. You know as
well as I the efforts that have been made to bring about that much
desired exchange. Aside from the great suffering they are compelled
to undergo, we are sadly in want of them as soldiers. We cannot spare
one man, whereas the United States Government is willing to let their
own soldiers remain in our prisons because she has no need of the
men. I have a proposition to submit to you, which I think if we can
carry out will bring about the desired exchange."
There was a long and ominous silence which I at last was compelled
to break by asking, "Well, Sir, what is your proposition?"
He sat quiet for an instant, and then, before answering me, arose
and looked under the bed, into the wardrobe, in the doorway and the
passage, and then said, "We will have to be careful; walls have
ears." He then drew his chair close to me and in a whisper said,
"It is to kidnap President Lincoln, and carry him off to Richmond!"
"Kidnap President Lincoln!" I said. I confess that I stood
aghast at the proposition, and looked upon it as a foolhardy undertaking.
To think of successfully seizing Mr. Lincoln
in the capital of the United States surrounded by thousands of his
soldiers, and carrying him off to Richmond, looked to me like a foolish
idea. I told him as much. He went on to tell with what facility he
could be seized in various places in and about Washington. As for
example in his various rides to and from the Soldiers' Home, his summer
residence. He entered into the minute details of the proposed capture,
and even the various parts to be performed by the actors in the performance.
I was amazed - thunderstruck - and in fact, I might also say, frightened
at the unparalleled audacity of this scheme. After two days' reflection
I told him I was willing to try it. I believed it practicable at that
time, though I now regard it as a foolhardy undertaking. I hope you
will not blame me for going thus far. I honestly thought an exchange
of prisoners could be brought about could we have once obtained possession
of Mr. Lincoln's person. And now reverse the case. Where is there
a young man in the North with one spark of patriotism in his heart
with would not have with enthusiastic ardor joined in any undertaking
for the capture of Jefferson Davis and brought him to Washington?
There is not one who would not have done so. And so I was led on by
a sincere desire to assist the South in gaining her independence.
I had no hesitation in taking part in anything honorable that might
tend toward the accomplishment of that object. Such a thing as the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln I never heard spoken of by any of the
party. Never.
(2)
Just
before his death Louis
Weichmann
wrote an account of going with John Wilkes Booth to see Abraham
Lincoln make a speech in Washington
in 1865.
The
President was his usual stature and erect self. I had never seen Mr.
Lincoln up close and I knew he was a tall man however nothing could
have prepared me for the sight of him. A long shadow did he have.
And his arms, when at his sides, touched near his knees. Very professionally
he said that there would never be any suffrage based on differences
in the way people look. Upon this, Booth turned to the two of us and
said, “That means nigger citizenship. Now by God I’ll put
him through!”
(3)
Major Henry Rathbone, testimony at
the Military Tribunal investigating the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln (15th May, 1865)
When the
second scene of the third act was being performed, and while I was
intently observing the proceedings upon the stage, with my back toward
the door, I heard the discharge of a pistol behind me, and, looking
round, saw through the smoke a man between the door and the President.
The distance from the door to where the President sat was about four
feet. At the same time I heard the man shout some word, which I thought
was "Freedom!" I instantly sprang toward him and seized
him. He wrested himself from my grasp, and made a violent thrust at
my breast with a large knife. I parried the blow by striking it up,
and received a wound several inches deep in my left arm, below the
elbow and the shoulder. The orifice of the wound was about an inch
and a half in length, and extended upward toward the shoulder several
inches. The man rushed to the front of the box, and I endeavored to
seize him again, but only caught his clothes as he was leaping over
the railing of the box.
(4)
Joseph Stewart was a member of the audience who attempted to capture
