John and Booth

A biography of John Wilkes Booth.

By Dylan S.

His heart was beating hard as he entered the dress circle. He had done it over and over again in his mind, but this was different. He could feel himself sweating as he grasped the Derringer in his pocket. His timing was perfect. The crowd was overboiled in laughter. He ran to the presidential box and strode through the curtains. BAM! BAM! The Derringer yelled. He held off a soldier with a knife and jumped to the stage, yelling,”Sic Sempter Tyrannis!”, and ran off.

Then Mr. Booth virtually disappears from popular history.

A few know he was an actor. Some know he died two weeks later. But other then that, most people can't tell you much more.

However, I believe that should not be the basis of a biography. I think too many people simply place Mr. Booth as a bad guy. Many times people put people like assassins as simply evil. But that is not the way to judge people. Every criminal has a motive. Jesse James wouldn't of robbed banks if there was nothing in it for Jesse James. This puzzled me about Booth. Why would a twenty - seven year old northerner with a promising acting career throw it all away? This is what I wanted to find out and this piece is a overview of the answer.

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Junius Brutus Booth,Sr. left England a great tragedy actor, one of the best in his class. He arrived in America in 1821. He continued his legacy in America, bearing ten children.

Some would marry famous actors. One would become one of the greatest actors of all time. One would become a successful business man. One would shoot the President of the United States.

John Wilkes Booth was born in 1838 near Baltimore, Maryland. He had dark hair and grew up to have a moustache. Many said his most striking features were his eyes. His elder brother, Edwin, was put in charge of raising John. Edwin would later comment on his eccentric behavior. John went to school with two men of note, John Suratt and David Herold, both party to the assassination plot.

At seventeen, John began acting. He started with small traveling companies and soon became a star, harvesting his egotism. However, he still was no match to his brother, Edwin, who is considered to be one of the best actors ever. For this reason, he was plagued with jealousy. At nineteen, John began his big theater performances in Philadelphia. He also studied acting there. Many experienced actors in John's company said he had no future. They said he was not confident enough. John soon moved to Richmond.There he was a crowd pleaser, a prominent actor. He became a star, so popular he was compared to his father (and resented it.)

John also became popular with the ladies. He eventually gained a fiancee', the lovely and much courted Lucy Hale, the daughter of a abolitionist senator. Other things happened over those years in Richmond. As the south embraced him, he started embracing southern ideals. He had entered a Virginia militia in 1859 only because he wanted to of see the execution of radical abolitionist John Brown. He then left the militia. When the civil war broke out, only his mother stopped him from going. He continued acting until 1864, where he went to western Pennsylvania to purse an oil business. John was impatient with the business and gave it to Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., his brother, a successful theater manager, before it had time to mature. John Wilkes Booth's life thus began a sharp downfall - one which would lead to John's demise.

He spent six months and six thousand dollars in Montreal, planning to capture President Lincoln. He would turn him over to the northern government for thousands of confederate P.O.Ws, possibly causing the war to fall into confederate hands. This was apparently funded by southern officials.

The conspiracy was a colorful one. It included David Herold and John Surratt, former classmates of Booth, Samuel Mudd, a doctor, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, Lewis Payne, Ned Spangler, George A. Atzerodt and Mary Surratt, John Surratt's mother.

On March of 1865, Booth failed to capture Lincoln as the President changed his plans. This discouraged Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin,Samuel Arnold and John Surratt, who refused to listen to anymore of Booth's plans. But Booth had yet another plan - and this time he would not fail.

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Even with the south losing the war, John did not give up hope. He planned to kill all the leaders of the union, plunging the government into confusion and giving time for the south to rebel again. On April 14th, 1865, Good Friday, Booth and the remnants of the conspiracy planned to kill William Seward, secretary of state, Vice-President Andrew Johnson and President Lincoln that night. All agreed - George Atzerodt halfly, uneasy with killing. Lewis Payne and David Herold seriously wounded Seward, Atzerodt nerved out of Johnson and what happened with Booth is history.

Lincoln's box in Ford theater was well decorated for him. He was sitting at a rocker up at the edge of the box. He was guarded by a Major Rathbone of the army. Booth came with a knife and a gun. He walked to the box, timing so the crowd would be laughing to hard to hear the shot. Booth then shot Lincoln in the head with a Derringer. Major Rathbone charged at him but Booth held him off with a knife. When Booth jumped to the stage, Rathbone threw him off balance so John snagged a flagpole and broke his leg on his way down. He yelled, “Sic Sempter Tyrannis (thus to all tyrants) and left the stage, riding on a horse prepared by Ned Spangler out of Washington. The last two weeks of John Wilkes Booth's life were spent in the swamp, two barns, a tavern and a Doctor's office.

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The escape route John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices took was sixty miles long - two weeks by horseback. The first stop was at midnight, the night of the assassination. The conspiracy stopped at the Surratt Tavern, hosted by a former conspiracy member, Mary Surratt. The men slept there and gained supplies - including two carbines. In effect, the widowed Surratt was hanged with the conspiracy.

The men trudged from there through Southern Maryland to the house of Dr. Mudd, another former conspiracy member. He did not recognize Booth because John was wearing fake whiskers and Mudd was used to late night patients. He set Booth's leg and harbored him for the night. Mudd gained a life sentence.

It was another day's journey for Booth's conspiracy's next stop - wealthy southern sympathizer Samuel Cox. There Booth gained many supplies and moved on to a site in the swamp where he stayed from April 16th to the twenty-first, possibly from malaria. He crossed the Potomac on April twenty-third. Booth spent the night of April twenty-fourth in the Lucas barn. He left quickly - the army was on to him. He reached the Garret barn on April 25th.

There the party split, Herold and Booth in the barn, and Atzerodt and Payne in the nearby Star Tavern. Booth spent another day and night at the barn. On April 27th, Booth woke to gunshot.

Federal troops found Booth. They soon set fire to the barn and started shooting. John Wilkes Booth's death is blurry. He was either shot or shot himself for the honor. Some even think he escaped, but there is little evidence supporting that. His last words were, “Tell my mother I died for my country” The rest of the death conspiracy plus Mary Surratt were hanged on July 7th, 1865. Ned Spangler was given six years. The rest of the capture conspiracy gained a life sentence except John Surratt, who became a papal guard.

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It is obvious the answer to the question I stated at the beginning of this biography. But still one question remains. Did he do it for his country or the monstrous ego of the man who was Booth?

Bibliography

The Surratt house museum website (www.clark.net/pub/surratt/su_bert.htm)

The Ford's theater national historic site website (www.fordstheater.com)

www.infoplease.com

The President Has Been Shot!

by Rebecca C. Jones.

Also, special thanks to the Yahoo search engine, which I would of been lost without.