illustrious murdered is on the way to the shrine, the stark corpse of
his murderer lies in the shambles. The one died quietly, like his life;
the other died fighting, like his crime. And now that over all of them
the darkness and the dew have descended, the populace, which may not be
all satisfied, may perhaps be calmed. No triumphal mourning can add to
the President's glory; no further execration can disturb the assassin's
slumbers. They have gone for what they were into history, into
tradition, into the hereafter both of men and spirits; and what they
were may be in part concluded. Mr. Lincoln's career passes, in extent,
gravity, and eventful association, the province of newspaper biography;
but Booth is the hero of a single deed, and the delineation of him may
begin and be exhausted in a single article. I have been at pains, since
the day of the President's obsequies, to collect all valid information
on the subject of his assassin, in anticipation of the latter's capture
and death. Now that these have been consummated, I shall print this
biography.
The elder Booth in every land was a sojourner, as all his fathers were.
Of Hebrew descent, and by a line of actors, he united in himself that
strong Jewish physiognomy which, in its nobler phases, makes all that is
dark and beautiful, and the combined vagrancy of all men of genius and
all men of the stage. Fitful, powerful, passionate, his life was a
succession of vices and triumphs. He mastered the intricate characters
of dramatic literature by intuition, rather than by study, and produced
them with a vigor and vividness which almost passed the depicting of
real life. The stage on which he raved and fought became as historic as
the actual decks of battle ships, and his small and brawny figure comes
down to us in those paroxysms of delirious art, like that of _Harold, or
Richard, or Prince Rupert_. He drank to excess, was profligate but not
generous, required but not reliable, and licentious to the bounds of
cruelty. He threw off the wife of his bosom to fly from England with a
flower-girl, and, settling in Baltimore, dwelt with his younger
companion, and brought up many children, while his first-possessed went
down to a drunken and broken-hearted death. He himself, wandering
westward, died on the way, errant and feverish, even in the closing
moments. His widow, too conscious of her predecessor's wrongs, and often
taunted with them, lived apart, frugal and discreet, and brought her six
children up to honorable maturity. These were Junius Brutus, Edwin
Forrest (though he drops the Forrest for professional considerations),
John Wilkes, Joseph, and the girls. All of the boys are known to more or
less of fame; none of them in his art has reached the renown of the
father; but one has sent his name as far as that of the great playwright
to whom they were pupils; wherever Shakspeare is quoted, John Wilkes
Booth will be named, and infamously, like that Hubert in "King John,"
who would have murdered the gentle Prince Arthur.
It may not be a digression here to ask what has become of the children
of the weird genius I have sketched above. Mrs. Booth, against whom
calumny has had no word to say, now resides with her daughters in
Nineteenth street, New-York. John S. Clarke dwells in princely style in
Philadelphia, with the daughter whom he married; he is the business
partner of Edwin Booth, and they are likely to become as powerful
managers as they have been successful "stars." Edwin Booth, who is said
to have the most perfect physical head in America, and whom the ladies
call the beau ideal of the melancholy Dane, dwells also on Nineteenth
street. He has acquired a fortune, and is, without doubt, a frankly
loyal gentleman. He could not well be otherwise from his membership in
the Century Club where literature and loyalty, are never dissolved.
Correct and pleasing without being powerful or brilliant, he has led a
plain and appreciated career, and latterly, to his honor, has been
awakening among dramatic authors some emulation by offering handsome
compensations for original plays. Junius Brutus Booth, the oldest of
them all, most resembles in feature his wild and wayward father; he is
not as good an actor as was Wilkes, and kept in the West, that border
civilization of the drama; he now lies, on a serious charge of
complicity, in Capitol Hill jail. Joseph Booth tried the stage as an
utility actor and promptly failed. The best part he ever had to play was
_Orson_ in the "Iron Chest," and his discomfiture was signal; then he
studied medicine but grew discouraged, and is now in California in an
office of some sort. A son of Booth by his first wife became a first
class lawyer in Boston. He never recognized the rest of the family.
Wilkes Booth, the third son, was shot dead on Wednesday for attempting
to escape from the consequences of murder. Such are the people to whom
one of the greatest actors of our time gave his name and lineaments. But
I have anticipated the story:
Although her family was large, it was not so hard sailing with Mrs.
Rosalie Booth as may be inferred. Her husband's gains had been variably
great, and they owned a farm of some value near Baltimore. The boys had
plain but not sufficient schooling, though by the time John Wilkes grew
up Edwin and Junius were making some little money and helping the
family. So Wilkes was sent to a better school than they, where he made
some eventful acquaintances. One of these won his admiration as much in
the playground as in subsequent life upon the field of battle; this was
Fitzhugh Lee, son of the great rebel chieftain. I have not heard that
Lee ever had any friendship for young Wilkes, but his port and name were
enough to excite a less ardent imagination--the son of a soldier already
great, and a descendant of Washington. Wilkes Booth has often spoken of
the memory of the young man, envied his success, and, perhaps, boasted
of more intimacy than he ever had. The exemplars of young Wilkes, it was
soon seen, were anything but literary. He hated school and pent-up life,
and loved the open air. He used to stroll off to fish, though that sort
of amusement was too sedentary for his nature, but went on fowling
jaunts with enthusiasm. In these latter he manifested that fine nerve,
and certain eye, which was the talk of all his associates; but his
greatest love was the stable; He learned to ride with his first pair of
boots, and hung around the grooms to beg permission to take the nags to
water. He grew in later life to be both an indurated and a graceful
horseman. Toward his mother and sisters he was affectionate without
being obedient. Of all the sons, Wilkes was the most headstrong
in-doors, and the most contented away from home. He had a fitful
gentleness which won him forgiveness, and of one of his sisters he was
particularly fond, but none had influence over him. He was seldom
contentious, but obstinately bent, and what he willed, to did in
silence, seeming to discard sympathy or confidence. As a boy he was
never bright, except in a boy's sense; that is, he could run and leap
well, fight when challenged, and generally fell in with the sentiment of
the crowd. He therefore made many companions, and his early days all
passed between Baltimore city and the adjacent farm.
I have heard it said as the only evidence of Booth's ferocity in those
early times that he was always shooting cats, and killed off almost the
entire breed in his neighbourhood. But on more than one occasion he ran
away from both school and home, and once made the trip of the Chesapeake
to the oyster fisheries without advising anybody of his family.
While yet very young, Wilkes Booth became an habitue at the theater. His
traditions and tastes were all in that direction. His blood was of the
stage, like that of the Keans, the Kembles, and the Wallacks. He would
not commence at the bottom of the ladder and climb from round to round,
nor take part in more than a few Thespian efforts. One night, however, a
young actor, who was to have a benefit and wished to fill the house,
resolved for the better purpose to give Wilkes a chance. He announced
that a son of the great Booth of tradition, would enact the part of
Richmond, and the announcement was enough. Before a crowded place, Booth
played so badly that he was hissed. Still holding to his gossamer hopes
and high conceit, Wilkes induced John S. Clarke, who was then addressing
his sister, to obtain him a position in the company of the Arch Street
Theater at Philadelphia.
For eight dollars a week, Wilkes Booth, at the age of twenty-two,
contracted with William Wheatley to play in any piece or part for which
he might be cast, and to appear every day at rehearsal. He had to play
the _Courier_ in Sheridan Knowles's "Wife" on his first night, with five
or ten little speeches to make; but such was his nervousness that he
blundered continually, and quite balked the piece. Soon afterward he
undertook the part of one of the Venetian comrades in Hugo's "Lucretia
Borgia," and was to have said in his turn--
"Madame, I am Petruchio Pandolfo;" instead of which he exclaimed:
"Madame, I am Pondolfio Pet--, Pedolfio Pat--, Pantuchio Ped--; damn it?
what am I?"
The audience roared, and Booth, though full of chagrin, was compelled to
laugh with them.
The very next night he was to play _Dawson_, an important part in
Moore's tragedy of "The Gamester." He had bought a new dress to wear on
this night, and made abundant preparation to do himself honor. He
therefore invited a lady whom he knew to visit the theater, and witness
his triumph. But at the instant of his appearance on the stage, the
audience, remembering the Petruchio Pandolfo of the previous night,
burst into laughter, hisses, and mock applause, so that he was struck
dumb, and stood rigid, with nothing whatever to say. Mr. John Dolman, to
whose _Stukely_ has played, was compelled, therefore, to strike _Dawson_
entirely out of the piece.
These occurrences nettled Booth, who protested that he studied
faithfully but that his want of confidence ruined him. Mr. Fredericks
the stage manager made constant complaints of Booth, who by the way, did
not play under his full name, but as Mr. J. Wilkes--and he bore the
general reputation of having no promise, and being a careless fellow. He
associated freely with such of the subordinate actors as he liked; but
being, through Clarke, then a rising favourite, of better connections,
might, had he chosen, advanced himself socially, if not artistically.
Clarke was to have a benefit one evening, and to enact, among other
things, a mock _Richard III_., to which he allowed Wilkes Booth to play
a real _Richmond_. On this occasion, for the first time, Booth showed
some energy, and obtain some applause. But, in general, he was stumbling
and worthless I myself remember, on three consecutive nights, hearing
him trip up and receive suppressed hisses. He lacked enterprise; other
young actors, instead of waiting to be given better parts, committed
them to memory, in the hope that their real interpreter might not come
to hand. Among these I recall John McCullough, who afterwards became
quite a celebrated actor. He was getting, if I correctly remember, only
six dollars a week, while Booth obtained eight. Yet Wilkes Booth seemed
too slow or indifferent to get on the weather side of such chances. He
still held the part of third walking gentleman, and the third is always
the first to be walked off in case of strait, as was Wilkes Booth. He
did not survive forty weeks engagement, nor make above three hundred
dollars in all that time. The Kellers arrived; they cut down the
company, and they dispensed with Wilkes Booth. He is remembered in
Philadelphia by his failure as in the world by his crime.
About this time a manager named Kunkle gave Booth a salary of twenty
dollars a week to go to the Richmond Theater. There he played a higher
order of parts, and played them better, Winning applauses from the easy
provincial cities, and taking, as everywhere the ladies by storm. I have
never wondered why many actors were strongly predisposed toward the
South. There, their social status is nine times as big as with us. The
hospitable, lounging, buzzing character of the southerner is entirely
consonant with the cosmopolitanism of the stage, and that easy
"hang-up-your-hatativeness," which is the rule and the demand in
Thespianship. We place actors outside of society, and execrate them
because they are there. The South took them into affable fellowship, and
was not ruined by it, but beloved by the fraternity. Booth played two
seasons in Richmond, and left in some esteem.
When the John Brown raid occured, Booth left the Richmond Theater for
the scene of strife in a picked company with which he had affiliated for
some time. From his connection with the militia on this occasion he was
wont to trace his fealty to Virginia. He was a non-commissioned officer,
and remained at Charleston till after the execution, visiting the old
pike man in jail, and his company was selected to form guard around the
scaffold when John Brown went, white-haired, to his account. There may
be in this a consolation for the canonizers of the first arm-bearer
between the sections, that one whose unit swelled the host to crush out
that brave old life, took from the scene inspiration enough to slay a
merciful President in his unsuspecting leisure. Booth never referred to
John Brown's death in bravado; possibly at that gallows began some such
terrible purpose as he afterward consummated.
It was close upon the beginning of the war when Booth resolved to
transform himself from a stock actor to a "star." As many will read this
who do not understand such distinctions, let me preface it by explaining
that a "star" is an actor who belongs to no one theater, but travels
from each to all, playing a few weeks at a time, and sustained in his
chief character by the regular or stock actors. A stock actor is a good
actor, and a poor fool. A star is an advertisement in tights, who grows
rich and corrupts the public taste. Booth was a star, and being so, had
an agent. The agent is a trumpeter who goes on before, writing the
impartial notices which you see in the editorial columns of country
papers and counting noses at the theater doors. Booth's agent was one
Matthew Canning, an exploded Philadelphia lawyer, who took to managing
by passing the bar, and J. Wilkes no longer, but our country's rising
tragedian. J. Wilkes Booth, opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in his
father's consecrated part of _Richard III_. It was very different work
between receiving eight dollars a week and getting half the gross
proceeds of every performance. Booth kept northward when his engagement
was done, playing in many cities such parts as _Romeo_, the _Corsican
Brothers_, and _Raphael_ in the "_Marble Heart_;" in all of these he
gained applause, and his journey eastward, ending in eastern cities like
Providence, Portland, and Boston was a long success, in part deserved.
In Boston he received especial commendation for his enactment of
_Richard_.
I have looked over this play, his best and favorite one, to see how
closely the career of the crookback he so often delineated resembled his
own.
How like that fearful night of _Richard_ on Bosworth field must have
been Booth's sleep in the barn at Port Royal, tortured by ghosts of
victims all repeating.
"When I was mortal my anointed body
By thee was punched full of deadly holes:
Think on the Tower and me! Despair and die!"
Or this, from some of Booth's female victims:
"Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!
I that was washed to death with fulsome wine;
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death:
To-morrow in the battle think on me; despair and die!"
These terrible conjurations must have recalled how aptly the scene as
often rehearsed by Booth, sword in hand, where, leaping from his bed, he
cries in horror:
"Give me another horse! bind up my wounds!
Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.
Oh! coward conscience how thou dost afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight!
Cold, flareful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself! there is none else by:
Is there a murderer here? No!--Yes!--I am!
Then fly,--what from myself?
* * * * *
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale.
And every tale condemns me for a villain!
Perjury, perjury in the highest degree:
Murder, stern murder in the direst degree:
All several sins, all used in each degree.
Throng to the bar, crying all, _Guilty! guilty!_"
By these starring engagments, Booth made incredible sums. His cashbook,
for one single season, showed earnings deposited in bank of twenty-two
odd thousand dollars. In New York he did not get a hearing, except at a
benefit or two: where he played parts not of his selection. In
Philadelphia his earlier failure predisposed the people to discard him,
and they did. But he had made enough, and resolved to invest his
winnings, The oil fever had just begun; he hired an agent, sent him to
the western districts and gave him discretionary power; his investments
all turned out profitable.
Booth died, as far as understood without debts. The day before the
murder he paid an old friend a hundred dollars which he had borrowed two
days previously. He banked at Jay Cook's in Washington, generally; but
turned most of his funds into stock and other matters. He gave eighty
dollars eight month's ago for a part investing with others in a piece of
western oil land. The certificate for this land he gave to his sister.
Just before he died his agent informed him that the share was worth
fifteen thousand dollars. Booth kept his accounts latterly with great
regularity, and was lavish as ever, but took note of all expenditures,
however irregular. He was one of those men whom the possession of money
seems to have energized; his life, so purposeless long before, grew by
good fortune to a strict computation with the world. Yet what availed so
sudden reformation, and of what use was the gaining of wealth, to throw
one's life so soon away, and leap from competence to hunted infamy.
The beauty of this man and his easy confidentiality, not familiar, but
marked by a mild and even dignity, made many women impassioned of him.
He was licentious as men, and particularly as actors go, but not a
seducer, so far as I can learn. I have traced one case in Philadelphia
where a young girl who had seen him on the stage became enamored of him.
She sent him bouquets, notes, photographs and all the accessories of an
intrigue. Booth, to whom such things were common, yielded to the girl's
importunities at last and gave her an interview. He was surprised to
find that so bold a correspondent was so young, so fresh, and so
beautiful. He told her therefore, in pity, the consequences of pursuing
him; that he entertained no affection for her, though a sufficient
desire, and that he was a man of the world to whom all women grew
fulsome in their turn.
"Go home," he said, "and beware of actors. They are to be seen, not to
be known."
The girl, yet more infatuated, persisted. Booth, who had no real virtue
except by scintillations, became what he had promised, and one more soul
went to the isles of Cyprus.
In Montgomery, if I do not mistake, Booth met the woman from whom he
received a stab which he carried all the rest of his days. She was an
actress, and he visited her. They assumed a relation creditable only in
_La Boheme_, and were as tender as love without esteem can ever be. But,
after a time, Booth wearied of her and offered to say "good by." She
refused--he treated her coldly; she pleaded--he passed her by.
Then, with a jealous woman's frenzy, she drew a knife upon him and
stabbed him in the neck, with the intent to kill him. Being muscular, he
quickly disarmed her, though he afterward suffered from the wound
poignantly.
Does it not bring a blush to our faces that a good, great man, like he
who has died--our President--should have met his fate from one so inured
to a life of ribaldry? Yet, only such an one could have been found to
murder Abraham Lincoln.
The women persecuted Booth more than he followed them. He was waylaid by
married women in every provincial town or city where he played. His face
was so youthful, yet so manly, and his movements so graceful and
excellent, that other than the coarse and errant placed themselves in
his way. After his celebrated Boston engagement, women of all ages and
degrees pressed in crowds before the Tremont House to see him depart.
Their motives were various, but whether curiosity or worse, exhibiting
plainly the deep influence which Booth had upon the sex. He could be
anywhere easy and gentlemanly, and it is a matter of wonder that with
the entry which he had to many well-stocked homes, he did not make
hospitality mourn and friendship find in his visit shame and ruin. I
have not space to go into the millionth catalogue of Booth's intrigues,
even if this journal permitted further elucidation of so banned a
subject. Most of his adherents of this class were, like Heine's Polish
virgins, and he was very popular with those dramatic ladies--few, I hope
and know, in their profession--to whom divorce courts are superfluous.
His last permanent acquaintance was one Ella Turner, of Richmond, who
loved him with all the impetuosity of that love which does not think,
and strove to die at the tidings of his crime and fight. Happy that even
such a woman did not die associated with John Wilkes Booth. Such
devotion to any other murderer would have earned some poet's tear. But
the daisies will not grow a whole rod from _his_ grave.
Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's
crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record
should have dared to die for fame? Victory would have been ashamed of
its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau.
I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year, on
first setting out in life, before getting into a transaction of the kind
specified. For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a
considerable sum of money, and it happily occurred just as he was to
quit the city. He had many quarrels and narrow escapes through his
license, a husband in Syracuse, N. Y., once followed him all the way to
Cleveland to avenge a domestic insult.
Booth's paper "To Whom it may Concern" was not his only attempt at
influential composition. He sometimes persuaded himself that he had
literary ability; but his orthography and pronunciation were worse than
his syntax. The paper deposited with J. S. Clarke was useful as showing
his power to entertain a deliberate purpose. It has one or two smart
passages in it--as this:
"Our once bright red stripes look like _bloody gashes_ on the face of
heaven."
In the passages following there is common sense and lunacy:
"I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as
this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make
me happy, where my profession _alone_, has gained me an income of _more
than_ twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my _great personal
ambition_ in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the
other hand, the South have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place
now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I
must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the
_former_ for the _latter_, besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so
dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion) seems insane;
but God is my judge."
Now, read the beginning of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were his
words of his coming infamy. If he expected so much for capturing the
President merely, what of our execration at slaying him?
"Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of
one thing I am sure, _the lasting condemnation_ of the North.
"I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression.
For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to
break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. _To wait longer
would be a crime_. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as
idle as my hopes. God's will be done. _I go to see and share the bitter
end_."