Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth — The Murderer (2)

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_."

To wait longer would be a crime.

Oh!

what was the crime _not_ to wait!

Had he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his memory might have been hidden.

The end had come when he appeared to make of benignant victory a quenchless revenge.

One more selection from his apostrophe will do.

It suggests the manner of his death: "They say that the South has found _that_ 'last ditch' which the North have so long derided.

Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same 'ditch' by her side."

The swamp near which he died may be called, without unseemly pun--a truth, not a _bon mot_--the last ditch of the rebellion.

None of the printed pictures that I have seen do justice to Booth.

Some of the _cartes de visite_ get him very nearly.

He had one of the finest vital heads I have ever seen.

In fact, he was one of the best exponents of vital beauty I have ever met.

By this I refer to physical beauty in the Medician sense--health, shapeliness, power in beautiful poise, and seemingly more powerful in repose than in energy.

His hands and feet were sizable, not small, and his legs were stout and muscular, but inclined to bow like his father's. From the waist up he was a perfect man; his chest being full and broad, his shoulders gently sloping, and his arms as white as alabaster, but hard as marble.

Over these, upon a neck which was its proper column, rose the cornice of a fine Doric face, spare at the jaws and not anywhere over-ripe, but seamed with a nose of Roman model, the only relic of his half-Jewish parentage, which gave decision to the thoughtfully stern sweep of two direct, dark eyes, meaning to woman snare, and to man a search warrant, while the lofty square forehead and square brows were crowned with a weight of curling jetty hair, like a rich Corinthian capital.

His profile was eagleish, and afar his countenance was haughty.

He seemed throat full of introspections, ambitious self-examinings, eye-strides into the future, as if it withheld him something to which he had a right.

I have since wondered whether this moody demeanor did not come of a guilty spirit, but all the Booths look so.

Wilkes spoke to me in Washington for the first time three weeks before the murder.

His address was winning as a girl's, rising in effect not from what he said, but from how he said it.

It was magnetic, and I can describe it therefore by its effects alone.

I seemed, when he had spoken, to lean toward this man.

His attitude spoke to me; with as easy familiarity as I ever observed he drew rear and conversed.

The talk was on so trite things that it did not lie a second in the head, but when I left him it was with the feeling that a most agreeable fellow had passed by.

The next time the name of Wilkes Booth recurred to me was like the pistol shot he had fired.

The right hand I had shaken murdered the father of the country.

Booth was not graceful with his feet, although his ordinary walk was pleasant enough.

But his arms were put to artistic uses; not the baser ones like boxing, but all sorts of fencing, manual practice, and the handling of weapons.

In his dress, he was neat without being particular.

Almost any clothes could fit him; but he had nothing of the exquisite about him; his neckties and all such matters were good without being gaudy.

Nature had done much for him.

In this beautiful palace an outlaw had builded his fire, and slept, and plotted, and dreamed.

I have heard it said that Booth frequently cut his adversaries upon the stage in sheer wantonness or bloodthirstiness.

This is a mistake, and is attributable to his father, the elder Booth, who had the madness of confounding himself with the character.

Wilkes was too good a fencer to make ugly gashes; his pride was his skill, not his awkwardness.

Once he was playing with John McCullough in the last act of "Richard."

They were fighting desperately.

Suddenly the cross-piece on the hilt of McCullough's sword flew off and cut the owner deeply in the forehead.

Blood ran down McCullough's face, though they continued to struggle, and while, ostensibly, Booth was imitating a demon, he said in a half whisper: "Good God, John, did I hurt you?"

And when they went off the stage, Booth was white with fear that he had gashed his friend.

As an actor, Booth was too energetic to be correct; his conception of Richard was vivid and original, one of the best that we have had, and he came nearer his father's rendering of the last act than any body we have had.

His combat scene was terrific.

The statement that his voice had failed has no valid foundation; it was as good when he challenged the cavalry-men to combat as in the best of his Thespian successes.

In all acting that required delicate characterization, refined conception or carefulness, Booth was at sea.

But in strong physical parts, requiring fair reading and an abundance of spring and tension, he was much finer than hearsay would have us believe.

His _Romeo_ was described a short time ago by the Washington _Intelligencer_ as the most satisfactory of all renderings of that fine character.

He played the _Corsican Brothers_ three weeks on a run in Boston.

He played _Pescara_ at Ford's Theater--his last mock part in this world--on to-morrow (Saturday) night, six weeks ago.

He was fond of learning and reciting fugitive poems.

His favorite piece was "The Beautiful Snow" comparing it to a lost purity.

He has been known by gentlemen in this city to recite this poem with fine effect, and cry all the while.

This was on the principle of "guilty people sitting at a play."

His pocket-book was generally full of little selections picked up at random, and he had considerable delicacy of appreciation.

On the morning of the murder, Booth breakfasted with Miss Carrie Bean, the daughter of a merchant, and a very respectable young lady, at the National Hall.

He arose from the table at, say eleven o'clock.

During the breakfast, those who watched him say that he was lively, piquant and self-possessed as ever in his life.

That night the horrible crime thrilled the land.

A period of crippled flight succeeded.

Living in swamps, upon trembling hospitality, upon hopes which sank as he leaned upon them.

Booth passed the nights in perilous route or broken sleep, and in the end went down like a bravo, but in the eyes of all who read his history, commanding no respect for his valor, charity for his motive, or sympathy for his sin.

The closing scenes of these terrible days are reserved for a second paper.

Much matter that should have gone into this is retained for the present.

LETTER IV.

THE ASSASSIN'S DEATH.