"Sic...Semper...Tyrannus!"
-Booth, seconds after shooting Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth was an assassin who murdered Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.
Background
Booth was born on April 26, 1838 in Bel Air, Maryland, the illegitimate son of British Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth and his mistress Mary Ann Holmes. Booth followed in his father's footsteps and became an actor. As a young boy, John Wilkes Booth was athletic and popular. He become skilled at horsemanship and fencing. Booth attended the Bel Air Academy, where the headmaster described Booth as "[n]ot deficient in intelligence, but disinclined to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered him". From 1850–1851, Booth attended the Milton Boarding School for Boys in Sparks, Maryland, which was run by Quakers. Later, he attended St. Timothy's Hall, an Episcopal military academy in Catonsville, Maryland when he was 13 years old. He left a year later after his father's death. While he was still attending the Milton Boarding School, a Gypsy fortune-teller read his palm and predicted a grim destiny for Booth, telling him that he would have a grand but short life, doomed to die young and "meeting a bad end". On August 14, 1855, in the supporting role of the Earl of Richmond in Richard III at Baltimore's Charles Street Theatre, Booth became an actor.
While Booth was starring in Albany, New York on April 12, 1861, a civil war broke out between the United States and the Confederate States of America. Booth was a quick supporter of the Confederacy, calling their cause "heroic". Local citizens were so enraged that they demanded him being banned from stage for making "treasonable statements". Albany's drama critics just gave him rave reviews. One called him a genius, praising his acting for "never fail[ing] to delight with his masterly impressions". On December 2, 1859, Booth attended the hanging of John Brown, executed for leading a raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virgina (now West Virginia). As an anti-abolitionist joined the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men traveling to Charles Town for Brown's hanging, preventing anyone from rescuing Brown from being hanged. After Civil War broke out, many pro-secession people of Maryland allied with the Confederacy. In response to this, President Abraham Lincoln made a writ of habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Baltimore and other areas of Maryland, imprisoning pro-secession Maryland political leaders and stationing Federal troops in Baltimore. Newspaper editorials and many Marylanders, including Booth, agreed with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's decision in Ex parte Merryman that Lincoln's actions were unconstitutional.
Planning, Assassinations, and Death
"I have begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence."
Lewis Powell.
In 1864, the Confederacy's chances of survival was becoming slim. Booth was angered by the thought of Abraham Lincoln being re-elected for President in the 1864 election. After U.S. General Ulysess S. Grant made the decision to stop the exchange of prisoners of war, Booth recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell, and John Surratt in a plot to abduct President Lincoln, deliver him to Confederate Army, and hold him hostage unless the Union agreed to release all Confederate POWs from Federal and military prisons. On March 17, 1865, however, Booth learned that President Lincoln would be attending a performance of the play Still Waters Run Deep at a hospital near Soldier's Home. Booth assembled his team on a stretch of road near the Soldier's Home in their attempt to abduct Lincoln en route to the hospital. However, their plan went astray as the president did not appear at the Soldier's Home. Booth later learned that Lincoln had changed his plans at the last moment, attending a reception and giving a speech at the National Hotel in Washington. Coincidentally, Booth was residing in the same hotel. On April 11, 1865, Booth was in the crowd outside the White House when Lincoln gave a speech from his window. Booth declared that it would be the last speech Lincoln would ever make in his life. On April 12, 1865, Booth heard that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to General Grant. Booth told Louis J. Weichmann that he was done with the stage and that the only play he wanted to perform in was Venice Preserv'd, which was about an assassination plot. With Lee's surrender and Union occupation for Richmond, abducting Lincoln was no longer an option, and his goals were changed to assassination.
George Atzerodt.
Booth and his conspirators made a plan to decapitate or severely cripple the Union government by assassinating its three head political leaders, President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. On April 14, 1865, Booth and his conspirators launched their attack. Booth successfully managed to mortally wound President Lincoln and also stabbed Major Henry Rathbone during his escape. Jumping off the balcony, he landed on the stage, breaking his ankle when one of his spurs got caught on a flag. Raising his bloodied knife, Booth yelled "Sic Semper Tyrannus!", Latin for "Thus Always to Tyrants". Some have speculated that he said "Sic Semper Tyrannus! The South is avenged!" George Atzerodt, the would-be assassin of Vice President Andrew Johnson, lost his nerve, got drunk, and left. Lewis Powell was assigned to assassinate the Seward. He came up the stairs, and attempted to shoot Frederick W. Seward, the Secretary of State's son, but the gun misfired. Bludgeoning the boy, Seward burst into Seward's room and stabbed him. Seward's splint was the only thing that prevented the blade from penetrating his jugular vein. Lincoln died early in the morning of April 15. Booth and all of his co-conspirators escaped, but were eventually hunted down and captured. Ten days after the assassination, Booth was tracked down at a barn in Port Royal, Virginia, and killed there by Sergeant Boston Corbett after engaging in a gunfight with Union troops. Eight conspirators were tried and four were executed. Mary Surratt, the civilian mother of John Surratt, who was still unaccounted for, was tried in a military trial and found guilty without reasoning; she was later executed.
Mary Surratt, the mother of John Surratt and an alleged co-conspirator.
While no one denies that Booth fired the shot that killed Lincoln, many conspiracy theorists have stated that Booth and his conspirators were unable to carry out the attack by themselves or didn't come up with the plan. Some have speculated that plot was orchestrated at the highest levels of the Confederate government. One possible motivation for the Confederate government ordering the assassination was retaliation for the Dahlgren Raid. In 1864, Union troops, led by Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, had attempted to burn Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and assassinate Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. The raid was stopped by Confederate calvary. After being shot and killed, Dahlgren was discovered with papers detailing the raid on his body by 13-year old scavenger. The papers eventually reached the desk of President Davis, who, along with the Southern public, was outraged. The chivalrous President Davis viewed kidnapping and assassination as breaches of the gentlemanly conduct of war. However, many have said that the Dahlgren Raid was the final straw, so he had Booth and his conspirators assassinate Lincoln as both an act of revenge for the Dahlgren Raid and a last ditch effort to save the Confederacy. There were also witness accounts of Booth running across the stage without being hindered by his leg injury, supporting a theory proposed by Michael Kauffman that Booth did not break his leg from the fall from the banister, instead from a fall off of his horse as he fled the theater.
Modus Operandi
Booth killed Lincoln with one shot to the head by a single-shot Philadelphia Derringer. He then assaulted Major Henry Rathbone with a knife, which he intended to use on General Ulysses Grant.
Known Victims
President Abraham Lincoln.
Major Henry Rathbone.
All of the following were attacked on the April 14, 1865 assassination plot
Personal Victims
- The Ford Theatre attack:
- Abraham Lincoln (16th President of the United States; shot in the back of the head at point-blank range; died the next morning)
- Major Henry Rathbone (attempted, but survived; was non-fatally stabbed in the left forearm)
- General Ulysses Grant (intended to stab)
- "Peanuts" Borroughs (incidental; struck in the forehead with the handle of a knife, then assaulted; survived)
Victims by Proxy
- The attack at the Seward home by Lewis Powell:
- Frederick Seward (attempted, but survived; attempted to shoot, then non-fatally bludgeoned)
- William Seward (U.S. Secretary of State; attempted, but survived; was non-fatally stabbed)
- Andrew Johnson (current U.S. Vice President to Lincoln; intended, but George Atzerodt failed to attack him)
On Criminal Minds
The first reference towards Booth in Criminal Minds was in the form of a photo that briefly appeared in the episode "L.D.S.K." alongside photos of other assassins as well as David Berkowitz. He was then mentioned in the episode "Somebody's Watching" as an example of a Type 1 assassin, meaning he was politically motivated.
Sources
- Wikipedia: