The Play that Shot LINCOLN By Ed Sams YELLOW TULIP PRESS WWW.CURIOUSCHAPBOOKS.COM Copyright 2008 by Ed Sams All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review. Nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher. Published by Yellow Tulip Press PO Box 211 Ben Lomond, CA 95005 www.curiouschapbooks.com America’s Cousin Our American Cousin is a play everyone has heard of but nobody has seen. Once the toast of two continents, the British comedy played to packed houses for years from 1858 to 1865 until that bloody night on April 14, 1865, when John Wilkes Booth made his impromptu appearance on stage during the third act. The matinee idol and national celebrity Booth brought down the house by firing two shots from a lady’s derringer into the back of the head of President Abraham John Wilkes Booth Lincoln. Though the Presidential box hung nearly twelve feet above the stage, Booth at- tempted on a melodramatic leap, and “in his long leap to the stage...the assassin caught his foot in the Treasury Guard flag...and broke his leg” (Redway & Bracken 103). John Wilkes Booth managed to make a successful exit off stage, but his fellow Thespians were not so lucky. Harry Hawk, who played Asa Tren- chard, the American cousin, was still on stage when Booth leapt from the Presidential box. It was he who heard and reported Booth’s last line—Sic Semper Tyrannus. It was Booth’s gun he who also hid in the back alleys 1 The Play that Shot Lincoln Ed Sams of Washington that rainy night, afraid to return to his hotel after angry mobs threat- ened to burn down Ford’s Theater. Laura Keene, the producer and star of Our American Cousin, was a friend of Mrs. Lin- coln. Her cheeks, her hands, her clothes were spattered with the great man’s blood as she cared for him until the doctors ar- rived (Kaufman 17), yet she soon faced im- prisonment for her alleged participation in Laura Keene the assassination conspiracy (238). No actor was safe after Booth’s treachery; all were suspected of collusion. Amer- ica’s premier Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth, immedi- ately retired from the stage after he learned of his baby brother’s crime. Junius Brutus Booth, another brother, closed down his two-week engage- The brothers Booth (from left): John, ment at the Pike Opera House Edwin, and Junius when he was told “ that his life would not be worth a farthing should he be seen on the streets” (Tarbell 248). 2 Ed Sams The Play that Shot Lincoln The production of Our American Cousin was infested with the Booths. John Sleeper Clarke, John Wilkes Booth’s brother-in-law, pirated a bootleg produc- tion of Our American Cousin to compete with Laura Keene’s show. Edwin Booth spread rumors about Keene’s troubled marriage, and John Wilkes Booth was forever skulking about Ford’s Theater where he collected his mail. Since its disastrous run at Ford’s Theater in 1865, only three subsequent produc- tions of Our American Cousin have been recorded: January 27, 1908; May 18, 1908; and November 29, 1915 (IBDB). Perhaps the most famous play that no one has even seen, Our American Cousin persists in our national memory through its notoriety as the play that shot Lincoln. The comedy was an Englishman’s view of Americans, and Americans viewing the play liked how they saw themselves. Essentially a farce, it has a melodra- matic plot in which the wily solicitor Coyle (rhymes with Coil) embezzles Sir Edward’s fortune and then threatens to marry his daughter Florence. Intruding upon his machinations is Florence’s American cousin, Asa Trenchard, straight from the backwoods of Vermont. He is obviously an American hillbilly who an- nounces himself as “about the tallest gunner, the slickest dancer, and generally the loudest critter in the state” (Act 1). Though surrounded by the finest beauties of London’s season, Asa falls in love instead with his disinherited cousin, Mary Meredith, who works as a milkmaid on Sir Edward’s estate. He tells Florence, “But she, she can milk cows, set up the butter, make cheese, and, darn me, if them ain't what I call raal downright feminine” (Act II). Asa’s country ways help him foil the larcenous Coyle before he renounces the Trenchard fortune in favor of Mary Meredith, only to be rewarded with her hand in marriage at the play’s end. 3 The Play that Shot Lincoln Ed Sams Unfortunately, Booth’s untimely appearance in the middle of the third act spoiled the happy ending. The evening’s performance had been planned as a benefit for Mrs. Lincoln’s friend, the actress Laura Keene, who would play her role as Florence Trenchard for the last time that night. However, the production that evening was also planned as an elaborate compliment to President Lincoln. Lee had surrendered to Grant on April 9, five days before, and never was the President more popular. Upon news of the President’s attendance at that night’s performance, 75-cent tickets were being scalped for $2.50 each (Donald 595). There was a tune composed for the evening’s festivities. “‘Honor to our Sol- diers,’ a new patriotic song by H. B. Phillips with music by Professor W. With- ers, Jr., was announced to be sung by the entire company to do honor to Lieutenant General Grant and President Lincoln and Lady” (Sandburg 261). The Presidential box at Ford’s Theater was furnished with a rocking chair for the President’s personal use, and the perennial portrait of George Washington that ornamented its balcony was festooned with flags. Members of the cast were also on the ready with comic ad-libs as compliments to the President. When warned of a draft Lord Dundreary replies, “You are mistaken. The draft has already been stopped by order of the President” (Donald 595). All the accolades served then as a startling contrast to the treatment that Abra- ham Lincoln had received from Washington during his tenure as President. Ridiculed as a country Ford’s Theater 4 Ed Sams The Play that Shot Lincoln bumpkin without the dignity or polish to represent a great nation, Lincoln was lampooned in public and pilloried in the press. Threatening letters had been col- lected at the White House since 1860, so many that by 1864 they were pretty much ignored. As Lincoln once put it, “There is nothing like getting used to things” (Donald 547-48). The theater proved a place of refuge for the great man who in the darkened audi- torium was no longer under the spotlight. The night of the performance he was remembered to have said that he wanted to have a laugh at “cousin.” In many ways, Lincoln was our American cousin himself, straight from the backwoods of Illinois. “All his life he said, ‘sot’ for sat, ‘thar’ for there, ‘kin’ for can, ‘airth’ for earth, ‘heered’ for heard and ‘one of ‘em’ for one of them” (Oates 39-40). He filled his White House with a barn yard of animals—ponies, kittens, white rabbits, a turkey, a pet goat (which slept in Tad Lincoln’s bed), and a dog named Jip which curled up in Lincoln’s lap at meals”—ushers were forever chasing animals through the mansion (287). In Act III, when Mary Meredith speaks to Asa Trenchard about his sisters Debby and Nan, no doubt Lincoln was reminded of his own sister Sarah or his stepsis- ters, Matilda and Elizabeth. Mary Meredith’s description of the Trenchards’ Ver- mont cabin was where “after supper the lads and lasses go to a corn husking” (Act 111) like Abe Lincoln’s own boyhood at Knob Creek Farm in Hodgeville, Kentucky, with its “church meetings, corn shuckings, and log-rollings” (Redway and Brockner 29). 5 The Play that Shot Lincoln Ed Sams In Act III, Asa declares his love for Mary Meredith, with a startling proposal: I've seen the bears at play with their cubs in the moonlight, the glistening teeth, that would tear the hunter, was harmless to them; the big strong claws that would peel a man's head, as a knife would a pumpkin, was as soft for them as velvet cushions, and that's what I'll be with you, my own little wife. The reference to bears may seem no more than another example of Asa Tren- chard’s hyperbole except for the real danger bears still posed in rural America. As a boy, Lincoln wrote this verse in 1836 commemorating his home at Pigeon Creek Cabin in Rockport, Indiana, where Nancy Hanks died: When first my father settled here ‘Twas then the frontier line; The panther’s scream filled night with fear And bears preyed on the swine” (Redway & Bracken 33) Earlier in Act I Florence Trenchard mistakes the terrain of Vermont when she pronounces her cousin Asa “an Apollo of the Prairie.” No doubt she was think- ing of another favorite son of the Prairie, Asa Trenchard’s American cousin, Abraham Lincoln. 6 For the Whole Story, Order “The Play that Shot Lincoln” at www.curiouschapbooks.com.