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Myth and the Lincoln Assassination: Did John Wilkes Booth Escape? Thomas Turner Bridgewater State College, [email protected]

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Myth and the Lincoln Assassination: Did John Wilkes Booth Escape? Thomas Turner Bridgewater State College, Thomas.Turner@Bridgew.Edu Bridgewater Review Volume 1 | Issue 1 Article 5 May-1982 Myth and the Lincoln Assassination: Did John Wilkes Booth Escape? Thomas Turner Bridgewater State College, [email protected] Recommended Citation Turner, Thomas (1982). Myth and the Lincoln Assassination: Did John Wilkes Booth Escape?. Bridgewater Review, 1(1), 5-7. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol1/iss1/5 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. • • • • The full resources of the government were thrown into the pursuit of the assassins. Booth was tracked down and killed in the barn of farmer Richard Garrett near Port Royal, Virginia, on April 26, 1865, while David Herold, who had joined him in flight, surrendered. The authorities began a round-up of Booth's alleged accomplices which led to the additional arrests of Payne, Atzerodt, John Wilkes Booth Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, and Samuel Arnold. Also arrested were Abraham Lincoln on April 10, 1865 . one 0/ the last portraits. Mrs. Mary Surratt at whose home the The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, conspirators had held meetings and portrayed as an innocent victim of like most American assassinations, is circumstances who, in aiding Booth whose son, John, was alleged to be one surrounded by myth and legend. medically, was only doing his duty. of the plotters, and Dr. Samuel Mudd, a Unfortunately, there have been so many While the assassination produced some conspiracy theories created over a Maryland doctor who had set Booth's broken leg. legitimate controversies about the trying hundred-year period that it is now very of civilians by the military and the actions difficult to separate fact from fiction. A military commission was assembled of the government in apprehending the It is not always readily apparent why to try the conspirators. A military court assassins, it is where the legitimate there should exist so many for civilians was controversial in 1865 and controversies end that the myth begins. misconceptions concerning Lincoln's has been a source of controversy since. One of the first myths, although a natural death since the events themselves appear However, most people looked upon the one, was the public's belief that the South to be rather simple. John Wilkes Booth, a court as an investigative body which was behind the murder. Jefferson Davis well-known actor and Southern could unravel all of the assassination was accused of masterminding Lincoln's sympathizer, had assembled a group of events. After a lengthy trial, Herold, death, but the charge was later dropped. conspirators with the intention of Payne, Atzerodt, and Mrs. Surratt were While this idea of Southern involvement kidnapping the President and exchanging found guilty and executed. The court was erroneous, it is easy to understand him for Confederate prisoners held in sentenced Spangler, O'Laughlin, Arnold its contemporary acceptance at the end Northern prison camps. However, and Mudd to prison after deciding that of the Civil War which was one of the Booth's accomplices were a group of while they might have been involved in most traumatic and divisive events in our misfits who were not up to the task. After the kidnapping plot their roles in the history. murder did not seem so apparent. an abortive attempt in March, 1865, Gradually, the emphasis began to shift which failed because Lincoln was not in The cases of Mrs. Surratt and Dr. so that by 1867 hints were raised that his carriage as anticipated, the group Mudd caused great dispute. Mrs. Surratt President Johnson might have been disbanded. On Good Friday, April 14, was the first woman hanged by the behind Lincoln's murder. Johnson's 1865, with the South having surrendered, Federal Government. Furthermore, it was political enemies who were then trying to Booth, by now determined to kill Lincoln, later revealed that the court had impeach him portrayed Johnson as shot and mortally wounded the President recommended that her sentence be profiting from the President's death by as he attended a play at Ford's Theatre. commuted to life imprisonment, although gaining power himself. Louis Payne, who had been enlisted by President Johnson may not have been Booth in the kidnapping scheme, made aware of the plea when he signed When this view proved to be untenable assaulted and seriously wounded the death sentence. The fact that her son, a new theme appeared which was to grow Secretary of State William Seward, while John, was found guilty when tried before and became embellished over the years. another accomplice, George Atzerodt, a civil" court jury during 1867 has also At first it was argued that Secretary of assigned to kill Vice President Andrew caused many historians to argue for her War, Edwin M. Stanton, and the Radical Johnson, lost his nerve. innocence. Similarly, Dr. Mudd has been Republicans hated Lincoln's lenient 5 policies toward the South and took Wounded, Booth is dragged from the burning Garrell barn to die. advantage of his death to institute a reign of terror and substitute their own harsh Reconstruction program. This developed into charges that Stanton and the head of the National Detective Police, Lafayette Baker, along with other Radicals, had plotted Lincoln's death so that they might carry out their plans. The military trial was seen as a means of insuring silence and as a way to execute Booth's accomplices before they could make embarassing statements or tell what they knew. Interestingly, one of the more persistent myths that has grown out of these allegations is the one that John Wilkes Q. Booth did not die in Garrett's barn, but "o Q. that someone else was killed in his place. ~ It has been charged that government z" officials were aware that Booth was alive ~ but covered up the fact to shield their ~" own participation in Lincoln's murder. ~ Rumors of Booth's escape began almost simultaneously with his reported death. Booth's remains were buried unceremoniously on the grounds of the United States Arsenal. But when the government sought to mislead the public by suggesting the body of Booth was dumped into the Potomac, rumors began been behind his plot to kill Lincoln and Booth's and a fellow member of a that the government had mistakenly killed Southern secret society, had adopted the to develop that the government resorted boy. to secrecy and that the body in question a man named Rudy or Robey and not was not that of Lincoln's assassin. In Booth. A recent work that has tried to tie all 1867, a certain James Campbell wrote a Bates and St. Helen then parted these threads together is the 1977 book letter to the New York Times stating that company but this would not be the last and movie The Lincoln Conspiracy. The while he was in Calcutta, India, he had time their paths would cross. In 1903, an authors claim to have discovered heard William Tolbert, who had sailed on itinerant sign painter named David E. important new manuscripts, including the Confederate raider, Shenandoah, George commited suicide in Enid, missing pages of Booth's diary, that wager 500 pounds that in six months time Oklahoma. The newspapers reported that conclusively prove that Booth survived he would prove that Booth was still alive George had been making statements Garrett's barn. Booth supposedly was and in good health. He wondered why a before his death that he was John Wilkes intimately involved with several groups, man would wager so much money if the Booth. When Bates hastened to Enid, he including Maryland planters, northern story was not true. In August of the same identified the body as that of John St. businessmen, and radical Republicans to year the Louisville Courier Journal Helen and confirmed that this was indeed either kidnap or kill the President. carried a letter from Professor Frazer to Lincoln's assassin. However, since Booth proved to be inept in carrying out his mission, the task was Professor Maxwell claiming that Booth The undertaker allowed Bates to take was alive in the South Seas. assigned to J. W. Boyd, a former possession of the embalmed remains Confederate soldier who bore a striking Certain individuals who resembled which were kept in his garage for a resemblance to Booth. Booth were also later rumored to be the number of years before becoming an The egotistical Booth, however, was villian. Dr. James G. Armstrong, a attraction in traveling carnival shows! not a man to be deterred so easily, and preacher from Richmond, Virginia, and a From time to time the mummy was before Boyd could act, Booth murdered mysterious Mr. Sinclair of Chattanooga, subjected to probing, such as with x-rays, the President. Frightened government Tennessee, were believed by many people in an attempt to prove conclusively officials who knew that Booth, if to be the assassin. Reverend Armstrong whether the body was Booth's. Pictorial captured, could reveal their own apparently enjoyed the publicity and did and popular magazines obligingly involvement in the murder, decided that little to dissuade people from their belief. publicized this scientific investigation. Booth must be hunted down and killed. J. While such rumors might have Another book along these same lines W. Boyd, who knew the countryside well, eventually died out, several books was This One Mad Act, by Izola along with David Herold, who was appeared which kept the myth alive. Forrester, only one of the many self­ arrested because of his association with Lawyer Finis L. Bates wrote The Escape styled widows, children, or grandchildren Booth in the kidnapping scheme, were and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth in of John Wilkes Booth.
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