Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, PEOPLE, POLITICS & GOV'T, The Abolition of Slavery Movement, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, American slavery, black history, Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Beecher Stowe, social activism, Uncle Tom's Cabin, When People Were Things: Study Guide on November 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
A separate Study Guide is also available.
This study guide provides intelligent discussion questions for book clubs, history instruction, or private study
Posted in PEOPLE, tagged abolition of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, black history, Harriet Beecher Stowe, movement, narrative history, narrative nonfiction, new nonfiction history book, The Civil War was about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, written like a novel on August 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Lisa Waller Rogers’ storytelling brilliance lies in her ability to humanize historical figures as multidimensional individuals grappling with moral complexities, personal struggles, and the weight of their times….This is historical writing at its finest….”-Emma Harris, 2024 Gilder Lehrman Maryland State American History Teacher of the Year
“As it has become increasingly difficult to engage young people with historical reading materials, this book’s story-telling style, pictures, and quoted primary sources presents itself as a possible solution. The abolitionist movement is brought to life by Ms. Rogers in a way that both moves and inspires. Students of American history would benefit from more of these in-depth examinations.”
-Stephanie Meek, 2024 Gilder Lehrman Alaska State History Teacher of the Year
Why This Book Works
What makes this book stand out is how approachable it feels. Rogers writes with clarity, balancing the weight of history with storytelling that keeps the reader turning pages. She doesn’t just present dates and speeches; she brings to life the emotions, debates, and struggles that defined the era. It’s the kind of history book that can appeal to both students just learning about the Civil War and seasoned readers who want to see the subject from a new angle. The pacing is steady, and Rogers has a knack for making historical figures feel real and relatable, rather than distant icons on a pedestal.
When People Were Things: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation
By Rogers, Lisa Waller
“This intimate epic surveys, with novelistic flair, the lives of men and women, free and enslaved, famous and forgotten, who dared to stand up against slavery in the United States in the years leading up to the Civil War, often at the risk of their own lives. In 100 brisk but rich chapters, Rogers strives to put readers into the shoes of her principal subjects, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Abraham Lincoln, but also a host of abolitionists, formerly enslaved people, and more, in the fractious years between Stowe’s birth in 1811 and Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation at the dawn of 1863—Stowe, Rogers notes with significant narrative and moral power, did not doubt that the president would measure up to his moment.
“Between those events, Rogers dramatizes key moments from myriad lives (among them Theodore Weld, Sojourner Truth, August Wattles, Charles Sumner, Marius Robinson, Paul Edmonson, Harriet Tubman, and many more). The storytelling is inviting and detailed, brought to life with judicious quotes and an eye toward still-pressing themes: mob violence, as decried by both young Lincoln and Stowe; the “revolutionary concept” that women “could change society”; the courage of abolitionist truth-tellers; the “monstrous moral wrong” of slavery; and a Southern-controlled Congress’s anti-democratic efforts to silence abolitionists.
“The subject matter is sweeping, the page count daunting, and the telling at times revelatory, especially when Rogers captures how life felt—and how her cast’s convictions were sharpened—as the nation came to a fierce boil. At times, though, the novelistic approach works against narrative momentum and contextualization, with chapters and sections, especially in the first half, opening with breezily precise bits of declarative scene-setting about mundane happenings that readers must trust will eventually gain significance. The choice to weave in-depth biographical accounts of Stowe’s family and Lincoln’s marriage—while mostly leaving the content and wildly popular theatrical adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin unexamined—leaves readers to seek that context elsewhere.
“Takeaway: Intimate, epic history of Stowe, Lincoln, and the enslaved as the nation came to a boil.
“Comparable Titles: Joan D. Hedrick’s Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, Stanley Harrold’s American Abolitionism.
“Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A”
TITLE INFORMATION
WHEN PEOPLE WERE THINGS
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation
Lisa Waller Rogers
Barrel Cactus Press (662 pp.)
$9.99 e-book, $19.99 paperback, $36.99 hardcover ISBN: 9798999409621
September 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
“Rogers offers a scenic walk through a vivid, harrowing, and heartbreaking history of the abolitionist movement.
“The author delivers exceptional research and fresh perspectives as she dives into the biographies of President Abraham Lincoln and author Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as the greater history of the abolitionist movement, as they all relate to the creation and execution of the Emancipation Proclamation. It’s divided into eight chronological sections, from “Words (1775-1831)” to “Hope (1862-1863).” These are, in many ways, thematic phases, involving a list of individuals that’s quite extensive, but the author effectively shows how they all played key roles, including radical abolitionist John Brown, presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas, activist and writer Frederick Douglass, journalist William Lloyd Garrison, public speakers Sarah and Angelina Grimké, social reformer Lucretia Mott, Secretary of State William Henry Seward, and formerly enslaved activists Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Their backgrounds and actions weave through major events that preceded the Civil War, which include the Panic of 1837, the Nat Turner rebellion, the Dred Scott vs.Sandford case, and the establishment of the Underground Railroad. Of course, the publication of Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) became an ‘abolitionist manifesto, exposing slavery for the cruel and unjust institution it was,’ and, according to Lincoln, the main event that led to the Proclamation. Throughout all the various, detailed sections, the reader comes to understand how Lincoln was influenced by many others in his decision to champion the freeing of enslaved people, and they will gain a greater understanding of his declaration, on January 1, 1863, when he signed the Proclamation and stated, ‘If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.’
“A raw and emotional look at the sacrifices made by those who gave all to end slavery.
“our verdict √ GET IT”
“In When People Were Things, Lisa Waller Rogers gives us a magisterial treatment of the anti-slavery movement in America and its key players from roughly 1830 to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The book is enlivened by descriptions of such bloody events as the slave insurrection led by Nat Turner, the murder spree of John Brown and his followers, and the brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor by a South Carolina congressman….Highly recommended.”-John Oller, author of American Queen, The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague
“Readers may be surprised at how much humanity, wit and warmth runs through When People Were Things. Rogers’ vivid writing features real people who, whatever their failings and foibles, had moral courage and used it.”-Nancy Koester, author of Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life, and We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth.
“This book provides a wide-ranging, sophisticated, and detailed account of the American antislavery movement from the late eighteenth century into the Civil War. Its discussions of the personal experiences and family relations of a variety of activists are especially interesting.”- Stanley Harrold, author of Lincoln and the Abolitionists
“In When People Were Things, Lisa Waller Rogers delivers a panoramic portrait of mid-19th century America struggling with what has often and aptly been termed the country’s “original sin,” the institution of chattel slavery that was explicitly enshrined in its founding document, the Constitution of 1787. The book consists of exactly 100 chapters, some very short, and 8 large parts, each covering a specific time period, giving chronological structure to the kaleidoscopic work.
“Through these 100 chapters, Rogers shows how slavery and the debate over slavery functioned at the everyday, ground level in multiple locations across the country, North and South. Along the way, we meet some of the familiar names in that debate, among them Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner and William Seward, William Lloyd Garrison, Nat Turner and John Brown. Rogers also introduces us to enslavers and enslaved, and many ordinary people whose daily lives were impacted by institutionalized slavery. Yet, she never loses sight of the dramatic big picture, as captured in her subtitle: Harriet Beecher Stowe working her way into the heart and mind of Abraham Lincoln. When the famously circumspect president issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Stowe was among many Americans who dared to think that their country might finally be on the path to expiating its original sin….”- Tom Peebles is a former Department of Justice attorney presently living in Paris. He reviews recent works on history and politics at https://tomsbooks.wordpress.com. and for other publications.
“When People Were Things offers a clear, well-structured exploration of the abolitionist movement, combining meticulous research with fresh historical insight. Rogers skillfully traces the connections between key individuals, major events, and political shifts that shaped the path to the Emancipation Proclamation. The result is an engaging and highly informative account of a pivotal era in U.S. history.”-Dr. Brittany Jones, assistant professor of Social Studies at the University of Buffalo and 2024 National Council for the Social Studies FASSE Research Award Winner
“When People Were Things sheds light on an often overlooked perspective on the debate of slavery in antebellum America, the anti-abolition/pro-slavery Northern sentiment. In the book, Rogers does an outstanding job of providing insight into the complexities of the slavery issue as it existed nationally and regionally. Exploring growing tensions between neighbors, families, and communities leading to open mob violence in the streets as the question of who is a person and what is a thing became an unavoidable question that had to be answered, When People Were Things is a must read for anyone looking for a well rounded look at this pivotal time in American history.”-Michelle Nystel, Founding Forward: Ambassador of Freedom, Iowa
When People were Things is an overview of the entire abolitionist movement from the 1830s up to the Civil War. Rogers highlights the main figures we are familiar with- Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe- while also bringing to life some of the fringe players that often get skipped over in the textbooks, such as James G. Birney. Whether you are a history buff or casual historian, there is something new for all in this book.” –Anthony Swierzbinski, 2024 Gilder-Lehrman Delaware State History Teacher of the Year
“When People Were Things by Lisa Rogers is an accessible, well researched examination of the long journey to end an injustice that long kept the United States from living up to its promise that “all men are created equal.
“Rogers’s story of the abolitionist movement provides readers the varying perspectives needed to truly “think like a historian” and understand the complexities of ending the brutal institution of slavery.
“The institution of slavery was so deeply rooted in the cultural, economic, political, and social foundations of American society, the abolitionist movement wasn’t just fighting the injustice of slavery, but trying to change the very heart of the country.
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“When People Were Things is a compelling, in-depth look at the anti-slavery movement in the three decades leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation, shedding light on the activists who fought to end one of the darkest chapters in American history. Author Lisa Waller Rogers is a masterful storyteller, bringing these courageous activists to life with nuance and humanity.
“Rogers not only explores prominent figures in the abolitionist movement but also highlights lesser-known enslaved people and women whose contributions were vital to the cause. I especially appreciated the inclusion of so many women’s voices, which added depth and breadth to the narrative.
“Told in short, highly readable chapters, this meticulously researched book doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of slavery. Yet, amid the horrors, Rogers emphasizes the resilience, love, and dignity of real people who endured and resisted unimaginable circumstances. Her attention to detail makes these historical figures feel fully dimensional and deeply human.
“When People Were Things helped me connect the dots between key historical moments and figures, deepening my understanding of this era of history. I highly recommend this powerful read.” -Lexy Faist Largent, Net Galley Book Reviewer https://www.netgalley.com/book/637451/review/974555
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“A well researched, well written, engaging and informative account of the abolitionist movement in the United States leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation. I was enraptured from the first chapter and could barely put it down. I learned so much that I didn’t know, especially about Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and the initial challenges of the Civil War. Highly recommended.”-Bruce Raterink – Net Galley, Top Reviewer https://www.netgalley.com/book/637451/review/21954
“In a time when some history is being threatened, When People Were Things is a book that should be read by everyone. Revelatory, filled with inhumanity and humanity, this epic history reveals how precious and precarious freedom and democracy can be.”– Johnny D. Boggs, editor, Western Writers of America’s Roundup Magazine
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“This was a well-written dive into not only the primary, but secondary, and tertiary players that drove the change(s) that resulted in the Emancipation Proclamation. Along the way I learned quite a few things that I had never known and enjoyed the way that these more unknown narratives helped drive the pace. “When People…” features short chapters that make it an easy read and keep you engaged in the evolving story, even if you know where it’s going. The disparate stories helped set the stage for the Civil War so well – placing you into the local mindsets and against the various forces on all sides, with particular attention paid to the female voices and their place. This attention to the female voice and their requisite struggle is at the heart of this book, imo. Highly recommended.”-William Largent, book reviewer https://www.netgalley.com/book/637451/review/927532
“This book was raw and real . It is shameful that humans treated other humans with such hatred. And now 2025 their [sic] are white racist, demonic white people who would jump at the chance of owning slaves today. Great author.” https://www.netgalley.com/book/637451/review/757272 Carolyn Harris – Reviewer
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, Julia Ward Howe, Julia Ward Howe, LITERATURE, EDUCATION, & REFORM, MUSIC & DANCE, PEOPLE, POLITICS & GOV'T, Samuel Gridley Howe, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, Julia Ward Howe, Samuel Gridley Howe, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the Civil War on February 23, 2025| 4 Comments »
Readers: Although Julia Ward Howe is not mentioned in my soon-to-be-published history, When People Were Things, her husband is. Although Julia’s Civil War activism is not included in the book, I want to give you a snippet view here.
Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
Portrait of Julia Ward Howe, by John Elliott, ca. 1925. National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons
In 1843, red-haired New York heiress Julia Ward married Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe who had founded the Perkins School for the Blind. She was 24; he was 42. Julia gave birth to their first child while they honeymooned in Europe. She called her husband, “Chev.” They had six children and lived in Boston and Rhode Island. Theirs was not a happy union. Chev disapproved of Julia’s writing and did all he could to thwart it. In 1853, she published her first volume of poetry, Passion-Flowers, anonymously and without her husband’s knowledge. She continued to publish works that often critiqued women’s roles in marriages and society and caused controversy. Her husband was troubled by her writing as it often contained pointed references to her unhappy and stultifying marriage. He did not approve of women having a career outside the home.
In November 1861, the first year of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and while the Civil War was raging, Julia and Chev traveled to Washington and met Abraham Lincoln, who, Julia wrote, “was laboring…under a terrible pressure of doubt and anxiety.” Dr. Howe was on the board of the U.S. Sanitary Commission that supported wounded and sick soldiers; during his stay, he would meet with the USSC founder Dorothea Dix. The Howes lodged at Willard’s Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War Years, Library of Congress
From their room, Julia saw a billboard advertisement for “an agency for embalming and forwarding the bodies of those who had fallen in the fight or who had perished by fever.” This image stayed with her.
On a visit to the huge military camps stationed in the national capital, she heard soldiers singing the song, “John Brown’ Body,” originally about a Scotsman but had taken on new meaning in reference to the insurrectionist at Harper’s Ferry. New verses were often being added:
Old John Brown’s body is a-mouldering in the dust,
Old John Brown’s rifle is red with blood-spots turned to rust,
Old John Brown’s pike has made its last, unflinching thrust,
His soul is marching on!
A friend urged Julia to write “some good words for that stirring tune.” That evening, she tried, but the words did not come to her. The next morning at the graying first light, she woke up in her bed at Willard’s and the words of the poem began to flow. She jumped up, grabbed paper and an old stump of a pencil, and scrawled down the words without even looking down at the paper, then fell back to sleep. This is how “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was born, which she sold to the Atlantic Monthly for $4 in February. Her version links the Union cause to God’s vengeance at the Day of Judgment.
Here are some verses from the first published version:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
Before long, the song caught on and became the favorite of the Union troops and its unofficial wartime anthem. Julia Ward Howe became somewhat of a celebrity and became a suffragist.
Posted in PEOPLE, tagged abolition of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, biographies of first ladies, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation on January 27, 2025| 4 Comments »
Readers, if you would like to receive an e-galley of an advanced review copy, reach out to me in the comments section and i will provide you with an email to write me. Lisa
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, ART, PHOTOGRAPHY, FASHION, & DESIGN, PEOPLE, POLITICS & GOV'T, tagged Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, American history, biographies of first ladies, biographies of political wives, biographies of women, history, Julia Taft Bayne, Mary Todd Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln's bonnets, Mrs. Horatio Taft, news, the Civil War on May 14, 2024| 6 Comments »
Mary Todd Lincoln, ca. 1861
When Mary and Abraham Lincoln moved into the White House in 1861, Mary was 42 years old, a time when women her age dressed in somber grays, dull browns, and boring blues. But not Mary Todd Lincoln. For her, expensive clothes were a mark of importance, of breeding. She proceeded to dress like a peacock, draping herself in bold blues, crimson, yellow, and royal purple, attracting a lot of unwanted attention and sparking criticism from the Washington social elite. Brought up among the overdressed ladies of Kentucky, her gowns and bonnets were ornamented with flowers, lace, dots, and bows sewn on yards of velvet, taffeta, and silk at a time of war when soldiers were going without blankets. Mary took her fashion cues from Eugenie, Empress of France, whose parties and clothes appeared in line drawings and detailed descriptions in one of Mary’s favorite magazines, Godey’s Lady’s Book. She was admonished for wearing low-necked dresses that revealed her “milking apparatus,” said one critic, and for the “flower beds which she carries on top of her head,” said another. A petite woman, the bell-shaped dresses overwhelmed her; hoops made her look shorter and squat.
Buoyed by a grandiose sense of self-importance coupled with her new position as the president’s wife, Mary demanded what she wanted. She expected everyone to do her bidding. She was surprised when clothing merchants sent her bills. The line between purchase and donation was fuzzy. Mary looked for donors to buy her gowns and hats, rewarding them with political favors. When she blew her four-year budget for White House renovations in under a year, she contrived several plots to secretly defray her debt. In one instance, she persuaded the White House gardener to sell manure from the stables at ten cents a wagonload. It raised more stink than cash. Her spending eventually came to light and became a national scandal. Lincoln was mortified and had to deal with it, all the while referring to it benignly as his beloved Mary’s silly “flub-a-dub.”
Now, back to what we were saying about Mary and her clothing:
It was an April evening in 1861. The Marine Band was playing a concert on the White House lawn. Mary and President Lincoln had invited many guests, among them Mary Cook Taft, wife of Horatio Taft, an examiner at the U.S. Patent Office. Mary Taft was wearing a delicate straw bonnet lavishly trimmed with pretty purple ribbons embroidered with little black figures. The bonnet had long strings which tied beneath her chin in a bow. Mary Taft’s teenage daughter, Julia, accompanied her to the promenade grounds that day and vividly recalled their costumes:
“My mother, of course, wore the bonnet, together with a purple and white silk over a moderate crinoline, and lavender kid gloves. I was dressed in white Swiss, much beruffled, but without hoop skirt or crinoline, which was an abiding grievance with me. But my hat…was very gratifying and almost compensated for the lack of crinoline.”
Women’s Fashions 1860
Mary and Julia walked around mingling with the other guests while the band played on. The national anthem brought those in chairs to their feet, men doffing their hats, and all standing in patriotic attention. At the close of the concert, the Taft women walked over to the south front where the presidential party was sitting, to pay their respects. Mary Lincoln could not take her eyes off Mary Taft’s bonnet. Julia recalled what happened next:
Julia Taft, undated photo
“After a few words of greeting, [Mrs. Lincoln] took my mother aside and talked with her for a moment. While I could not hear their conversation, I knew someway that they were talking about my mother’s bonnet and I was a bit puzzled at the look of amazement on my mother’s face. I did not see why my mother should look so surprised at a passing compliment from Mrs. Lincoln.”
Mary Lincoln wanted the purple strings off Mary Taft’s bonnet and asked for them. Mary Taft was angry—she loved her bonnet with its pretty purple ribbon— but what could she do? Mary Taft’s husband was a government appointee. Mrs. Lincoln could get him fired and then how would they pay for Julia’s private Washington school? So, begrudgingly, Mrs. Taft agreed to give up her ribbons to “Madam President” as Mary Lincoln requested to be called by the White House staff.
The Washington milliner Willian sent for Mary Taft’s bonnet, removing the purple ribbons for Mary Lincoln, and sending back Mary Taft’s bonnet with new lavender ribbon. Not long after this incident, Julia, who was often in the White House as a babysitter for her little brothers, Bud and Holly, the inseparable playmates of Tad and Willie Lincoln, caught sight of Mary Lincoln wearing a purple dress and a bonnet trimmed with her mother’s purple ribbons.
Source: Bayne, Julia Taft. Tad Lincoln’s Father. Boston, Little, Brown, and Co., 1931.
Readers: For more on Mary Lincoln, click here.
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Asia Booth Clarke, Edwin Booth, EVENTS, John Wilkes Booth, Lucy Lambert Hale, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, Asia Booth Clark, Assassination of President Lincoln, Edwin Booth, Gideon Welles, John Sleeper Clarke, John Wilkes Booth, Lucy Lambert Hale, the on October 27, 2019| 1 Comment »
Asia Booth Clarke
The 19th-century American writer, Asia Booth Clarke (1835-1888), was born into a family of actors. Her famous brothers were Edwin Booth, Junius Booth, and John Wilkes Booth.
Credit…Brown University Library
On the morning of April 15, 1865, Asia was in bed in her Philadelphia mansion, sickly pregnant with twins, when she was handed the newspaper. She screamed when she read the headlines: her brother, John Wilkes Booth, was wanted for the murder of President Abraham Lincoln.
President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th president of the U.S.
Asia could not believe it—and yet it was true. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, the actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. Asia—and the nation—would never fully recover from Booth’s terrible act, his retaliation for Lincoln’s freeing of American slaves.
A copy of a hand colored 1870 lithographic print by Gibson & Co. provided by the U.S. Library of Congress shows John Wilkes Booth shooting U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as he sits in the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre
In the immediate aftermath of the crime, the nation went into shock. Disbelief gave way to tears, sobs, and solemn displays of mourning. The newspapers dubbed the moment “our National Calamity.” Easter Sunday came and went with little notice. The people were focused on the President’s funeral procession which was to take place Wednesday.
Lincoln’s body lies in state in the East Room of the White House. Harper’s Weekly, May 6, 1865.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the nation’s capital. Every hotel in Washington, D. C., sold out. Thousands of visitors slept in parks or on the streets. Somber black crepe and bunting replaced the patriotic banners adorning buildings from just a week before when the city had been positively giddy with excitement, ablaze with candles and gaslights in every window, marching bands, dancing, singing, and the ringing of bells upon learning of the fall of Richmond, the capitol of the Rebel States, spelling a Union victory in the American Civil War.
In his diary, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles noted the city’s sad transformation from celebration to gloom:
Every house, almost, has some drapery, especially the homes of the poor…the little black ribbon or strip of cloth… (1)
On the morning of April 19, the funeral procession carrying the President’s body slowly made its way to the Capitol, “the beat of the march measured by muffled bass and drums swathed in crepe.”
Lincoln’s funeral on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1865. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
At the Capitol, the President’s coffin was received in the rotunda, where, beneath the Great Dome, thousands of mourners streamed by to view the President’s remains in the open casket.
It was a sacred day except for one detraction. Five days had passed since John Wilkes Booth had killed this most beloved of men and Booth was still a free man.
John Wilkes Booth
The manhunters were aggressively tracking the fugitive’s movements in and around the capital, following all plausible leads and, still, they could boast of NO ARREST. The newspapers abounded with tales of those who had spotted someone matching Booth’s description. Meanwhile, the authorities descended upon anyone associated with Booth, questioning many and arresting scores. Asia Booth Clarke and her husband, the comedic actor, John “Sleepy” Clarke, were not spared. The day of Lincoln’s funeral, swarms of detectives appeared at their door. John Clarke was seized, taken to Washington, and imprisoned in the Old Capitol with two of Asia’s other brothers, Joe and Junius Booth. The Clarke’s house was raided. (2)
Booth was on the run a full twelve days before he was cornered. He refused to surrender and was killed. Three weeks after his death, Asia wrote her friend Jean Anderson:
Philadelphia, May 22, 1865.
My Dear Jean:
I have received both of your letters, and although feeling the kindness of your sympathy, could not compose my thoughts to write — I can give you no idea of the desolation which has fallen upon us. The sorrow of his [Wilkes Booth’s] death is very bitter, but the disgrace is far heavier; –
Junius and John Clarke have been two weeks to-day confined in the old Capital – prison Washington for no complicity or evidence — Junius wrote an innocent letter from Cincinnati, which by a wicked misconstruction has been the cause of his arrest. He begged him [John Wilkes Booth] to quit the oil business and attend to his profession, not knowing the “oil” signified conspiracy in Washington as it has since been proven that all employed in the plot, passed themselves off as “oil merchants”.
John Clarke was arrested for having in his house a package of papers upon which he had never laid his hands or his eyes, but after the occurrence when I produced them, thinking it was a will put here for safe keeping — John took them to the U.S. Marshall, who reported to head-quarters, hence this long imprisonment for two entirely innocent men –
I was shocked and grieved to see the names of Michael O’Laughlin and Samuel Arnold. I am still some surprised to learn that all engaged in the plot are Roman Catholics — John Wilkes was of that faith — preferably — and I was glad that he had fixed his faith on one religion for he was always of a pious mind and I wont speak of his qualities, you knew him. My health is very delicate at present but I seem completely numbed and hardened in sorrow.
The report of Blanche and Edwin are without truth, their marriage not to have been until September and I do not think it will be postponed so that it is a long way off yet. Edwin is here with me. Mother went home to N.Y. last week. She has been with me until he came.
American actor Edwin Booth as Hamlet. Edwin Booth was so beloved that he was not arrested after the Lincoln assassination, although two of his brothers were. He testified at the trial of the conspirators.
I told you I believe that Wilkes was engaged to Miss Hale, — They were most devoted lovers and she has written heart broken letters to Edwin about it — Their marriage was to have been in a year, when she promised to return from Spain for him, either with her father or without him, that was the decision only a few days before the fearful calamity — Some terrible oath hurried him to this wretched end. God help him. Remember me to all and write often.
Yours every time,
Asia (3)
“Miss Hale” refers to Lucy Lambert Hale (1841-1915), the younger daughter of Senator John Parker Hale of New Hampshire.
Lucy Lambert Hale, ca. 1865, courtesy of Ford’s Theatre.
Lucy met John Wilkes Booth at one of his performances in Washington, D.C., when he played the character Charles De Moor in “The Robbers” (1862 or 1863). She presented him with a bouquet. (4) By early 1865, Booth was regularly lodging at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C., where Lucy lived with her parents and sister, Lizzie. We know they were close as Lucy’s cousin stayed in Booth’s rooms during Lincoln’s Second Inauguration. Lucy also procured a pass for Booth to attend the March 4, 1865, inauguration, a pass no doubt she obtained through her father, as only about 2,000 tickets for entrance inside the Capitol were issued. (It was later learned that Booth contemplated killing Lincoln then and there but was talked out of it by an associate also present.)
Although Lucy Hale and John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) reportedly were seen in each other’s company around the city, it was not publicly known that they were engaged. This plan was kept secret, since Society considered an actor to be in a social class beneath the dignity of the daughter of a U.S. senator. Just a month before, President Lincoln appointed Senator John P. Hale to be the new ambassador to Spain. Shortly, Lucy, Lizzie, and their mom would be moving to Spain with Senator Hale.
By some accounts, Lucy, an ardent abolitionist, had broken off the engagement with Booth when she learned he had strong secession views. A newspaper article suggested that this rejection occurred ten days before the assassination, fueling Booth’s “mental excitement, occasioned by drink.” (5) However, Lucy’s letters to Edwin Booth—written after John Wilkes Booth’s death (as mentioned in Asia’s letter here)—suggest otherwise. According to those accounts, the engagement was very much active when Booth died.
A veiled reference to Lucy Hale’s grief over Booth’s death appeared on page five of the New York Tribune on April 22, 1865:
Lucy Lambert Hale, 1863, photo by Mathew Brady, courtesy of wikimedia commons.
On the afternoon or early evening of April 14, 1865, the day of the assassination, Lucy Hale, age 24, was reportedly studying Spanish with two old friends from the Boston area, where she had attended boarding school. They were President Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, and the president’s assistant private secretary, John Hay. She had many suitors but her heart was set on only one. She was one of multitudes of women around the country who were captivated by the charm and beauty of the romantic star of the stage, John Wilkes Booth.
When the fugitive John Wilkes Booth was killed at age 26 by U.S. troops, he carried a diary. Tucked inside were photographs of five women, four actresses and a well-known belle of Washington society. The horrified authorities recognized the society belle as the daughter of the new American ambassador to Spain and, as only Washington gossips knew, Booth’s secret fiancée: Lucy Lambert Hale. Someone ordered the pictures to be suppressed so tongues wouldn’t wag with the tale that Lucy Hale was engaged to a murderer! That knowledge would shred her reputation and Lucy would never find a suitable husband
It would be decades before those five photos were made public. The one of Lucy in Booth’s wallet is the photo of her face in profile.
Had Booth used Lucy to get into social and political circles denied to him as a mere actor? Or, as some close to him say, was he smitten by Lucy, head-over-heels in love to such a degree that he would commit to just one woman when so many threw themselves at his feet?
Lucy went off to Spain with the family. It was nine long years before she would wed—a senator.
As for Asia, when her husband returned home from prison mid-May, he announced he wanted a divorce and wanted nothing further to do with the name “Booth.” John Wilkes Booth had been right about John Sleeper Clarke. Booth had warned his sister not to marry “Sleepy.” He believed that Sleepy wanted to marry Asia only in order to capitalize on the name “Booth” to further his own acting career. The marriage continued but the union was an unhappy one.
Asia went on to establish herself as a writer, writing John Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir, a slender volume that offers us a close look at the childhood and personal preferences of the complex arch villain John Wilkes Booth. To remove themselves from the stigma of association with the president’s killer, Asia and her family eventually decided to move away from America and settle in England, where her husband got involved with a mistress and treated her with “duke-like haughtiness and icy indifference.” (6)
Sources:
Readers, for more on Abraham Lincoln, click here.
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Barack and Michelle Obama, Kennedys, the, Maya Angelou, PEOPLE, Rosa Parks; Malcolm X, tagged "I Have a Dream" speech, Abraham Lincoln, American civil rights movement, American Civil War, American history, American slavery, Barack Obama, biographies of African-American writers, biographies of African-Americans, biographies of statesmen, biography of women writers, civil rights movement, death of Maya Angelou, Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Jr.'s granddaughter, Lincoln Memorial, lynching, Malcolm X, March on Washington, Maya Angelou, pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King, pictures of michelle obama, Rosa Parks, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, the Kennedys, Trayvon Martin, Yolanda King on May 31, 2014| 2 Comments »
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Credit:-/AFP/Getty Images
On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his rousing, “I Have a Dream” speech to over 250,000 civil rights supporters gathered for the March on Washington. The speech calls for an end to racism in America. It was considered by many to be the most important speech of the Twentieth Century and helped advance President John F. Kennedy‘s important civil rights legislation then in Congress.
At the March on Washington, August 1963, peaceful African-Americans called for decent jobs with equal pay.
Dr. King timed his March on Washington to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln‘s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation which freed millions of American black slaves in 1863.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stands in front of the statue of President Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. ca. 1963
His opening lines in his speech evoke the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.”
Dr. King asked for justice to be made a reality for all of God’s children.
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities….
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. “(1)
He spoke of his dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.'”
***
Fast forward to August 28, 2013, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s March on Washington and his landmark speech.
Anderson Cooper of CNN is interviewing African-American writer Maya Angelou (1928-2014). They reflect on the state of Dr. King’s dream. Maya Angelou knew Dr. King and was part of the struggle for civil rights change in this country.
Cooper: Do you believe that the arc of history is moving in the right direction? President Obama, recently, when he was talking about Trayvon Martin, he said that he looks at his daughters and that his daughters’ generation is better than his generation was. Do you believe that?
Angelou: Yes, I do. I know that there was a time when people were lynched with everybody’s agreement – not everybody – but with the “Might’s” agreement. The might was white and white was might and so people were lynched.
I grew up in a village in Arkansas where a man was lynched and the skin of his body – after being lynched and burned – the skin was taken off in skin the size of a postage stamp and given to people as mementoes.
You can’t do that in the United States today. I mean you can lynch people and murder people in many ways but you can’t do it in the city square.
Cooper: Hmm.
Angelou: You see? We are better. Not nearly enough. Not nearly enough. But we come and we have to admit that. Because, Mr. Cooper, if we don’t, young people will say, ‘You mean to tell me, with the lives and deaths of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Rosa Parks and the Kennedys, then there’s no point in me trying, because those people were bigger than life.’ So we have to say, ‘You have come a long way.’
***
President Barack Obama spoke from the Lincoln Memorial steps to honor the half-century anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic speech, “I Have a Dream.” August 28, 2013.
Our first African-American president was on hand at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington Celebration. Like Dr. King, President Barack Obama is a great orator. In his speech to those gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, he echoed Maya Angelou’s sentiment in regard to the civil rights movement, progress, and where America stands.
Members of Dr. King’s family, including his then 5-year-old granddaughter, Yolanda King, were present as bells rang at 3 p.m. to mark the historical moment.
President Obama greets Yolanda King, age 5, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s granddaughter at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. August 28, 2013. Credit; Getty Images
For more on Maya Angelou, click here.
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, John Wilkes Booth, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, American history, assassination of Abraham Lincoln, biographies of presidents, black history month, Emancipation Proclamation, Frederick Douglass, Freedmen's Monument, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln Assassination, Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln's birthday, Slavery, the, Washington D.C. on February 12, 2010| 1 Comment »
Freedmen’s Monument, Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C.; sculptor, Thomas Ball. The sculpture was funded solely from freed slaves, primarily from African-American Union veterans, to pay homage to the American president who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, thus liberating them from bondage in the Confederate States. The statue was dedicated on April 14, 1876, 11 years after Abraham Lincoln's assassination by the Confederate rebel John Wilkes Booth. Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered the dedication speech.
Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
Frederick Douglass delivered a speech at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1876. This is the conclusion of what Douglass said to the crowd:
“Fellow-citizens, the fourteenth day of April, 1865, of which this is the eleventh anniversary, is now and will ever remain a memorable day in the annals of this Republic. It was on the evening of this day, while a fierce and sanguinary rebellion was in the last stages of its desolating power; while its armies were broken and scattered before the invincible armies of Grant and Sherman; while a great nation, torn and rent by war, was already beginning to raise to the skies loud anthems of joy at the dawn of peace, it was startled, amazed, and overwhelmed by the crowning crime of slavery–the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was a new crime, a pure act of malice. No purpose of the rebellion was to be served by it. It was the simple gratification of a hell-black spirit of revenge. But it has done good after all. It has filled the country with a deeper abhorrence of slavery and a deeper love for the great liberator.
Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually–we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate–for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him–but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.”
Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass, daguerrotype, 1855. Douglass recruited black men to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Readers, I’ve posted many articles on Abe Lincoln. Scroll down the right sidebar to Categories/People/Abraham Lincoln for more! Enjoy.
Also on this blog: “Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.”
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, John Wilkes Booth, Kennedys, the, Lee Harvey Oswald, PEOPLE, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Baltimore, Dallas Texas, Fort Worth Texas, Jack Ruby, John F. Kennedy, John Wilkes Booth, Kennedy assassination, Kennedys, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald's grave, Lincoln Assassination, Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park on September 9, 2009| 22 Comments »
A handcuffed Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Department, Sunday, November 24, 1963, 2 days after the Kennedy assassination.
I was sitting at the hair salon today, getting highlights and a cut, talking with my stylist about assassins and where they were buried. I know where Abraham Lincoln‘s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, is buried – Baltimore, but, I wondered aloud, “Where is John F. Kennedy‘s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald buried?”
My first thought was Dallas, but that is where Oswald was murdered, not where he’s buried. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald died at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same Dallas hospital where President John F. Kennedy died just two days earlier on November 22, 1963, after being fatally wounded by Oswald as his presidential motorcade made its way through downtown Dallas.
After Kennedy was gunned down, Oswald was arrested and interrogated for two days. Then, on the morning of Sunday, November 24, as he was being transferred to the Dallas County Jail, Oswald was shot and wounded by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. He was rushed to the hospital but died shortly afterward. Oswald’s body was given to his family and was buried in a Fort Worth, Texas cemetery. Oswald’s original tombstone, which included his full name and dates of birth and death, was stolen. Today his obscure grave in the Fort Worth cemetery is marked by a stone that lies on the ground which reads simply: Oswald.
For those interested in tracking down Oswald’s grave, which is apparently hard to locate within the Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park, click here for directions.
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, PEOPLE, tagged 90-cent Lincoln, 90-cent Lincoln stamp sold, Abraham Lincoln, Ice House Cover, Lincoln memorabilia, Lincolniana, Mathew Brady photographs, rare Lincoln stamp sold, rare stamps, stamp collecting, stamp collectors on June 16, 2009| 3 Comments »
From The New York Times, June 15, 2009:
$431,000 Paid for Envelope and Its Stamp
An envelope from an 1873 letter bearing a scarce 90-cent stamp with Abraham Lincoln fetched more than $431,000 at an auction in New York City on Saturday.
The envelope, or cover, as collectors call used envelopes, was sold by Siegel Auction Galleries.
The 1873 letter bearing the scarce 90-cent Lincoln stamp
Known to collectors as the Ice House Cover, the envelope, which traveled by ship from New York to India, is the only one collectors have found still bearing the red and black stamp with Lincoln on it. Last traded publicly in 1943, then stolen and long thought to have been lost to philately, the cover was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006 and returned, after a court battle, to the heirs of J. David Baker, its last owner.
The letter was sent from a New England ice merchant to one of his ice warehouses in Calcutta, then part of Britain’s East Indies colony. It was franked with a total of $1.12, a large sum of money in those days, which paid the two-ounce foreign letter rate.
Markings on the envelope reveal that it traveled across the Atlantic, by train through Germany and Italy, by ship to Egypt and again from Suez to Bombay, and then by train across India. Before the advent of the Universal Postal Union the next year, the sum reflected rates negotiated between the United States and Britain to encourage growing international trade. Indeed, the commercial success of sending ice from winter ponds in Massachusetts to the sweltering cities of India was part of this progress.
This 90-cent Lincoln stamp was issued in 1869. The image was provided by famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady.
Early collectors mainly sought to fill their albums with stamps that had been soaked off their envelopes, and an item like the Lincoln, issued in 1869 in a run of fewer than 50,000, would have been no exception. When, at the end of the 19th century, collectors began saving entire envelopes — on account of the fascinating tales they revealed about their trips through the world’s postal systems — it became apparent that covers with the Lincoln were no longer to be found.
In 1914, a New York collector traveling in India did come across one. He sold it to a dealer in New York for $50 or $100 — accounts vary — and by the 1960s it had been sold to Mr. Baker, a steel executive and prominent collector in Indianapolis, for $6,500.
One night in 1967, a prized group of about 250 rare covers, including the Ice House Cover, was stolen from his home. The F.B.I. found most of those covers a decade later, and Mr. Baker was able to buy them back from his insurance company. But the Ice House Cover was missing.
In early 2006, however, an elderly couple walked into a stamp shop in Chicago to ask about the value of some old envelopes they had found while cleaning the home of a deceased friend. The store owner recognized the Ice House Cover and alerted the police. After an investigation by the F.B.I. cleared the couple, the cover was returned by court order to Mr. Baker’s widow and daughter. In May, the Philatelic Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New York, examined the cover and declared it genuine.
The buyer on Saturday was Dr. Arthur K. M. Woo, who is renowned in philatelic circles for his worldwide exhibits of rare covers. He paid a total of $431,250, including buyer’s commission.
Posted in Boston Corbett, John Wilkes Booth, Mental Institutions, tagged 19th century hatmaking, Abraham Lincoln, Boston Corbett, Edwin Stanton, insane asylum, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln Assassination, mad as a hatter, mental illness, mercury poisoning on June 4, 2009| 17 Comments »
Boston Corbett (1832-?) photographed in 1865
The man who killed John Wilkes Booth was as mad as a hatter. His name was Boston Corbett. Actually, his name was not originally Boston Corbett, but Thomas T. Corbett. He became a reborn evangelical Christian while in Boston which he took as his new name. He began to wear his hair long like Jesus. He became a religious fanatic. Those who knew him said he was “different.” Boston Corbett was as mad as a hatter.
Boston Corbett was as mad as a hatter because he was a hatter – at a time when mercury was used in the felt hatmaking process. Hatmakers breathed the mercury vapors which caused mercury poisoning. Mercury damages the nervous system, producing symptoms such as drooling, twitching, paranoia, hallucinations, and agitation. It was probably mercury poisoning that caused the mental problems that dogged Corbett all his days.
"The Mad Hatter's Tea Party." Though he did not create the expression "mad as a hatter," author Lewis Carroll did create the eccentric character of the hatter in his book, Alice in Wonderland (illustrations by Sir John Tenniel), first released in London in 1865, coincidentally, the year Lincoln was assassinated. The hatter in the book is an eccentric fellow with wacky ideas and incoherent speech, characteristics attributed to many hatters of the day, suffering from mercury poisoning. Mercury was used in hatmaking and its poisonous vapors caused debilitating neurological damage to the hatters, resulting in a complete mental breakdown.
As I was saying, Corbett’s job – daily breathing in the noxious mercury fumes while he made felt hats – was making him go insane. By July 16, 1858, Corbett had become so insane that he picked up a pair of scissors, took off his pants, and castrated himself. After doing the strange deed, he nonchalantly dressed again and went out to a prayer meeting, where he ate heartily and then took a walk. Corbett did, however, end up seeing a doctor to receive treatment for his self-mutilation. (1)
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Corbett enlisted in the Union army. He reenlisted three times and was made sergeant. In the days following President Lincoln’s assassination, he was selected as one of the 26 soldiers in the 16th New York Cavalry commissioned to pursue and capture the fugitive assassin John Wilkes Booth. On April 26, 1865, Corbett and the others cornered Booth and his coconspirator David Herold in a tobacco barn on Richard Garrett’s Virginia farm. Herold gave himself up.
Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth
Booth refused to surrender, so the soldiers set the barn on fire, hoping to smoke him out. Corbett watched Booth through a large crack in the barn wall. As Booth moved about inside the burning barn, Corbett stuck his Colt revolver through the crack and aimed at the unsuspecting Booth, a full 12 feet away. Corbett’s bullet struck Lincoln’s killer in the neck, puncturing his spinal cord. Booth did not die at once.
When Corbett was questioned about his unilateral decision to kill rather than to capture Booth alive, he replied:
“God Almighty directed me.”
Back in Washington, Corbett was placed under technical arrest, but Secretary of War Edwin Stanton refused to prosecute the man many considered a hero. Stanton said, “The rebel is dead. The patriot lives.” Corbett collected $1653.85 in reward money.
Famous now, Corbett returned to the hat trade, first in Boston then in Connecticut and New Jersey. Further exposure to mercury caused his already volatile and erratic behavior to escalate. He got into frequent arguments which involved flashing his revolver in men’s faces.
He grew paranoid.
Then, in 1878, he made a radical life change. He moved to Kansas to live in a dugout; his home was nothing more than a hole in a hill with a stone front and a patchwork roof. He lived simply, sleeping on a homemade bed. He bought a flock of sheep. He began to give religious lectures that invariably turned into incoherent rants. He kept a number of firearms.
Improbably, in 1887, Corbett was appointed assistant doorkeeper to the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka. Shortly after his appointment, he got crosswise with some men, pulled out a gun, threatened them, and got arrested. He was declared insane and sent to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane.
But he didn’t stay there. A little over a year later, he stole a horse that had been left at the asylum entrance and escaped. Little is known about where he went after that. Some say Mexico. He may have become a traveling salesman for a medicine company in Oklahoma Territory and Texas. No one knows what became of the man who killed John Wilkes Booth. That may forever remain a mystery.
(1) The actual hospital record can be read on page 59 of Lincoln and Kennedy: Medical & Ballistic Comparisons of their Assassinations by Dr. John K. Lattimer.
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, PEOPLE, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Gardner photograph, Asia Booth Clark, Booth manhunt, Boston Corbett, David Herold, Ford's Theater, Garrett farmhouse, John Wilkes Booth, John Wilkes Booth's death, John Wilkes Booth's escape route, John Wilkes Booth's tattoo, Lincoln Assassination, map of John Wilkes Booth's escape route, the killing of John Wilkes Booth, the Montauk on June 3, 2009| 6 Comments »
John Wilkes Booth assassinates President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. The Confederacy had fallen five days earlier.
John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, 1838-1865. Born into a famous acting family, his father named him after an English rebel and encouraged in him an anti-establishment nature.
For 12 days, Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth was a fugitive, successfully eluding Union manhunters who were combing the countryside south of Washington, D.C., in search of him. With a painful broken left leg, Booth rode and walked through Maryland, rowed across the Potomac River, and landed in Virginia. He hid in underbrush, Confederate safe houses, and pine thickets. But time was running out on him when he reached Virginia’s shores. Booth had committed the most foul crime, the murder of our president. Abraham Lincoln had been dead for 11 days then. The country was plunged into deep mourning. The people -from both the North and South – agitated for justice. The Union manhunters hot on Booth’s trail were not turning back, not until they’d brought in their prey – dead or alive.
They finally caught up with Booth and his assassination coconspirator Davey Herold at 2 a.m. on April 26, 1865. Union cavalry surrounded a tobacco barn at Richard Garrett’s farm outside Port Royal, Virginia, where Booth and Herold were inside sleeping. They were 60 miles south of Ford’s Theater in Washington.
Booth's escape route
Herold quickly surrendered, marching out of the barn and submitting to being tied to a tree. But Booth refused to come out of the barn. Gathering straw and brush, the soldiers set the barn on fire. Still Booth would not surrender. Through knotholes and cracks in the barn’s walls, the soldiers watched him moving around inside the barn, hobbling around on a crutch, holding a carbine. By sunrise, though, Booth was dead, killed by a shot fired through his neck by soldier Boston Corbett aiming through the barn walls and acting on his own accord. Booth did not die instantly but lingered near death lying on the grass near a locust tree. He was later moved to the porch of the Garrett farmhouse, where he died.
Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth was pronounced dead at 7:15 A.M. April 26, 1865. After his death, a search of his body turned up a pair of revolvers, a belt and holster, a knife, some cartridges, a file, a war map of the Southern states, a spur, a pipe, a Canadian bill of exchange, a compass with a leather case, a signal whistle, an almost burned-up candle, photos of five women - four actresses (Alice Grey, Helen Western, Effie Germon, and Fanny Brown) and his fiancée, Lucy Hale (the daughter of ex-Senator John P. Hale from New Hampshire), and an 1864 date book kept as a diary.
By 8:30 a.m., Booth’s limp body was sewn into a horse blanket, placed on a plank serving as a stretcher, and loaded onto a wagon that was then driven to Belle Plain. From there, it was loaded onto a steamship then a tugboat and transported up the Potomac to the Washington Navy Yard. There it was transferred to the anchored ship, the Montauk. Booth’s remains were laid on a bench. The horse blanket was removed, and a tarp was placed over the corpse. Many witnesses were gathered to identify the body:
One of these people was Dr. John Frederick May. Some time prior to the assassination, Dr. May had removed a large fibroid tumor from Booth’s neck. Dr. May found a scar from his operation on the corpse’s neck exactly where it should have been. Booth’s dentist, Dr. William Merrill, who had filled two teeth for Booth shortly before the assassination, pried open the corpse’s mouth and positively identified his fillings.
Charles Dawson, the clerk at the National Hotel where Booth was staying, examined the remains, saying “I distinctly recognize it as the body of J. Wilkes Booth – first, from the general appearance, next, from the India-ink letters, ‘J.W.B.,’ on his wrist, which I had very frequently noticed, and then by a scar on the neck. I also recognize the vest as that of J. Wilkes Booth.” …Seaton Munroe, a prominent Washington attorney who knew Booth, viewed the body and said that he “was very familiar with his (Booth’s) face and distinctly recognize it.” Alexander Gardner, a well-known Washington photographer, and his assistant, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, were also among those called to the Montauk to identify Booth’s corpse. (1)
As for the tattoo, it was on John Wilkes Booth’s left hand. His sister, Asia Booth Clarke, wrote about it in her published memoirs, The Unlocked Book, John Wilkes Booth, a Sister’s Memoir. Asia felt her brother possessed both great charm and physical beauty, including his hands:
“He had perfectly shaped hands, and across the back of one he had clumsily marked, when a little boy, his initials in India ink.” (2)
Though innocent of any crime, Asia’s husband was one of a hundred people rounded up and imprisoned after the Lincoln assassination, implicated by association with John Wilkes Booth. After her husband’s release from jail and exoneration from criminal activity, Asia, her husband, and their children (8 total, 2 of whom became actors) emigrated to England, away from the unwanted notoriety brought about by her brother’s heinous crime.
(1) Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
(2) Steers, Edward, Jr. Blood on the Moon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Posted in The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Civil War statistics, the Civil War, the Confederacy map on March 24, 2009| 4 Comments »
The Confederacy 1861-1865 (orange)
THE PRICE OF THE CIVIL WAR
UNION
Soldiers 2,500,000-2,750,000
Soldiers wounded who survived 275,175
Soldiers who lost their lives 360,222
Civilians who lost their lives None
CONFEDERATE
Soldiers 750,000-1,250,000
Soldiers wounded who survived 102,703
Soldiers who lost their lives 258,000
Civilians who lost their lives 50,000
The total cost of the war was $20 billion (approximately $250 billion in today’s money), or five times the total expenditure of the federal government from its creation in 1788 to 1865. (2)
(1) Map
(2)Fleming, Candace. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary. (New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2008)
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Elvis, PEOPLE, The American Civil War, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Appomattox Court House, Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Confederate rebels, Confederate surrender, Daniel Emmett, Dixie, Elvis Presley, General Ulysses S. Grant, Gideon Welles, Lee's surrender, Mary Lincoln, Mathew Brady photographs, Richmond, Robert E. Lee, Tad Lincoln, the Union, Virginia, War Between the States on March 23, 2009| 2 Comments »
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, seated, with 2 of his officers, photographed by Mathew Brady in April, 1865, following Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Richmond, Virginia.
Expecting the president to make a speech, several thousand people gathered outside the White House. President Lincoln was not sure what to say as he was planning on giving a formal address the following evening.Just then, his twelve-year-old son Tad appeared at a second-floor window, waving a captured Confederate flag. It gave the president an idea. He asked the Marine Band to play a favorite tune of his, “Dixie,” the unofficial Confederate anthem.
“I have always thought ‘Dixie” one of the best tunes I ever heard,” he told the surprised crowd. “It is good to show the rebels that with us they will be free to hear it again.”
True to the promise he made in his second inaugural address, Lincoln was already trying to bind up the nation’s wounds.
Now let’s hear Elvis Presley sing “Dixie.”
(1) White, Ronald C. A. Lincoln. (New York: Random House, 2009)
(2) Fleming, Candace. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary. (New York: Schwartz & Wade, 2008)
Posted in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Mental Institutions, PEOPLE, Queen Victoria & Prince Albert, ROYALTY/NOBILITY, tagged "Mrs. Brown", Abraham Lincoln, biographies of first ladies, biographies of political wives, biographies of women, British Royal Family/Nobles, crepe, Elizabeth Keckley, FASHION & TOYS, French Empress Eugénie, insane asylum, jet jewelry, John Brown, Judy Dench, Mary Todd Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln's mourning, mourning clothes, mourning jewelry, Prince Albert, Prince Albert's death, Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria's mourning, Tad Lincoln, the Civil War, the contaminated Potomac River, typhoid fever in Washington, Victorian mourning customs, weeping veils, widow's weeds, Willie Lincoln on March 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Mary Todd Lincoln in mourning clothes, 1863. Even during the period in 1862 and 1863 when Mrs. Lincoln was in mourning for her son Willie and wore only black, she managed to go further into debt for new clothes. By 1864, she told Elizabeth Keckley: "The President glances at my rich dresses and is happy to believe that the few hundred dollars that I obtain from him supply all my wants. I must dress in costly materials. The people scrutinize every article that I wear with critical curiosity... If he is elected, I can keep him in ignorance of my affairs, but if he is defeated, then the bills will be sent." Only on January 1, 1865 did she completely shed her mourning attire.
After her son Willie’s death at age eleven on February 20, 1862, Mary Todd Lincoln went into deep mourning. She traded in her sparkling jewels, frilly white and colorful gowns, and flowered bonnets made fashionable by her icon the French Empress Eugénie (click to read earlier post) for widow’s weeds of dull black crepe. Her stylish White House parties were put to the side. Gaiety gave way to sadness. Mary had lost her favorite son, the perfect one, the one she considered most like her husband.
After Willie died, Mary’s youngest son, eight-year-old Tad, still tossed with the same typhoid fever that killed his brother. He lay critically ill nearby, but Mary, incapacitated by grief, would not and did not rush to his side to nurse him. Meanwhile, Willie’s embalmed body was laid out in the Green Room of the White House and his coffin was open. Mary mustered enough energy to place a sprig of laurel on Willie’s chest before retreating to her bedroom and shutting the door. She took to her bed, weeping and sobbing in such uncontrolled spasms that she became quite ill.
She did not come out of her bedroom to attend Willie’s funeral and never again entered the Green Room or the second floor guest room where Willie died. She rid the house of all of Willie’s toys and clothes and forbade his and Tad’s best friends, the Taft boys, from ever returning to the White House to play.
During Mary’s tormented period, Abraham, also heartbroken at his son’s death, sent for help. Two of Mary’s friends, a nurse, and Mary’s sister Elizabeth heeded the calling. One of the friends was the esteemed Washington seamstress Elizabeth Keckley. In memoirs she wrote with a ghostwriter six years later, she recalled a day when President Lincoln led his distraught wife (whom he called “Mother”) to the window, pointed to the lunatic asylum at a distance from the White House, and said,
“Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief or it will drive you mad and we may have to send you there.”
The recently widowed Queen Victoria wearing mourning clothes at Balmoral, Scotland, 1863. She is riding "Fyvie" and is accompanied by her faithful servant John Brown. Her husband, Prince Albert, died in December of 1861 of typhoid fever or perhaps cancer of the stomach. For forty more years, the rest of Victoria's life, she wore black widow's weeds. Suspicion was aroused by Victoria's partiality to John Brown as a servant; most of the members of the Royal Household referred to him as "the Queen's stallion" and defamatory pamphlets referred to her as "Mrs. Brown." A 1997 film with Judy Dench titled "Mrs. Brown" was about their rumored love affair.
It was three weeks before Mary could even be persuaded to get up out of bed and put on her mourning clothes. Queen Victoria (1819-1901) now became the First Lady’s fashion model. Victoria’s husband Prince Albert had died unexpectedly just three months earlier and Victoria had plunged herself and her entire staff into the deep black dress of mourning. Following Victoria’s lead and further compounding her debt to clothing merchants (click to read an earlier post), Mary Lincoln ordered an entire new wardrobe of dull black crepe dresses, bonnets, and weeping veils.
For more than a year, six months longer than was called for in the mourning manuals of the day, Mary wore first-degree mourning. Her black crepe straw bonnet was so heavily veiled that she could not turn her head, which gave her an odd appearance as she was always facing forward. She became a very public mourner. She wanted to draw attention to her grief as if she was the only one who had lost a child at a time when Civil War soldiers were dying in record numbers from Mississippi to Maryland on the nation’s bloody battlefields. During her mourning, she cancelled the Saturday afternoon Marine Band Concerts held on the White House lawn, explaining that, “When we are in sorrow, quiet is necessary.” She bought black jet jewelry to accent her sooty “widow’s weeds” and used writing paper with the thickest margins of black.
Finally, in 1863, Mary ordered another new wardrobe, running up yet more bills, and moved into the stage known as half-mourning, exchanging her lusterless black for fabric in lavender, gray, and somber purples with a little touch of white at the wrist. (1)
Click here to access my related post, “The Madness of Mary Lincoln.” Also, for more posts on the Lincolns, view the drop down menu, “Categories,” in the left column, find at the top, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and click.
(1) Baker, Jean H. Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987)
"There is properly no history, only biography." Ralph Waldo Emerson
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