John Wilkes Booth

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John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865)

John Wilkes Booth (born May 10, 1838 at Bel Air , Maryland , † April 26, 1865 at Bowling Green , Virginia ) was an American actor who is best known today as the murderer of Abraham Lincoln († April 15, 1865). In his day, he was a popular performer who, as a friend of the southern states, was unhappy with the outcome of the Civil War .

Life

origin

Booth's parents, Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, were English by birth and did not emigrate to the United States until 1821 . Junius was one of the most famous American stage actors. When he died in 1852, the poet Walt Whitman wrote , alluding to his classic roles: There went the greatest and by far the most noble Roman of them all. (Eng: "Da went the greatest and by far the most noble Roman of all").

John's older brother, Edwin Booth , was considered the most talented actor in the family, who was able to continue his career even after his brother's assassination . Ironically, Edwin had saved the life of Lincoln's eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln in 1863 (according to other sources, 1864) after he fell off the platform edge between two wagons of a stationary train at a Jersey City train station .

job

Booth made his stage debut in August 1855 at the age of 17 when he appeared in William Shakespeare's play Richard III. played the Earl of Richmond. In 1858 he became a member of the Richmond Theater, where he quickly made a career. Some critics considered him "the most beautiful man in America". With a height of about 1.73 meters, glossy black hair, slender but athletic stature, he was predestined for hero roles.

Political entanglements

In 1859 Booth took part in the execution of the slavery opponent John Brown , who had previously tried to organize a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry . Booth had joined the militia specifically to support the event and was standing near the gallows with other armed men who were supposed to prevent an attempt to escape or escape.

In early 1862, Booth was arrested in St. Louis for criticizing the government.

On November 9, 1863, President Lincoln saw Booth in the role of Raphael in The Marble Heart at the Ford Theater. Lincoln was seated in the very same box in which he was later fatally wounded. Besides this engagement, Booth only appeared in one other play at the Ford Theater on March 18, 1865, when he portrayed the Duke of Pescara in The Apostate , which was to be his last stage role.

Since Booth was engaged to Lucy Hale, the daughter of the American ambassador to Spain , John P. Hale , he attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865 as an invited guest - this discovery was a coincidence when a famous photograph was taken second inauguration of Lincoln subjected to a grid analysis.

The Lincoln assassination attempt

Lithograph of the assassination attempt (approx. 1865); v. l. From right: Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth
Profile of Booth (center) and two of his co-conspirators

The attack was the result of a conspiracy in which, in addition to Booth, nine other sympathizers from the South took part. Originally, they had wanted to kidnap Lincoln to the southern states to exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war; after the defeat of the south this plan had become obsolete. Still, they believed Lincoln's assassination was a legitimate continuation of the struggle.

On Good Friday , April 14, 1865, five days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House , Lincoln went to see Our American Cousin at the Ford Theater in Washington, DC . Lincoln had actually invited General Ulysses S. Grant , Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Henry Seward . Grant left Washington later that day, however, and Seward was sick in bed, leaving Booth, who originally also wanted to kill Grant, had only one target. Booth's co-conspirator, Lewis Powell , broke into Seward's house that evening and severely but not fatally wounded the Secretary of State in his sickbed with multiple knife wounds.

The press had announced the President's visit to the Ford Theater, so the performance was sold out. Booth only had the option of sneaking into the President's box, as Lincoln always went into this theater without personal protection. He managed to break into the president's box at around 10 p.m., where he shot him in the back of the head with a .44 Deringer .

He then jumped onto the stage and broke his leg in the process (this depiction is, however, doubted by some sources and historians). As he stood on the stage, he shouted the words Sic semper tyrannis ( This is how tyrants should always fare ). Then he fled to the doctor Samuel Mudd , who treated the fracture provisionally. After days of persecution, the assassin was finally caught by soldiers in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett against instructions when he resisted capture.

Immediately after the attack, Lincoln was taken to a house across from the Ford Theater and given medical attention. But the injuries were so severe that he died the morning of the following day without having regained consciousness.

Four of the accused as co-conspirators - Mary Surratt , Lewis Powell , David Herold and George Atzerodt - were sentenced to death by a military tribunal and hanged on July 7, 1865 . Three others received life sentences and another received six years in prison.

Booth is buried in the family grave in Baltimore (Green Mount Cemetery) in an unmarked grave site.

literature

  • Terry Alford: Fortune's fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth. Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Asia Booth Clarke: John Wilkes Booth: A Sister's Memoir. University of Mississippi Press, 1999.
  • David Hayden: Booth, John Wilkes. In: Collier's Encyclopedia with Bibliography and Index. Vol. 4. New York n.d., p. 389.
  • Michael W. Kauffman: American Brutus. John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln conspiracy. Random House, 2005.
  • James L. Swanson: Manhunt. The 12-day chase for Lincoln`s killer. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2007.

Fiction

  • James Wood (= Hermann Baeblich ): John Wilkes Booth or The Victim of the Rebellion. Illustrated historical novel from the recent history of the United States of America. 4 volumes. Humburg, Berlin 1866

Web links

Commons : John Wilkes Booth  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. "A Booth Saves a Lincoln" (English) ( Memento of 31 October 2007 at the Internet Archive )
  2. GEO epoch: The American Civil War. P. 136