Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln
The Howes while supporting Brown’s abolitionist cause may have chosen to stay ignorant of the more violent details of Brown’s plan While one brother rubbed elbows with abolitionists in high society the other stood guard nearby as the Howes best hope for fighting slavery was taken from his jail cell In Charlestown John Brown handed his silver watch to his jailer John Avis to thank him for his care Head held high Brown was led to the back of the wagon that carried him to the gallows His own coffin a long wooden box served as his seat After he mounted the steps to the execution site Brown’s neck was secured in a noose Just before his head was shrouded with a white hood Brown took his last glimpse of this earth He saw a tight circle of soldiers surrounding him No armed mob came to free him The platform under Brown’s feet dropped open and he died by hanging John Wilkes Booth later wrote I saw John Brown hung And I blessed the justice of my countrys sic laws I may say I helped to hang John Brown and while I live I shall think with joy upon the day when I saw the sun go down upon one trator sic less within our land 4 While Brown did not live to see slavery abolished he left John Avis a note that would prove prophetic It read I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood I had vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done 5 Just as Brown predicted blood would indeed flow soon The first shots of the Civil War the bloodiest chapter in American history were mere months away Many people considered John Brown a hero and crusader against slavery while others regarded him as a villain and murderer He was 59 years old when he was executed in Virginia
CHAPTER 3 FAMILY AND COUNTRY DIVIDED W ith both brothers walking in their famous father’s acting footsteps another problem had arisen There wasn’t room for two famous Booth actors Edwin decided they would split the country between them He would tour the North and its rich urban cities such as New York and Boston John Wilkes could have the South Brother Junius the oldest of the Booths had settled in California years earlier during the Gold Rush While he too had taken up acting there were vast territories of mountains and plains separating him from his young brothers ambitions A deep division between the North and South was brewing in the country as well Slavery was splitting what were then the 33 states of the United States of America Fifteen of the states were slave states allowing people to be bought sold and enslaved within their borders The slave states ran from Maryland all the way down to Florida to the south and Texas to the west The northern states were known as free states but even in those places the laws related to runaway slaves former slaves and slaves transported across state lines were often complicated and unfair The presidential election of 1860 was especially divisive due to the issue of slavery and states rights Some wanted an expansion of slavery and more rights for slave owners Others wanted slavery outlawed throughout the country The disagreement led to a split in the Democratic Party which divided along free and slave states into the Northern Democratic Party and the Southern Democratic Party A new party called the Constitutional Union Party also formed This fragmenting of political groups left the
Republican Party poised to win The Republicans had formed just a few years earlier in 1854 as a largely anti slavery party They had chosen Abraham Lincoln a lawyer and former congressman from Illinois as their candidate in 1860 Lincoln’s political view of slavery was well known Just two years earlier when he was selected as Illinois Republican candidate in a U S Senate race Lincoln had delivered a now-famous speech called A House Divided In it he said A house divided against itself cannot stand I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free I do not expect the Union to be dissolved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided It will become all one thing or all the other Lincoln lost that Senate election to Stephen A Douglas In 1860 Lincoln faced his old rival once more in the presidential election This time Lincoln triumphed over Douglas and two other candidates to become the 16th president Many in the South were not pleased to say the least
Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 election sent a shock through the South where leaders quickly moved to break from the Union Within days South Carolina’s General Assembly passed a resolution calling Lincoln’s election a hostile act The following month in December 1860 South Carolina seceded or withdrew from the Union Other states followed In February 1861 South Carolina Florida Alabama Mississippi Georgia Louisiana and Texas joined together to create the Confederate States of America Even before Lincoln was sworn in the Confederacy swore in its own president Jefferson Davis on February 9 1861 The U S government however did not view the Confederacy or its president as legal It was over this divided nation on the brink of war that Abraham Lincoln swore his presidential oath on March 4 1861 In his inaugural address he said to the Confederacy In your hand my fellow countrymen and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war The government will not assail you You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors 6 Hostilities ran high turning neighbor against neighbor The Booth family was no exception John Wilkes Booth and his siblings had grown up on a family farm in Maryland with slaves leased by their father John Wilkes Booth considered himself a Southerner He had no love for Lincoln or his policies limiting states rights John’s sister Asia described him as an ardent lover of the South and her policy an upholder of Southern principles 7 Edwin on the other hand considered himself a Northerner He continued to associate with abolitionists and his best friend Adam Badeau became a Union soldier Edwin had little tolerance for his younger brother’s rants against Lincoln and his support of slavery So the brothers split the country between them But while John Wilkes did play mostly in the South he also made appearances in the North much to Edwin’s
