Flight of the Assassin
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The Ford Theater today, looking almost exactly as
it did the night of Lincoln's assassination. A crowd gathers out
front, waiting to go in. The building to the right held the tavern
where Booth took a final drink of whiskey before going in to kill the
President. |
I stood where John Wilkes Booth stood, watching President Lincoln from behind, waiting for the moment to step into the President's box at the Ford Theater, holding his single shot derringer in one hand. For a moment, Lincoln still lived, if only in a distant moment of the past, seconds before the fatal shot sent a round lead ball through his brain to lodge behind his eye.
And thus began a ten year journey for me, to see the flight of John Wilkes Booth to it's conclusion. It didn't end where I thought it would, and it didn't really start there either. Both the beginning and the ending stretched in directions I didn't expect, and took me to places and people I didn't know existed.
The journey took me ten years, and I actually thought I would never complete it. I didn't even know at first I wanted to complete it, but it has always gnawed at me. I knew little about the event ten years ago, except that it is the only American story that will last forever.
Not that history will forget, but in the world's mind, this is the story they will remember. The greatest American, and his assassination. I don't know how long the American empire will last, but this story will outlast all the others. Look at Rome, and the Roman empire, and all it's achievements. Ask the average person about the glory of Rome, and a few will know Nero, some might know a bit about the Coliseum, but the one name everyone will know is Julius Cesar, and his assassination. By Brutus, they will tell you, which isn't entirely correct, but it's the story, not history that makes the myth. |
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Abraham Lincoln, the Greatest American |
| And so it is with Lincoln. Not Washington, not Franklin D Roosevelt, not John Glenn or any other American figure. Lincoln is the greatest American, the one non-Americans can name. And they know his story, his myth.
The martyr President who freed the
slaves |
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John Wilkes Booth |
And maybe that is why America has forgiven John Wilkes Booth. Because Lincoln up until that time had been one of the most hated presidents in history. Files at the White House were stuffed with death threat letters, and Lincoln had been shot at before.
Without Booth, there would be no martyred President, no Great Myth. So America has forgiven Booth. We know this because John Wilkes Booth is marketable. Except in Virginia.
Virginia has not forgiven John Wilkes Booth.
Virginia HATES him.
When they think of him at all.
Virginia prefers not to think of John Wilkes Booth, self proclaimed
adoptive son and the man who sullied the state motto. You follow the trail of John Wilkes Booth, and the farther south you
go, the deeper into Virginia, the more his relics
and flight sites are neglected, even abused. The South paid the price for his actions, and what he did is not forgotten. The Civil War is not over here. The fighting is done, but the echoes still ring through the halls.
No one makes money from the Booth sites in the south. Not deliberately. |
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Secretary of State William Seward. Lincoln's
Rival, Associate, and then best friend. |
For me this journey begins in the late 1850s. James Buchanan is President, one of a string of poor Presidents who fail to serve the country well. The next president will be William Seward. A fierce abolitionist and well-known statesman. Everyone knows it. Seward is considered such a lock to win his party's nomination, and then the presidency, he travels Europe in 1859 meeting with European heads of state, and greeted with the pomp and warmth, and cynicism, as if he were already head of state.
Back in the United States, a little known lawyer has been building grassroots appeal with a number of speeches. When the Republican party goes to it's convention in 1860, Lincoln is ranked 4th. Without going into detail, a "Stop Seward" movement arises, and Lincoln is nominated on the third ballot, to the shock of Seward and his supporters.
Lincoln goes on to be President, and the first cabinet member he chooses
is Seward, as Secretary of state. The man who's hopes he crushed.
Seward thinks he can manipulate Lincoln, and be the power behind the President.
No. |
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Seward's house, Lincoln's refuge from the country,
the war, and his wife. |
Lincoln makes his own decisions, and over the course of Lincoln's presidency, they become extremely close friends. Lincoln does not have a happy home life, so he spends many evenings with Seward, just a short walk across Lafayette Park across from the White House. Seward eventually comes to call Lincoln "the best man I ever knew."
The warmth is two ways - the men become no longer rivals, but supportive friends, and help each other through the incredible stresses of the Civil War.
They are also linked through Booth. When John Wilkes Booth plots the assassination of Lincoln, he intends to have Seward and Vice President Johnson killed in a desperate gambit to reinvigorate the war movement in the South. I don't think he really planned it out well in his head. So much of his "plot" seems to be rationalization and wishful thinking. I think he just kept picturing himself triumphant over Lincoln, and his planning didn't progress much beyond that. |
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The Presidential Box in the Ford Theater, right after
the assassination. Nothing has been moved.
Click here
for a bigger picture |
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The Ford Theater today. The picture of Washington
between the flags is the original one that was there the night of the
shooting. The other flags have been replaced by replicas, for
safekeeping.
An actual play is about to begin, with the stage
decorated and audience present.
Click here
for a bigger picture. |
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Booth pulls the trigger.
The President slumps forward. Major Rathbone leaps up, and takes a stab wound to the arm, as Booth fights past him, climbs over the front of the box, and drops to the stage, off balance.
Sic Semper Tyrannus.
And then it's across the stage, the pain in his leg fighting with the adrenaline in his body.
The only man on stage at the time hears Booth exclaiming to himself "I did it!"
Booth heads across the stage to the rear door.
And now we pick up the trail...
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Posted by Indiana Reb on: Tuesday 26th September 2006, 1:38 PM
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