Everybody knows who the killer of Lincoln is. John Wilkes Booth made a legend of himself by killing the president. But his life before and after the killing isn't quite as well documented.
Booth was born in a log cabin in Bel Air, Maryland. He later lived in Baltimore before going to boarding school in Sparks, Maryland. He started his acting career at 17 years old where he was booed for forgetting his lines. But later his career started to flourish due to the amount of enthusiasm that be put into his performances. He would soon become one of the more famous actors in the United States and start to tour nationally and played lead roles in popular plays such as Romeo and Juliette. Despite being strongly in favor of southern views, especially slavery, Booth would preform mainly in the northern or border states (most likely because of the more dense population for bigger shows).
During the war, Booth continued to preform in the north and south alike. But at the same time he openly displayed his hatred from Lincoln and the rest of the Federal government while he was in the south. He actually got arrested one time for saying that Lincoln and the government should "go to hell" while he was in St. Louis. During the war, Booth ran off with his fiancé, the daughter of the US senator of New Hampshire without him knowing, after receiving a blessing from his mother. Through everything, his fiancé had no clue of what Booth's future was going to be.
Booth had Originally planned to try and kidnap Lincoln when he went to Richmond but his planes were derailed once the Union had won the war. At this point he decided to stop acting and commit to the Killing of the president. He then carried out one of the most famous acts in United States history.
Before this, I barely knew anything about Booth except for him obviously being Lincoln's killer. This gave me some great insight into his roots and motivations, and how he got to this historic moment. I also found it quite interesting how Lincoln could have survived had the war gone differently.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough many admired Lincoln it is clear that others did not appreciate what he stood for. This blog post does an excellent job highlighting what type of man Booth was and his ideals. I wasn't aware that he was a famous actor which is why it makes the assassination even more shocking. High profile figures wanted Lincoln out of the picture to pursue their twisted goals.
ReplyDeleteThis post was good at giving some of the background behind John Wilkes Booth. I wanted to learn more about what happened to Booth after he killed Lincoln. After doing some research, I learned that what happened after was very eventful. The manhunt for Booth was a struggle. After Booth committed the crime, he jumped out of the presidential booth and broke his leg, but that did not stop him from meeting his accomplice, David Herold. They rode on horseback to different houses, and at one point, there were over 1000 Union soldiers hunting for them as well as a $100,000 reward for anyone who would turn them in. Herold and Booth rode on horseback to the south, stopping at houses of fellow conspirators. However, when they stopped in Virginia at a Richard Garrett's home, Union soldiers caught up to them. Booth tried to fight, but he died.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.history.com/news/john-wilkes-booth-final-days