John Wilkes Booth was the perfect assassin. He was charming, well-mannered, and striking in his appearance. If Booth did not exist, it would be necessary to make him up.[i] His sister, Asia, remembered John Wilkes singing one of his favorite tunes, in 1865 When Lincoln Shall be King.[ii] Booth sincerely believed when the war ended, Abraham Lincoln would proclaim himself emperor of the United States.
Since the beginning of the war, he blamed the South’s
troubles on Abraham Lincoln. Then, as the war dragged on, he felt the need to
do something—maybe kidnap or kill Lincoln.
The attack at Ford’s Theatre was not the first time
Booth contemplated murdering President Lincoln. On August 13, 1864, he played
an engagement in Meadville, Pennsylvania. When he checked out of the McHenry
House, employees found a large inscription scratched in the window. “Abe
Lincoln departed this life Aug. 13th, 1864, by the effects of poison.”
No
one thought much about it at the time. After the assassination, the windowpane
was removed from the building. It was framed against a black background next to
Booth’s signature cut from the desk log. It now belongs to the War Department.[iii]
While
not an actual assassination attempt, it shows Booth contemplated murdering the
President as much as eight months before he pulled the trigger at Ford’s
Theatre. This occurred at the same time he was assembling his kidnap team. Did
Booth plan to kill Lincoln all along? No one will ever know, but it is a real
possibility.
The
story is, Booth, David Herold, and Lewis Payne planned to poison Abraham
Lincoln. Mary Hudspeth found two letters on the floor of a streetcar in New
York in November 1864. The message said, “Abe must die, and now. You can choose
your weapons. The cup, the knife, the bullet.” Towards the end of the letter,
the writer (John Wilkes Booth?) offered several words of encouragement. “Strike
for your home, strike for your country; bide your time, but strike sure. Get
introduced, congratulate him, listen to his stories...Do anything but fail.”[iv]
The
Chicago Tribune reported, “Mr.
Lincoln had been very ill, for some days, from the effects of a dose of blue
pills taken shortly before his second inauguration. He was not well and appearing to require his usual medicine, [Mary Lincoln] sent to the drugstore
in which Herold was employed last and got a dose and gave them to him at night
before going to bed, and the next morning his pallor terrified her.”
His
face was white as a pillowcase. “Such a
deadly white.” The Lincolns decided they would get no more medicine there, “as
the attendant evidently did not understand making the prescriptions.”[v]
It
is a good story, but that is all it is. The plot to poison Lincoln (if it
occurred) took place in the fall of 1864. The story in the Chicago Tribune took place in early March 1865. Herold did not work
at the drugstore then.
[i]
I don’t have an attribution for this line. I’m not sure if it is original to
me, or if it was borrowed from the description of another character. If anyone
knows, please contact me so I can attribute properly.
[ii]
Clarke, Asia Figga Booth. The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth By
His Sister. 1938. P. 69.
[iii]
Holland, Josiah Gilbert and Gilder, Richard Watson. Four Lincoln Conspiracies:
Including New Particulars of the Flight and Capture of the Assassin. The
Century Magazine. April 1896. P. 890.
[iv]
Holland, Josiah Gilbert and Gilder, Richard Watson. Four Lincoln Conspiracies:
Including New Particulars of the Flight and Capture of the Assassin. The
Century Magazine. April 1896. P. 892.
[v]
Chicago Tribune. July 22, 1865.
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