The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murders (4 page)

Strangely it would appear that Lincoln had some sort of a premonition of his death in a dream just seven days before he was killed. While sat in the White House with Lamon, some other friends
and his wife, the conversation turned to dreams. It was thought that it was through dreams that God was able to communicate on a personal level – the Bible had numerous references to this.
Lincoln looked a little withdrawn as he mentioned to the crowd that he had dreamt only a few nights before and that he had been thinking of it ever since. His wife now keen to know what the dream
had been about encouraged the President to tell them. He explained how having gone to bed he had quickly fallen into a deep sleep. He had dreamt that he had got out of his bed and walked through
the White House where he had come upon a crowd of people gathered around an open casket. The crowd were clearly upset as many of them were crying. Approaching them he asked who had died and to his
shock and horror was told, “The President, he was killed by an assassin.”

Lincoln loved the theatre and knew many of the leading actors of the day. Ironically it was to be one of the thespian fraternity who was plotting the President’s demise and with the
Confederates losing ground by the day the need for drastic action, something which might stem the tide, was fast needed.

John Wilkes Booth was born of acting stock. His father Junius Brutus Booth – named after Caesar’s assassin – was a British-born thespian renowned for his powerful renditions of
Shakespearian characters. Leaving his wife and children he fled to America in 1821, finding a new love and setting up home in the Baltimore area. Junius fathered ten children and was an attentive
if erratic father who never settled on just one religion and therefore selected pieces of wisdom from all of the prominent religions of the day. The one principle he did maintain and one that he
passed on to his children was his belief in reincarnation – that every animal had once been a human being with an immortal soul – and for this reason they should never harm any of
God’s creatures. As a successful actor he was able to bring his children up well, during the summer living on a spacious farm and in the winter living in a town house in Baltimore.

John Wilkes Booth was the ninth child to be born, arriving in 1838; his siblings described a young boy full of fun and playfulness with a kind and sensitive nature. Booth’s mother could
not deny that he was the favourite of her ten children and in her opinion the best looking, with dark eyes, black hair and tawny coloured skin. Although their father tried to dissuade all his
children from following his footsteps onto the stage, Booth was consumed with a desire to be famous as was his elder brother Edwin. Edwin later became one of the most accomplished actors of his
day, demanding up to $1,000 dollars a week, a huge sum in those days.

Booth’s desire for fame was not confined to the realms of acting – once in discussions with friends at school he pondered out loud the prospect of him knocking over the Colossus of
Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. He remarked that if he could achieve this task then he would live for a thousand years in print, each generation learning his name.

In 1855, at the age of seventeen, Booth made his theatrical debut in
Richard III
at Baltimore’s St Charles Theatre. His first experience of the limelight was not good –
suffering stage fright he forgot his words and was booed off the stage. His subsequent attempts drew better results and he was soon regarded as a splendid actor who brought great realism to his
roles.

Booth travelled widely throughout the United States and was well received everywhere, especially in the South. Although illegitimate – his father still had a wife in England – Booth
considered himself to be of fine stock, coming from one of Maryland’s most respectable families. During the late 1850s, with regional tensions signalling the threat of civil war, Booth made
his views clear, sympathizing with the South, probably because he had enjoyed so much success there. He was even on record as stating that slavery was morally correct and was beneficial to all
parties. He also got into frequent heated debates with his siblings who mostly held Union views.

Booth found that his Confederate views became stronger over time, occasionally translating his thoughts into action. One day he was drawn to a group of men marching in uniform, members of a
volunteer militia group called the Richmond Greys. The group were heading to Charlestown, Virginia, where the Confederates were holding a young man called John Brown, who had gone to the South to
try and inspire a black uprising but had been caught and imprisoned. The Richmond Greys were en route to act as Brown’s prison guards when Booth managed to borrow a uniform and join the
group. Booth was one of the guards near the scaffold when Brown was hung, the sight of which affected him greatly, his southern sympathies now stronger than ever.

When the war did finally break out Booth managed to avoid any uniform, let alone that of the Confederate Army. Outspoken in his support of the South it played upon Booth’s mind that he did
not contribute to the war effort in a more direct way. It was said that he had promised his mother that he would never go to war – they were extraordinarily close – but others suggest
that Booth had an almost pathological fear of being disfigured and of the effect this would have upon his acting career. He managed to assuage his guilt at not becoming a soldier by smuggling
medical supplies to the South, but increasingly the guilt returned in direct proportion to the South’s decline. More and more the focal point of his hatred was Abraham Lincoln, whom he
thought wanted to destroy the South and its way of life. It was with these troubled thoughts that Booth once more began to think of his place in the history books.

During the final months of the war, Secretary of War Stanton and chief of the Union Army, General Grant, changed their policy of prisoner exchanges. Recognizing that they could now win a war of
attrition they decided to hold on to their 50,000 Confederate prisoners. Booth was one of a number of people who hatched a plan to give the South a boost – he would kidnap Lincoln and
transport him to Richmond, where they would then demand a range of concessions in exchange for the President’s release.

Booth moved quickly to put his plans together and by September 1864 he had started to assemble his gang, those who would assist in his daring plot. Arriving at Barnum’s Hotel in Baltimore
he was met by a couple of old school friends, Samuel Arnold and 26-year-old Michael O’Laughlin, both men who had been Confederate soldiers at one point. Over food and wine and a lot of talk
about the war Booth let the two in on his plan and asked if the pair would join him. Had it not been for Booth’s invitation the pair would certainly have gone through their lives unnoticed,
but now, flattered by their famous friend’s attention, they readily agreed to assist. Through his links in Canada Booth was given the names of Confederate agents who were operating in the
Maryland area, people who might be able to assist in his kidnapping plot. Meanwhile the South was losing ground fast, so any plan, no matter how outrageous, was worth a shot.

Booth now started to add detail to his plan, working out the best route for transporting Lincoln from Washington to Richmond. There were many back ways through Maryland, some of which were used
by spies passing back and forth, and it was during his forays along the lanes of Maryland that Booth recruited David Herold, an out-of-work Washington drug store clerk. Booth, always accessible to
his fans, had met Herold in 1863 when he invited him backstage after one of his performances. Running into him again Booth thought he might now be able to make use of the adoring Herold, who spent
much of his time bird watching around Maryland, an area he obviously knew well, having spent hours in the swampy waterways of the Maryland peninsula. Herold, a southerner who had moved north before
the war, was pleased to help, both for the sake of his Confederate colleagues and to assist the charismatic Booth.

Over the next few months Booth made many visits into the Maryland countryside, often acting as a potential real estate buyer, or claiming to be looking for horse stock. One day he attended a
Catholic service in Bryan town, about thirty miles from Washington, and there was introduced to Dr Samuel A. Mudd, a Charles County physician. The thirty-year-old Mudd was the son of a wealthy
planter who had employed up to one hundred slaves before the war broke out. On commencement of hostilities the slaves had dispersed and Mudd had been forced to give up his medical practice to help
out on the farm. After their introduction Booth was invited to stay over at Mudd’s residence, during which they grew to know more of each other, although Booth did not indulge Mudd in his
scheme to kidnap the President.

With his new friendship with Mudd cemented, Booth returned to Washington, buying a new horse on the way back. Part of Booth’s kidnap plan involved having a horse stabled near the theatre
as part of the escape plan – he intended to keep the horse in a run-down stable at the rear of Ford’s Theatre. Edman Spangler, the theatre’s handyman and joiner, was a person
Booth knew quite well, having been employed to work at Junius Booth’s home where he carried out repairs and improvements. Now a middle-aged widower he was employed at the theatre, creating
sets and generally helping out. Booth reacquainted himself with Spangler and soon they were seen out and about drinking together, Spangler enjoying the attention of his famous friend. Like many
before him Spangler soon fell under Booth’s spell and agreed to help the actor with his plan.

Through his links with Confederate agents Booth was now given the name of John Harrison Surratt, another sympathizer. When the two men met, Surratt was accompanied by a friend, Louis Weichmann,
and the three men went out for food and drinks during which time Booth was able to size the two men up. Booth was of the opinion that Surratt was an intelligent man, more so than his other
recruits, and he and Weichmann exhibited the same Confederate sympathies. Booth asked them so many questions that they began to suspect he was a Federal agent. When they refused to talk to him any
further Booth was forced to reveal his plan to kidnap the President to Surratt, but not Weichmann. Later Weichmann would report that the two men had held a number of private conversations in his
company, to which both men had claimed they were discussing a private property deal. Surratt listened to Booth’s foolhardy plan sceptically, but Booth was nothing if not persuasive and he
soon had him considering the enormity of what they could achieve. Surratt was well aware of the Union’s dominance over the South and was keen to see if they could swing the South’s
fortunes in the other direction. A few days after learning of the daring plot Surratt agreed to join the clan, keen to assist his southern allies.

Surratt had gone with his mother to live in Washington after his father died, moving into a ten-room boarding house which Mrs Surratt now intended to run as a going concern. Mrs Surratt kept the
boarding house scrupulously clean and its rooms were always in reasonable demand, although it would later be better known as the dwelling where the egg of conspiracy was hatched.

Surratt gave up his job to commit himself full time to the plot and made a contribution early on by managing to recruit another willing helper, a 29-year-old German immigrant named George A.
Atzerodt. Surratt realized that any workable plan would involve them escaping across the Potomac River and decided to visit Port Tobacco, a small town on the edge of Pope’s Creek in southern
Maryland, six hours hard ride from Washington. It was here that Surratt met Atzerodt, a cabinet maker by day and an oarsman by night. The two men had previously met and Surratt knew that Atzerodt
would be available for a price so was easily able to persuade him to visit Washington to discuss terms with Booth.

Booth gave the pathetic-looking Atzerodt the full treatment – fancy food and lots to drink. Atzerodt had a slightly sly look to him as well as being particularly scruffy and in need of a
wash, yet Booth decided to invite him to join the group as a co-conspirator, not just an employed river man which had been the original intention.

By now Booth had decided that the abduction would happen at one of Washington’s many theatres, as it gave Booth, the well-known actor, a legitimate reason for being there and no doubt
appealed to his sense of drama. The plan was simple. Booth and an accomplice would accost the President in his box at gunpoint and then truss him up. They would then lower the President onto the
stage by rope where the athletic Booth and his other helpers would whisk him out of the back of the theatre and away into the night, where, using their knowledge of the country lanes of Maryland,
they would smuggle the President to Richmond via the Potomac River.

Even though Booth recognized the need for yet another helper, it was folly to believe that an entire audience would simply sit and watch while the President of the United States was manhandled
out of the theatre by kidnappers. What he needed was someone with an intimate knowledge of the theatre who would be able to extinguish the gas lights, plunging the place into darkness. To this end
Booth set off to New York where he tried to enlist the help of a boyhood friend who was working with his brother Edwin, but the man turned the offer down flat. Booth returned to Washington where he
again tried to recruit another young man but he too declined the offer. He was of course running a grave risk that any one of those he tried to recruit, especially those who refused to help, might
have turned him over to the authorities. None did, probably not because they held Confederate sympathies, but more likely because they didn’t ever believe the plan would be put into
action.

Daily press reports relayed news of the North’s successes and most people, even the southerners, were convinced of the North’s impending victory. Day by day General Grant’s
army was winning Confederate flags while Lee’s armies were being trapped and demolished in all of the main fighting zones. The daily newspapers made depressing reading for Booth who now
wanted to push ahead with his plans.