JWB: Hunt for John Wilkes Booth Notes

A fellow actor said, when his passions were up there appeared to be flames coming out of his eyes.

JWB hears about the presidential visit when he picks up his mail at Fords that day. The Maryland actor is friends with the Ford Family; he knows the theatre's every detail. JWB believes that fate has put the President he so despises at his mercy.

He felt that the country had always existed half slave and half free and could continue to do so indefinitely. He was convinced Lincoln was turning into a dictator.

Destiny. Remembered.

When Booth arrives just before 10pm the play is in the 3rd Act. One of the actresses on stage later said she notices Booth at the back of the 1st floor crowd and when she finished her scene she looked up and he was gone. Booth is making his way to the second level of the theatre, moving slowly along the back wall toward the President's box. He didn't appear to be nervous, although he did ignore and pass by a few friends and they thought that was odd later that he didn't acknowledge them as he walked by. He was dressed in an ordinary black business suit and had his trademark slouch hat on. There was a police man who had accompanied the Lincoln party to the theatre, God knows where he was, but Lincoln's valet, Charles Forbes, was sitting in front of the outer door to the box. Booth pauses for a moment, looks at the stage, scans the audience, and then takes a pack of calling cards from his pocket, he gives one to Forbes. Once inside the box, Booth has unimpeded access to Lincoln.

He comes from the balcony, into that first door, shuts the door and then [standing in the passage way] he takes a wooden bar and jams the door shut so he's now actually barricaded inside with the President's party. He walked over to the other door, the door to box number 8, took one or tow steps inside and then fired point blank at the President hitting him in the back of the head. The shot echoes through the quiet theatre. The stunned audience looks up towards the President. Some believe the sound is part of the show. Henry Rathbone jumps to his feet, Booth pulls a knife and slashes Rathbone across his left arm cutting him to the bone. Then Booth went right between the President's chair and Mrs. Lincolns' chair, put his hand on the flag draped railing infront and vaulted right over onto the stage more than 12 feet below. However, when he was leaping a spur from his booth caught some of the decoration around the President's box and it meant that Booth landed awkwardly on the stage and broke the fibula in his left leg. He set himself, stood up, and raised that dagger over his head and cried "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants). It was a phrase the he thought was going to explain everything.

30 miles south east of the capital, now with David Harold on horse, they are finding trouble…Booth needs a doctor to set his broken leg. He realized that the previous year when he was down in Charles County he had met a doctor, Doctor Samuel Mudd and even spent the night at Doctor Mudd's house. But making their way at night is difficult; they become lost; the don't find Doctor Mudd's house until 4 am. He had broken his fibula, that's the smaller bone in the lower leg. He gets moved upstairs, his booth is cut off. Mudd makes a crude leg splint and a crutch from some wood. Booth falls asleep. Harold has breakfast with Mudd never divulging who they are or what they've done. Mudd left the next morning and heard the news, then understanding that those men were in his house with his wife and 4 children. On Mudd's way back he saw the men leaving, he yelled at them, Booth pleaded not to tell they were there. Mudd protecting his family went back home.

Booth and Harold wanted to reach the Potomac River. To get there they have to crossed the notorious Zekiah swamp. They need to cross the swamp to the river to get into Virginia, the South. By night fall, they are lost. They pound on doors hoping to find someone who can lead them across the swamp. Oswell Swan, a freed black man is persuaded to take them across. They tell him they need to reach the home of Samuel Cox. The men didn't know Cox personally but they knew he was considered the chief rebel in the area. They crossed around midnight. Cox tells him that he will help them and will contact a man who helps fugitives get across the Potomac River.

Booth and Harold continue on through the swamp. Waiting several days letting the Calvary charge pursuit go passed him. What's worrisome for Booth is that the horse he rented was skittish and hatted to be tied up, so when he tied her up she broke free and if that horse had been seen/found by the calvary everyone would have known he was not far away. So Harold took both of the horses in the swamps deep waters, shot the horses and sank their caucuses into the water.

In a pine thicket, near the Zekiah swamp, they meet Thomas Jones, Cox's friend, who gives them food, blankets, and most importantly newspapers. Writers who had wondered when this tyrant (Lincoln) would meet his Brutus…are now railing about the assassination. Portraying Booth in drawings as having been friends or supporting the Devil. What really got booth is that some people were calling him a coward for seeking behind an unarmed man and shooting him in the back of the head. He carried a day book and started to use it as a diary. Booth didn't want to be caught, but he did want to the world to know what he had done and why he had done it.

After 5 days of hiding in the swamp, Booth and Harold make there way to the woods along side the Potomac River. They can see Virginia on the other side and believe if they can make it across they will be safe.

Thomas Jones gives them a row boat to cross the river. He also gives Booth a compass and tells them to go South East for 9 miles, which should take them to a home of a confederate operative. They had to cross it in the darkness to not be seen by all the people on the river looking for them. Booth holds a candle to study his compass so they can stay on course. They rowed right by a warship, they pulled the ors in and move passed them. Because of the current moving north, 8 hours from leaving, they were right where they started from. They had to wait for the next night.

The following night they make it across. They instruction from Jones to find a woman called Mrs. Elizabeth Quesenberry, a confederate operative and she ends up offering them no help at all but a little food. No one wanted to be seen as a confederate sympathizer at this time. They next try the home of Doctor Richard Stuart, who has known for helping confederate soldiers. He did not want anything to do with them. Having killed Lincoln after the war was seen as foul play to even confederates. Doctor Stuart sends the men to a freed black man's house, William Lucas. Booth threatened Lucas with a knife to let him sleep in his home that night. The Lucas family slept outside.

They threaten the son of a freed black man to give them a ride further south to a fairy in the town of port conway, virginia. Once there, waiting for the fairy, three confederate soldiers on horse coming back from the war, end up talking with the men and the news comes up. They agreed to help them get farther South. They tell them that they know a farm that they will probably be safe, the farm of Richard Garret. Two miles down the road. One of the 3 men was a young man who was enthralled that Booth was there, he asked him about the assassination and all Booth said was that "It's nothing to brag about."

He told Garret that he as a confederate soldier who was wounded and making his way back from the war. They received him openly. The next day they are all outside, the men hide because a calvary races by them. Now Garret is starting to be confused and concerned that they would steal their horses. They invited them a second night, but that they must leave in the morning and they were to stay in the Tobacco barn instead of the house. One of Garret's sons locks the men in the barn, without them knowing, so that they wouldn't steal a horse in the middle of the night.

2 am, April 26, 1865….25 men from the NY 16th Calvary arrived at the Garret farm, under the command of Lieutenant Edward Daughtry. The surround the farm house and demand the family to come outside. No one was saying anything. And then the oldest son cries, "whoever you're looking for it's probably those guys who are locked in the barn!"

The Barn has wide planks with wide gaps in-between for curing tobacco leaves. Garret and his neighbors stored furniture in it during the civil war and that's why his barn, unlike most in the area, has a lock on it. The soldiers force the same son, Jack Garret, to unlock the barn. The soldiers surround the barn, they say is the pair doesn't surrender they will burn the barn to the ground. Booth says, you better come in and get me/you brave boys, come in and get me. After about 10 minuets of the soldiers screaming, David Harold tells Booth that he's had enough. At first Booth says that he will kill him before he lets him out of the barn. But in a moment he changes his mind, he calls Harold a coward and tells Harold to go. Before Harold leaves, Booth grabs him and whispers, "whatever you do, don't tell them i have arms." Booth still has two pistols and the spencer carbine they picked up 12 days ago at the home of Mary Surratt. Booth was disappointed with Harold's decision, but yelled "this man had nothing to do with me."

Though the soldiers are told to take Booth alive, those who were there that night said their desire for revenge made it practically a mob scene. They light the barn in effort to get him to come out. Despite the flames starting to reach the ceiling, Booth still refuses to surrender. Booth said, "Alright my boys, prepare a stretcher for me.

Booth with no where else to go, drops his crutch and starts moving towards the door with the spencer carbine pointed at the door. We guess he was going to shoot his way out. Then outside, Boston Corrbett sees Booth raise the carbine, he levels his pistol between the slats of the tobacco barn and takes aim for his arm, but shoots him on the right side of the neck. Booth being paralyzed, he is carried to the front porch and for the next couple of hours he goes in and out of consciousness. He was shot through the neck vertebra. He asked them several times to kill him. And in his final moments, he said "Tell mother, I did it for my country." And he then asked them to lift up his hands, so he could say "useless, useless" and die.

Jim Fallon: Exploring the Mind of a Killer