JWB: A&E Biography Notes

Melodious voice

Know for impulse acting…he was the passionate one…the richard the 3rd…
He was known for his physical prowess on stage, very athletic, very live, very impulsive, very passionate. And in his roles, be it Romeo or Richard the 3rd, he was known for his swashbuckling abilities. And he fit the part. He dressed accordingly. And he acted his own way.

John was not known for preparing well. In fact there is a story about him pacing up and down the floors of a Philadelphia boarding house, while he was with the Archstreet Stock Company, marching up and down saying "I must have fame…fame." And his friends all wondered how he was going to get it if he didn't work for it.

In 1862, he performed in Saint Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati. He was Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Romeo. Appearing 167 times, Booth played 18 different roles in the course of a single year. Booth flourished during the war. He would play in a given theatre for a week, supported by the stock company and then move on to another theatre. He would sometimes make $1,000 dollars a night. He was a very young star, being around 24, 25 years old.

He played Richard the 3rd on November 2nd, 1863 & Romeo on May 7th, 1864.

An avid reader of the newspaper.

Seemingly in the peek of his carrier, Booth's main focus drifted away from acting. There's been some superficial theories that his voice was giving away on him, that he had not had the proper training that his older brother had had and that he had sort of reached his peak and there was nowhere else to go. I have a sneaking suspicion that his confederate sympathies were taking over. He realized that his beloved South was going down hill. I think his strong Maryland background kicked in.

At Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C., ten days before Lincoln gave his famous speech at Gettysburg, he saw Booth perform in the "Marble Heart". Lincoln asked Booth to come back and see him later- that he wanted to shake hands with him and it is said that Booth said "I would rather have the applause of a nigger."

Booth apparently had tired of acting. He was determined, finally, to react to the war. In october he traveled to a northern hotbed of Southern Sympathies, Montreal, Canada. After meeting with confederate agents, Booth returned to Maryland and began slowly to assemble a plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. His horrible plot had a humanitarian appeal. Booth hoped to trade he President back to the US in exchange for confederate prisoners of war hopelessly trapped in northern prison camps.

In contrast the nations celebration of the war's end, he was known to be fairly drunk some of the time. He was drinking a quart of Brandy at a time. He was unhappy with history. He could not accept the outcome of the Civil War and he hoped to do something to change it. JWB and some of his fellow conspirators were in the crowd gathered on April 11th at the White House. Abraham Lincoln spoke and suggested a newly reconstructed government offer the right to vote to African American citizens. This outraged Booth, he said, "This means nigger citizen chip, now i'm going to get him. That's the last speech he'll ever make." So 3 days later when he heard Lincoln was going to be attending a play at Ford's Theatre I think he began to make his plans for an assassination.

It was known within Booth's family that he was secretly engaged to wed. He's fiance's family would not have preferred their marriage, Lucy Hale's was the daughter of a US senator.

After several shots of whiskey. He went to the Ford theatre that night.

There's no reason to think that there was anything wrong with John Wilkes Booth. He just hated Lincoln. And at a time he was a true believer. He believed in the cause of the South. And this was a time when hundreds of thousands of American men were willing to kill and to die for what they believed in. Booth saw himself as a southern solider. And he saw his act as an act of war.

"I love peace more than life. I have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years I have waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope of peace is dead. God's will be done, I go to see and share the bitter end." - JWB