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    The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln
    The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln
    The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln
    Ebook96 pages53 minutes

    The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

    By Rebecca Langston-George

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    About this ebook

    Today everyone knows the name of John Wilkes Booth, the notorious zealot who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. But in his lifetime, the killer was an actor who was well-known among fans of the theater, well-known but less famous and less admired than his brother Edwin. In the 1860s, Edwin Booth ranked among the greatest and most-respected stars of the stage. He lived in New York and sympathized with the Union cause, while his younger brother stomped the streets of Washington, D.C., and raged as the Civil War turned in favor of the North. John fantasized about kidnapping the president, but after the defeat of the Confederacy, he sought deadly vengeance. The night Lincoln attended a performance at Ford's Theatre, Edwin was far away, knowing nothing of the plot unfolding in the nation's capital.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCapstone Young Readers
    Release dateSep 1, 2017
    ISBN9781515797777
    The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

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    • 5/5
      The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln by Rebecca Langston-George is a book I was lucky enough to be allowed to read from NetGalley and the book's publishers. It is an astounding read! It flows so well and gives the reader all the gossip of the time so we know all the scoop. All the players, who knows who, who was where and when, what was happening and when, little minor things that were little known, and so much more is explained in here. I was entranced! Of course I know the story but this added so much more and added things to it I didn't know and I have read about it a dozen or more times. This is not really solely on the death of Lincoln but more on the brothers Booth. Their differences, the way they grew up, what happened after the shooting, and all the way to death...that that was a shock with Edwin's death and what was happening at the same time, wow! I loved this book. Lots of great pictures and make sure you check out the pics at the end of the book of John's possessions. Wonderful book!

    Book preview

    The Booth Brothers - Rebecca Langston-George

    Cover

    CHAPTER 1

    A WANTED MAN

    The cold night sky shrouded the barn in inky darkness. Gusts of chilling wind passed through the slats of the barn walls, rustling the frames used to hang drying tobacco leaves inside. Indeed, it was cold that long-ago morning, April 26, 1865, but the man lying in the hay on the floor dared not risk lighting a fire in the barn’s stove. Wounded and weary from travel, his body may have cried out for warmth, but a fire was a chance he did not take. Other, more prudent men might have feared a stray spark would ignite the hay, but he had never been the cautious sort. At the moment, he feared the smoke and light from a fire could bring something more dangerous — the men who were hunting for him.

    He had been on the run for 12 days. Along with his companion, David Herold, he had scurried from place to place during that time. Each stop was a hideout. Each host was an accomplice, willing or not. He had a price on his head. Posters all across the country offered a $100,000 reward for the man and his accomplices. He was John Wilkes Booth, the most wanted man in America, and he had committed a crime so heinous there was scarcely a newspaper in the country that hadn’t splashed his act across its front page.

    John Wilkes Booth had enjoyed a successful career as a stage actor, but he became consumed by resentment and anger during the Civil War.

    To Booth’s great surprise, however, the newspapers had not painted him as a hero, as he had anticipated. Certainly, he had not expected praise from Northern papers. But to be declared a criminal in his beloved South was a wound more painful than the fractured leg that had been slowing him down.

    Many miles away, John’s older brother Edwin was in hiding of another sort. Edwin Booth ranked among the country’s best-known actors, and he was accustomed to seeing his picture in the newspaper. He was no stranger to being the subject of gossip. But his brother’s actions had put his entire family under criminal suspicion. Their older brother Junius, known as June, and John Clarke, their brother-in-law, had been jailed. They were suspected of helping John Wilkes Booth plan his crime. Edwin’s scheduled performances were all canceled. Booth — a last name that had drawn great crowds of paying customers into theaters — had become overnight a lightning rod for hatred, gossip, and threats.

    Edwin stayed in seclusion, hoping to avoid both the public and the newspaper reporters. He believed he might be taken into custody at any time. He worried for his mother.

    After reading in the newspaper of her brother’s crime and then, only minutes later, watching her husband’s arrest as a suspected accomplice, his pregnant sister, Asia Clarke, had fallen ill. Surely Edwin, along with the rest of America, wondered where John Wilkes Booth had gone. Had he committed the crime of which he was accused? Had others helped? Edwin and his family members likely shared one worry that their fellow citizens did not. Was their brother all right?

    Feverish and aching in the cold, dark barn, John Wilkes Booth badly needed rest. He knew he would have to move on when the sun rose. Clearly, his latest host, Mr. Richard H. Garrett, had become suspicious. Initially John had passed himself off as a wounded Confederate soldier trying to make his way home. But Booth hadn’t played that part effectively. He was too well armed and too eager to reach for his guns when Union soldiers passed by. Also, Garrett’s son John had heard that soldiers were scouring the area for an assassin. What would happen if they should find such a man in his guest room? After dinner John Garrett told his guest he was no longer welcome in his house, but he offered to take Booth and Herold elsewhere in the morning.

    And so, denied the soft, warm bed he’d enjoyed the last few nights, John lay on a pile of hay in the old tobacco barn with his leg throbbing and his pride wounded. It was after 2 o’clock in the morning when he jerked awake. The sound of horse hooves fell on his ears. The night air came alive with whispers and footsteps. A dim flicker of candlelight bobbed between the barn slats, growing brighter and closer. Union soldiers were coming.

    John Wilkes Booth

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