In society today, the smallest most unexpected event or person can make an enormous impact on the course of history as “we” know it. A perfect example of this was caused by John Wilkes Booth. In just a minute he changed history and America in a way that no one thought could or would ever happen.
Son of noted actor Junius Brutus Booth and one of ten children, John Wilkes Booth was born on May 10, 1838 near the town of Bel Air, Maryland (Historynet.com). At the ripe age of seventeen, he made his first stage appearance, following in the footsteps of his father. Booth became expert at interpreting Shakespearian works. As a result of that, his roles were mainly in plays like Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and other plays by Shakespeare. Although he rarely prepared for his roles, his dark and muscular appearance made him a desirable candidate for many characters.
When the Civil War erupted, Wilkes was in his early twenties- still very young and naïve. Booth’s family mostly supported the Union. On the other hand, Booth was a supporter of the Confederates. As a child, his father’s farm had been operated by slaves, which influenced his views on the subject of the Confederates. Malicious and harmful emotions and opinions materialized from the war that led Booth to start creating schemes against President Lincoln. By 1864, at age 26, he created a plan to keep Lincoln hostage and planned to release him only if the Confederates in the war were freed. The plan began to crumble, so Booth decided to reach out to others who felt the same as he did. He met with several conspirators. The most crucial meeting was when Booth and a few others met at a woman named Mary Surratt’s boarding house in Washington D.C. to come up with a ne...
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At first glance, Booth may have seemed like a magnificent charismatic man. He was remarkably talented and was born from a family of well-known actors. He had luscious black hair that swept across his forehead and the deepest darkest eyes that gleamed with emotion. Yet, behind his angelic ebony eyes laid more nefarious thoughts. Booth was a radical supporter of the Confederacy. He despised the Union and the idea of Robert E. Lee surrendering his troops to the “tyrant” Abraham Lincoln depressed and enthralled him. H...
Shortly after the Civil war had ended and the confederate capital Richmond had fallen, the well known actor John Wilkes Booth decided to kill the President, and with the help of some friends the Vice President and Secretary of State as well. The man George Atzerodt was given the job of killing the Vice President. His plan was to book a room in the same hotel and Vice President Johnson but when the morning of the day he was supposed to commit the assassination came he backed out and could not carry through with the murder. Two other men, Lewis Powell and David Herold, were assigned to kill the Secretary of State William H. Seaward. Powell attempted to shoot him with a revolver but after a misfire attempted to stab Seaward unsuccessfully because of a jaw splint Seaward had on. After the failed assassination Powell and Herold split up. Po...
John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor, and could have had many assassination chances, including Lincoln’s second inauguration. Wanting the South to win the war, he never wanted the punishment of assassinating the president of the United States. Being a supporter of the Confederate, Booth believed that he assassinated Lincoln the momentum would spark the Confederate troops to life and lead them to victory. This book is very vivid in detail and is a great educational tool if you would like to learn more about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
“ Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer”, was written by James L. Swanson, a dedicated Lincoln scholar and attorney. He details in his book the incredible escape of John Wilkes Booth’s from authorities, with immaculate descriptions of little-known facts in the case of Lincoln’s Killer. Swanson’s nonfiction book dives into actual pieces of literature written at the time of Lincoln’s assassination by individuals who actually took part in the real-life drama, including John Wilkes Booth himself.April 14, 1865 is a day of infamy in United States history,it is the day that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Swanson delves deep into the minds of Booth and his accomplices , analyzing their every move. Booth flees the scene of the crime with Davey Herold, who has been a willing participant in Booth's secret plots to kill Secretary of State William Seward, Abraham Lincoln, and Vice President Andrew Johnson.
Booth had got the news that the president would be at the Ford’s theatre. This was great news for john both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln will be there in the same place. “Booth heard the big news: in just eight hours the man who was the subject of all his hating and plotting would stand on the very stone steps here he now sat. “Booth began to plain his assassination without having to hunt for Lincoln. John had a deep hatred for Lincoln, he had hated the state that our country had been in.
The book begins with an in-depth explanation of what happened in the latter stages of the Civil War. Major battles like Sayler’s Creek, High Bridge and Richmond are described through detailed language. For instance, at High Bridge, “Each man wages his own individual battle with a ferocity only a life-and-death situation can bring. Bullets pierce eyes. Screams and curses fill the air. The grassy plain runs blood red.” (page 61). All of these iconic Civil War battles led up to the Confederate surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse and the inescapable rebuilding of a new nation Abraham Lincoln had to deal with. Next, John Wilkes Booth is introduced and his pro-Confederate motives are made clear. His conspiracy to kill the president is described and his co-conspirators like Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt who also attempted to kill Secretary of State Seward a...
Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print. The. Pittman, Benn. The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. New York, NY: Moore, Wilstach, and Baldwin, 1865.
In this chapter of Davidson and Lytle’s After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, the authors use the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 and in particular the attack’s leader, John Brown, a radical abolitionist, to explain the massive increase in tension between the North and the South before the dawn of the American Civil War. After explaining the main premise of the raid and its immediate outcome, Davidson and Lytle use historical records and analyses made by historians from the 20th century to explore the possible reasons and motivations behind John Brown’s infamous attack that would define him as a martyr to some and an insane criminal to others. The attack goes down in history as the triggering event behind the American Civil War; Harpers
He was born the ninth of ten children to the famous actor, Junius Booth. He came from a wealthy family of actors, so he followed in their footsteps and made his stage debut at the age of seventeen. His acting career took him all over the United States.
John Wilkes Booth infamously known for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln was himself an interesting personality. The man was a well-known American stage actor at the Ford’s theatre, Washington. Booth believed slavery was a part of the American way of life and strongly opposed president Lincoln’s view on abolition of slavery in the United States.
Without any question, most people have a very clear and distinct picture of John Wilkes Booth a in their minds. It is April 1865, the night president Lincoln decides to take a much-needed night off, to attend a stage play. Before anyone knows it a lunatic third-rate actor creeps into Lincoln's box at Ford's theater and kills the president. Leaping to the stage, he runs past a confused audience and flees into the night, only to suffer a coward’s death Selma asset some two weeks later. From the very moment that Booth pulled the trigger, the victors of the Civil War had a new enemy on their hands, and a good concept of whom they were dealing with. A close examination of the facts, however, paint a different view of Booth, a picture that is far less black and white, but a picture with many shades of gray.
From his early life, one could imagine John Wilkes Booth was a simple young man, only looking to follow in his father’s footsteps as a master actor. However, one must look deep within John’s origins to truly understand the mindset of America’s most well-known assassin. He was born as the ninth son of Junius Booth, a nationally beloved actor and a domestically known drunkard (John Wilkes Booth 1). His fellow actors went as far as to describe him as insane (John Wilkes Booth 1838-1865). His mother, Mary Ann Holmes, was largely absent throughout John’s childhood. John and his nine siblings lived on a lavish ranch in Bel-Air, Maryland. Booth received an excellent education in acting, following in his father’s footsteps. Booth turned out to be an excellent actor, and in 1858, he became a member of Richmond Theatre. Clearly John didn’t value his family name, as he quickly made sure to establish the stage name of “J.B. Wilkes.” This early life was plagued by a political rift within his family. Booth was a native to Maryland, a border state that just barely sided with the union. Much of his family favored Lincoln’s stance, but Booth made it very clear he was stanchly against Lincoln’s initiative. However, Booth swore to his mother that he would not enl...
There are thousands of years of history that have taken place. History is not like art(less subjective), but there is still plenty of room for speculation, criticism, and debate among historians, professors, as well as average citizens. However, not all these moments are documented, or done successfully specifically. Some of these moments end up becoming movies, books, or even historical fiction novels, but what about those fundamental moments that aren’t readily documented? In the book The Birth of Modern Politics Lynn Hudson Parsons claims that the 1828 election was momentous in the history of both political history, as well as our nation. Parsons not only discusses the behind the scenes of the first public election of 1828, but the pivotal events in Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams’ lives leading up to the election as well. Parsons succeeds in proving her thesis that the 1828 election was crucial to American politics as we know it today, as well as provoking evidence from various sources with her own logic and opinions as well.
One motivation was that he thought he was doing something good for his country. John Wilkes Booth believed that he did the right thing for his country and was willing to take the punishment for it. In Booth’s last diary entry he says, “I struck for my country and that alone.” When Booth said this he means that was big reason he killed Lincoln. In conclusion,
John Wilkes Booth had been born May 10, 1838. Being the second youngest out of 11 siblings; he became an actor like his father also his older brother. The parents of John Wilkes Booth are Junius Brutus Booth , Mary Ann Holmes. Junius, his father, died when he was 14 years of age. John had 6 brothers, 5 sisters.