He stood in the dark, narrow passageway with a dagger clasped in his left hand, a Philadelphia Deringer in his right. He stepped forward, shot Lincoln in the back of the head, slashed his dagger across the arm of a bystander who tried to subdue him, and leaped over the railing onto the stage.
He paused for a melodramatic flourish, facing the stunned crowd and yelling, Sic semper tyrannis — Latin for "Thus always to tyrants. The killing shocked the country.
Northerners feared saboteurs among them, while many Southerners believed the murder would bring harsh retribution from the post-war government. The escaped Booth became a specter in the public mind, with witness reports coming in from Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Meanwhile, the real Booth was heading south, dodging the Union dragnet on his way to Mexico.
They finally caught him in the rising dawn of April 26th, holed up in a barn in Port Royal, Virginia, with an accomplice, David Herold. Surrounded, Herold quickly gave up, but Booth refused. An officer set the barn ablaze, hoping to smoke out the assassin. Instead, Sergeant Boston Corbett fired his pistol through a crack in the building, hitting Booth in the neck. Paralyzed, he was dragged from the flames. As he lay dying, he repeatedly whispered, "Tell my mother I die for my country.
Samuel Mudd, who, the film contends, was scapegoated by a vindictive Northern government. The film, directed by John Ford, plays fast and loose with history, but even at seven years old, Orlowek says, "I was outraged when I saw what they did to Dr. Mudd, and I had the sense that I wanted to go back in time. In one episode, of course, they foiled an assassination plot against Lincoln.
Even at his youngest, Nate Orlowek had a strong sense of justice and a belief in the mutability of history. The Lincoln assassination became one of his many historical interests. But despite all he read, he never doubted the official story until he was It was August, David E.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress. He paged through it, flipping to the final illustrated plate. There he saw the familiar face of John Wilkes Booth juxtaposed with a picture of a dead man sitting in a chair. In the right cast of mind you might see a resemblance between the two, accede that the dapper, year-old star on the right could have sagged and drooped over 40 years to become the swollen, mummified body on the left.
As the story went, George had several times confessed to being John Wilkes Booth, even going so far as to admit, "I killed the best man that ever lived. A lawyer named Finis L. George, how the man had confessed, and how his tale offered "a correction of history.
It was as though a quest had opened before him, this bookishly serious but charismatic young man. He had found not just a puzzle, but an opportunity to set things right. From his father, who had marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, who when watching sports always rooted for the underdog, and who unapologetically believed that one man could save the world — from him Orlowek learned that when something is wrong, you should try to change it.
We should fight to change them. Nate Orlowek has spent 40 years investigating whether Booth died in the barn — or escaped to Oklahoma. Family photographs flank the couch. You could wonder whether it has consumed him, this quest to correct history. When he warms to the subject he speaks quickly, punctuating his points with a defiantly raised finger, his tales digressive, his facts precise.
So why John Wilkes Booth? Like his father he wanted a cause bigger than himself; like his father he wanted to save the world. He took to his cause with the zeal of an idealistic teenager. He recruited friends. He combed archives. When the Library of Congress told him he was too young to do research there, he cornered his senator in an elevator and, soon enough, got his access.
Not only that, but he gained entrance to the rare books room. The media flocked to him. Local television, newspapers, and radio. A lot of radio. And then, in July , Rolling Stone. Orlowek soon signed on as a consultant for The Lincoln Conspiracy , billed as "a story every American has the right to know. Even in a post-JFK assassination, post-Watergate era, with audiences deeply cynical about government, the theory had limited popular appeal. Historians were appalled. Afterward, Orlowek found himself drifting away from the work.
A supporter of slavery, Booth believed that Lincoln was determined to overthrow the Constitution and to destroy his beloved South. Booth enlisted a group of friends from Washington to aid him in his attempt. On the evening of April 11, the president stood on the White House balcony and delivered a speech to a small group gathered on the lawn.
Two days earlier, Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, and after four long years of struggle it had become clear that the Union cause would emerge from the war victorious. Lincoln also indicated a wish to extend the franchise to some African-Americans—at the very least, those who had fought in the Union ranks during the war—and expressed a desire that the southern states would extend the vote to literate blacks, as well. Booth stood in the audience for the speech, and this notion seems to have amplified his rage at Lincoln.
That is the last speech he will ever make. Faced with idle time during his break from the theater, Booth became involved in a conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln.
The plan involved bringing Lincoln to Richmond and demanding either peace or the release of Confederate soldiers as a ransom. Booth enlisted six southern sympathizers, but their March attempt in Washington, D. Frustrated at seeing his plot foiled, Booth resolved to go to a far greater extreme.
On April 14, , just after 10 p. Directly after the shooting, Booth leaped onto the stage and yelled, "Sic semper tyrannis! Thusever to tyrants! The South is avenged! Booth reportedly broke his leg in the process, but managed to make it to his getaway horse before anyone in the shocked crowd could stop him. After crossing the Potomac River with some difficulty, Booth and his co-conspirators arrived at Richard H.
Garrett's farm in Port Royal, Virginia. Investigators were in hot pursuit and on April 26, , caught up to the criminals, who had been hiding in Garrett's barn. If you will withdraw your men in line yards from the door, I will come out and fight you. Again, his request was rebuffed. Broadside advertising reward for capture of Lincoln assassination conspirators, illustrated with photographic prints of John H.
But Booth remained behind, hiding in the shadows, heavily armed with a pair of pistols, a large Bowie knife and a carbine, or short-barreled rifle. John Wilkes Booth being dragged from the barn on Garrett's farm by Union cavalry sent to capture him after his assassination of President Lincoln.
When Conger reached the barn door, he found detective Baker with Booth, who had suffered a serious neck wound. His final death scene would drag on for several hours. Soldiers moved Booth to the porch of the farmhouse belonging to the Garrett family, whose tobacco barn they had just torched. There, Booth struggled to sip water but managed to speak in a whisper.
0コメント