Lost History – When Booth saved Lincoln
The storming of Capitol Hill last week is an event that has already entered the dramatic annals of American history. When troubling incidents occur in the public sphere, it is often enlightening to trace their effects on private people. How did Jackie Kennedy cope after that fateful drive in Dallas? How did Watergate change the common comprehension of governance in the United States? Most major events generate thousands of intriguing tales that are worth retelling. No episode in the ongoing saga of American life has germinated as many consequential stories as the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. “The crime of the century” as it was called, caused the largest manhunt ever on American soil and inflicted a deep trauma on the citizenry of a divided nation. There is a plethora of strange and profound narratives that sprang from the crime committed that night at the Ford Theatre, but of all of them, none is more coincidental and heart-warming than the brief encounter between Edwin Booth (John Wilkes Booth’s older brother) and Robert Todd Lincoln (President Lincoln’s eldest son).
Everyone who has heard of Lincoln’s assassination knows that John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor in his day. Few now know that he belonged to an acting dynasty, comparable to the Redgraves; he was the son and brother of two of the most celebrated theatrical talents at the time. Booth’s father, Junius Brutus Booth, was born in London and rose to fame through various renditions of Shakespeare’s most iconic roles. He conducted tours of Europe and the United States, eventually settling with his family in Washington DC. In later life, Junius became friends with President Andrew Jackson and once jokingly threatened to assassinate the occupant of the White House, a frivolous and insincere idea that his younger son would one day reconcile with reality.
Booth’s brother, Edwin Thomas Booth, was a highly acclaimed Shakespearean performer in his own right, but unlike his aureate father, he preferred to declaim his lines more naturally and less loudly. Edwin has been described by several authorities as the greatest Hamlet of the 19th century, establishing a standard for the part that his successors struggled to emulate and eclipse. Though their surname is now synonymous with a brutal Southern retaliation against the beloved leader of the North, the Booth family were primarily supporters of the Union. John Wilkes shocked his siblings when he revealed his loyalty to the South, but not being a combatant, his political opinions were deemed harmless by his family. On 15 April 1865, after Edwin learned of his brother’s brutal crime and astonishing abscondment, he wrote to their sister, the poet, Asia Booth, saying “he is dead to us now”. There had been a rift between the brothers prior to the assassination, one that was not confined to politics but was determined by a difference in temperament. In one moment, his brother had reduced the fame of their revered family to a single act, an act most members of the Booth family were enraged by and ashamed of. Edwin was therefore gladdened to learn that he had unwittingly saved the life of the murdered President’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, several years before his brother’s unforgiveable offence.
At a train station in New Jersey, the President’s son was almost thrown off the platform as a crowd jostled to purchase a place on a sleeping car that had just arrived. In 1909, Robert Lincoln described the chance encounter with the celebrity-sibling of his father’s future assassin:
The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.
While working on the staff of Ulysses S Grant, Robert recounted this experience to a fellow officer named Adam Badeau, who was a friend of Edwin Booth. Badeau sent a message to Booth praising his heroism and informing him of the identity of whom he had saved (hitherto Booth was unaware of his egregious connection to the unbalanced man). It is said that he was greatly comforted by this unintended act of redemption and it did some good in alleviating the shame he felt.
The families of notorious criminals often suffer from their close association with infamy. If some of the recording technology we enjoy today existed in Edwin’s time, we might better remember him as an actor of the highest order and not simply as a fascinating footnote to his brother’s historic crime.