Book Review: My Thoughts Be Bloody

My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Nora Titone (Free Press, 2011) paperback, 484 pages

John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, is widely known to have been an actor.  In countless books, Booth's career has informed the retelling of the assassination and the surrounding conspiracy.  As an actor, Booth had a knowledge of the theater, which allowed him to plan his access to Lincoln, the timing of his act, and his escape.  More than this, though, there was a theatrical spectacle in the act, from the ambitious nature of the conspiracy to decapitate the government to Booth dramatically leaping from the president's box to the stage and uttering an exit line as he crossed the stage.

Despite his career as an actor and his relationship to the most famous acting family in 19th Century America, this aspect of Booth's life has been less explored by historians of Lincoln's assassination.  Nora Titone's recent joint biography of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth, My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, is an important corrective.  Chronicling the life of the acting family sired (out of wedlock) by Junius Booth, it begins with the extramarital relationship that forced the senior actor to flee his native England for the United States and then documents the family's up and down fortunes until 1865, when John Wilkes would ignominiously establish the family name in history.

The well-researched and beautifully written book is rather uninterested in the mechanics of the conspiracy and assassination.  Instead, and most helpfully, it offers a vivid presentation of two significant contexts for John Wilkes Booth's life and character: the theater profession and his family dynamics.

Through the Booths, Titone explores the travails of being an actor in early 19th Century America.  As a whole, actors and theater workers had a poor reputation as lower class people with very questionable morals.  Further, it was a risky business financially.  For backstage workers and company actors, the pay was measly, and even for established actors, earnings were directly tied to ticket sales.  To earn enough to support a family generally required extensive touring and mounting multiple different productions in each city, which led Junius Booth and then his sons to be away from home for extended periods of time.

As a young teenager, Edwin Booth began accompanying his father on tour, mostly to ensure that the famous actor was not drinking too much or gambling and losing his earnings.  Thus began Edwin's apprenticeship, watching his father perform famous roles again and again, and then taking ever more important parts in these performances.  After the untimely death of Junius Booth, Edwin became the main breadwinner in the family as an actor, eventually establishing himself in New York City.

While Edwin Booth seemed to have received or learned his father's substantial theatrical gifts, it was the impulsive younger brother John Wilkes Booth who inherited his father's smoldering good looks.  Trading on his close resemblance to his father and on the Booth family name, John Wilkes worked hard to break into acting, with initially frustrating results.  Even as he depended on his brother Edwin's financial support, he chafed under his brother's refusals to help advance his career, which apparently stemmed from a combination of sibling rivalry, a fear of professional competition, and a recognition that John Wilkes was not very talented as an actor.

After the early years where Junius struggled to establish himself in the American theater, the narrative alternatively focuses on Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth.  Seemingly required to grow up more quickly, Edwin always seems the more complete figure, while an increasingly frustrated John Wilkes moved around the edges of Edwin's orbit.  While this likely is a reasonable assessment of the relationship between the two brothers and their very different professional experiences as actors, it also betrays that Titone's interest here lies mostly with Edwin, certainly an intriguing and attractive biographical figure in his own right.  This leads to a fascinating dismissive tone toward John Wilkes Booth from both older brother Edwin and historian Titone.

As a result, not all of the psychological motivations of the assassin are fully explored here.  John Wilkes Booth's political sensibilities seem to form haltingly towards supporting the Confederacy, partially in rebellion to Edwin's support of the Union, but his interaction with the Confederate Secret Service is barely mentioned.  Neither is there much attention to the other conspirators, though I must confess that Titone's assessment of Booth Achieves a breakthrough -- here the assassin seems to have a personality compatible with the almost comical misfits assembled for the plot (with the exception of John Surratt, who has always seemed the smartest of the bunch to me).

Instead, what emerges is the story of the petulant, overgrown teenager who wants to prove he is his own man, whether in pursuing acting in a rather haphazard way or in aggressively -- and imprudently -- voicing his political views.  Driven to desperate lengths to make his name, this man eventually assassinates Abraham Lincoln.  This portrait of immaturity and petulance largely matches the personality quirks that John Wilkes Booth displayed during the 12 days after the assassination, as he tried to escape.  It does not, though, offer sufficient insight into Booth's association with the Confederate Secret Service, or more importantly, their willingness to associate with him and trust him as an operative -- and there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest this is an important part of the story, as Edward Steers and others have argued.

Still, there is much here to recommend.  Despite the depth of research, the book is not dry or cumbersome.  Instead, it offers a compelling narrative more similar to a novel.  If it leaves questions about Booth's motives for assassinating Lincoln, it expertly demystifies key parts of his personality and life.  Instead of an actor playing a part (badly), here is a more nuanced and fleshed-out portrait of the man who would be Brutus.

Book Review; April '65

April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War by William Tidwell (Kent State University Press, 1995), paperback, 264 pages

In the late 1980s, three authors, two historians and a longtime American intelligence officer, offered a compelling new theory o the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  Published in 1988, Come Retribution used lots of circumstantial evidence to show Confederate government involvement in the planning of the ultimately fatal attack against Lincoln, first conceived as a kidnapping, by the Confederate Secret Service.

William Tidwell, the intelligence officer among the group, follows up that substantial work with more evidence in April '65: Confederate Covert Action and the American Civil War.  In this case, he has dramatic evidence that suggests Confederate President Jefferson Davis was aware of the kidnapping plot and approved it.

Here, the case is again circumstantial.  There are few new bits of evidence about the Lincoln kidnapping/assassination plot itself, but there is new evidence regarding other covert operations which tantalizingly suggest parallels to the Lincoln plot.  Tidwell gives an overall mapping of covert operations in the Confederacy, considering how they were funded and how they were supervised and assessed.  The evidence suggests that there were no "lone wolves" among the Confederate operatives, implicitly and preemptively rejecting an argument that although Booth might have been an operate, in the case of the Lincoln plot he was acting of his own volition.

Much evidence points to the use of Confederate gold funding some of the kidnapping plot, including the possible payment of gold to John Wilkes Booth.  In this book, Tidwell documents the use of gold to fund all sorts of covert operations, and offers evidence that all such uses of Confederate gold required Davis' signature. This implies that Davis knew of, and approved of, some version of a plot against Lincoln in order to have issued a directive to the treasury to release some gold to involved operatives in Canada.  (This inference is not ironclad, however, given that the funding for the Secret Service in Canada was made in large payments designed to cover multiple operations.)

Tidwell is always careful to never overstate his conclusions, leaving them implied most often.  This is most obvious in the final chapter in which he details circumstantial evidence of the involvement of Mosby's raiders in the kidnapping plot.  Using parole information of certain of Mosby's companies, he discovers that several of them surrendered after others along a line related to Booth's escape route, shortly after Booth's death at the hands of pursuing US troops.  Alongside a few other extant orders, he traces the movements of many of Mosby's troops around Washington DC during the period of Lee's daring escape toward, and ultimate surrender at, Appomattox Court House.  Tidwell posits that these soldiers were detached to facilitate Booth's escape after either kidnapping or killing Lincoln.

Although not as shocking as Come Retribution, this book furthers and supports the central thesis of that book that there was a larger Confederate operation behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.  As with any circumstantial argument, the theory cannot be proven beyond doubt, butt the weight of the evidence makes the theory highly credible.  If I doubt a few of Tidwell's conclusions, I find his overall assessment compelling, particularly in light of the known details of Booth's escape from Washington using a network of Confederate agents.  Edward Steers, whose Blood on the Moon remains the best single volume on the assassination, also finds value in this research, incorporating some of it into his narrative.

In short, this book is a worthwhile addition to the large number of books on the Lincoln assassination.  Unlike other books that posit wild conspiracy theories, this one rarely argues beyond the evidence or stretches the evidence -- and credulity -- to make its claims.  At times a little dry (though less so than Come Retribution), it is always reasonable and coherent.  For the student of Lincoln's assassination, it is an important new argument.

Lincoln Check Found

Last weekend, it was revealed that someone had located a small collection of checks signed by famous people in bank storage, including one signed by Abraham Lincoln dated just two days before his death.  The sesquicentennial Civil War blog at The Washington Post, "A House Divided," has a nice entry about the check, including comments from Harold Holzer about its likely purpose.  Holzer rightly comments on the emotional importance of the artifact because it is from the final week of Lincoln's life.

Images of Lincoln's check, and a couple of other presidential checks found in the collection, are available from this Washington Post article.

Recent New Lincoln Book

On Sunday, The Washington Post published a review of the new book by James Swanson, Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse. In the review, John Waugh (author of several Lincoln and Civil War era books) attests that Swanson's book is 'riveting, absorbing, and meticulous.'

Given the popularity of Swanson's previous book, the bestselling Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, it is easy to understand the expectation for this latest book. The two books detail virtually the same period of time (April 1865). Perhaps the unexpected thing is the counterpoint Swanson is attempting between the pursuit of Jefferson Davis as he tried to move the Confederate Government (such as it was at that point) from Richmond further south and the more parade-like journey of Lincoln's body from Washington to Springfield for burial.

I enjoyed reading Swanson's Manhunt. It was fast-paced and very well-written, and Swanson marshaled the facts in a dramatic way, making the book seem more like a novel than a work of nonfiction. Swanson's book didn't add any new details to the story, but certainly told "The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth" in a compelling way. I expect the same from Bloody Crimes.

New Lincoln Books This Month

In the past few weeks, there have been a few Lincoln-related books released. Two are new hardcovers, two are new paperback editions of previously published books. Among them are a new collection of Lincoln photographs, an study of Lincoln's use of religious language, a dual biography of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and a book on the assassination.

Lincoln, Life-Size by Philip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt, and Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. (Knopf, 2009, hardcover, 208 pages)

The Kunhardts, including the late Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., are documentary film producers and authors, who occasionally publish books related to their larger projects. This is their third Lincoln book, following Lincoln (1992), which was a companion to an ABC documentary, and this year's "Looking for Lincoln."

The thought behind this book is to take known photographs of Lincoln, including some pictures where Lincoln is only one person among many, and then to blow up Lincoln's face to life-size dimensions. It is an intriguing idea. Lincoln's face is very expressive in an odd sort of way, and there are so many images of Lincoln that the comparisons between them must be very interesting. My only concern is that some of these blown up images must be pretty blurry and grainy; otherwise, it sounds like an intriguing experiment that might offer new appreciation for Lincoln from the abundant photographs taken during his lifetime.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer by A. E. Elmore (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009, hardcover, 280 pages)

Several books have been written about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, including the recent The Gettysburg Gospel by Gabor Boritt and Gary Wills' Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg. In both of these books and others, authors have rightly commented on Lincoln's use of religious imagery and language. None, to my knowledge, has focused only on the religious language until this book by A. E. Elmore, a professor of English at Athens State University in Alabama.

Such a study is long overdue. As significant as Wills' book is, with its effort to contextualize the address within its situational context -- including his fascinating presentation of the relationship of Lincoln's words to the nascent pastoral movement in cemetery design, he only devotes only one chapter to the words of the address itself. A careful consideration of the antecedents of the words, so many of which have complex layers of meaning, can only improve appreciation of Lincoln's careful use of language.

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer (Twelve, paperback, 448 pages)

The relationship between Lincoln and Douglass, often contentious given some of Douglass' writing about Lincoln during his administration, is most often remembered for Lincoln soliciting "my good friend Douglass'" opinion of his second inaugural address. ("A sacred effort," Douglass is reported to have replied.) However, the relationship was much more complicated, partially because both Lincoln and Douglass were self-made men who were best known for their ideas.

On the other hand, this is one of three recent books that have focused on Lincoln and Douglass. The relationship is intriguing, if only that Douglass' 1876 address about Lincoln at the dedication of the Freedman's Memorial may be the most honest assessment from any of his contemporaries. But three books in the past five years? Probably overkill. Having not read any of the three, I do not know which one should be read.

"They Have Killed Papa Dead!": The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance by Anthony S. Pitch (Steerforth, paperback, 560 pages)

If there are too many books about Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, there are certainly too many about the Lincoln assassination. The interesting thing here is that Pitch has been a longtime Washington DC area tour guide, even appearing on C-SPAN, describing the events surrounding the assassination at their original location.

As such, I have no doubt that Pitch has an ear for the right way to tell the story, and I imagine that he has a wealth of stories to tell after his many years (given the 560 pages of the book, it appears that indeed he does have a wealth of stories). Will this book rival Blood on the Moon by Edward Steers Jr. as a must-have volume? Hard to say. It probably will be most interesting for serious students of the assassination looking for even more stories and details surrounding the tragic event.

New Lincoln Film Announced; Evidently No Progress on Spielberg Project

In the past week, news broke of a new Lincoln-related movie project. The new project, to be directed by Robert Redford, will focus on one of the people convicted of conspiracy after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. You can read the brief AP story here or the best of the blog stories here.

Titled "The Conspirator," the movie will evidently focus on Mary Surratt, who owned the boardinghouse where Booth met with others to plan to kidnap Lincoln (hoping to exchange him for the release of tens of thousands of Confederate POWs) and later to kill him. While Surratt was never tied to those meetings (though her son John was apparently heavily involved), she was accused of housing the conspirators and taking items to the family tavern in Surrattsville, MD for assassin John Wilkes Booth to pick up on his flight from Washington. On the basis of this testimony, she was sentenced to death and became the first woman hung by the US Government.

Even before her execution, there were many who believed that Mary Surratt was innocent, and her involvement in the conspiracy has been debated over the years (a debate that is only slightly less passionate than the one surrounding Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth's leg during his escape). As such, one wonders how Redford and screenwriter James Solomon will approach the touchy subject.

On an aesthetic note, one also wonders which Redford will show up. Will it be the director of the masterful "Quiz Show," the Oscar-nominated film that looked into the game show scandals of the 1950s? Or will it be the director of "The Legend of Bagger Vance," a 1920s period piece about golf, which just may be the worst high-profile film ever made?

This now makes three high-profile Lincoln-related projects in the works. In addition to this one, there is also the long-gestating Steven Spielberg project, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," and another assassination-related project, based on James Swanson's "Manhunt: The 12-Day Search for Lincoln's Killer," once supposed to be a film starring Harrison Ford, but now in development as a miniseries for HBO.

Of the three, it seems that Redford's will beat the others to the screen, as it is slated to begin filming sometime this fall. There seems to be no movement on Spielberg's project -- certainly no recent news -- which all but ensures that production will not begin before 2010. As for the proposed HBO project, there seems to be no news about it in almost a year.

Restored Lincoln Carriage Back on Display

Yesterday, a new exhibit at the Studebaker National Museum opened featuring the carriage Abraham Lincoln rode to Ford's Theatre on the fateful night of April 14, 1865. The dark green carriage was made especially for Lincoln and presented to him earlier in 1865.

Last year, the carriage underwent a careful restoration, funded by a Save Americas Treasures (SAT) Grant, which revealed Lincoln's initials on both doors in an elaborate raised golden pattern. The restoration also revealed that the carriage, which appeared to be painted black, was originally a dark green.

The carriage was sold after Lincoln's assassination, and was eventually purchased by Clement Studebaker and added to the company's collection. Now, evidently, the carriage is owned by the city of South Bend, Indiana (where the museum is), though it is a permanent part of the Studebaker National Museum collection. (This is only partially explained on the museum's website.)

A few years ago, the carriage was part of a fantastic temporary exhibit on Lincoln's assassination at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The first such exhibition at the then-brand new museum was "Blood on the Moon," which commemorated the 140th anniversary of the assassination. Along with the carriage, the exhibition also featured the Lincoln death bed (and other furniture from the Peterson House room in which Lincoln died) on loan from the Chicago Historical Society (while they were renovating their space), numerous photographs and documents from the Taper Collection (some of which may have since been donated to the ALPLM as part of Louise Taper's large donation of material to the museum), and other artifacts.

In this impressive exhibit (which may never be topped in regards to having so many significant items related to the assassination in one place), I felt that the carriage was the most touching piece. Partially this was because it was unexpected -- somehow I had overlooked that it was included when I read about the exhibit before my visit -- and suddenly I was face to face with it. Unlike the parts of the exhibit that were related to Lincoln's death, this was also related to Lincoln's life. I recalled the famous story of the carriage ride Lincoln and his wife Mary took the afternoon of April 14, speaking about their future, including their need to find happiness -- likely a reference to the fact that both still grieved the death of their son Willie three years before.

Perhaps when displayed by itself, the carriage does not conjure such melancholy emotions. Still, it will always be more associated with Lincoln's death than with his life.

The Anniversary of Lincoln's Assassination: Random Things

Today is the 144th anniversary of Lincoln's ill-fated trip to Ford's Theatre.  C-SPAN will broadcast a live event tonight with James Swanson, author of the best-selling Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, speaking at Washington DC's Newseum about assassination.

The anniversary has brought out one person seeking to share the morbid spotlight.  John Sotos, author of the well-received The Physical Lincoln, is trying to gain access to the pillowcase on which Lincoln's head rested when he died.  He wants to run tests on Lincoln's blood to see if he was affected with a rare genetic cancer.  The priceless quotation from a professor suggesting that the pillowcase is "the Shroud of Turin of Civil War history" makes the story pop (and has gotten it much wider coverage, no doubt).  Read the original story here.

One would think that it would be impossible to find humor in Lincoln's assassination, but this fake news story about a would-be PBS documentary is pretty funny.  "The Man Who Shot Lincoln," starring Burt Ward, should bring a smile.

New Lincoln Books This Week

When it rains, it pours.  The second significant edited resource related to the Lincoln assassination is released this week.  Last week, it was a first-hand account of the incarceration and trial of the eight conspirators arrested in the days after Lincoln's death.  This week, it is a massive volume of the documentary evidence of the main investigation into the murder of Abraham Lincoln and the attempted murder of Secretary of State William Seward.

Releasing March 23

The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence edited by William C. Edwards and Edward Steers Jr. (University of Illinois Press, 2009, hardcover, 1488 pages)

This may be the essential resource book on the assassination.  Reportedly, this collection includes all of the documentary evidence amassed during the 1865 federal investigation into the plot surrounding the Lincoln assassination, including the attempted murder of Secretary of State William Seward.  This includes all "statements, affidavits, interviews, exhibits" gathered by the military investigation, according to Steers' personal website.

An image of the Table of Contents is available online, which is unhelpful.  Aside from the typical editorial introductory sections, the 1400 pages of documents are listed as "The Documents."  A parenthetical comment explains that the documents are grouped chronologically by the addresser's last name, or by subject of the document where no addresser is listed.  There does, however, appear to be a significant (50+ page) index, which should help in locating specific documents.

According to the University of Illinois, William Edwards has spent years transcribing many of the documents in this collection, most of which would have been handwritten.  I cannot even begin to fathom how much time and effort that would take.  Paired with Ed Steers, who is the foremost expert on things associated with the Lincoln assassination, this work is in good hands.  This huge effort puts a wealth of primary information at one's fingertips (if only at a research library because of the $100+ cost of the volume), and hopefully will influence more good analysis of these turbulent months in future years.

New Lincoln Books This Week

Over the next two weeks, two resources related to the Lincoln assassination are scheduled to be released, adding to the titles in that now thriving Lincoln subindustry.  Unlike many of those books, however, these are being released by large university presses.

Releasing March 15

The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft edited by Edward Steers, Jr. and Harold Holzer (Louisiana State University Press, 2009, hardcover, 200 pages)

Ed Steers is currently the foremost expert on Lincoln's assassination, and not coincidentally, he is the author of the best recent book on Lincoln's assassination, Blood on the Moon (2001).  However, he is not a big name Lincoln scholar, so he is paired with the much better known Holzer, who has edited a previous volume on the assassination among his many Lincoln books. Between them, they should capably edit this volume.

This book marks the first time the detailed notebook of Hartranft, the military commander of the jail where the eight conspirators were jailed in 1865, have been published.  By all accounts, Hartranft kept meticulous records of the weeks these eight were jailed under his oversight.  Previous writers have quoted from Hartranft, whose letterbook is in the collection of the National Archives.

Here Holzer and Steers offer context and comment around Hartranft's records. The cynical part of me wonders if Steers carries the majority of the load given his expertise in this material, but there is little reason to believe that Holzer is just a marquee name put on the project to improve sales.  Together, they have plenty of insight and knowledge to flesh out the meaning of Hartranft's notebook.

This is not a book for all Lincoln students.  Even within the particular world of the Lincoln assassination, this book will probably mostly focus on the experiences of the conspirators between their arrest and sentencing, meaning that there is less about the assassination itself.  But for people with collections on the assassination, it will be a significant addition.