LINCOLN ROOM
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY
MEMORIAL
the Class of 1901
founded by
HARLAN HOYT HORNER
and
HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER
Cop
F. L. BATES, Author.
THE ESCAPE AND SUICIDE
OF
JOHN WILKES BOOTH
OR THE FIRST TRUE ACCOUNT OF
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION
CONTAINING
A COMPLETE CONFESSION BY BOOTH
MANY YEARS AFTER THE CRIME
GIVING IN FULL DETAIL THE PLANS, PLOT AND INTRIGUE
OF THE CONSPIRATORS, AND THE TREACHERY
"OF ANDREW JOHNSON, THEN VICE-PRESI-
DENT OF THE UNITED STATES
WRITTEN FOR THE CORRECTION OF HISTORY
BY
FINIS L. BATES
J. L. NICHOLS & COMPANY
MANUFACTURING PUBLISHERS
NAPERVILLE, ILL. ATLANTA, GA. MEMPHIS, TENN.
COPYRIGHTED AND ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED BY
FINIS L. BATES,
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE.
' '
DEDICATION
To the Armies and Navies of the late Civil War,
fought between the States of North America, from
1861 to 1865, this book is dedicated.
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE
In the preparation of this book I have neither
spared time or money, since I became satisfied that
John Wilkes Booth was not killed, as has been sup-
posed, at the Garrett home in Virginia, on the 26th
day of April, 1865, and present this volume of col-
lated facts, which I submit for the correction of his-
tory, respecting the assassination of President Abra-
ham Lincoln, and the death or escape of John Wilkes
Booth.
Personally, I know nothing of President Lincoln,
and knew nothing of John Wilkes Booth until my
meeting with John St. Helen, at my home in Texas,
in the year 1872.
The picture which John St. Helen left with me
for the future identification of himself in his true
name and personality, was first identified by Gen.
D. D. Dana, of Lubec, Maine, as John Wilkes Booth,
January 17, 1898.
The second time by Junius Brutus Booth, the
third, of Boston, Mass., (he being the oldest living
nephew of John Wilkes Booth), on the 21st day of
February, 1903, at Memphis, Tenn.
The third time by the late Joe Jefferson (the
world's famous Rip Van Winkle), at Memphis,
PREFACE.
Tennessee, on the 14th day of April, 1903, just thir-
ty-eight years to a day from the date of the assassina-
tion of President Lincoln. I here make mention of
this identification because of its importance. Among
the personal acquaintances of John Wilkes Booth
none would know him better than Mr. Jefferson, who
was most closely associated with him for several
years, both playing together on the same stage. I
know of no man whose knowledge of Booth is more
to be trusted, or whose words of identification will
carry more weight to the world at large. While
there are many other important personages equally
to be relied upon that have identified his pictures
there is none other so well known to the general
public, having identified the picture taken of John
St. Helen, in 1877, as being that of John Wilkes
Booth thus establishing the fat of actual physical
proof that John Wilkes Booth was living in 1872,
when I met him under the name of John St. Helen,
as also when he had his picture taken and left with
me in the late winter er early spring of 1878, twelve
years after the assassination of President Lincoln.
It is well in this connection to call attention to
other physical proofs of the identification of John
Wilkes Booth by referring to the deformed right
thumb, just where it joined the hand, and the mis-
matched brows, his right brow being arched and
unlike the left. The deformity of the right
PREFACE.
thumb was caused by its having been crushed in
the cogs of the machinery used for the hoisting of a
stage curtain. The arched brow was caused by
Booth being accidentally cut by McCullum with a
saBre while they were at practice as the characters
of Richard and Richmond, the point of McCullum 's
sword cutting a gash through the right brow, which
had to be stitched up, and in healing became
arched. And especially attention is called to the
identity of these marks in his pictures, more
particularly the one at the age of 64, taken of him
while he was dead and lying in the morgue. During
life Booth carried a small cane between the thumb
and forefinger of the right hand to conceal that
defect; observe this cane in his hand, in the
picture of him at the age of 27. These physical
marks on Booth's body settle without argument his
identity. However, in all instances of investigation
I have sought the highest sources of information and
give the conclusive facts supported by physical
monument and authentic record.
Wherefore, it is by this authority I state the veri-
fied truth with impartiality for the betterment of
history, to the enlightment of the present and future
generations of mankind, respecting the assassination
of one of America's most universally beloved Presi-
dents and the fate of his assassin.
FINIS L. BATES.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PACK
Chapter I. Lincoln-Booth 1
Chapter II. John St. Helen 5
Chapter III. John St. Helen Lectures Roland Read 18
Chapter IV. St. Helen's Illness 27
Chapter V. St. Helen's Identity Revealed 33
Chapter VI. The Assassination 40
Chapter VII. The Man Killed at the Garrett Home 60
Chapter VIII. The Separation 83
Chapter IX. The Pursuit of Booth 92
Chapter X. The East Potomac Bridge 121
Chapter XL The Hand of Secretary Stanton 132
Chapter XII. Gen. Dana Identifies Booth 168
Chapter XIII. A Baltimorean Still 191
Chapter XIV. Informing the War Department that Booth
Lives 205
Chapter XV. Gen. Albert Pike Identified Booth 222
Chapter XVI. Press Comments on the Suicide of David E.
George 243
Chapter XVII. These are Pictures of John Wilkes Booth. .274
Chapter XVIII. Reading the Palm of John Wilkes Booth.. 292
Chapter XIX. Joseph Jefferson Identifies John Wilkes
Booth 299
Chapter XX. Junius Brutus Booth Identifies His Uncle,
John Wilkes Booth . ..304
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
F. L. Bates Frontispiece
John Wilkes Booth (age 27) 0-1
Abraham Lincoln 0-1
Booth's Bed Confession 32-33
Complete Confession to Mr. Bates 32-33
Andrew Johnson 42-43
Jefferson Davis 42-43
Ford's Theater 46-47
Fleeing on Horseback 46-47
Dr. Stewart's Summer Home 56-57
The Home of Mr. Jones 56-57
Booth Disguised as Teamster 56-57
Booth and his Horse Tired Out 56-57
Gen. D. D. Dana 92-93
The Surratt Tavern 92-93
Gen. C. C. Augur 120-121
Mrs. Surratt 120-121
David E. Herold 162-163
Bryantown 162-163
Gen. Lew Wallace 172-173
Edwin Booth. 172-173
Home of Dr. Mudd 188-189
Riding Boot of Booth 188-189
Clara Morris, Actress 196-197
Joseph Jefferson, the Actor 196-197
John Wilkes Booth (age 38) 202-203
Junius Brutus Booth, the First 202-203
Gen. Albert Pike 222-223
Booth as a House-painter 222-223
John Wilkes Booth (age 64) 276-277
The Mummified Hand of John Wilkes Booth 276-277
JOHN WILKES BOOTH.
Aged 27, Taken Just Before the Assassination of Lincoln,
and Cane Which Was Carried to Conceal Deformed Thumb.
PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Holding the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the Log
Cabin Near Salem, Kentucky, Where HP Was Born.
AND
JOHN WILKES BOOTH, THE ACTOR.
THE ASSASSINATION' OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN
BY JOHN WILKES BOOTH.
CHAPTER I.
LINCOLN BOOTH
President Abraham Lincoln was born near Salem,
Kentucky, United States of America, in a log cabin,
on the 12th day of February, 1809, of humble par-
entage, and was president of the Northern Federal
States of America, after the secession of the South-
ern States, beginning March 4th, 1861, whereby was
brought about a temporary dissolution of the Union
of the United States of America, when the political
issues of the rights of States to withdraw and secede
from the Union of States and the constitutional right
LINCOLN BOOTH.
slavery of the black race, as had been promulgated
since, before and beginning with the independence
of, and federation of the American Colonies ; after-
ward transformed into sovereign State governments.
"When, for the settlement of these issues appeal
was had to the bloody arbitrament of battle, in the
Civil War fought between the Federal States on the
one side, with Abraham Lincoln as President and
commander-in-chief of the Federal Army and Navy,
with his site of government at Washington, D. C.,
and Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern
seceded States, called the Confederate States of
America, and commander-in-ehief of the Army and
Navy of the Southern Confederate States, with his
site of government at the city of Richmond, and
capital of the State of Virginia, situated approxi-
mately one hundred miles to the south from Wash-
ington City.
Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President of the
Federal States, at Washington, D. C., March 4th,
1861, and remained President until he received his
mortal wound at the hands of his assassin, John
Wilkes Booth, while seated with a party of friends
in a private box attending Ford's Theater, in Wash-
ington, D. C., on the evening of the 14th day of
April, 1865, and died from his wound on the early
morning of April the 15th, 1865.
LINCOLN BOOTH.
Mr. Lincoln was a lawyer pre-eminent in his pro-
fession, and had never associated himself with any
church organization, and, in fact, was a deist, as
also a firm believer in dreams, and to him they were
presentiments forecasting coming events.
John Wilkes Booth was born near the city of Bal-
timore, on a farm, in the State of Maryland, in the
year 1838, and was at the time of the assassination
of President Lincoln about 27 years of age, and
famous as an actor. He came from a family distin-
guished as actors and politicians in England as early
as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, being
descended from Burton Booth, the most popular
actor with the English royalty known to history, and
pronounced of all actors the greatest Macbeth the
world has ever produced.
Henry Booth, Earl of Warrington, was his great-
great-uncle, and John Wilkes, the Democratic re-
former, in that he caused the extension of the fran-
chise or right of ballot, to the common people of
England, and who was at one time Lord Mayor of
London, was his great-great-grandfather on his great-
grandmother's side. While John Wilkes of England
was distinguished for his great mental ability, he
was equally distinguished for being the ugliest man
in all England, while his wife was the most beau-
tiful woman England had produced to her day.
LINCOLN BOOTH.
John Wilkes Booth gets his name of John Wilkes
from his great-great-grandfather, and his strikingly
handsome personality from his great-great-grand-
mother. Thus it is said that John Wilkes Booth
is given to the world from an ancestry known to
England in their day as the Beauty and Beast.
John Wilkes Booth was a partisan in his sympa-
thies for the success of the Southern Confederate
States in the Civil War, bold and outspoken in his
friendship for the South and his well wishes for the
triumph of the Southern cause. In politics a Demo-
crat, and by religion a Catholic, and a son of Junius
Brutus Booth, the first, who was known to all men
of his day as the master of the art of dramatic act-
ing, being himself descended from the Booth fam-
ily of actors in England, pre-eminently great as
tragedians since the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury.
CHAPTER II.
JOHN ST. HELEN
I have long hesitated to give to the world the true
story of the plot first to kidnap and finally assassi-
nate President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and
others, as related to me in 1872, and at other times
thereafter, by one then known to me as John St.
Helen, but in truth and in fact, as afterward devel-
oped, John Wilkes Booth himself, in person telling
this story more than seven years after the assassina-
tion of President Lincoln, and the supposed killing
of Booth at the Garret home, in Virginia. Far re-
moved from the scene of his crime, he told me the
tale of his dastardly deed at Grandberry, Hood
county, Texas, a then comparative frontier town of
the great Western empire of these American States.
This story I could not accept as a fact without
investigation, believing, as the world believed, that
John Wilkes Booth had been killed at the Garret
home in Virginia on or about the 26th day of April,
1865, by one Boston Corbett, connected with the
Federal troops in pursuit of him, after he (Booth)
had been passed through the Federal military lines
JOHN ST. HELEN.
which formed a complete cordon surrounding the
City of Washington, D. C., on the night of and after
the assassination of President Lincoln. But after
many years of painstaking and exhaustive investiga-
tion, I am now unwillingly, and yet unanswerably,
convinced that it is a fact that Booth was not killed,
but made good his escape by the assistance of some
of the officers of the Federal Army and government
of the United States, located at Washington trait-
ors to President Lincoln, in whose keeping was his
life co-operating with Capt. Jett and Lieuts. Rug-
gles and Bainbridge, of the Confederate troops, be-
longing to the command of Col. J. S. Mosby, en-
camped at Bowling Green, Virginia. And the correct-
ness of these statements, as well as to my convictions,
the readers of this story must witness for or against
the conclusion reached, for it is to the American
people that I appeal that they shall hear the unal-
terable facts to the end that they may bear testimony
with me to the civilized world that the death of
America's martyred President, Lincoln, was not
avenged, as we have been persuaded to believe, and
that it remained the pleasure of the assassin to take
his own life as how and when it best pleased him,
conscious of his great individual crime and the
nation's loss by the death of President Lincoln, the
commission of which crime takes rank among the
JOHN ST. HELEN.
epochs of time equaled only by- the crucifixion of
Christ and the assassination of Caesar; in the con-
templation of which the physical man chills with in-
dignant emotions and the cold blood coursing his
viens makes numb the fingers recording the crime
that laid President Lincoln in the silent halls of
death and made Tad fatherless. But the truth will
be told, if needs be, with tremors and palsied hands,
in the triumph of right and the exposure of the
guilty ones whose crimes blacken history's page and
to associate their names through all coming cen-
turies with Brutus, Marc Antony and Judas Iscariot,
if they are to be condemned in the story that is to be
told.
In the spring of 1872 I was entering the threshold
of manhood, a lawyer yet in my teens, in the active
practice of my profession, having settled at Grand-
berry, the county site of Hood county, in the State
of Texas, near the foothills of the Bosque moun-
tains. Among my first elients in this locality was a
man who had been indicted by the grand jury of the
Federal Court, sitting at Tyler, Smith county, Texas,
for selling tobacco and whiskey at Glenrose Mills,
situated in Hood county, twenty miles to the south-
west of Grandberry, who had failed first to obtain
a license, as required by the Federal statutes, as a
privilege for carrying on such business. The penalty
JOHN ST. HELEN.
for the violation of this law being punishable as a
misdemeanor by a fine and imprisonment, or either
fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.
Hood county at this time was well out on the fron-
tier of the State, and the country to within a few
miles of Grandberry was frequently raided by the
savage Comanche Indians.
Glenrose Mills was located immediately on the
Bosque river, which flows at the base of the Bosque
mountains, while at this point on the river was lo-
cated a mill run by water power from the falls of
the river, and on the bank of the river were located
two or three small log houses, together with the
old mill house constituting the buildings of the place
called Glenrose Mills. One of these log houses was
used as a storehouse by the man known to me as
John St. Helen, which place, or house, however, for
a year or so prior to St. Helen's occupancy had
been occupied as a store by a merchant doing a gen-
eral mercantile business, in a small way, carrying
with his line of goods tobacco and whiskey for the
retail trade, as did St. Helen in this place, as his
successor in business at Glenrose Mills. The former
merchant having removed from Glenrose Mills to
Grandberry, opened up his business in the latter
place before and continued his business in Grand-
berry after St. Helen had begun business at Glen-
JOHN ST. HELEN.
rose. St. Helen occupied this log house not only as
a store, but the back part of the same as living apart-
ments for himself and a negro man servant, or por-
ter, he having no family or known relatives or inti-
mate friends within the time he was doing business
at this house in Glenrose. For some reason unknown
to me and my client, the merchant at Grandberry
and former merchant at Glenrose had been indicted
for having done business at Glenrose selling tobac-
co and whiskey in the house occupied by St. Helen,
in violation of the laws of the United States, as
mentioned. This client had been arrested by the
United States marshal and had given bond for his
appearance at Tyler, Texas, to answer the United
States government on a charge in two cases of sell-
ing tobacco and whiskey without first obtaining a
privilege license, as required by law.
On ascertaining this state of facts, I sought St.
Helen, with whom I had at this time only a casual
acquaintance, and learned from him that he (St.
Helen) was as a matter of fact doing business at
Glenrose Mills, in the house formerly occupied by
my client, the then merchant of Grandberry, who
had been doing business at this stand, selling, among
other articles of merchandise, tobacco and whiskey,
and that he had done so without a license, as re-
quired by the government of the United States, and
JOHN ST. HELEN.
was so doing this business at the time, as alleged in
the indictment against the Grandberry merchant, so
that I insisted, as a means of protection to my client,
that St. Helen should attend the Federal Court as a
witness for the defendant, to testify to this state of
facts, showing that the defendant merchant had been
wrongfully indicted, confessedly so by St. Helen,
who was at this time doing the very business ol
which my client was charged, without first having a
license (for which my client had been indicted), and
for which he was to stand trial in a short time
before the Federal Court at Tyler. While St. Helen
admitted his guilt and the innocence of my client,
he declined to attend the court in any capacity on
behalf of my client, without at this time giving to
me any satisfactory reason as to why he would not
do so, and when he was informed with more earn-
estness than was reasonably polite that any and all
the known processes of the law of the Federal Court
would be called into requisition to compel hia it-
tendance on the court, as he had been requested to
do, and if need be witnesses would go before the
Federal grand jury to have him indicted for the
offense with which my client was wrongfully
charged. St. Helen asked time to consider the mat-
ter, promising to act honorably in the affair, to the
complete protection of the wronged man, conditioned
10
JOHN ST. HELEN.
that he (St. Helen) should be protected from indict-
ment and from any other process which would carry
him before the Federal Court. With this agree-
ment we separated for the few intervening days
requested by him.
At thu interview it was plainly to be seen that
St. Helen was sorely troubled and seemed to think
his final determination in the matter would be
fraught with the greatest consequences to himself,
much more, I thought, than was due to the appre-
hension of a possible conviction for the charges al-
leged against my client. But upon consideration
of the matter I was led to the conclusion that his
restless and uneasy manner was due to his long
outdoor life on the plains, and that by force of habit
he had acquired that restless and hunted, worried
expression constantly on his face, while the flashes
which came from his keen, penetrating black eyes
spoke of desperation and capacity for crime. All
this time his breath came hard, almost to a wheeze,
superinduced by excitement, or what seemed to be
a disease, possibly produced by exposure and bor-
dering upon a bronchial or an asthmatic affliction
of the throat and chest. Thus looking and breath-
ing, with his body poised in easy, graceful attitude,
as if so by nature born, in his leave-taking to me he
raised his hand in slow and graceful manner, say-
ing:
11
JOHN ST. HELEN.
"As I agree, I shall see you, and of my purpose
and destiny speak until then "
The words "until then," spoken with a soft voice
and gentle tone, was a pleasant adieu, in fact, the
entire sentence having been said, and I should say,
dramatically acted in eloquence by word, motion of
the body, jesticulation of the hand and utterance of
the voice, not before or since equalled by any other
person in my presence or experience. These ex-
pressions by word, voice and mannerism to me
were food for thought, suggesting the inquiry
whence came such a man? Who can this handsome
man, this violent man, this soft-mannered man, this
eloquent man, be? Unsuited to his vocation the
would-be merchant, in his log cabin store, and his
life of seclusion in the wilds of the West. As in all
things, came the day of final reckoning, and St.
Helen walked into my office calling me to the pri-
vate consultation room, turning and shutting the
door, he said:
"I come redeeming my pledge, and have to say,
first, that I desire to retain you as my attorney ; that
you may represent me in all matters of legal business
concerning my affairs, and ask that you fix your
reasonable retainer fee."
This I did, and when satisfactorily arranged St.
Helen resumed his statement by saying:
12
JOHN ST. HELEN.
"Now, that I have employed . you and paid your
retainer fee, you, as my lawyer, will and must keep
secret such matters as I shall confide in you touch-
ing my legal interest and personal safety, and the
prevention of my prosecution by the courts for the
matters we are now considering or that might here-
after arise in consequence of your present employ-
ment, conditioned, of course, upon my making good
to you the promises I have made."
To which I replied: "Yes. I understand."
"Well, then," continued St. Helen. "I say to
you, as my attorney, that my true name is not John
St. Helen, as you know me and suppose me to be, and
for this reason I cannot afford to go to Tyler before
the Federal Court, in fear that my true identity be
discovered, as the Federal courts are more or less
presided over in the South and officered by persons
heretofore, as well as now, connected with the Fed-
eral Army and government, and the risk would be
too great for me to take, and you will now under-
stand why I have retained you as my counsel, and
as such I ask that you take your client, indicted in
the Federal Court at Tyler, and get him clear of this
charge, of which he is certainly not guilty, using
your best judgment in his behalf and for my protec-
tion. For this service I will pay your fee and all
costs incident to the trial and trip."
13
JOHN ST. HELEN.
Assenting to this, and accepting his suggestion as
well as the employment by St. Helen, I set about
fully planning the management of my client's case
in the Federal Court with the purpose in view of a
mutual protection of my client and John St. Helen.
When after a few days of consultation and prepara-
tion my client and I were ready for the three or four
days' drive by private conveyance from Grandbeny
to Tyler, St. Helen was notified and came promptly
to my office the morning fixed for our leaving, and
without further ceremony or discussion, handed me
a large, long, red morocco pocketbook well filled
with currency bills, saying that the amount it con-
tained would be sufficient money for the trip, etc.
The amount contained in this purse I never knew.
Then, in complete readiness, my client and I, taking
leave of our friends and thanking St. Helen, climbed
into our buggy and were off for Tyler. After an
uneventful trip we reached the hotel at Tyler on
the afternoon of the third day out, to find the Fed-
eral Court in session, and after a night's rest I
sought an interview with Col. Jack Evans, the then
United States district attorney for the Eastern dis-
trict of Texas, including Tyler, in Smith county. At
this pleasant, courteous consultation an agreement
was reached by which the government was to waive
the presence of the defendant in court, who was yet
14
JOHN ST. HELEN.
at the hotel, ignorant of what was transpiring, and
on the following morning after the convening of
court I entered pleas of guilty, as prearranged with
Col. Evans, when the court, Judge Roberts presiding,
fined the defendant the usual fine in such cases and
taxed him with the costs, amounting, as I now re-
member, to about sixty-five dollars in each case.
The fine and costs were promptly paid by me from
the funds provided by St. Helen, for which receipts
were taken as vouchers.
After the close and settling of these cases I re-
turned to the hotel and informed my grateful and
surprised client of the happy culmination of his
long-dreaded trial in the Federal Court for a crime
of which he was not guilty. The processes of this
court struck terror into the heart of the average
frontiersman when their charges constituted a crime
against the laws of the United States government.
I accepted the many marks of appreciation by
word and act manifested by my client, which for the
.sake of personal allusion must be omitted. Suffice
it to say, our purpose having been accomplished, our
team was ordered, bills paid, as the beginning of the
end of our stay in Tyler, and at the moment of our
readiness re-entering our buggy, we were soon home-
ward bound full of hope for the future, made buoy-
ant by success. "While my thoughts and plans for
15
JOHN ST. HELEN.
all time were lined with rose-tinted clouds, the
phantoms of vision, the treacherous shadows which
light the pathway of all youth, but how too soon to
be transformed to the black storm cloud of real life,
flashing with the lightnings of despair, with low-
muttering thunders, the signals of evils yet to come.
But on we pushed, unmindful and careless of what
the future should disclose, reaching Grandberry on
the afternoon of the third day out from Tyler, when,
with mutual good wishes and congratulations, my
client and I separated to go to our homes, seeking
the needed mental and physical rest from a trip the
memory of which lives to mark an interesting event
in my life and the foundation of a story in fact, the
relation of which beggars fiction.
Then, just as twilight was being clasped into the
folds of night by the stars of a cloudless sky, I
sought seclusion while the world paused, lapped in
the universal laws of rest, and entered dreamland
on that bark of sleep, the sister ship of death, pil-
lowed within the rainbow of hope, a fancy fed by
the air castles of youth. Thus sleeping and thus
waking the morning came, when I must needs take
up the routine business of life again, and to learn
much more of John St. Helen, who came into town.
When he called at my office and I recounted to him
the successful termination of the cases in the Federal
16
JOHN ST. BSLEN.
Court at Tyler, St. Helen became profuse in his com-
pliments and congratulations, when his pocketbook,
which had previously contained approximately three
or four hundred dollars, with its contents, less ex-
penses and costs of said suits, was handed him. He
took from it the necessary amount to pay the re-
mainder of my fee. This having been done, St.
Helen and I separated with at least seeming friend-
ship welded by the bonds of mutual triumph; so
that thus ended, for the present, the beginning of my
acquaintance with John St. Helen, of whom I
but little for the several months following.
IT
CHAPTER III.
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND
REED
In the latter part of the June following my trip to
Tyler, St. Helen came into my office and extended to
me an invitation to attend, as the orator of the day,
a barbecue to be given on the 4th of July at Glen-
rose Mills. Having accepted this invitation, in com-
pany with Gen. J. M. Taylor, made famous by his
achievements in the Seminole Indian war in the
State of Florida, and for many years an honored
and useful citizen of the State of Texas, I attended
this patriotic celebration. And I here make mention
of Gen. J. M. Taylor as a tribute to his memory for
the public services he has performed as well as his
loyal friendship to me. And I in benedictions be-
speak the repose of his soul in peace, long since left
its tenement of clay.
Arriving at Glenrose on the forenoon of the day
appointed, we were met by St. Helen, the master of
ceremonies on this occasion, and taken to his private
apartments in the log storehouse, which had been
put in readiness for the royal reception accorded us.
18
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
With his servants in waiting all were attentive,
while St. Helen entertained us with a lavish hand in
princely welcome in that manner peculiarly his own.
When I turned to view the platform and plot of
ground made ready for the day, and the people as
they were gathering from beyond the Bosque river,
I saw the ideal location for the barbecue, within the
shade of the wide-spreading water oaks in the nar-
row Bosque valley. And while thus taking in the
situation, at the suggestion of Gen. Taylor, the Gen-
eral, St. Helen and myself left for the grounds. Aa
we stepped upon the platform I was greatly sur-
prised at the stage presence and consummate ease of
manner and reassuring appearance of St. Helen, who
was easily the center of attraction, and the com-
manding personality present. Gen. Taylor and I
seated ourselves, while St. Helen remained standing.
The people hurriedly gathered, giving us a hearty
reception. Order being restored, St. Helen, posing
gracefully, caused a hush of silence, and by a look
of invitation called me to his side. Standing thus
beside him to the front of the platform he, in hi*
inimical manner, in his full, clear voice, with choice
and eloquent language, introduced me as the
first speaker, as he did subsequently introduce
Gen. Taylor as the second speaker. On the close
of the speeches made by Gen. Taylor and myself, St.
19
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
Helen, in a short, eloquent and timely speech, com-
pletely captivated the crowd, as well as ourselves,
by his pre-eminent superiority over those with whom
he came in contact during the day.
St. Helen's complete knowledge of elocution, ease
and grace of person, together with his chaste and
eloquent diction, seemed to be nature's gift rather
than studied effort. It was but natural then that
on the lips and in the minds of all present the inquiry
should be, Who can this man St. Helen be? He be-
ing, in fact, a stranger to those present, who only
casually knew him in this gathering, and without
kith or kin so far as any one present knew, made
the people more anxious to learn the identity of the
man; an orator of the highest class, while the men
and women lingered at Glenrose in the presence of
St. Helen until the dying day cast its shadows upon
Bosque's lofty tops and darkness was weaving the
mantle of night over valleys below. Then congratu-
lations, thank yous, glad to have met you and good
byes were said.
At this parting Gen. Taylor and I left for our
homes after a delightful day fraught with interest
and events long to be pleasantly remembered by all
in attendance, and to me it marked the beginning of
a better knowledge of the character of and a closer
personal relation with John St. Helen, whose phy-
20
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
sical beauty, so to speak, and mental attainments no
man could fail to appreciate and no woman fail to
admire.
St. Ifelen, the man who entertained you to mirth
or to tears, as his own mood might inspire, while he
himself stood unmoved by the emotions displayed
around him the man kind of disposition, careless
of self, thoughtful of others, but living his own life
in soliloquy, revelling in the thoughts of the master
minds of the past. His selections and recitations
were grandly and elegantly delivered, and despite
your efforts your soul would be shaken and from
the eyes tracing tears would steal like dew drops
cast from a shaken reed. Painful? No. Un-
pleasant ? No. But rather resembling a sorrow as a
"mist resembles rain" a sigh of hope, a tear of
sympathy, or rather an exalted thought given ex-
pression to by a tear, the index to the feeling of the
soul. St. Helen himself said he could not weep,
though grief he knew to its bitterest depth, and
lived a life bent with the burden of crime. These
and kindred utterances made to me in private, in
hours spent alone with him, aroused in me an
anxious desire to know in very fact who he was.
He told me his true name was not St. Helen, and the
ascertaining of more definite information as to his
true name was made unusually difficult by reason
21
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
of his sensitiveness to the mention of all subjects
pertaining to himself, in the various conversations
had between St. Helen and myself before he removed
with his business from Glenrose Mills to Grandberry,
sometime in October following the 4th of July barbe-
cue mentioned.
St. Helen's business did not seem to be a matter
of necessity with him, as he at all times appeared to
have more money than was warranted by his stock
in trade, and he apparently took little interest in
it and trusted at all times the waiting on of cus-
tomers to his negro or Mexican porter, while he was
in fact a man of leisure, spending most of his time
after his removal to Grandberry in my office, read-
ing and entertaining me after business hours, and
in our idle moments in many other ways, but his
favorite occupation was reading Shakespeare's
plays, or rather reciting them as he alone could do.
And his special preference seemed to be that of Rich-
ard III. and he began his recitations, as I now re-
member him, by somewhat transposing the intro-
ductory of Richard III., saying:
"I would I could laugh with those who laugh and
weep with those who weep, wet my eyes with arti-
ficial tears and frame my face to all occasions "
following with much of the recitation of Richard
III., as well as others of Shakespeare's plays.
22
, JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
While these recitations from Shakespeare charmed
the ear and pleased all listeners, his rendition of
Tennyson's Locksley Hall, once heard at an even-
ing's entertainment, left an impress that years could
never efface.
On other occasions I came in for lessons in elocu-
tion with full instructions and practical illustrations
in minute details of when and how to enter upon the
stage or public platform; St. Helen giving comical
illustrations himself as to how the average statesmen
come blundering on the platform, looking for a seat
they could not find, finally falling into a chair ap-
parently not of their choice but by accident, when
they would cross their legs, stick the toes of their
shoes inward while trying to hide their hands close
down in their laps or behind their seats, or by clasp-
ing them in front of themselves and resting them on
their crossed and agitated limbs, nervously rolling
one thumb over the other, finally collapsing and
wiping the perspiration from their faces with undue,
vigor and haste. All of which was impersonated by
St. Helen in such a realistic manner that it was en-
joyable to the extreme, as well as most profitable to
me in after life. And as a result of this careful
training I am now quick to observe the want of stage
presence and lack of ease of manner in statesmen on
the public platform or persons before the footlights.
23
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
St. Helen was not a man of classical education,
but rather a born rhetorician and elocutionist, a
learning apparently confined to and obtained from
theatrical plays as well as a literature pertaining to
the stage, evidenced by the many theatrical periodi-
cals or papers to be found in his room. This inti-
macy with every detail of theatrical work was shown
on the occasion of his criticism of Roland Reed,
when St. Helen, Reed and I were alone together.
Roland Reed in his boyhood was touring the country
in his father's company, composed practically of
Mr. and Mrs. Reed and their son, Roland, who was
starring in light comedies by the impersonation of
simple and frivolous characters, and they played
two or three nights at Grandberry, which perform-
ances St. Helen and I attended together, and on the
morning after the third night's play St. Helen re-
quested Reed and myself to take a walk with him
to view the Brazos river, which was then flowing
with torrents of water. During this stroll St. Helen
began with great earnestness to discuss theatrical
subjects with Roland Reed, which discussion went
into all essential details of the highest class of act-
ing. St. Helen's criticism became personal to Reed,
pointing out to him that in the impersonation of
certain of the characters rendered by him, especially
the character of an old maid, in which, as I remem-
24
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
her St. Helen's criticism of Reed, was of the greatest
personal severity, and among other things he said
that in the character of the old maid Reed's acting
reminded him of a simpleton attempting to imper-
sonate the character and eccentricities of an idiot,
more appropriate to the playgrounds of the innocent
and half-witted than to the intelligent public before
the footlights, and suggested that the artist should
create the impression on his audience that the actor
by his superior intelligence was creating and por-
traying the character of the foolish maiden, stamping
the play with his individuality of character, and that
acting the character in question without this was
simply nonsense, which disgusted rather than pleased
the intelligence of the ordinary attendant at the
theater, etc.
Though this criticism was at times personal and
severe, it was done with an earnestness that indi-
cated that it was kindly given and was seemingly
appreciated by Reed, for I am sure Reed profited
by it in his after life, as witnessed by me in his im-
provement in his subsequent presentation of this
character, which brought to my mind afresh the
lecture given him by St. Helen. Could Reed have
known, as I afterward knew, that this lecture given
him was by John Wilkes Booth, what a surprise it
would have been, and what an impression it would
25
JOHN ST. HELEN LECTURES ROLAND REED.
have made upon his young mind, and I am sure Reed
would have esteemed tho lecture a privilege. In
fact, this lecture is LI consideration which but. few
received at the hands of St. Helen John Wilkec
Booth.
After hearing this lecture and remembering what
St. Helen had said to me, that his name was not in
fact St. Helen, the former purpose of inquiry reas-
serted itself to know who this man was. Not only
was he an orator, as I had found him at Glenrose,
but again was he assaying the role of critic of high
class acting, showing a knowledge, to my mind,
of a born genius of high cultivation, demonstrating
St. Helen to be a master of the art of which he was
speaking.
CHAPTER IV.
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS
Idle hours in the life of a resident of a small
country town hang heavily and we are wont to find
entertainment. Under these conditions St. Helen
was at all leisure times as welcome as he was con-
genial, so that when he was not at my office I would
spend my leisure time at his place of business. And
now I recall to mind one occasion when I, in com-
pany with a mutual friend, stepped into St. Helen's
place of business. Just as we entered I noticed sev-
eral cowboys, as they are called in Texas parlance,
because they herd cattle, standing at the counter
eating and drinking, being waited on by the colored
porter. St. Helen meeting us, stopped, as we walk-
ed in, standing at the entrance from the front and
resting his right arm on the counter, when one of the
boys turned, addressing him in a very familiar man-
ner, saying:
"John, when you die the cowboys will build a
monument to your memory.'*
St. Helen cast a look of indignation to the party
addressing him, his flashing black eyes giving full
27
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS.
expression to his contempt for the proffered distinc-
tion of a monument by the cowboys. Then resting
his thin, shapely right hand on the corner of the
counter, standing in graceful poise, his head well
poised, his beautiful black, curly hair flowing back
from his high white forehead, holding his left hand
well extended in gesticulation, said:
"Come not when I am dead
To shed thy tears around my head.
Let the winds weep and the plover cry,
But thou, oh, fool man, go by."
It was not so much what St. Helen said, but the
manner of saying and acting it, and the voice by
which it was said, that moved man to emotion, as
would his recitation of almost any sentence that had
in it a trace of sentiment.
The simple lines quoted will find but little lodg-
ment in the soul of the casual reader, but when
repeated by St. Helen, who could so beautifully por-
tray each sentence in all of its meaning, it left its
impress upon the memory of all who heard.
Five years after our acquaintance the hand of
Time, with points of pain, began writing in deep
lines on St. Helen's face the shadows of disease, the
sign board on the pathway from the cradle to the
28
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS.
grave. Emaciated, sick and weak, he took to his
bed, confined in the back room of his store, where
I and others, with the aid of a physician, gave him
such attentions as his condition required. But de-
spite our best efforts he continued to grow worse
from day to day and both friends and physicians lost
hope of his recovery. When I, tired and worn by
my watch and continued attention at his bedsido,
sleeping and nursing in turn with others, was
aroused about 10 o'clock one night and informed
that I was wanted at the bedside of St. Helen, who
was supposed to be in the last throes of death. On
entering the room I found the physician holding St.
Helen's wrist and counting his faint, infrequent
pulse, which it seemed was beating his funeral dirge
to the tomb. The doctor turned to me and said:
"St. Helen is dying and wishes to speak to you
alone," and turning, withdrew from our presence.
I touched St. Helen, and after some effort aroused
a faint response ; he opened his eyes, which gave ex-
pression to that anxious and pleading look for help
so often seen upon the face of a dying man when
we are least powerful to assist. I requested to know
of what service I could be to him. St. Helen, yet
conscious, but so weak he could speak only in
broken, whispered words, audible only by placing the
ear close to his mouth, said:
29
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS.
"I am dying. My name is John Wilkes Booth,
and I am the assassin of President Lincoln. Get the
picture of myself from under the pillow. I leave it
with you for my future identification. Notify my
brother Edwin Booth, of New York City."
He then closed his eyes in seeming rest. I reached
forward and took from under the pillow a small pic-
ture taken of St. Helen a short while before his sick-
ness, while on a visit to Glenrose Mills, by a pho-
tographer then tented at that place, as I was after-
wards informed.
After getting the picture my attention was turned
to giving St. Helen relief, if possible, not at the time
thinking of his startling and important confession.
I called the porter, and we began rubbing his entire
body with strong brandy to give him vitality. He
passed into a gentle sleep, and for a time we could
not tell whether it would be the final sleep of death
or a restful one, promising future consciousness and
possible recovery. He lived through the night, much
to our surprise and that of the doctor, who, after a
careful examination of St. Helen's condition, was
of the opinion that he was somewhat improved, but
his condition continued extremely critical for sev-
eral days, but the doctor finally announced that St.
Helen's recovery was likely and in the course of a
few days he was convalescent and by careful watch-
30
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS.
ing he was brought to final recovery. But it was
many weeks before his health was recovered. After
which our relations became more intimate and con-
fidential, for St. Helen was a man who cherished
gratitude.
"We were alone one day in my office. I remarked
to St. Helen that he had passed through a very
severe spell of sickness and, in fact, we all thought
he could not recover. To which he assented with a
look of serious concern, and fixing his eyes on my
face, asked:
"Do you remember anything I said to you when I
was sick?" and waited with an anxious look for
reply.
I said to him that I remembered many things
which he had said to me.
When St. Helen said:
"Then you have my life in your keeping, but,
thank God, as my attorney."
I replied: "Do you refer to what you said of your
sweetheart and last love?"
St. Helen in reply said: "I have had a sweetheart,
but no last love, and could not, in my wildest deliri-
um have mentioned a subject so barren of concern
ST. HELEN'S ILLNESS.
to me. But your suggestion is a kind evasion of
what I did say to you, which is of the greatest mo-
ment to me, and when I get well and feel like talk-
ing, and you like listening, I will tell you the story
of my life and the history of the secrecy of my
name."
"St. Helen, it will be interesting to me, at your
convenience,*' I replied.
38
St. Helen Confessing the First Time to F. L. Bates That He
Is John Wilkes Booth.
Booth, Making a Full Confession of the Killing of Lincoln
Accusing His Accomplices and Describing His Escape
to the Author.
CHAPTED V.
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED
After I had returned from an absence of several
weeks, on professional business, 'St. Helen came to
my office and invited me to walk with him to the
open prairie. We went out about half a mile from
town and seated ourselves on some rocks which had
been placed in this open space under a large live
oak tree as a physical monument of a land line or
corner, a common custom at that time of marking
located land lines. Seated upon this mounment we-
had an elevation comfortable and commanding the
surrounding view. And St. Helen began his story
by saying:
"I have told you that my name is not St. Helen,
and, in fact, my name is John Wilkes Booth, a son
of the late Junius Brutus Booth, Sr., the actor, and
a brother of Junius Brutus Booth the second and
Edwin Booth the actor."
At that time I think he mentioned a Dr. Booth as
his brother, and two sisters whose names I cannot
now recall from his statements at that time. That
he was born on a farm in the State of Maryland, not
far from Baltimore. That there was a young mar-
33
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
ried woman taken into the Booth family, or the the-
atrical troupe of the elder Booth and known as
Agnes Booth, an actress, but in fact she was not a
Booth nor related to them, but was a Mrs. Agnes
Perry, a Scandinavian lady, who was divorced from
her husband and married some time in the sixties to
Junius Brutus Booth the second. And St. Helen
continued to relate many other family affairs, the
publication of which would be to speak of the pri-
vate concerns of the Booth family, which I deem un-
necessary to make public. And while their relation
in public would be no disparagement to the ances-
try and relations of John Wilkes Booth, yet it-might
be considered an abuse of confidence for me to do so.
St. Helen continuing, by reference to himself as
Booth, said:
' ' I went on the stage at about the age of seventeen
years, had succeeded and up to the beginning of the
Civil War had accumulated about twenty thousand
dollars in gold, which I had deposited in a bank (or
banks) in Canada, owing to the uncertainty of
monetary conditions in the United States at that
time. I carried my money principally in checks of
varying amounts to suit my convenience, issued by
the banks carrying my accounts, which checks
were readily cashable in the United States or for-
eign countries."
34
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
He said that his sympathies during the war were
with the Southern cause, that he had become so en-
thusiastic in his loyalty to the South that he had to
a great extent lost interest in matters of the stage
and had given but little time and attention to his
professional life or the study of the art of acting.
That after the third year of the war, for many
months prior to the 14th of April*, 1865, he had de-
termined that he could best serve the South 's cause
by kidnaping President Lincoln and delivering him
over to the Confederate government at Richmond,
Virginia, to be held as a hostage of war; that in
preparation for the accomplishment of this purpose
he had spent much of his time and money up to the
death, as he called it, of President Lincoln.
At this point St. Helen grew passionate and full
of sentiment, and after some hesitation, with much
force of expression, said:
"I owe it to myself, most of all to my mother,
possibly no less to my other relations and the good
name of my family, as well as to the memory of Mrs.
Surratt, who was hanged as a consequence of my
crime, to make and leave behind me for history
a full statement of this horrible affair. And I do
desire, in fact, if it were possible, to make known to
the world the purpose, as well as the motive, which
actuated me in the commission of the crime against
35
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
the life of President Lincoln. First of all I want to
say I had no personal feeling against President Lin-
coln. I am not at heart an assassin. I am not a
physical coward, or a mean man at heart, which the
word assassin implies, but what I did was done on
my part with purely patriotic motives, believing, as
I did, and as I was persuaded at hat time, that the
death of President Lincoln and the succession of
Vice-President Johnson, a Southern man, to the
presidency, was the then only hope for the protec-
tion of the South from misrule and the confiscation
of the landed estates of the individual citizens of the
Southern Confederate States, who were loyal to the
South by President Lincoln as the chief executive
of the United States and commander-in-chief of the
Army; the success of the Federal forces and the
downfall of the Confederacy having been assured
by the surrender of Gen. Lee at Appomattox, on the
9th day of April, 1865, only five days before the final
decision to take the life of President Lincoln. And
I pause here to pay a tribute to the memory of Mrs.
Surratt, for while she was hanged for her supposed
connection with the conspiracy against the life of
President Lincoln, she was innocent, and knew noth-
ing whatever of the plot against the person to kid-
nap, or the final purpose to kill the President.
36
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
"It is true that I visited the home of Mrs. Surratt
in Washington; it is true I stopped at the Surratt
tavern, in Surrattville, not, however, because it was
the property of Mrs. Surratt, or that Mrs. Surratt
had anything to do with my being at the tavern, but
because it was the best, and I believe, the only place
for the traveling public to stop, in the village of
Surrattville. It is true that I was at the Surratt
home in Washington, but my mission there was to
see for the first time, by letter of introduction,
given me by a mutual friend, John H. Surratt, a son
of Mrs. Surratt, who was at the time in the secret
service of the Southern Confederacy as a spy, plying
in his service between Richmond, Virginia, Washing,
ton, D. C., New York City and Montreal, Canada, as
well as other points, as I was then informed. And it
was from John H. Surratt I desired to get informa-
tion respecting what was then called the under-
ground route, because of its hidden and isolated
way, over which Surratt traveled through the Fed-
eral lines en route from Richmond, Virginia, to
Washington, D. C., with the purpose of perfecting my
plans for the kidnaping of President Lincoln. This
occurred covering a time I should say from the
spring to the late summer of 1864. Prior to this
time I did not personally know, in fact, not even by
sight, John H. Surratt, and was informed that my
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
only chance to see him was to meet with him when
he passed through Washington, D. C., when he
would stop at his mother's home, at which place Mrs.
Surratt was then keeping a boarding and lodging
house. And this is the only purpose I had in going
to Mrs. Surratt 's home. Mrs. Surratt was at this
time old enough to have been my mother, and I had
only that casual acquaintance which my mission to
the Surratt home had given me, and had only met
her at intervals, and then for but a few moments
at a time, covering the period and coupled with the
ercumstances which I have mentioned as happening
in 1864. And as a matter of fact at the final meet-
ing with John H. Surratt our interview was of such
a nature that he had no further knowledge of or
connection with any conspiracy to kidnap, or later
in the spring of 1865, to take the life of the Presi-
dent. This I say in justice to John H. Surratt, to
the end also that Mrs. Surratt may live in the mem-
ory of the civilized people of the world as an inno-
cent woman and without knowledge, guilty or oth-
erwise, of the crime for which she was executed and
whose blood stains the ermine of the judges of the
military court condemning her to die. And could
I do or say more in vindication of her name it would
be gratifying, and would I had possession of Ga-
briel's horn and his mythical powers I would blow
ST. HELEN'S IDENTITY REVEALED.
one blast to wake the sleeping dead that this inno-
cent woman might walk from the portals of the
house of death."
To say that my breath was taken away almost by
this narrative is but a faint expression of my feel-
ings, while St. Helen was perfectly calm with that
restful look which gives expression to a feeling of
relief.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ASSASSINATION
After a period of silence St. Helen began, with re-
newed interest and energy, telling me of the plot to
kill President Lincoln, saying:
"On the morning of the day I killed the Presi-
dent the taking of the life of Mr. Lincoln had never
entered my mind. My purpose had been, as I have
stated, to kidnap President Lincoln for the purpose
I have mentioned, and, in fact, one or more efforts
to do so had fallen through, and we intended that
the last effort should not fail. Preparatory to this
end David E. Herold and I left Washington, D. C.,
by the way of Surrattville and along the under-
ground route I have before described, for the pur-
pose of perfecting plans for the kidnaping of the
President. And after having passed over this line on
horseback from Washington to near Richmond, Vir-
ginia, we returned, after making the necessary prep-
arations for crossing the Potomac and Rappahan-
rock rivers, over the same route, stopping the night
of the 13th day of April, 1865, at the old Surratt
tavern, at Surrattville, located about twelve miles
to the southeast of Washington City. On the morn-
ing of the 14th day of April, 1865, we came into
Washington and were stopped at the block house
40
THE ASSASSINATION.
of the Federal troops, at the bridge crossing the
East Potomac river, by the Federal troops, on guard
at this point. It appeared that some recent reports
had been circulated that the life or safety of Presi-
dent Lincoln was impending, and that an attempt
had or would be made from some source to assas-
sinate the President, while at this time any such pur-
pose was unknown to me, and because of these re-
ports we were informed by the guard that no one
could pass in or out of Washington City without
giving a full account of himself, because of the
threats against the life of the President. Herold
and I hesitated to give our names for awhile, and
were arrested and detained at this block house from
about 11 o'clock in the morning until in the after-
noon about 2 o'clock, when for the first time we
heard definitely of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
We then realized that this was a death blow to the
Southern Confederate States, when we made satis-
factory explanation and were permitted to enter
the city and went straight to the Kirkwood Hotel,
the place of rendezvous of the conspirators against
Mr. Lincoln, and where Andrew Johnson boarded.
All the conspirators against President Lincoln met
here with Andrew Johnson conversant of the pur-
pose to kidnap the President. On arriving at the
hotel, about 3 o'clock, I called on Vice-President
41
THE ASSASSINATION.
Johnson, when we talked over the situation and the
changed conditions because of the surrender of
Gen. Lee, and the Confederate forces at Appomat-
tox, which had made the purpose of the kidnaping
of President Lincoln and his delivery to the Con-
federate government at Richmond, to be held as a
hostage of war, impossible, as the Confederate gov-
ernment had abandoned Richmond and the war be-
tween the States was considered practically over,
which left, to my mind, nothing that we could do
but accept defeat and leave the South, whom we had
made our best efforts to serve, to her own fate, bit-
ter and disappointing as it was. When Vice-Presi-
dent Johnson turned to me and said, in an excited
voice and apparent anger:
" 'Will you falter at this supreme moment?'
"I could not understand his meaning, and stood
silent, when with pale face, fixed eyes and quivering
lips, Mr. Johnson asked of me :
. " 'Are you too faint-hearted to kill him?'
"As God is my judge, this was the first suggestion
of the dastardly deed of the taking of the life of
President Lincoln, and came as a shock to me.
While for the moment I waited and then said:
" 'To kill the President is certain death to me,'
and I explained to Vice-President Johnson that I
had just been arrested by the guard as I was com-
42
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Vice-President of the United States, and the Home Where
He Was Born, Near Raleigh, N. C.
JEFFERSON DAVIS.
President of the Confederate States of America During the
Late Civil War.
THE ASSASSINATION.
ing into the city over the East Potomac bridge that
morning, and that it would be absolutely impos-
sible for me to escape through the military line,
should I do as he suggested, as this line of protec-
tion completely surrounded the city. Replying to
this Mr. Johnson said:
" 'Gen. and Mrs. U. S. Grant are in the city, the
guests of President Lincoln and family, and from
the evening papers I have learned that President
Lincoln and wife will entertain Gen. and Mrs. Grant
at a box party to be given in their honor by the
President and Mrs. Lincoln at Ford's Theater this
evening. '
"At my suggestion Vice-President Johnson as-
sured me that he would so arrange and see to it
himself, that Gen. and Mrs. Grant would not attend
the theater that evening with the President and his
family, and would also arrange for my certain es-
cape. I replied:
" 'Under these conditions and assurances I will
dare strike the blow for the helpless, vanquished
Southland, whose people I love.'
"Mr. Johnson left the room and after a little
more than an hour returned, saying that it had been
arranged as he had promised, and that Gen. Grant
had been, or would be suddenly called from the city,
and that, therefore, he and his wife could not attend
43
THE ASSASSINATION.
the theater that evening with the President and
Mrs. Lincoln, as had been prearranged, and that
such persons as would attend and occupy the box at
the theater with the President and wife would not
interfere with me in my purpose and effort to kill
the President, and this he thought an opportune
time, and that I would be permitted to escape by
the route over which I had entered the city during
the forenoon of that day. That is, that I was to go
out over the East Potomac river bridge, that the
guards would be called in from this point by order
of Gen. C. C. Augur that afternoon or evening,
but if there should be guards on the bridge, I
was to use the password *T. B.' or 'T. B. Road,' by
explanation, if need be, which would be understood
by the guards, and I would be permitted to pass
and protected by himself (Mr. Johnson) absolutely
in my escape, and that on the death of President
Lincoln, he (Vice-President Johnson) would become
president of the United States, and that in this offi-
cial capacity I could depend on him for protection
and absolute pardon, if need be, for the crime of
killing President Lincoln, which he had suggested
to me and I had agreed to perform.
"Fired by the thoughts of patriotism, and hoping
to serve the Southern cause, hopeless as it then was,
as no other man could then do, I regarded it as an
44
THE ASSASSINATION.
opportunity for an heroic act for my country and
not the exercise of a grudge or any feeling of malice
toward the President, for I had none against him as
an individual, but rather to slay the President that
Andrew Johnson, a Southern man, a resident of the
State of Tennessee, should be made President of the
United States, to serve the interests of the South.
And upon the further promise made me by Mr. John-
son that he as President of the United States, would
protect the people of the South from personal op-
pression and the confiscation of their remaining
landed estates, relying upon these promises, and be-
lieving that by the killing of President Lincoln I
could practically bring victory to the Southern peo-
ple out of defeat for the South. Moved by this pur-
pose and actuated by no other motives, assured by
Mr. Johnson of my personal safety, I began the
preparation for the bloody deed by going to Ford's
Theater, and among other things, arranging the door
leading into the box to be occupied by Mr. Lincoln,
which had already been decorated for the occasion,
so that I could raise the fastenings, enter the box
and close the door behind me so that it could not be
opened from the outside and returned to the Kirk-
wood hotel. I then loaded afresh my derringer pis-
tol so that she would not fail me of fire, and met
Vice-President Johnson for the last time and in-
45
THE ASSASSINATION.
formed him of my readiness to carry out the prom-
ise I had made him. About 8:30 that evening we
left his room, walked to the bar in the hotel and
drank strong brandy in a silent toast to the success
of the bloody deed. We walked from the bar-room
to the street together, when I offered my hand as
the last token of good-bye and loyalty to our pur-
pose, and I shall not forget to my dying day the
clasp of his cold, clammy hand when he said :
" 'Make as sure of your aim as I have done in
arranging for your escape. For in your complete
success lies our only hope.'
"I replied, 'I will shoot him in the brain.'
" 'Then practically, from this time I am President
of the United States,' replied Vice-President John-
son, and he addeti, 'good-bye.'
"I returned to the theater. I saw the President and
party later take their seats in the box. I moved my
position to a convenient space, and at the time when
the way was clear and the play was well before the
footlights I entered the President's box, closed the
door behind me and instantly placed my pistol so
near it almost touched his head and fired the shot
which killed President Lincoln and made Andrew
Johnson President of the United States and myself
an outcast, a wanderer, and gave me the name of an
assassin. As I fired the same instant I leaped from
46
Booth Fleeing from Ford's Theatre After the Assassinatior
THE ASSASSINATION.
the box to the stage, my right spur entangled in
something in the drapery on the box, which caused
me to miss my aim or location on the stage and threw
my shin bone against the edge of the stage, which
fractured my right shin bone about six or eight
inches above the ankle. (At this point St. Helen,
exposing his shin, called attention to what seemed to
be a niched or uneven surface on the shin bone. This
I did not notice closely, but casually it appeared to
have been a wound or fracture.)
"From the stage I reached my horse in safety,
which by arrangement was being held by David E.
Herold, back of the theater and close to the door of
the back entrance. "With Herold 's assistance I
mounted my horse and rode away with full speed
without hindrance, and reached the bridge at the
East Potomac river, crossing the same with my
horse at full pace. When I came to the gate across
the east end of the bridge there stood a Federal
guard, who asked me a question easy to answer:
" 'Where are you going?'
"I replied, using the simple letters "T. B.' as I had
been instructed, and the guard then asked :
" 'Where?'
"I then replied, 'T. B. Road,' as I had been in-
structed by Mr. Johnson, and without further ques-
tion the guard called for assistance to help raise
47
THE ASSASSINATION.
the gate quickly, when I at once again urged my
horse to full speed and went on to Surrattville, where
I waited for Herold to overtake me, as prearranged,
whom I expected to follow closely behind. After
waiting a few minutes Herold came up and
we rode the remainder of the night until about 4
o'clock on the morning of the 15th of April, 1865,
when we reached the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd,
where Dr. Mudd, by cutting a slit in it, removed
my riding boot from the injured right foot and leg
and proceeded to dress it by bandaging it with
strips of cloth and pieces of cigar boxes, and the
riding boot was left at the home of Dr. Mudd, where
we remained during the rest of the day, and at
nightfall proceeded on our journey, my bootless
right foot being covered only by the sock and the
leg as bandaged and splinted by Dr. Mudd.
"From the home of Dr. Mudd I went to the home
of a Southern sympathizer by the name of Cox,
which we reached between 4 and 5 o'clock on the
morning of the 16th day of April, 1865. Mr. Cox
refused to admit us into his house, the news of the
death of President Lincoln having preceded us, and
he feared for this reason to take Herold and me in.
But he called his overseer, or manager about the
place, and instructed him to hide us in a pine thicket
on or near the banks of the Potomac river, just back
48
THE ASSASSINATION.
of and near his plantation. This man, the overseer,
was of medium size, approximately my weight, but
not quite so tall, I should say, swarthy complexioned,
black hair and eyes, with a short growth of whiskers
over his face. I called him by that familiar cogno-
men known to the Confederate soldiers, 'Johnny.'
I have the impression, whether correct or not I can-
not say, from having heard his name called by a
Mr. Jones, a relative of Mr. Cox,' that it was Ruddy
or Roby, but heard this only a few times. Of course,
this may have been a given name, nickname or sir-
name, I don't know how this was; I was not spe-
cially interested in knowing his name and was with
him but a short while, having negotiated with him
to put us across the country and into the care and
protection of the Confederate soldiers.
"Ruddy told me (if this be his name) that some
of Col. Mosby's command of Confederate troops was
then encamped not far south of the Rappahannock
river at or near Bowling Green, Virginia, and agreed
to convey and deliver us to these Confederate troops
for a price, as I now best remember, about three hun-
dred dollars. Ruddy, as we will call him, left us in
our hiding place until he could go to Bowling Green,
some thirty-five miles or more distant, with
a view of arranging with some of these sol-
diers to meet us at a fixed time and place pro-
49
THE ASSASSINATION.
posedly on the Rappahannock river, which was then
about the dividing line between the contending Fed-
eral and Confederate armies.
"Ruddy left and did not return for several day,,
from say the 16th or 17th to the 21st of April, 1865.
Herold and I were cared for during his absence by
Mr. Jones, the relative, I think, half brother of
Mr. Cox. On Ruddy's return he reported that the
desired arrangements had been made with Capt. Jett
and others of Mosby's command, then stationed at
Bowling Green, Virginia, south of the Rappahannock
river, to meet us at the ferry on the Rappahannock
river at Ports Conway and Royal, as early as 2
o'clock P. M. of April 22, 1865. So we immediately
started for this point on the night of the 21st of
April, crossed the Potomac river, reaching the south
side of the Potomac river we then had about eigh-
teen miles to go from the Potomac to the Rappahan-
nock river to the point agreed upon. This distance
was through an open country, and we were liable to
be come upon at any moment by the Federal troops ;
so to guard against this I arranged the plan of my
flight, covering this distance from the Potomac to
the Rappahannock to be the scene of an old negro
moving. An old negro near the summer home of
Dr. Stewart possessed of two impoverished horses
and a dilapidated wagon was hired for the trip.
50
THE ASSASSINATION.
Straw was first placed in the bottom of the wagon
bed. I got in on this straw and stretched out full
length; then slats were placed over the first com-
partment of the bed, giving me a space of about
eighteen inches deep, which required me to remain
lying on the straw during the entire trip. On the
first compartment of the wagon bed was placed the
second portion of the wagon body, commonly called
sideboards, then was piled on this old chairs, beds,
mattresses, quilts and such other paraphernalia as is
ordinarily kept in a negro's home. A number of
chickens were caught and put in a split basket,
which was then made fast to the hind gate of the
wagon, with old quilts, blankets, etc., thrown over
the back end of the wagon, exposing the basket of
chickens, and the wagon or team was driven by the
old negro, the owner of the same, and contents, ex-
cept myself. And now having this arrangement per-
fect in all details, we at once, about 6 o'clock A.M.,
left on our perilous trip from the Potomac to the
Rappahannock river with Ports Conway and Royal
as our destination, covering the distance of about
eighteen or twenty miles without incident or acci-
dent on our march; Herold and Ruddy following
along in the wake of the wagon, some distance be-
hind, they told me, so as not to detract from the
scene of the plot which was to be taken as one of
an old negro moving.
61
THE ASSASSINATION.
"In my concealment, of course, I had to be very
quiet. I could not talk to old Lewis, the old negro
driver, and made myself as comfortable as I could
be in my cramped position. In my side coat pocket
I had a number of letters, together with my diary,
and I think there was a picture of my sister, Mrs.
Clark, all of which must have worked out of my
pocket en route or came out as I was hurriedly
taken from the wagon. Just as we drew up at the
ferry old Lewis called out :
" 'Dar's dem soldiers now.'
"And at the same moment some one began tear-
ing away the things from the back gate of the
wagon, who proved to be Herold and Euddy, much
to my relief, as they had begun unceremoniously to
remove the back gate of the wagon, which necessari-
ly excited me very much, as the driver did not say
Confederate soldiers, and the 'soldiers' referred to
flashed through my brain as being Federal soldiers.
But before I can tell you the back of the wagon was
taken away, I was pulled out by the heels by Har-
old and Euddy, and at once hustled into the ferry
boat and over the river, where our Confederate
friends were waiting for us. They, in fact, being
the 'soldiers' referred to by Lewis, the driver.
"In the hurry, as well as the method of taking
me from the wagon, I think the letters, diary and
S2
THE ASSASSINATION,
picture of my sister, were lost from my pocket, as I
was dragged out. About this I can't say, but I do
know that after I had crossed the river and was feel-
ing in my pocket to get the check, which I had on a
Canadian bank, and with which I paid this man Rud-
dy for his services he had rendered us, for an
amount, as I now remember it, of about sixty pounds,
I discovered I had lost these papers. I asked Ruddy
to go back over the river and get them out of the
wagon, if they were there, and bring them to me at
the Garrett home, where the soldiers had arranged
to take me until Herold and Ruddy should go to
Bowling Green, Virginia, that afternoon, it being
then about 2 o'clock.
"This man Ruddy stepped into an old batteau boat
to go over to the wagon and get these papers after
I handed him his check. We being too exposed to
wait for his return, I hurriedly rode away with the
two gentlemen to whom I had been introduced as
Lieuts. Ruggles and Bainbridge, to the Garrott
home, mounted on a horse belonging to the man
to whom I had been introduced as Capt. Jett. These
gentlemen, as I understood it, were connected with
Mosby's command of Confederate soldiers. But be-
fore separating at this ferry it had been understood
between Herold, Ruddy and myself that they would
go to Bowling Green, Virginia, that afternoon, in
S3
THE ASSASSINATION.
company with Capt. Jett, on foot, by a near way,
for the purpose of getting me a shoe for my lame
foot and such other things as Herold and I needed
and that could not be obtained at Ports Conway and
Royal, and they were to return and meet me the
next day at the Garrett home, where Ruddy would
deliver to me the papers mentioned, if recovered.
"The Garrett home, I should say, is about three
miles north of the public road crossing the Rappa-
hannock river at Ports Conway and Royal and lead-
ing in a southerly direction to Bowling Green, Vir-
ginia. From the ferry we went out the Bowling
Green road a short distance westerly ; we then turned
and rode north on a country or bridle road for a
distance of about three miles and a half, when we
reached the Garrett home, where Lieuts. Bainbridge
and Ruggles left me, but were to keep watch in the
distance over me until Ruddy and Herold returned,
Xhich they were expected to do the following day, it
being some twelve or fifteen miles walk for them.
They were to remain there (at Bowling Green) over
night of the day they left me and return the follow-
ing day.
"About one or two o'clock in the afternoon of
April the 23d, 1865, the second day of my stay at
the Garrett home, I was out in the front yard, loung-
ing on the meadow, when Lieuts. Bainbridge and
54
THE ASSASSINATION.
Ruggles came up hurriedly and notified me that a
squad of Yankee troops had crossed the Rappahan-
nock river in hot pursuit of me, and advised me to
leave at once and go back into the woods north of
the Garrett house, in a wooded ravine, which they
pointed out, giving me a signal whistle by which I
would know them, and hurriedly rode off, saying
that they would return for me in about an hour at
the place designated, and bring with them a horse
for my escape.
"I left immediately, without letting anyone know
that I had gone or the direction I had taken. I
reached the woods at about the place which had
been pointed out to me, as nearly as one could trav-
eling in a strange wooded section with the impedi-
ment of a lame leg. At about the time fixed I was
delighted to hear the signal, and answered, to the
best of my recollection, about three or four o'clock
P. M. My friends came up with an extra horse,
which I mounted, and we rode away in a westerly
direction, riding the remainder of the afternoon and
the following night until about twelve o'clock, when
we camped together in the woods, or rather dis-
mounted to rest ourselves and horses until daylight.
"We talked over the situation, they giving me direc-
tions by which I should travel. When we at last sep-
arated in a country road, they said about twenty or
55
THE ASSASSINATION.
twenty-five miles to the west of the Garrett home or
Ports Royal and Conway; I, of course, thanked
them and offered them pay for the services they had
rendered me and the price of the horse they had
turned over to me, all of which they refused to ac-
cept, and bade me goodbye, with the warning that
I should keep my course well to the westward for
that day's ride, and then, after this day's ride, con-
tinue my journey to the southwest.
"As advised by them, I rode on westerly through
all the country roads as I came to them leading in
that direction until about ten o'clock A.M. of the
second day out from the Garrett home, when, ow-
ing to the fatigue of myself and horse, and suffering
from my wounded leg, I found it necessary to rest
and stopped at a small farm house on the country
road, where there seemed to live only three elderly
ladies, who, at my request, took me in as a wounded
Confederate soldier, fed my horse and gave me
breakfast, and as I now best remember, I compen-
sated them, paying them one dollar in small silver
coin.
"After a few hours' rest for myself and horse, I
pushed on toward the west the remainder of the
day and the forepart of the night, as best I could,
but early in the night I rode into the thick brush
located in a small creek bottom some distance from
56
Booth, Disguised as a Confederate Soldier in His Plight,
Applies for Shelter anrl Hospitality for His Tired Horse
and Himsolf.
THE ASSASSINATION.
the road and remained there all night. The next
morning I obtained breakfast for myself and feed
for my horse from an elderly gentleman and lady at
a little country home at an early hour without fur-
ther incident and interest, save and except the enjoy-
ment of the meal, when I turned my course to the
southwest, as I had been directed, and followed this
direction day after day, impersonating the character
of a Confederate soldier. Continuing on down
through West Virginia, I crossed the Big Sandy river
at Warfield, in Eastern Kentucky, and after travel-
ing from Warfield for about two days, and covering
a distance of fifty or sixey miles in a southwesterly
direction from Warfield, I, as well as my horse, was
about worn out, and I was therefore compelled to
rest for about a week, claiming to be a wounded
Confederate soldier. The parties with whom I
stopped was a widow lady and her young son, whose
name I can not now remember. But after receiving
their kind attentions and needed rest, I resumed my
journey with the purpose of traveling to the south
until I could reach the Mississippi river at a safe
point for crossing it, and find my way into the Indian
Territory as the best possible hiding place, in my
opinion.
"I finally reached without incident worthy of
mention the Mississippi river and crossed the same
57
THE ASSASSINATION.
at what was called Catfish Point, in the State of
Mississippi. This point is a short distance south
of where the Arkansas river empties into the Mis-
sissippi river. I followed the south and west bank
of the Arkansas river until I reached the Indian Ter-
ritory, where I remained at different places, hid-
ing among the Indians for a&out eighteen months,
when I left the Indian Territory and went to Ne-
braska and was at Nebraska City employed by a
white man to drive a team connected with a wagon
train going from Nebraska City, Nebraska, to Salt
Lake City, Utah. This man was hauling provisions
for the United States government to the Federal
troops encamped at Salt Lake City. But I left this
wagon train while en route, just before we got to
Salt Lake City, and proceeded to San Francisco,
California, to meet my mother and my brother,
Junius Brutus Booth. After meeting my mother
and brother and remaining a while there, I left and
went into Mexico. From there I went up through
Texas, finally stopping at Glenrose Mills and Grand-
berry, Texas, where we are now.
"Of course, I could add many matters of interest
to what I have said to you, but I have told you quite
sufficient for the present," saying which he gave
me a look of inquiry as much as to say, "Well, what
do you thing of me now?"
t.
58
THE ASSASSINATION.
I broke my long, intense and interested silence by
saying, as I rose from my seat and looked at my
watch :
"It is now about our lunch hour; suppose we re-
turn to town," to which St. Helen assented.
CHAPTER VII.
THEIMAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT
HOME
As we were returning to town I continued the sub-
ject of our conversation by saying to St. Helen that
I had little knowledge of the history of the matters
about which he had spoken so in detail, but as of gen-
eral information knew that John Wilkes Booth had
assassinated President Lincoln, though had no accur-
ate knowledge of the facts as detailed by him of the
President's assassination, such as would enable me to
reach the conclusion, as to the correctness or incor-
rectness of his statement, for I having been a small
boy at the close of the Civil War had not had the
opportunity to know much of the history of the war,
and less of the facts touching the tragic death of
President Lincoln, and therefore was left alone to
judge of the truth of what he said by the impressions
and convictions that his mere relation of it created
on my mind. The truth being that I did not believe
his story and sought the first opportunity to close
an interview as abhorrent as it was disbelievable by
60
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
me. And out of charity I had begun to regard St.
Helen as an insane man, bordering in fact upon vio-
lent madness, but I said to him :
"I have learned to know and like you as John St.
Helen, but I would not know how to regard you and
associate with you as John Wilkes Booth, the assassin,
and to be kind and generous to you as my friend, I
must say I do not believe your story. First because,
I like St. Helen, and in the second place is it not true
that John Wilkes Booth was killed soon after the as-
sassination of President Lincoln, such as has been the
general information heretofore practically unques-
tioned? No, St. Helen, not against my will and in
face of these facts can I believe you the assassin and
criminal you claim to be. And giving you the benefit
of the doubt of your sanity I must decline to accept
your story as true. It is possible you may have known
Booth and the secrets of his crime and escape, and it
is possible that from your brooding over this subject
your mind has become shaken and you imagine your-
self Booth. To me you are my friend John St. Helen
not the wicked and arch-criminal, the assassin, John
Wilkes Booth. It would take even more than your
sane statement to make me believe that you are any
other than John St. Helen. I can't believe that one
of your humane instincts, possessed, as I think I know
you to be, of all the attributes of gentle breeding and
61
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
culture, with the highest order of intellect and re-
finement blended with beautiful sentiment, and
possessed of a soul unalloyed with crime, can be
John Wilkes Booth. Could a man seeming-
ly possessed of such attributes, protected by a
strong manhood, without physical or mental fear,
without an apparent taint of the composition of cow-
ardice, play the part of an assassin ? Booth may have
been possessed of all the qualities that it takes to make
up the assassin, but St. Helen? In my opinion, no,
if I mistake not your character. You would have met
the man you sought to slay to the forefront and bid
him with equal chance defend the life you would
take.
"Then, too, did not the government of the United
States announce to the American people, and as for
that matter, to the civilized world, that Booth was
killed and the death of President Lincoln avenged?
Then do you say it is a fact that Booth was not killed
at the Garrett barn in Virginia ? It is a physical fact
that some man was killed at the Garrett home. If not
Booth who was this mant"
St. Helen replied by saying, "As you have heard
that a man was killed at the Garrett barn, and without
positive or direct proof as to who this man was, yet
from the circumstances I would say that it was Ruddy,
the man with whom I had negotiated for my personal
62
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
deliverance, together with that of my accomplice,
David E. Herold, to the Confederate soldiers. You
will remember I paid this man with a check made
payable to my order by a Canadian bank, and if he
did, as I requested, which he promised to do and left
me to do, he got my letters, pictures, etcetera, out of
the wagon, as I have explained to you, as he was to
bring them to me at the Garrett home on the day or
night following the day that I left the Garrett home,
as I have also explained to you.* I take it, without
personal knowledge of the facts, that Ruddy and Her-
old came to the Garrett home, as prearranged and
promised when we separated at the ferry on the Rap-
pahannock river, so that the Federal troops, by some
means, traced me to the Garrett home, where they
found Herold and Ruddy, killing Ruddy and captur-
ing Herold. They found on the body of Ruddy
the cheek for sixty pounds, together with my letters,
and I think a picture, and by reason of finding these
belongings of mine on the body of Ruddy, I presume
they identified it as the body of myself. But this
misleading incident, for I take it to be true that these
documents unexplained found upon the body of any-
one, and surely by those who did not know me, would
reasonably and rightfully justify the conclusion that
they had the body of John Wilkes Booth, but they
were in fact mistaken. And I do not for one moment
63
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
doubt the sincerity of the individual members of the
government 01 officers and men who captured Herold
and killed, as I suppose, Buddy, in believing that they
had killed me, and it was certainly a reasonable and
justifiable mistake if they had no other means of
identifying me than the check and documents found
on the man or body of the man whom we have called
Ruddy. But in this connection I desire to say, so that
my conscience shall be clear and confession complete,
that I have no cause to complain of the treatment
that I have received at the hands of the Federal
soldiers or officers in pursuit of me before and after
the killing of President Lincoln, for they were more
than once in plain and broad view of me. It is a little
remarkable, don't you think, that it was possible for
me to remain within the Federal lines for seven or
more entire days and nights, within forty miles of
Washington City, in a country entirely open and
within the territory completely occupied by the Fed-
eral troops, while I waited for Ruddy to go within
the Confederate lines and arrange to have Confederate
soldiers meet us at the Rappahannock river, as the
safest and most certain means of my escape?"
"Then, it is your contention, St. Helen, that the
circumstances of finding your letters, etc., on Ruddy's
body was all the proof they had?"
64
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
' ' Certainly, they could have only had circumstantial
proof not having killed me. They could only reach
the conclusion from the incident mentioned, and I am
before you now as a physical monument to .the fact
that I was not killed."
"Yes, but I, in my opinion, as well as a large
majority of the American people, believe that the gov-
ernment has in its possession absolute and positive
proof of the killing and death of Booth. However
this may be, I shall continue to know and associate
with you only as John St. Helen, until I shall have
more satisfactory proof of your identity," when so
saying St. Helen and I separated and went our dif-
ferent ways to a late luncheon. "While I as a fact had
little or no confidence in the story told me by St.
Helen and did not believe St. Helen to be Booth, still
his manner, directness and detail of his statement
left its impress on me and gave a justifiable cause
for serious reflection.
The former pleasant relation between St. Helen
and myself could not be continued with him as Booth,
for we forget to recognize merit and friendship in
one's character where there is much to be otherwise
condemned. In fact we find our friendship paling to
contempt and our admiration to scorn. The criminal
becomes common place and unattractive, because he
is unworthy, regardless of his physical attractiveness
65
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
or mental attainments. We recognize in him the
villain. What we may call St. Helen's con-
fession tended to clear up the mystery he had
thrown around himself when he sought to avoid his
appearance before the Federal court at Tyler, by
saying his true name was not St. Helen, and I now
think of his confession in the light of his hard fight
and the payment of money to avoid being taken within
the settled and civilized sections of the state of Texas,
lest he should be identified to be another than John St.
Helen. This was a suspicious circumstance, at least,
that in fact St. Helen was Booth, or some other man
than St. Helen, for as a fact if he was Booth it was
possible and highly probable that he would have been
identified by some of the court officials, especially by
the United States District Attorney, Col. Jack Evans,
who it is more than probable had seen John Wiikea
Booth on the stage. Knowing the District Attorney as
I did, as also from information of his frequent trips
to Washington and Eastern cities during the days
of Booth's triumphs before the footlights would
show a well founded reason why St. Helen
should not have taken the risk incident to a
trip to Tyler, if in fact he was Booth. Then I
would think he could have been equally as well John
St. Helen, John Smith or John Brown, or any other
man, who had committed some crime other than that
66
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GAKRETT HOME.
of the assassination of President Lincoln, for the
commission of which he would have been equally as
anxious to avoid detection under any other name or
for any other crime, if such crime had any connection
with the violation of the Federal law. In other words,
he could as well have been a mail robber as the assas-
sin of a President. So, that I could place but little
importance in these statements and circumstances as
a proof that St. Helen was hi fact John Wilkes Booth,
but rather thought of his confession as an evidence
of an identity not yet spoken of. So that the true
identity of this mysterious St. Helen became more
mystifying. Then I would think of what St. Helen
had said when he thought he was making his dying
declaration that he was John Wilkes Booth. And if
this was not true why need he in the presence of
impending death, as he thought, make the confession
that he was Booth? Then, too, I would think this
confession was without significance, as St. Helen
seemed prompted by no purpose after he had been
saved from the Federal court and from death, except
to prove to me the fact of his true identity, for what
interest could it have been to me or what could it
avail Booth, his purpose having been accomplished?
So reasoning from the standpoint of cause or motives
the conclusions reached were first, that St. Helen was
not Booth, because he disclosed his secret without an
67
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
apparent necessity, or from a business point of view,
and not likely from a matter of sentiment Then I
would think, is the man demented? And is he living
without purpose or reason? Or is he conscience
stricken and telling the truth for the relief that its
confession brings to him? And thus can reason
answer ?
Resting in this state of mind I waited an opportune
time when St. Helen and myself were retired, effect-
ually hidden from intrusion, and expressed to him my
apprehension of his perfect sanity as well as of his
true identity, and asked him to more fully explain
why he had made this confession to me at a time when
he supposed he was in his last illness that he was
John Wilkes Booth. And that if as a matter of fact
he was John Wilkes Booth, why he wanted me to
know it. St. Helen, without hesitation but with slow
and deliberate expression in substance said:
"I have spoken to you in good faith and in very
truth, having in no way deceived or in any manner
misled you, and had thought in the statements I have
made you I had clearly shown my purpose. But hav-
ing failed in this I realize my fault, possibly produced
by my long habit of secretiveness of purpose, that my
conversations may more or less partake of the long
hidden mystery of my life, and in themselves appear
mystifying and contradictory in a measure to the
68
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
legal mind. But you will remember that I gave yov.
these reasons some time ago that it was first a duty
I owe myself and family name that the world might
know the motives for my crime. Then, too, I reflect,
that my crime is possibly without palliation, certainly
has no justifying excuse in the eyes of the world. That
in fact the greater part of my purpose in the con-
fession I first made you was to secure my release from
an attendance on the Federal court. Other than this
selfish motive you can not easily understand, and now
in the light of what I have said to you I must confess
that I, in fact, think that I was moved by a desire of
finding a confidant to whom at a chance risk of my
life I could speak fully of my identity and unbur-
dened the story of my crime to you, for God and the
criminal himself only know the punishment it is for
one not to be able to take his trouble to a friend and
unfold his mind to the ear which will listen with
pity, if not approval, and at least share with him the
knowledge of his crime. To you, free from crime, it
will doubtless occur that this could at most be but lit-
tle consolation, but don 't forget that any consolation
at all is better than none, and that the life of man at
best is but a parasite on the life of others; his
friends who give hope of the impossible to himself
make life worth the living, and friendships kindled
into faith become the beacon fires which illumine the
69
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARKETT HOME.
hours of our darkness beyond the sunlights of today,
and through the shadowed valley to the great beyond
where God rules and Justice obtains throughout the
time of all eternity.
"After all, be it so. Having made known to you
my true identity and the cause of my crime, although
I know that you by your actions condemn me in fact,
I would think less of you if you did not, for I myself
confess, and would the power I had to condemn that
which you condemn, conscious that the Arbiter of our
being is pitiless in accusation, ever present in persecu-
tion and tireless in punishment. Yes, I walk in the
companionship of crime, sleep within the folds of sin
and dream the dreams of the damned and awake to go
forth by all men accused as well as self -condemned.
Ah, aweary, aweary ! Shall I say that I would that I
were dead? Yes, that I could on the wings of the
wind, by a starless and moonless night, be gone in
flight to the land of perpetual silence, where I could
forget and be forgotten, and whisper to my weary
soul, 'Peace, be still.' But for me, except in death,
there is no rest, for God in the dispensation of His
justice ordains that the criminal shall suffer the pangs
of his own crime. "Why, then, should I hope? But
hopeless I may turn when all nature is hushed and
hear the voice of the supernatural saying:
70
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GAKRETT HOME.
" 'Look, Repent and Confess.' "When shines with-
in the light of the star of Bethlehem I shall see ex-
tended to me the outstretched arms of the Sainted
Mother Mary, I look, repent and confess, and the
fires of hope shall rekindle at the urn of my being,
with the fagots of incense burning in holy light giv-
ing off the perfume of frankincense and myrrh a
food for and a purification of the soul. And this alone
can bring relief to my physical and spiritual being.
And in my confession to you I appealed for the pity
of man that I might live in common knowledge with
some one man, the secret that I, John Wilkes Booth,
did make my escape after the killing of President
Lincoln, whose life to replace I would gladly give
my own."
When I said to St. Helen, drop the curtain on the
beautiful sentiments expressed and for awhile listen
to me. The statements that you made with reference
to Mrs. Surratt and her son John Surratt can readily
be accepted as reasonable, but if you mean to say that
Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, was the leading con-
spirator and had formed a plan to kidnap and finally
suggested the assassination of President Lincoln, it
is startling to a point of disbelief, an insult to Ameri-
can manhood! It traduces the character of a dead
man, and is equalled only by the depravity and
cowardice characterizing the act of the assassina-
71
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME,
tion of President Lincoln. Nol I can not yet with-
out more proof believe the statement that you make to
be a fact. What reason, I pray, could Andrew Johnson
have in being a party to the assassination of President
Lincoln under the circumstances, or even under other
circumstances than such as you have stated?"
St. Helen, replying in substance, said :
' ' I am not unmindful of what my statements imply
and weigh the consequences as well as measure my
words, when I say that in the light of after events,
it was in fact Vice-President Johnson's only purpose
in planning and causing the assassination of President
Lincoln, to make himself President of the United
States, but he then gave as his reason, among oth-
ers, which I have before explained to you, that Pres-
ident Lincoln, by the act of the emancipation of the
slaves of the South, had violated the constitutional
rights of property of the Southern people and rea-
soned that if he would override the Constitution of
the United States in this respect that Mr. Lincoln
was a dangerous man to be President, for that he
could with the same propriety and that he would
in his (Mr. Johnson's) opinion continue his policy
of the confiscation of the remaining properties of
the people of the South. That he (Mr. Johnson)
was a Southern man and a citizen resident of the
South, and it was reasonable to expect, believe, and
72
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
in fact know, that he would do more for the South
under the then existing conditions than President Lin-
coln, who, Mr. Johnson contended, was the South 's
greatest enemy, saying that he (Mr. Johnson) was
present at a cabinet meeting prior to September 22nd,
1864, by invitation of President Lincoln, when the
question of the emancipation of slavery was to be dis-
cussed and that upon this occasion it was developed
that five out of seven members of President Lincoln's
cabinet, as follows, Wells, Smith, Seward, Blair and
Bates, were opposed to the issuance and promulgation
of the emancipation proclamation, and the argument
made by those men in opposition was that such a
proclamation by the chief executive, overriding the
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
in the Dred Scott case, was an usurpation of the law
and constitution of the United States. To this Presi-
dent Lincoln replied:
" 'The legal objections raised in opposition to the
promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation free-
ing the negro slaves of the United States is well
founded and true, but I believe it would be a vital
stroke against our sister states in rebellion, and believ-
ing this as I do, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and as President of the United States, I shall issue
this proclamation as a war measure, believing it to
be my official duty. Believing, as I do, that the free-
73
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
dom of the negroes is humane and meritorious and a
blow to the enemy which it can not long withstand,
and from my understanding of my official dual capac-
ity as President of the United States as its Civil
Officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Army from a
military standpoint, I violate no law or official trust
in doing what in my opinion is best and just in the
suppression of the present rebellion.'
" 'This act of President Lincoln,' continued Mr.
Johnson, 'Was earnest of his policy to be carried out
toward the subjugated South.'
"This reasoning at the time seemed unselfish and
logical, and I agreed with him that the supreme mo-
ment for the displacement of President Lincoln had
arrived. And if you will think for a moment of the
conditions as they obtained at that time, in Washing-
ton City, you will agree with me that it was impossible
for me, a mere citizen, a civilian without influence,
except through Yice-President Johnson, with either
the civil or military powers at Washington, I being in
no way connected with the Federal or Confederate
armies and following my vocation as an actor, at my
convenience and pleasure, that it was a physical im-
possibility for me to have arranged my escape through
the Federal lines, then completely surrounding Wash-
ington, through which I had to go and did pass after
the accomplishment of the death of President Lincoln,
74
THE MAN KTTJJcn AT THE GARRETT HOME.
for at this time, as it had been practically during the
entire Civil War, Washington City was closely
guarded by a cordon of soldiers thrown completely
around it, making it impossible to pass in or out of
the city without passing through this well-guarded
line, and this only could be done by officially recog-
nized permits, and even with these permits one could
not pass into the city without giving a full account of
himself.
"Now, do you think that I unaided could have
arranged for my escape? Then, think, Gen. U. S.
Grant and wife, as you know, were to attend the
theatre with President and Mrs. Lincoln on that
evening, and I could not have undertaken to go into
the closed box so unequally matched as I would have
been with both President Lincoln and Gen. Grant
there. So, the absence of Gen. Grant was arranged.
Could I do this ? History records the fact that Gen.
Grant was suddenly called from the City of Washing-
ton late in the afternon of the evening of the assas-
sination of President Lincoln. You understand that
Gen. and Mrs. Grant were the guests of the President
and Mrs. Lincoln, receiving the congratulations of
Mr. Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, only
five days after the surrender of Gen. Lee accepting
the hospitality of the President and Mrs. Lincoln, a
compliment extended to Gen. Grant on account of his
75
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
great achievement in the defeat of Robert E. Lee and
his army before Richmond, at Appomatox, and this
entertainment at Ford 's theater was a part of the pro-
gram for their entertainment, and was to mark the
first public appearance together of President Lincoln
and Gen. Grant as the greatest heroes of the Civil
War connected with the Federal army. Whether Gen.
Grant 's absence was a mere incident I can not say. I
only know that Vice-President Johnson informed me
only a few hours before the killing of President Lin-
coln that Gen. Grant would not be in attendance with
President Lincoln at the theatre. How he knew it, I
do not know. But I do know that I would not have
gone into the box and locked myself inside so unevenly
matched as I would have been with Gen. Grant pres-
ent, and had he been present President Lincoln would
not have been killed by me on that evening. Knowing
from the evening papers of the intended presence of
Gen. Grant, one of my conditions for attempting the
life of the President was that Gen. Grant should not
be present, and it is a physical fact that he was not
there. Take the further physical fact that I did kill
the President, and that I did pass out of the lines, as
directed by Mr. Johnson, without molestation at the
same point where I had been arrested and detained
on the morning of the same day I killed the President ;
that I approached the same guarded spot with my
76
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
horse under whip and spur, at or about 10:30 o'clock
at night, when upon giving the pass word T. B. or
T. B. Road to the Federal soldiers then guarding the
gate at the bridge, I was allowed to pass out. The
guard at once called for the assistance of another
guard standing close by, and the gate was hurriedly
raised and without further question I rode through,
put spur to my horse and was off again as fast as
the animal could go.
"Likewise, Herold, my accomplice, was permitted
to cross the bridge by the same guard, by the use of
the same pass word, and came up with me at Surratt-
ville. These physical facts stand as undeniable proof
of my official aid and my escape! Taking these
facts into consideration, who can say or doubt for
one moment that I was assisted by one, or more,
persons high in official circles, as well as in military
life?"
"Then, St. Helen, do you mean to say that Gen.
Grant was a party to or cognizant of the plot against
the life of President Lincoln?"
"No, I do not. All I know is that I was informed
by Vice-President Johnson that Gen. Grant was to be
in the box with President Lincoln on that evening. I
told him I could not undertake to carry out the plan
against the life of the President, as I have stated,
should Gen. Grant remain in the box, that is, should
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
he attend the theatre and occupy the box with Mr.
Lincoln. Mr. Johnson left me late that afternoon to
arrange for my escape and on his return, before giving
me instructions for my escape, he said that Gen. Grant
would not be present. How he knew this I can not
say. All I can say is to repeat what I have said. All
the world knows that Gen. and Mrs. Grant were not
in the box. From these existing physical facts, with
no accusation by innuendo, or otherwise, you must
draw your own conclusions. My own fixed opinion
upon this subject, however, I am free to express to
you and I confess that I do not believe that Gen.
Grant knew of any arrangements being made to kill
President Lincoln. I believe rather that he had been
decoyed off by some means, unsuspected by him, and
certainly not known to me, as were also other instances
apparently connected with the assassination of the
President. For instance, I knew nothing of any plan
to take the life of Secretary Seward on the night of
the assassination of President Lincoln, or at any other
time, showing that it would appear to have been a
conspiracy against both the President and certain
members of the Cabinet."
"While your story may be true, St. Helen, and is
apparently sustained by the facts which you state,
considering your statements to be facts, and I have no
information for a successful denial, if all you say is
78
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
true, it in no way identifies you as John Wilkes
Booth. Your story could be as well told by any one
else of your genius for some purpose hidden from me,
so I must continue to know you as John St. Helen."
St. Helen replied, ' ' Then allow me to say that your
long and persistent reasoning that I am not John
Wilkes Booth almost persuades me that I am in fact
John St. Helen. Indeed, I am quite willing that you
shall believe I am not John Wilkes Booth. However,
I realize that you have one proof of my identity
my tintype picture. I ask that you will keep
that picture, which may be the means of my complete
identification to you some day, when you will better
understand that my confidence in you has been
prompted by selfish motives to a certain degree. While
your continued mistrust and disbelief is comforting
to me, in that I reflect that you, after all that I have
told you, for the reasons that you have given, -are not
willing to believe me the criminal that I am; or, if
this disbelief arises from your thinking me incapable
of the crime to which I plead guilty, it is surely grati-
fying. But, if on the other hand, your mistrust arises
from your opinion that I am unworthy of belief
under any and all circumstances, my purposes are
thwarted and my efforts of no avail. But remember
always that I am grateful to you for what you have
done for me, and the burden you share with me, un-
79
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME,
wittingly, whether it be with St. Helen or with Booth,
and in the future as in the past, with your permission,
we will be friends. Think of me as you will, my true
name and identity you have. My correct personality
you know, and whether we long associate together or
soon separate, remember you are the one man the
only living man with whom I leave the true story of
the tragedy which ended the life of President Lin-
coln."
Closing with this statement, St. Helen left me in an
uncertain frame of mind. The future standing as a
barrier against coming events I was not prepared at
that time to admit that St. Helen was Booth. I was
unwilling to assume the responsibility of believing
that St. Helen was Booth. Aside from my better
judgment was my strong faith in the accuracy of
the claims of my government that John Wilkes Booth,
the assassin, had been killed, and I did not care to ac-
quire the unpleasant notoriety and criticism of making
the announcement that John Wilkes Booth in fact
lived, unless the proof of such a fact was established
irrefutably. So, I determined to drop the subject for
all time to come treating it as a myth unfounded in
fact a story that existed only in the mind of St.
Helen, a comparatively demented man, a crank, who
gloried in deceiving me to the idea. I preferred to
accept the story of the event referred to as it is told
80
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT HOME.
by the government the accepted facts of history
rather than those of this man of mystery. And in our
after association, lasting about ten months, we made
no further reference to the subject, which was avoided
by mutual consent.
Aside from this unpleasant side of St. Helen's
character he was modest, unobtrusive and congenial,
ever pleasant in association with ' me. He was a
social favorite with all with whom he came in con-
tact, yet, he was rather the social autocrat than the
social democrat. Except for a select few he held all
men to the strictest social etiquette, repelling all
undue familiarity, refusing all overtures of social
equality with even those of the better middle classes
of men, but it was done in such a gentle and respect-
ful way that no affront was taken if such it could
be called, it was more pleasant than otherwise, leav-
ing the impression that he, St. Helen, would be de-
lighted to be on the most intimate terms with the
other, but, as there is nothing in common between
us more than a respectful speaking relation, it is
an impossibility. And thus he made friends while
he drew the social lines and pressed home a con-
sciousness of his own superiority as an entertainer.
The hours of our social life were pleasantly spent,
not by riotous living but by amusing games of cards,
recitations and readings by St. Helen, which were
81
THE MAN KILLED AT THE GARRETT
always a great treat, and which he himself seemed
to enjoy, as did his friends.
St. Helen often admitted that in his younger days
he sometimes drank to excess of strong whiskeys,
wines, etc., as also decoctions of brandy and cordials,
but during our associations I never knew of his tak-
ing strong drink of any character, nor did he use
tobacco in any form, and in the absence of these
habits and tastes we were entirely congenial, as I
myself had never cultivated appetites of this char-
acter. We were also lovers of literature of the same
class, as well as music and the ftne arts, and matters
pertaining to the stage. We enjoyed the gossip of
the stage, and the people of the stage came in for a
large share of our attention, especially St. Helen's,
who talked much of what he called the old and the
new school of acting, with which I became con-
versant, which greatly pleased St. Helen, who
frequently made reference to me as his trained asso-
ciate, while he would explain that men became
congenial by constant association linked together by
the common mother, kindred thoughts, the off-
spring of blended characters.
82
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SEPARATION
St. Helen had grown tired of his class of busi-
ness. In fact, he paid little attention to it, letting
it drift with the tide of business affairs in the little
town of Grandberry. Now his mind turned to
thoughts of mining and the acquisition of wealth by
the development of mining properties in Colorado.
I was looking to other fields for my efforts and de-
cided to leave Texas.
When the final hour of our separation came I
returned to the States, as we Westerners termed
the older States in the Union, and St. Helen left for
Leadville, Colorado, in the spring of 1878, from
which point I lost trace of him until some time in the
year 1898. In the meantime I had located in the
city of Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Helen and I
were far apart lost to each other and comparatively
forgotten for a period of twenty years.
During this interval of time, my location being
more convenient to books and the acquiring of in-
formation, I investigated the subject of the assassi-
nation of President Lincoln and its attendant cir-
83
THE SEPARATION.
cumstances in view of the statements made by St.
Helen. He had connected Andrew Johnson with
the plot to kidnap and assassinate President Lin-
coln and investigation became interesting to learn,
if possible, the relations, personal and otherwise,
existing between President Lincoln and Viee-Presi-
dent Andrew Johnson.
In this search I find that the oath of office as
President of the United States was administered to
Andrew Johnson by Chief Justice Chase in the lodg-
ings of Andrew Johnson, at the Kirkwood Hotel,
"Washington, D. C., and that besides members of
the Cabinet a number of United States Senators
were called in to witness the ceremony. At this
hour but few of the citizens of Washington knew
that President Lincoln was dead. The inaugura-
tion occurred at 10 o'clock on the morning of April
15, 1865, President Lincoln having died at twenty-
two minutes past 7 o'clock on the same morning.
At his informal inauguration President Johnson
made a speech remarkable in that he made no men-
tion of President Lincoln. I give this speech in part
with the comments thereon by those present, who
say:
"The effect produced upon the public by this
speech, which might be regarded as an inaugural
address, was not happy. Besides its evasive charac-
84
THE SEPAEATION.
ter respecting public policies, which every observant
man noted, with apprehension, an unpleasant im-
pression was created by its evasive character re-
specting Mr. Lincoln. The entire absence of eulogy
of the slain President was remarked. There was no
mention of his name or of his character, or of his
office, the only allusion in any way whatever to Mr.
Lincoln was Mr. Johnson's declaration that he 'was
almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad
event which has so recently occurred.'
"While he found no time to praise one whose
praises were on every tongue, he made ample ref-
erence to himself and his own past history, and
though speaking not more than five minutes, it was
noticed that 'I' and 'my' and 'me' were used at least
a score of times. A boundless egotism was inferred
from the line of his remarks, 'My past public life,
which has been long and laborious, has been founded,
as I in good conscience believe, upon the great prin-
ciple of right which lies at the base of all things. '
" 'I must be permitted to say, if I understand
the feelings of my own heart, I have long labored to
ameliorate and alleviate the conditions of the great
mass of the American people.
" 'Toil and an honest advocacy of the great prin-
ciples of free government have been my lot. The
duties have been mine, the consequence God's.' '
85
THE SEPARATION.
r
Senator John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, who
was present on this occasion, said, with characteris-
tic wit, that
"Johnson seemed willing to share the glory of his
achievements with his Creator, but utterly forgot
that Mr. Lincoln had any share or credit in the sup-
pression of the rebellion."
Three days later, April 18, a delegation of distin-
guished citizens from Illinois called upon Mr. John-
son under circumstances extraordinary and most
touching. The dead President still lay in the White
House, before the solemn and august procession
should leave the national Capitol to bear his mortal
remains to the State which had loved and honored
him. The delegation called to assure his successor
of their respect and confidence, and in reply to Gov.
Oglesby, the spokesman of the Illinois delegation,
Mr. Johnson responded respecting the dead, Presi-
dent Lincoln, and with profound emotion of the
tragical termination of Mr. Lincoln 's life. He said :
"The beloved of all hearts has been assassinated."
He then paused thoughtfully and added: "And
when we trace this crime to its cause, when we re-
member the source from whence the assassin drew
his inspiration, and then look at the result, we stand
yet more astounded at this most barbarous, most dia-
bolical act. Who can trace its cause through suc-
86
THE SEPARATION.
cessive steps back to that source which is the spring
of all our woes? No one can say that if the perpe-
trator of this fiendish deed be arrested he should not
undergo the extremest penalty of the law known
for crime. None can say that mercy should inter-
pose. But is he alone guilty?"
I charge the reader in the light of the facts that
have been written and the statement made by John
St. Helen, that you compare this oration of Andrew
Johnson over the body of Lincoln with that of Marc
Antony over the dead body of Caesar.
The character and force of Mr. Johnson's words
were anomalous and in many respects contradic-
tory.
Mr. Elaine says of him in his "Twenty Years in
Congress:" "Mr. Johnson by birth belonged to
that large class of people in the South known as
the 'poor white.' " (Mr. Elaine should have said
"Poor white trash," a term applied to a disreputa-
ble class of poor white people who would be equally
unworthy and socially ostracised if rich. It was and
is no disgrace in the South to be "poor," and no so-
cial ostracism extended to the poor, if honorable.)
"Many wise men regarded it as a fortunate cir-
cumstance that Mr. Lincoln's successor was from
the South," says Mr. Elaine, "though a much larger
number in the North found in this fact a source of
87
THE SEPARATION.
disquietude, saying that Mr. Johnson had the mis-
fortune of not possessing any close or intimate
knowledge of the people of the loyal States ; and it
was found, moreover, that his relations with the
ruling spirit of the South in the exciting period
preceding the war specially unfitted him for harmo-
nious co-operation with them in the pending exi-
gencies. (Vol. II., page 3.)
"Mr. Johnson had been during his entire life a
Democrat, and had attained complete control of the
Democratic party in the State of Tennessee and had
filled various official positions in the State, and
finally that of Democratic United States Senator
from the State of Tennessee." (Vol. II., page 4.)
I pass- the above quotations without further com-
ment than to challenge the thought of the reader to
their significance to the political relati
