by Ray Black
In 1862, Booth was arrested for making anti-government remarks and had to appear before a provost marshall in St Louis.
On November 9, 1863, Lincoln sat in the audience as Booth took the role of Raphael in The Marble Heart. Lincoln was in a box to the right of the stage accompanied by several other people. On a couple of occasions, when Booth had a particularly disagreeable line to play, he would walk up to Lincoln’s box and point his finger directly at him. One of his companions, Mary Clay, who was the daughter of Cassius Clay, the US minister to Russia, commented: ‘Mr Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you.’
In the autumn of 1864, Booth was known to stay on occasion at the McHenry House in Meadville, Pennsylvania. It is thought that he stayed there while he waited for a railroad connection, but more significantly, scratched on a window pane in Room 22 in the McHenry House were the words:
Abe Lincoln Departed This Life August 13th, 1864,
By The Effects of Poison
There has been much speculation as to who actually scratched the words on the window because Booth never occupied Room 22, and it still remains a mystery today.
However, what is certain is that in the summer of 1864 Booth started to make his own plans to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. His plan was to seize the president, take him to Richmond where he would be held in exchange for Confederate soldiers who were being held in Union prison camps. Booth recruited a gang of men who were prepared to help him with his plan – Michael O’Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, Lewis Powell, John Surratt, David Herold and George Atzerodt.
The whole group met at Gautier’s Restaurant on March 15, to discuss the abduction of the president. Booth told them that he knew that Lincoln would be attending a play at the Campbell Hospital just outside Washington, on March 17, 1865. He told the men that he thought it would be an ideal opportunity to seize Lincoln while he was still in his carriage. However, at the last minute Lincoln changed his plans and decided to speak instead to the 140th Indiana Regiment to present a captured flag to the Governor of India. After this, the band of conspirators broke up and went their separate ways.
Early in 1865, Booth had a serious love affair with Lucy Lambert Hale, who was the daughter of John Parker Hale, a former senator for New Hampshire’s abolition cause. President Lincoln had appointed John Hale to be minister of Spain and the Hale family were making plans to sail to Europe. Booth became secretly engaged to Lucy and on March 4 attended Lincoln’s second inauguration as a guest of his fiancée. He is known to have confided in a close friend, ‘What an excellent chance I had to kill the president, if I had wished, on inauguration day!’
Of course this attempt never happened, and several other kidnap plans fell on stony ground. On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox and on April 11, Lincoln gave his final speech from the White House. Booth was in the audience and became enraged when Lincoln started discussing the possibility of votes for a section of the black population. He is known to have said, ‘Now, by God! I’ll put him through. This is the last speech he will ever make.’
Three days later Booth learned that Lincoln was planning to attend the evening performance of Our American Cousin at the Ford Theatre. Booth started to make plans to assassinate Lincoln. He knew virtually every line in the play and figured out that the greatest laughter in the theatre would be about 10.15 p.m. He decided he would use this laughter to cover the noise of the gunshot and then went to find fellow conspirator Lewis Paine to tell him of his plans. Booth told Paine that he wanted him to assassinate the secretary of state, William Seward.
Booth then left and went to meet George Atzerodt. His plan for Atzerodt was for him to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson.
Later that afternoon Booth went to Deery’s tavern for a drink and then decided to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper called the National Intelligencer. In the letter he told the editor that he had changed his plans from kidnapping Lincoln to assassinating him, and signed it in the names of his own, along with those of Paine, Atzerodt and Herold.
After leaving the tavern, Booth met up with a fellow actor named John Mathews, and asked him to deliver the letter to the newspaper the following day. As Booth was walking home he met up with Atzerodt and told him what he wanted him to do – kill Andrew Johnson as close to 10.15 p.m. as possible.
Booth then went to Ford’s Theatre to go over his plans for the assassination. Using a gimlet, he drilled a small hole in the door at the back of the box where Lincoln would be sitting so that he could get a good view of his head, and then he returned to the National Hotel, where he was staying, to have dinner.
After dinner Booth changed into calf-length boots, new spurs and black clothes. Booth loaded his derringer and then stuck a long bowie knife inside the belt of his trousers. Picking up his diary and putting on a black hat, Booth left his room at 7.45 p.m.
Although there is no record as to where the final meeting of the conspirators took place, Booth met up again with Paine and Atzerodt and told them he wanted the assassinations to take place simultaneously at 10.15 p.m.
Booth arrived at Ford’s Theatre at approximately 10.07 p.m. and went up the stairs to the dress circle. Because he was such a famous actor no one questioned why he should want to arrive so late in the performance. Next to the outer door of Lincoln’s state box sat Charles Forbes, the president’s footman, and Booth was seen handing him a card. Booth then opened the door and went into the dark area at the back of the box. So that the door remained ajar, he propped it open with the wooden leg of a music stand he had placed there earlier in the day. Booth then opened the inner door, directly behind where Lincoln was sitting, put his derringer behind the president’s head and pulled the trigger. Because of the noise of laughter, only those closest to the box heard the noise of the shot.
Major Henry Rathbone, another occupant of the royal box, started to wrestle with Booth, so the assassin pulled out his knife and stabbed Rathbone in the arm. Booth then climbed over the banister of the royal box and dropped the eleven feet onto the stage. The spur on his right foot caught in one of the flags draped across a balustrade, causing him to lose balance. He landed awkwardly and the fibula bone in his left leg just above the ankle made a loud snapping noise. Despite the obvious pain, Booth flashed his knife, ran quickly across the stage and out the back of the theatre.
Booth jumped onto his horse waiting outside the theatre, and escaped by crossing the Navy Yard Bridge. Booth met up with Paine, Herold and Atzerodt at Mary Surratt’s tavern, approximately eleven miles south of Ford’s Theatre. He was unaware at that time that Paine had failed to kill Seward and that Atzerodt had made no attempt to fulfil his part of the bargain. Mrs Surratt arranged for a doctor to come and strap up Booth’s leg, which, in theory, made her an accomplice.
Union Cavalry eventually caught up with Booth on April 26, 1865, in a barn some sixty miles south of Ford’s Theatre. The barn was set on fire, Booth was shot, and his body was dragged out and left lying on the grass. Booth was paralyzed and barely alive and when officers searched his body, they found a diary with several incriminating entries.
Within days the other conspirators were arrested and tried by a military tribunal. They were all found guilty and hanged on July 7, 1865, including Mrs Surratt. The doctor who had attended to his leg, Dr Mudd, was given a life sentence, while Edman Spangler, a stagehand at the Ford’s Theatre was convicted of helping Booth escape and sentenced to six years. There was much controversy over the convictions on Mrs Surratt, Dr Mudd and Spangler and, although it was too late for Mrs Surratt, Mudd and Spangler were later pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.
Franz Ferdinand
While it can be argued that the political ambitions of Adolf Hitler started World War II, so it can be argued that the political frustrations of Gavrilo Princip triggered World War I. Princip was a Bosnian Serb who had had enough of Austria–Hungary’s hold over his country. In 1914 he joined a nationalist paramilitary group known as the Black Hand, which had th
e express aim of reuniting territories with Serb populations under independent rule. Princip and his comrades decided that the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, would be a good way to bring attention to their cause and their opportunity came when he visited Sarajevo in June 1914 with his wife Sophie.
Franz Ferdinand, born in 1863, was the eldest son of Carl Ludwig, the brother of Emperor Franz Josef. Ferdinand became the crown prince in line for the throne when the only son of Crown Prince Rudolf, Franz Josef, committed suicide. The Habsburg court was extremely orthodox in its views and frowned on the fact that the new prince had not only fathered two children out of wedlock, but also disapproved of his marrying someone beneath his ranks, Sophie von Hohenberg. Even though she came from noble blood, Sophie wasn’t considered to be an appropriate match for the future emperor. To be an eligible partner for a member of the Austro-Hungarian royal family, you had to be descended from the House of Hapsburg or from one of the ruling dynasties of Europe.
Ferdinand ignored their old-fashioned rules and married his sweetheart anyway, but because of the court’s disapproval Sophie was not allowed to accompany him on any state visits or appear in the public eye alongside her husband. For this reason, Ferdinand liked to go outside of Vienna on state visits, where this rule did not apply. Consequently, Ferdinand was eager to accept the invitation of Bosnia’s general, General Oskar Potoirek to inspect the army manoeuvres being held outside Sarajevo. It had been four years since a prominent Hapsburg dignitary had made a goodwill visit to Bosnia and, as Inspector General of the army it made sense for Ferdinand to go. Added to this, the visit would coincide with his fourteenth wedding anniversary and he felt it would be a fitting present if Sophie were allowed to ride in the royal car beside him.
Ferdinand was aware that the trip could be dangerous because a large number of people living in Bosnia– Herzegovina were not happy about the Austro–Hungarian rule and favoured union with Serbia. In 1910 a Serb, Bogdan Zerajic, had attempted the assassination of General Varesanin, the Austrian governor of Bosnia–Herzegovina, when he was opening parliament in Sarajevo.
Zerajic was a member of a secret society called Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (Union or Death), better known as the Black Hand. They wanted Bosnia–Herzegovina to leave the Austro–Hungarian empire and their leader, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, considered Ferdinand to be a serious threat to a union between Bosnia– Herzegovina and Serbia. Dimitrijevic was the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff, and he felt that Ferdinand’s plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs, would make it even harder for Serbia to become in independent state.
When it was learned that Ferdinand was scheduled to visit Sarajevo in June 1914, Dimitrijevic started to make plans to assassinate the heir to the Austro– Hungarian throne. He arranged for three members of the Black Hand group based in Belgrade – Gavrilo Princip, Nedjelko Cabrinovic and Trifko Grabez – to start training and then sent them fully equipped to Sarajevo.
Because the Black Hand had members in the government and the army, many of their activities were known to the Serbian government. When Prime Minister Nikola Pasic, learned of the assassination plot, he had a difficult problem on his hands. He knew that if he took no action and the assassination was successful, that the tangled connections between the government and the Black Hand would come to light, fearing that it could mean war with Austria. Pasic was in a dilemma, aware that if he did warn the Austrians of the plot he would appear as a traitor by his own countrymen.
Pasic decided to have Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez arrested as they tried to leave the country. However, it was only a weak attempt at trying to appease the situation, and needless to say his instructions were ignored. When this failed, Pasic decided that he would try and warn the Austrians in a diplomatic way without involving the Black Hand in any way. He gave the task to the Serbian Minister to Vienna, Jovan Jovanovic. On June 5, Jovanovic approached the Minister of Finance, Dr Leon von Bilinski, to advise him that it would be a good idea if Ferdinand cancelled his visit to Sarajevo. Bilinski did not seem to grasp the serious nature of the warning, simply saying, ‘Let us hope nothing does happen’ in a light-hearted manner. Jovanovic, who strongly suspected that Bilinski did not understand the gravity of the situation, chose to make no further effort to convey the warning.
Meanwhile the three Black Hand trainees worked their way back to Sarajevo about one month before the proposed visit. A fourth man, Danilo Ilic, also joined the group in Sarajevo and, on his own initiative, recruited three other members. Vaso Cubrilovic and Cvijetko Popovic, who were still at school and only seventeen years old and Muhamed Mehmedbasic, a Bosnian muslim. The group were armed with four army pistols and six bombs.
Security on the day of the visit was relaxed. Ferdinand did not like to feel hemmed in by security guards, nor did he like a cordon of soldiers between the crowd and himself. For the most part, Ferdinand was greeted warmly and the crowds were overseen by Sarajevo’s 120 policemen.
Ferdinand and Sophie arrived in Sarajevo by train just before 10.00 a.m. on Sunday, June 28, 1914. They were met by General Oskar Potiorek, who took them back to the City Hall for an official reception hosted by the mayor. The motorcade consisted of six vehicles and the car travelling directly in front of Ferdinand’s car, contained Fehim Curcic, the mayor of Sarajevo and Dr Gerde, the city’s Commissioner of Police. Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie were in the second car with Potiorek and Count von Harrach. The third car in the procession carried the head of Ferdinand’s military chancellor, Sophie’s lady-in-waiting and Potoirek’s chief adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Merizzi. The fourth and fifth cars carried other members of Ferdinand’s staff and various Bosnian officials, while the sixth car was a spare should any of the others break down.
The route went along a wide avenue called Appel Quay, which ran parallel with the north bank of the River Miljacka. The top of the car had been rolled back so that the crowds could get a good look at the royal visitors. The morning was warm and sunny and the atmosphere matched the weather. Crowds lined the Appel Quay waving flags and throwing flowers as the cars drove slowly by. Among the crowd, however, were seven young assassins, eager to get a prime position.
As Ferdinand’s car passed the first assassin, Mehmedbasic, he did nothing. The next man they passed, Cabrinovic, hurled a hand grenade at Ferdinand’s car. The driver of his car, Franz Urban, reacted quickly and accelerated away from the flying object, while Ferdinand raised his arm to deflect the grenade away from his wife. The grenade glanced off his arm and bounced onto the road, exploding under the wheel of the next car. Two of the occupants, Eric von Merizzi and Count Boos-Waldeck were seriously wounded, as were many of the spectators. The first two cars kept moving until they felt they were far enough away from the site of the explosion and then stopped to assess who had been injured.
After throwing the grenade, Cabrinovic swallowed his cynacide pill and then proceeded to jump into the river. The only problem was that the pill was out of date and it only made him sick, added to that, the part of the river where he had jumped in, was only a couple of inches in depth. He was seized by the crowd and finally arrested by the police.
The motorcade continued their journey on to City Hall passing the other assassins on the way, but for some unknown reason they failed to act. When Ferdinand reached the City Hall he was seething and flew at the mayor with all guns blazing. ‘Mr Mayor, one comes here for a visit and is received by bombs! It is outrageous!’ The Mayor stood open mouthed, not quite sure how to react and tried to pacify the situation. Ferdinand regained his composure, apologised for his outburst and the celebrations at City Hall continued as planned.
The mayor suggested that they might like to change the remainder of their schedule, but Ferdinand told him he had no intention of cancelling his visit to the museum or lunch at the governor’s residence. However, he did ask to be taken to the hospital where those people injured in the explosion were receiving treatment
. A member of Ferdinand’s staff suggested that this might be a dangerous move, but Potiorek, who was responsible for the safety of the party, replied, ‘So you think Sarajevo is full of assassins?’ He did suggest that Duchess Sophie should stay behind, but she adamantly refused and said that as long as her husband was prepared to show himself in public, she wanted to be by his side.
The same group of cars set out along Appel Quay, but the mayor’s driver and Ferdinand’s driver had not been informed of the change to the planned schedule. The young assassins, who had counted on succeeding on their first attempt, unaware that Ferdinand would stick to his itinerary, had taken up various positions along the Appel Quay.
The mayor’s car, followed by Ferdinand’s car, turned off the Appel Quay and into Franz Joseph Street in the direction of the museum, as originally planned. Potoirek leaned forward to his driver and said, ‘What is this? This is the wrong way! We’re supposed to take the Appel Quay!’ The driver, looking confused, started to reverse causing Ferdinand’s driver to brake hard.
Gavrilo Princip was just walking out of a shop having bought himself a sandwich and couldn’t believe his luck when he realised the car that had stopped about five feet away was the one carrying the archduke. Princip dropped the sandwich, pulled the pistol out of his pocket, took a step towards the car and fired twice into the car. Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophie in the abdomen, but because the couple remained sitting upright, General Potoirek thought that the shots had missed. He ordered the driver to take them directly to the governor’s residence. What he didn’t know was that the first bullet had pierced Ferdinand’s jugular vein but before he lapsed into unconsciousness, he cried helplessly, ‘Sophie dear! Sophie dear! Don’t die! Stay alive for our children!’