American Brutus

by Michael W. Kauffman

  June had attended St. Mary’s School, run by the Sulpician Order, in Baltimore. Stanley Kimmel and others have said that Clementina was eleven years older than Junius, but death records in St. Louis show that when she died on March 25, 1874, she was sixty-six years old.

  Stanley Kimmel and others have said that the headmaster of the Bel Air Academy was Edwin Arnold, but Arnold was elsewhere throughout this period. The old academy still stands, at 24 Pennsylvania Avenue in Bel Air; School life was described in Circular of the Milton Boarding School (Baltimore: James Lucas & Son, 1859), Maryland Historical Society. I have assumed that the offers made in 1850–51 were nearly identical to those published in this pamphlet. The old Milton School building still stands, and is currently a restaurant called the Milton Inn, at 14833 York Road in Sparks, Maryland.

  John Milton, “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” as quoted in Areopagitica and Other Political Writings of John Milton (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), 83; “A Defence of the People of England,” as quoted in Areopagitica, 123.

  “Giaour” is an Arabic word meaning “infidel,” or non-Moslem. Though the original version of the poem, published in 1813, had fewer than seven hundred lines, Byron’s final version was nearly twice as long. Frank D. McConnell, ed., Byron’s Poems (New York: Norton Critical Editions, 1978), 94.

  For a discussion of the Seward speech in historical context, see Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 489–91. The controversial law is in 9 Stat. 462.

  For political consequences, see W. U. Hensel, The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851 (Lancaster, PA: The New Era Printing Co, 1911), 51. Castner Hanway was the only person tried for treason, and after the judge instructed the jury that the crime did not rise to the level of treason, they returned a quick verdict of not guilty. Hensel, 98–99. Circular of the Milton Boarding School lists four Gorsuch boys as alumni, including Thomas Gorsuch. It also listed Joshua Gorsuch, who was present at the Christiana incident, and Jacob Pearce, whose father had been there. The 1850 census, taken June 24, caught “J. M. Booth” at the Milton School, but none of the Gorsuch boys was listed with him there; as they lived so close by, they probably did not board at the school.

  Frank A. Burr, “Booth’s Wife Adelaide,” New York Press, 1891.

  The tale came from the March 14 journal entry of James Winston, of the Covent Garden Theatre. It was a good story, but Robert Holmes actually died on December 23, 1823. According to Stephen M. Archer in Junius Brutus Booth: Theatrical Prometheus (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 296, n. 32, Winston’s notes in the Harvard Theatre Collection are inaccurate.

  Stanley Kimmel erroneously thought that Junius had somehow kept the families a secret from each other for more than twenty-five years. But as Stephen M. Archer has shown, the Maryland family’s 1827 visit to London sparked a moral exposé in the London Sunday Monitor, and Mary Ann and Adelaide must have been aware of those articles. The Stanley Kimmel Collection includes neighborhood recollections of these tantrums at Bel Air, and at the Bel Air Market in Baltimore. The marriage certificate indicates that a wedding took place at the home of “the Hon. Mrs. [Jane] Chambers.” The document is owned by a descendant of Edwin Booth.

  The divorce became final on April 18, 1851. A copy of the decree is in the Maryland Historical Society, Manuscripts Division.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 59.

  The book was The Architect by William H. Ranlett (New York: Dewitt and Davenport, 1849). See James T. Wollon, Jr., “Harford County Architectural Notes: Tudor Hall, Fountain Green: Home of the Booth Family,” Harford Historical Bulletin 3 (Spring 1973): 11. The author is indebted to Mr. Wollon, whose great-grandmother occupied Tudor Hall for seventy years. Gifford, the architect, gained an eccentric reputation when, after returning from college in Europe, he placed nude statues in his yard at Spring and Fayette streets. The Baltimore city government threatened to arrest him for public obscenity, and Gifford forestalled the problem by erecting a wall around the property. Perhaps his spunk is what attracted Booth’s notice. The present author recalls many pleasant afternoons in the company of Gifford’s grandson, Hugh Robert Gifford, who supplied this information.

  Junius Jr. did not believe that little Blanche was his biological daughter, and he divorced her mother, Clementina DeBar, eventually marrying Harriet Mace. The St. Timothy’s quotes are from Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Students at St. Timothy’s Hall (Baltimore: Joseph Robinson, 1852), supplied by Percy E. Martin.

  St. Timothy’s Hall produced three Civil War generals: Fitzhugh Lee and Steven Elliott for the Confederacy, and Charles Phelps for the Union. Erick F. Davis, “Saint Timothy’s Hall,” History Trails [Baltimore County Historical Society newsletter] 11, no. 3 (Spring 1977): 14.

  Rules and Regulations; Asia Booth Clarke and others have said that the students were artillery cadets, but as Erick F. Davis has shown, the school’s three artillery companies were organized beginning in 1856. St. Timothy’s Hall, 13.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 75–76.

  “A Marylander,” December 3, 1878, quoted in Clarke, Unlocked Book, 152–53. This article has glaring inaccuracies, probably attributable to the passage of twenty-five years, but the author knew a great deal about life at St. Timothy’s Hall. He erroneously remembered that Senator Thomas Bayard attended the school; it was actually Thomas Baynard, of Savannah, Georgia. A third student included in this memoir was William Morris Orem, of Baltimore.

  E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 35.

  An eyewitness account of Junius’s death was published in The New York Times, August 1, 1856.

  The destruction of Tudor Hall’s roof chilled relations between Booth and Gifford, who witnessed the assassination in Ford’s Theatre. See John T. Ford in LAS 5:441; William P. Wood memo in LAS 6:447.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 67, 72–73, 99–191; Cola di Rienzi entry in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (New York: Robert Appleton Co., 1912). Most likely, Booth was familiar with the novel Rienzi by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1835), and perhaps with the Wagner opera of the same name (1842). Both were sympathetic to the memory of Rienzi. The historical figure, however, was not so laudable. He became intoxicated with power, and was ultimately killed by the public he started out to serve.

  John Wilkes Booth letters to S[amuel]. William O’Laughlen, April 30, 1854, and August 8, 1854, both in the collection of Dr. John K. Lattimer. This last incident may be the same one Asia described, involving a sharecropper. Booth’s eight surviving letters to O’Laughlen are published in John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper, eds., “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 36–44.

  Ibid., 72, 76. The present author owns dozens of books that came down through the families of Junius Jr. and Joseph Booth. Many were owned by John Wilkes, and are inscribed in his own hand.

  Ibid., 63–65.

  The process of realignment is best described by Michael F. Holt in The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978). For an excellent study of the American Party, see Jean H. Baker, Ambivalent Americans: The Know-Nothing Party in Maryland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). Officially, the Know-Nothings called themselves the American Party.

  The Kerney incident became a highlight of his brief political career; William G. Brown-low, as cited in Joel H. Silbey, The Transformation of American Politics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967), 53; Thomas R. Whitney, A Defence of the American Policy, as quoted in Michael F. Holt, “The Antimasonic and Know-Nothing Parties,” History of United States Political Parties, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed. (New York: Chelsea House and R. W. Bowker, 1973), 1:681–82; Horace Greeley said this in a letter to Schuyler Colfax, August 24, 1854, as quoted in Holt, Political Crisis, 167.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book,
105.

  Chapter 6: “He wanted to be loved of the Southern people”

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 106–7; The Baltimore Sun, August 14, 1855, 3.

  Family and friends called Edwin “Ned” until 1864, when his partner, William Stuart, reshaped his image and insisted he drop the nickname. New York Press, May 20, 1893, 25. Asia Booth letter to Jean Sherwood, August 1, 1855, Peale Museum. According to Asia, Ned claimed to have made a fortune, but expected to lose it before returning home.

  The Baltimore Sun, August 14, 1855, 3. John Ford Sollers, “The Theatrical Career of John T. Ford,” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1962, 57–59. The Baltimore Museum was established in the days when theater was not yet socially acceptable. Patrons could go to the first-floor museum, then slip quietly upstairs for a “moral lecture.” Baltimore, New York, and Boston still had such establishments.

  As the evening’s proceeds went to Clarke, it appears his recommendation of Booth was not without self-interest.

  See Ben Graf Henneke, Laura Keene: Actress, Innovator, and Impresario (Tulsa, OK: Council Oak Books, 1990), 34. Eventually, insiders also learned that Miss Keene’s “nieces,” Emma and Clara, were actually her daughters. Another Keene biographer sees the Keene-Booth animosity as a clash of personalities, explaining that Laura Keene had contrived the whole Australia tour as a search for her husband, from whom she sought a divorce. See Vernanne Bryan, Laura Keene, a British Actress on the American Stage (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993), 43–45.

  The Bel Air Southern Aegis, July 18, 1857, 14. The ad also ran in the July 25, August 1, August 8, and August 15 editions. Nobody took Booth up on the offer, and Tudor Hall remained vacant for several more years. Thanks to Dinah Faber for supplying the dates of the ad.

  Bruce Erwin Woodruff, “Genial John McCullough: Actor and Manager” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1984), 1; Coincidentally, Philadelphia’s Central High School had three students who would enter the assassination story later: writer George Alfred Townsend, court reporter Edward V. Murphy, and witness Louis J. Weichmann. All, coincidentally, took “phonography,” or shorthand, courses at the school, but they were unknown to one another.

  Letter from William F. Johnson (McCullough’s intimate friend) to William Winter, November 8, 1885, in McCullough Papers, Folger Shakespeare Library. A fuller discussion is in Woodruff, 11–13; White’s teachings were based on the technique of Thomas Sheridan, a son of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The School for Scandal). Much would be made of Booth’s lack of formal voice training, but in fact he may well have received the standard lessons. There seems to be no contemporary record one way or the other, because this did not become an issue until well into the twentieth century, after all of Booth’s contemporaries had died. See Stanley Kimmel, The Mad Booths of Maryland (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1940), 179, 180–81.

  A playbill in the Crawford Theatre Collection at Yale University shows “Mrs. Wilks,” “Mast. Wilks,” and “Mast. J. Wilks,” all in the cast of Masks and Faces; or, Before & Behind the Curtain at the Arch Street Theatre, November 23, 1855; George Alfred Townsend, The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1865), 21–22 (hereinafter Townsend).

  Townsend, 21–22.

  To be fair, it was Townsend alone who painted a bleak picture of Booth’s apprenticeship. Others simply copied Townsend’s story. Thanks to Arthur F. Loux and Stephen M. Archer for character searches. Dr. Archer also supplied a copy of Harold S. Sharp and Marjorie Z. Sharpe’s Index to Characters in the Performing Arts (New York: The Scarecrow Press, 1966).

  Baltimore land records show that in the second half of October 1860 (immediately after the elections in Maryland), Richard Junius Booth sold all of his property, evidently with the intent of leaving the country. His properties were at the southeast corner of French Lane and South Charles Street; two lots on the north side of Preston Street; a lot on the west side of Amity, north of Fayette; and a corner house at German and Green streets. These 1860 sales are recorded in Liber GES 199 folio 39; Liber GES 199 folio 393; Liber GES 199 folio 445; and Liber GES 217 folio 235. Richard and his wife, Sarah, moved to London. According to William Winter, Edwin Booth befriended his half-brother there. Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1894), 396. (Earlier editions do not mention this.) As Stephen M. Archer discovered, Sarah Booth died in London on November 18, 1868, and Richard followed a month later, on December 16. Both are buried in Highgate Cemetery, Grave 16340, Square 111. Edwin later became the target of an extortion attempt relating to the release of the Adelaide story.

  The play tally comes from my own database, taken from a full run of Arch Street Theatre playbills in the Roland Reed Collection, Howard University. For an additional discussion of the Arch at this time, see William D. Coder, “A History of the Philadelphia Theatre, 1856 to 1878,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation in English literature, University of Pennsylvania, 1936). An excellent look at the changing image of one tyrannicide can be found in Max Radin, Marcus Brutus (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1939).

  Townsend’s comments about Booth are in Townsend, 22. Star system and management of the Marshall Theatre: Charles F. Fuller, “Kunkel and Company at the Marshall Theatre, Richmond, Virginia 1856–1861” (master’s thesis, Ohio University, 1968), 106. Information on specific Booth performances is published in Arthur F. Loux, John Wilkes Booth: Day By Day (n.p., privately printed, 1990). This listing is the most complete and reliable available, but only twelve copies were printed.

  Biographical information on John T. Ford and his associates (including Marshall company actors) can be found in Sollers, 79. Dr. Sollers was Ford’s grandson, and I am indebted to him and his wife, Grace, for their friendship, generosity, and support.

  John M. Barron, “With John Wilkes Booth in His Days As an Actor.” The Baltimore Sun, March 17, 1907.

  Edward M. Alfriend in The (Washington) Sunday Globe, February 9, 1902, clipping in the papers of David Rankin Barbee, Lauinger Library, Georgetown University.

  Alfriend, Sunday Globe. In a private letter to Jean Sherwood, Asia Booth Clarke described the Booth eyes as “black and brilliant, the white ball is bluish from the excessive darkness of the pupil.” Letter of June 19, 1859, Peale Museum.

  Townsend, “Philistine’s Diary”; Ralph Brooks, M.D., “Insane or Ill?” Surratt Courier 22 (August 1997): 9. According to Margery Boorde, R.N., tertiary syphilis patients are unable to form coherent sentences, and are clearly dysfunctional.

  Clara Morris, Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901), 100.

  Mary Devlin letter to Edwin Booth, August 24, 1859, in the New York Public Library, Theatre Collection; Edwin Booth letters to Junius Booth, October 31 and December 12, 1858, supplied by Franklyn Lenthall.

  Richmond Dispatch, October 15, 1858, 2.

  Frederick Bancroft, William H. Seward (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900), 1:458, 461. Emphasis added.

  New York Herald, October 28, 1858, 2; The New York Times, October 28, 1858, 2.

  Richmond newspapers for February 28 through March 12, 1859, show Our American Cousin playing every night but March 11. What part John Wilkes Booth played is not known. Laura Keene sued Clarke again, and the litigation only intensified in 1865, after Our American Cousin found a place in history. See Keene v. Clarke, 28 N.Y. Super. Ct. 38, Keene v. Wheatley et al., 14 F. Cas. 180 (no. 7644), and Keene v. Kimball, 82 Mass. 545. Clarke’s defense was that he had bought an independent copy of the script from the widow of Joshua Silsbee, a co-author of the play. Depositions taken in London showed that Taylor was the sole author, and Silsbee was not authorized to have a copy of the script. Keene was an alien herself at the time, and was not naturalized until October 5, 1859.

  Clarke, Unlocked Book, 110–11; Asia Booth Clarke letter to Jean Anderson, May 17, 1859, in Peale Museum, Baltimore. Asia sometimes signed her letters “Asia Booth Sleeper” at this time. Eventually sh
e would express her regret at ignoring her brother’s advice about Clarke. However, private letters show that the marriage was very happy for a few years. “The square” is now Logan Circle.

  Richmond Whig, October 18, 1859, 3.

  Ibid., 2; Israel Green, “The Capture of John Brown,” North American Review 141 (December 1885): 564–69.

  New York Herald, as quoted in John P. Hale’s response, published in The New York Times, November 2, 1859, 1; Richmond Whig, December 3, 1859, 2. On this same page, the Whig editor suggested the formation of a Southern confederacy.

  The New York Times, October 24, 1859, 1; Letcher’s message to the Virginia legislature, January 7, 1860, as quoted by Allan Nevins in The Emergence of Lincoln (New York: Scribner’s, 1950), 2:176; Richmond Dispatch, December 3, 1859, 1.

  Even though Brown had attacked a federal installation, there were no laws making his act specifically a federal crime; thus he was tried in a state court. “Monomania” is discussed by Isaac Ray in Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity (Boston: Little, Brown, 1853), 170–71; The political angles are examined by Robert E. McGlone, “John Brown, Henry Wise, and the Politics of Insanity,” in Paul Finkleman, ed., His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 216. The spelling of “Charlestown” was subsequently changed to “Charles Town.”

  Libby is familiar to Richmonders as the name of the warehouse at Twentieth and Dock streets. In 1861, it was leased by Luther Libby, ship chandler and father of the man who lent Booth his trousers in November 1859. Their building became Libby Prison during the war. See George W. Libby letter to John H. Ingraham, August 15, 1913, in Mss6:1L6144:1, manuscript collections of the Virginia Historical Society; Lt. Louis J. Bossieux was a manufacturer of “double refined steam candies”; Richmond Dispatch, October 18, 1859, 2; George Crutchfield letter to Edward Valentine, July 5, 1900, in the Valentine Museum, Richmond; George W. Libby, “John Brown and John Wilkes Booth,” Confederate Veteran 37 (April 1930): 138; Richmond Dispatch, October 17, 1859, 2. In 1865, Edwin Adams said that Booth had forced himself into the Grays and was made an assistant commissary or quartermaster. This makes perfect sense, as no military unit wants to bring along “dead weight,” and Booth had no rifle. Adams, a leading man at the Marshall, did not say how he learned this. LAS 2:60. For information on the Grays, I am indebted to Howard E. Bartholf and Al Bossieux.