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Chasing John Wilkes Booth:
The search for Lincoln's killer consumed the grieving nation. For 12 days, John Wilkes Booth eluded his pursuers as he vanished into the sparsely populated terrain of southern Maryland. Accompanied by David Herold, Booth planned on crossing the Potomac River into Virginia, where he hoped Confederate sympathizers would shelter him.
Determined to prevent Booth's escape, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture. Stanton also dispatched federal troops to comb Maryland and Virginia in an unprecedented manhunt.
Lieutenant Luther Baker, Lieutenant Colonel Lafayette Baker, and Lieutenant Colonel Everton Conger (left to right) plan Booth's capture.
Lafayette Baker was the leader of the National Detective Police, which lead the investigation into Lincoln's murder.
American Brutus:
Booth was stunned to find himself denounced in the press as "a common cutthroat." He had expected to be portrayed as a hero. Instead, he wrote in his diary after the assassination, "After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats... I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for."
Booth, a Shakespearean actor, saw parallels between his own story and that of Julius Caesar, the Roman emperor from 49-44 BC, had seized dictatorial power. Hoping to restore constitutional government, Brutus and a group of conspirators murdered him. Booth felt that he was Brutus to Lincoln's Caesar.
This 1864 photograph shows John Wilkes Booth and his brothers in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. From left, John as Marc Anthony, Edwin as Brutus, and Junius as Cassius.
Diary of an Assassin:
"Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to outlive my country...
"I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hands they extend to me."
-- Booth's final diary entry, written after Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865 |