The Legend of John Wilkes Booth
by C. Wyatt Evans
Posted on 01/18/2005 7:17:10 PM PST by churchillbuff
THE LEGEND OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH: MYTH, MEMORY, AND A MUMMY By C. Wyatt Evans University Press of Kansas , $24.95, 224 pages, illus. REVIEWED BY LYN NOFZIGER
Was John Wilkes Booth really killed by Sgt. Boston Corbett in the barn on the Garrett farm in southern Maryland, or did he escape and spend the rest of his life as a homeless, friendless wanderer, winding up, finally, as a side show mummy in a traveling carnival? Or, on the other hand did he escape to England and die there? And the second question: Why did he murder Lincoln in the first place? ...
These are questions C. Wyatt Evans struggles to answer inhis book, "The Legend of John Wilkes Booth." Eventually he exonerates both Stanton and the Southern leaders but, because this is not the purpose of the book, leaves the reader wondering just what Booth's real motive was.
...Mr. Evans rightly says that by killing Lincoln, Booth in effect deified him, making him larger than life in American culture and history.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
A gay hero who saved the nation.
He got aids from Lincoln's splattered blood, according to the new crop of limp-wristed, queer historians.
Are you serious??? I heard that the medical treatment Lincoln received was responsible for his death.
So Much for Government healthcare.
Gayb Lincoln! We hardly knew ye!!
Be Seeing You,
Chris
I'm actually fairly closely related to Booth.
Never known what to make of that.
"He got aids from Lincoln's splattered blood, according to the new crop of limp-wristed, queer historians."
You're getting warmer. JWB was actually Abe's jilted lover. When JWB found out Abe had given him AIDS from a cut on Abe's hand after fisting him for the last time after breaking up with him, he shot him as a favor to Mary's lesbian lover.
"I'm actually fairly closely related to Booth."
Well, then you may be legally entitled to the missing pages of the Booth diary, which are supposedly in the hands of the Stanton family (although they don't admit it publicly).
Put them up on Ebay and see how much they get. . .
BTW, the doctor doing the autopsy on Booth did a fairly routine job, until he came to describe the brain, at which point he broke into Latin and gave impossible dimensions for its size (an elephant would have had a smaller brain). This would suggest that maybe someone was looking over his shoulder and that he was trying to leave a message. . . interesting, since there was considerable doubt that Booth had really been killed and that the body in question was his.
Never known what to make of that.
Ask for a Table instead.
You're way off base here.
John Hay and Joshua Speed were Lincolns lovers.
Thus we have the famous phrases coined by Lincoln: "Rollin in the Hay" and "Not up to Speed".
Finish the story. When all was said and done, it was GWB's fault.
Booth was a wingnut actor who killed a Republican president.
When you consider all these Hollywood wingnuts these days, it seems nothing ever really ever changes...
Sorry, the link doesn't take you directly to the legend of John Wilkes Booth. Once at the site click on Historical Notes and then Hood County Legends. John Wilkes Booth info will pop up then.
Zoinks!
That was a fascinating segment years ago on "Unsolved Mysteries". But anyway...
Stanton was behind the plot.
Booth had the password to cross a bridge (closed at sundown at that time) to leave DC.
Had Booth's instructions been followed, the VP and Sec State would have been murdered on the same night, putting Stanton in the White House.
Lincoln's sole bodyguard (provided by Stanton? I can't recall) left his post and went to the nearby tavern, where Booth was drinking. Booth got up and left after the bodyguard arrived.
The missing pages from Booth's diary reportedly emerged from an old box in the eaves of Stanton's old house, sometime in the 1980s.
Stanton knew who to look for and where to look, and most of the conspirators were quickly rounded up, given a military trial, and executed before they could talk.
Years later, Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the home of Lincoln's son for an evening bull (moose) session, and found him burning papers in the hearth. Lincoln told Roosevelt that they pertained to a member of his father's cabinet who had been behind the assassination. Roosevelt suggested that those could be of interest to historians. Lincoln didn't seem to be concerned.
:')
The Legend of John Wilkes Booth
by C. Wyatt Evans
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Never known what to make of that.
Stay away from Dubya. Please.
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