John Wilkes Booth: The Actor Who Killed A President
John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) was a 19th-century American stage actor who assassinated US President Abraham Lincoln on 14 April 1865. Born to a family of famous actors, Booth was a rising star on stages across the United States, known for his leading roles in William Shakespeare's plays. He sympathized with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and denounced Lincoln as a tyrant who sought to subjugate the South. After shooting Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., Booth went on the run and eluded authorities for nearly two weeks. He was finally cornered by Federal soldiers in a barn in rural Virginia, where, after a brief standoff, he was fatally shot in the neck.
Early Life
John Wilkes Booth was born on 10 May 1838 in a log house on his parents' 150-acre farm near Bel-Air, Maryland. He was the ninth of ten children born to Junius Brutus Booth, a famous Shakespearean stage actor, and his 'wife', Mary Ann Holmes Booth, both of whom had moved to the United States from England shortly after eloping in 1821. Named after the radical English politician John Wilkes ā a distant relative ā Booth grew into a handsome and athletic, if reckless, boy, often playing pranks on his friends and neighbors. Though he was popular with his classmates at Bel Air Academy, he was not a good student, finding memorization and spelling difficult; as one classmate would recall, "He was not deficient in intelligence and brains ā very much in fact the other way ā but he was not bookish, not devoted to his studies" (quoted in Alford, 17). Instead, Booth devoted his time to horseback riding and fencing, hobbies he became quite skilled at.
His boyhood was largely defined by his relationship with his parents. Booth shared a special bond with his mother, who once said he was "the most pleasure and comfort to me of all my sons, the most affectionate" (quoted in Alford, 14). Their bond was so strong that, according to one family friend, Mary Ann could sense when her son was sick and would send him letters of well-wishing even without being told. Booth's relationship with his father was quite different. Junius Booth was an alcoholic, prone to violent mood swings. He was known to beat his children, especially the headstrong John, and had many skeletons in his closet, the worst of which came to light in 1851. It was revealed that he had not actually divorced his first wife ā he and Mary Ann were never really married, and all his children with her had been illegitimate. The situation was rectified that same year, as Junius divorced his first wife and legally married Mary Ann, but in the eyes of the public, the Booth family was tainted by scandal and shame. As the leading tragedian of his day, Junius Booth was often away, touring the country. He was coming home from one such tour when he died on 30 November 1852 aboard a Mississippi River steamboat.
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