John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was an American actor and Confederate sympathiser who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. He shot the president at Ford’s Theatre in April 1865 as part of a wider failed conspiracy against Union leaders and died after a twelve-day manhunt.

Booth came from one of America’s leading theatrical families and had established a successful career as a Shakespearean actor before the Civil War ended. An ardent supporter of the Confederacy and opponent of emancipation, he first organised a scheme to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners. As the Confederacy collapsed, the plot shifted towards assassination: Booth coordinated attacks intended against several senior Union officials, though only his shooting of Lincoln was successfully carried out.

Ann Rinaldi’s An Acquaintance with Darkness approaches Booth through the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination, as Emily Pigbush’s friendship with Anna Surratt draws her into the investigation of the conspiracy. Gore Vidal’s Lincoln carries its political portrait of the president through the Confederate collapse to Booth’s plot and the shooting at Ford’s Theatre. John Jakes’ On Secret Service follows Civil War espionage into the network around Booth, making the assassination the culmination of years of clandestine violence. Barbara Hambly’s The Emancipator’s Wife views Booth chiefly through Mary Todd Lincoln’s catastrophe and the widowhood that follows her husband’s murder. Hourly History’s John Wilkes Booth treats Booth directly, tracing his acting career, Confederate sympathies, failed kidnapping scheme, assassination of Lincoln, escape and death during the federal manhunt.