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Finding John Wilkes Booth IN The Richmond Grays “I do not pretend to know or understand it all. So, I must be content in just telling the story…”[i] |
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“RG# 1” (Richmond Grays #1) Photographic print based on an ambrotype taken by Lewis Graham Dinkle November 21, 1859, Charlestown, Virginia Currently Charles Town, West Virginia |
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“I think that’s John Wilkes Booth in the Richmond Grays!”
I remember that moment in the summer of 2009 as if it was yesterday. I had recently finished reading the memoirs of Asia Booth Clarke reminiscing about the life of her brother John Wilkes Booth.[ii] My curiosity had been aroused after reading Asia’s description of a picture of her brother and others taken at Charlestown in uniform during the 1859 John Brown Raid.[iii] Did it still exist?
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"He left Richmond and unsought enrolled himself as one of the party going to search for and capture John Brown. He was exposed to dangers and hardships; he was a scout and I have been shown a picture of himself and others in their scout and sentinel dresses.”[iv]
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The possibility of finding that photograph compelled me to look for it even though I thought it a fruitless endeavor. How could such a picture still exist and not have been already found in a field so heavily populated with established experts?
I don’t remember how long I had been searching when one day I read a recollection of Booth at Charlestown left by 1859 Richmond Grays Private Philip Whitlock. Whitlock’s memoirs guided me to the above iconic photograph, which I call RG#1. I was actually looking for Whitlock in RG#1, who as it turns out is not in there at all, when I saw John Wilkes Booth himself, standing "center rear." [v]
I had been trained as a fine arts artist and had supported myself as one, so I felt confident with what my trained and seasoned eye saw. However, as an avid student of history, I said to myself, “No, not in that famous picture! How could that be? With all the authorities on John Wilkes Booth, why had no one before me ever seen him in that picture?”
The answer was really quite simple. As stated above, I am an artist, so Asia’s fleeting sixteen words about being shown a picture caught my attention, whereas most other researches would gloss over them without thinking twice. Secondly, there is a difference between reading what Asia had to say about a brother she loved and scouring Asia’s manuscript for clues to support a narrative of Booth the Assassin. Lastly, the picture’s iconic fame as a misidentified Civil War photograph obscured its true provenance and this led established researchers who had become so accustomed to seeing this famous photograph to simply run by it as a familiar object.
And so began my quest to document that John Wilkes Booth was indeed center rear in RG#1. It took years to find and piece enough facts together to present a solid case, and as I worked towards that goal I published an evolving series of monographs documenting my progress every May 10th from 2010 through 2014.
When I started my research, a cherished mentor advised me not to be surprised if few would share my interest or enthusiasm in pursuing a photograph showing Booth in a band of brothers because it is at odds with what America really wanted see, Booth in a band of conspirators.[vi] Nonetheless, his involvement with the Richmond Grays in 1859 is essential to understand the life of the man who 6 years later assassinated Lincoln.
Just 12 hours before Booth was killed at the Garrett farm in 1865, Richmond and Booth’s involvement with the Richmond Grays during the John Brown Raid remained ever foremost in Booth’s mind. At the Garrett’s dinner table, Richard Garrett asked his guest, Mr. Boyd, who was in reality John Wilkes Booth, “[h]ave you ever seen Booth Mr. Boyd? Is he an elderly man?” Although Booth could and should have simply replied “no”, Booth responded, “I saw him once in Richmond, about the time of the John Brown raid, and I thought he was rather a young man.”[vii] It is a telling response. It tells the world when and where Booth’s thoughts were during his last few hours on earth.
Others who knew Booth also remarked how pivotal Richmond and his participation in the John Brown militia deployment were to him. In the few short years left to him between November 1859 and April of 1865, nothing equaled the days he spent with his antebellum band of brothers from the “idealized city of his love” Richmond, and all it embodied to him as it transitioned from the capitol of the Commonwealth of Virginia to the Capitol of the Confederacy;[viii]
I don’t remember how long I had been searching when one day I read a recollection of Booth at Charlestown left by 1859 Richmond Grays Private Philip Whitlock. Whitlock’s memoirs guided me to the above iconic photograph, which I call RG#1. I was actually looking for Whitlock in RG#1, who as it turns out is not in there at all, when I saw John Wilkes Booth himself, standing "center rear." [v]
I had been trained as a fine arts artist and had supported myself as one, so I felt confident with what my trained and seasoned eye saw. However, as an avid student of history, I said to myself, “No, not in that famous picture! How could that be? With all the authorities on John Wilkes Booth, why had no one before me ever seen him in that picture?”
The answer was really quite simple. As stated above, I am an artist, so Asia’s fleeting sixteen words about being shown a picture caught my attention, whereas most other researches would gloss over them without thinking twice. Secondly, there is a difference between reading what Asia had to say about a brother she loved and scouring Asia’s manuscript for clues to support a narrative of Booth the Assassin. Lastly, the picture’s iconic fame as a misidentified Civil War photograph obscured its true provenance and this led established researchers who had become so accustomed to seeing this famous photograph to simply run by it as a familiar object.
And so began my quest to document that John Wilkes Booth was indeed center rear in RG#1. It took years to find and piece enough facts together to present a solid case, and as I worked towards that goal I published an evolving series of monographs documenting my progress every May 10th from 2010 through 2014.
When I started my research, a cherished mentor advised me not to be surprised if few would share my interest or enthusiasm in pursuing a photograph showing Booth in a band of brothers because it is at odds with what America really wanted see, Booth in a band of conspirators.[vi] Nonetheless, his involvement with the Richmond Grays in 1859 is essential to understand the life of the man who 6 years later assassinated Lincoln.
Just 12 hours before Booth was killed at the Garrett farm in 1865, Richmond and Booth’s involvement with the Richmond Grays during the John Brown Raid remained ever foremost in Booth’s mind. At the Garrett’s dinner table, Richard Garrett asked his guest, Mr. Boyd, who was in reality John Wilkes Booth, “[h]ave you ever seen Booth Mr. Boyd? Is he an elderly man?” Although Booth could and should have simply replied “no”, Booth responded, “I saw him once in Richmond, about the time of the John Brown raid, and I thought he was rather a young man.”[vii] It is a telling response. It tells the world when and where Booth’s thoughts were during his last few hours on earth.
Others who knew Booth also remarked how pivotal Richmond and his participation in the John Brown militia deployment were to him. In the few short years left to him between November 1859 and April of 1865, nothing equaled the days he spent with his antebellum band of brothers from the “idealized city of his love” Richmond, and all it embodied to him as it transitioned from the capitol of the Commonwealth of Virginia to the Capitol of the Confederacy;[viii]
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“When the John Brown raid occurred,
Booth left the Richmond Theater for the scene of strife in a picked company with which he had affiliated for some time. From his connection with the militia on this occasion he was wont to trace his fealty to Virginia”.[ix] “John [j]oined a Virginia regiment at Richmond on the occasion of John Brown's attack and proclaimed himself a champion of the South.”[x] “I remember hearing Booth once say that he had been a member of the Richmond Grays and had been with them when John Brown was hanged and noted [t]he pride he showed in having been one of the group.”[xi] “The Richmond Enquirer says that when John Brown’s famous Harper’s Ferry raid occurred in 1859, J. Wilkes Booth, the assassinator of Lincoln, was playing an engagement at the Richmond Theatre, and volunteered and left that city as a member of the Grays to aid in putting down that disturbance. He proved to be well-versed in military tactics and an able soldier.”[xii] “This idealized city of his love [Richmond] had deeper hold upon his heart than any feminine beauty…”[xiii] |
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My monographs published thus far have solely focused on the “who, what, when and where” of Asia’s remarkable photograph. After 10 years of research, only one question remains; one which as a student of history I am obliged to address, the “why.” Why out of all possible photographs, is John Wilkes Booth in that particular one?
Asia knew from the turbulence that beset America in 1865 that her manuscript’s publication, which divulged the photograph's existence, could only be reserved for a distant posterity to discover. Is it merely coincidental that we, that distant posterity, find ourselves in the midst of what is the most polarized time in America since her own? Can that too, like her brother’s presence in this photograph, simply be relegated to mere irony, or does its timing merit inclusion amongst the profound “mysticism of history” which unfolds before our very eyes revealed in the remarkable story which RG#1 discloses? [xiv]
I plan to address that remaining question in a forthcoming publication as I continue to “always make progress.”
Angela Smythe
November, 2020
Asia knew from the turbulence that beset America in 1865 that her manuscript’s publication, which divulged the photograph's existence, could only be reserved for a distant posterity to discover. Is it merely coincidental that we, that distant posterity, find ourselves in the midst of what is the most polarized time in America since her own? Can that too, like her brother’s presence in this photograph, simply be relegated to mere irony, or does its timing merit inclusion amongst the profound “mysticism of history” which unfolds before our very eyes revealed in the remarkable story which RG#1 discloses? [xiv]
I plan to address that remaining question in a forthcoming publication as I continue to “always make progress.”
Angela Smythe
November, 2020
[i] George Cary Eggleston (1839-1911) who had served as a soldier in the Confederate Army wrote “The True Story of Bernard Poland’s Prophesy” which first appeared in the June 1875 issue of American Homes. The tale involved a man, Bernard Poland who in 1857 sees his own future death in the yet-to-occur Civil War, and speaks of it to his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story.
[ii] Asia’s untitled manuscript was written in a notebook with the initials of J. W. B., and were first published in 1938 under the title of The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by His Sister. by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. Her manuscript was re-iussed edited and with an introduction and new supplemental material by Professor Terry Alford as John Wilkes Booth, A Sister’s Memoir by Asia Booth Clarke, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1996.
Asia’ manuscript remains the preeminent first hand narrative on John Wilkes Booth, written in 1874 by his beloved sister, Asia Booth Clarke, whose shared childhood and adolescence provides the most comprehensive and continuous first hand narrative of Booth that has survived. In the aftermath of the Lincoln Assassination, Asia left the United States in 1868 and lived the remainder of her life in England. During her self imposed exile, she wrote her recollections of John, hoping that in time, its publication would present a balanced view of her brother’s 26 years on earth, rather than the customary focus on his last infamous 12 days. Out of necessity, she kept her recollections hidden in a locked box and guarded it from her family’s destruction. On her deathbed in 1888, she trusted it to the writer Benjamin L. Farjeon “to publish some time if he sees fit”. The time deemed as fit encompassed the passing of yet another generation when it fell to his daughter, Eleanor Farjeon to do so, but only after the deaths of Edwin Booth and Robert Lincoln in 1926. The singular story it alone reveals was only published in 1938, 50 years after Asia’s death, 73 years after the death of John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln.
[iii] Charlestown, Virginia circa 1859, present day Charles Town, West Virginia
[iv] Clarke, Asia Booth. The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by His Sister. New York; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1938. Page 113
[v] See 2014 monograph; “Glimpsing a Shadow from Richmond” regarding written confirmation by Booth family chronicler and confidante Mrs. Ella V. Mahoney
[vi] Dr. Moustafa T. Chahine (1935-2011) Chief Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Project Science Team Leader. It is due to his suggestion and support that my research began. His mantra of “Always Make Progress” which he personified throughout a lifetime of scientific excellence has guided me throughout my own research endeavors. My second monograph “Out of Hiding” was dedicated to him posthumously.
[vii] Richard H. Garret; An Authentic History of the Capture of J. Wilkes Booth at the Garrett Farm”, Alexandria Gazette, April 29, 1868)
[viii] Clarke, Asia Booth. The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by His Sister Asia Booth Clarke. New York; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1938. pg. 118
[ix] Townsend, George Alfred. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1865.Page 22
[x] John T. Ford's Recollections', Baltimore American, June 8, 1893
[xi]Ferguson, W. J., “Lincoln’s Death”, Saturday Evening Post, February 12, 1927, pg. 37
[xii] Sprit of Jefferson, August 18, 1874
[xiii] Clarke, Asia Booth. The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by His Sister Asia Booth Clarke. New York; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1938. pg. 118
[xiv] Edvard S. Radzinsky (1936 - ) celebrated Russian playwright and author of more than 40 non-fiction books on historical subjects. Some of Radzinksy's books translated into English include his biographies of Tsars Nicholas II and Alexander II, Rasputin, and Joseph Stalin. The concept of what Radzinsky terms “the mysticism of history” which I use above is poignantly introduced on page 3 in the Prologue to his book, The Last Tsar, the Life and Death of Nicholas II and eloquently expanded on page 87.