Booth’s and Crew True Story

The very true, quite possibly real story of what happened to John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices, both the supposed and known associates. Told by his great great great…(you get it) very great grandson. According to my senile grandfather this is what happened to Mr. Booth. Everyone knows he famously jumped out of the box into the theater and left via horseback. He was a tall and sturdy man who was able to ignore the injury in his haste to leave. After about a week of riding, his pain was not only becoming unbearable, but he also figured he was far enough away. He went to see Samuel A. Mudd, who gave him some medicine and worked on helping reset his body after the injury.

He leaves Maryland and rides on to Virginia where he was famously said to be shot. Here is where I want to set the record straight about Corbett. He was a drunk and a poor marksman. Now of course nobody would talk about this because he was a part of the Union, and a sergeant, so that just sounds bad. Instead, he misses. John runs away to hide. Corbett passes out and when he wakes he thinks has successfully shot his enemy. That someone else had taken the body away. The owners of the barn congratulated him on his success. This led to press releases that he was shot and killed. History is very mixed up as it’s written his brother Edwin’s burial location is unknown when really it’s John’s.

I am happy that the news of Corbett's success led to a change of lifestyle because he was being praised and felt so great he stopped drinking. His wife had a new sense of pride, admiration, and I hear that they had a wonderful marriage together with many offspring, though not as many as Samuel A. Mudd, who had ten kids. The stories told in history books got a lot of details muddled up.

Let’s talk about Mr. Mudd. I kind of sympathize with this man because history was not kind. When pressed, Mudd said he didn’t know John. Well, people kept pressing and people kept talking. Since he heard that people shared memories of them talking, he admitted to it. Then he had to admit John stayed with him. Yet no one would hear him when he said he didn’t know him. The reality is John paid a hefty wage to stay at his place, which is a detail history all too easily left out. And why would it include the non-criminality details?... well, because Mudd was a bit of a jerk. He would find himself annoyed and frustrated with people so he would share his thoughts and opinions of the dumb things they did that he thought ruined their health. Unfortunately, he pissed off a man with a drinking problem and his wife came from a well to do family. She would be disgraced if dear old Samuel continued to preach the problem. So she started the rumor mill with some fact and some fiction like they were buds and more and more people said they saw them together.

Mudd’s credibility decreased and he sounded like a liar and he tried his best to clear up his kind of good name, but unfortunately his good name was dragged through the mud. All puns intended.

You're probably wondering about the rest of the lot of them. Well David Herold was a bit of an idiot and genius all at once. He was in charge of making sure Lewis Powell successfully killed Seward. The poor boy didn’t know how to kill a man: he stabbed Seward seven times and because no one should try that with a butter knife there was no killing to be had. Despite Seward’s weakened state he was able to survive this and Powell got caught because dear David left him.

See, David not only thought Powell was taking too long but that Powell knew how to tell time according to my uncle. My aunt says David thought Powell was so slow that he actually sorted out leaving without him. The reality was Lewis didn’t escape. And it was idiotic beyond to think he would do so on his own. Powell had absolutely no sense of time or even when people were around. So the people looking after Seward found him and arrested him on spot.

Herold leaves to go help John escape and unfortunately chooses to travel with John. But manages to get caught shortly after John leaves to have a happy life in hiding in the middle of Georgia.

Now you may be wondering about what really happened with some of the other players in this scene. I am happy to share the rest of accuracies passed on to me.

Poor Mary Surratt, she became the first women in US history to be executed. It’s even sadder to say that she wasn’t to be blamed at all. See she was the owner of the boarding house were the conspirators meet. She had very low rates which is what attracted the cheap bastards. They would get mighty drunk and she thought they didn’t mean it. Oh boy not only was she wrong and she told the wrong people. In her neighborhood unbeknownst to her, there was a somewhat thriving madame who owned a brothel that was popular prior to her completion. The madam didn’t know Mary was popular for cheap rooms, not for prostitution. But she knew she was eliminating her competition.

Now there is a slight consideration in Mary’s innocence and that is namely her son, John, who was rumored to be all about supporting Booth and crew. All mothers should believe their sons. Yet his tales sounded tall. He never hurt anyone. He was picked on in school. So why would she think him proposing kidnapping and then killing could be an option.

Well she could have believed him he was a people pleaser and Booth was a bully who would clearly protect her son as long as he complied. But that boy was a Lilly livered weakling. The only thing he did was agree to passing notes along. It was lies that he spied and got information. That was a different John which I am sure is why people got confused and thought it was him. Too many Johns in this story.

Anyways Johnny boy was afraid and he ran off to Europe and saw the sights. He fell in love and tried to get married but the girl couldn’t get on board with his hackney accent. So he went off to Egypt and that’s where they found him. They brought him back home and decided there wasn’t enough evidence because that boy didn’t have enough enemies or anything that anyone wanted.

He lived a quiet and peaceful life moving forward unlike George Azterodt who was supposed to shoot the vice president. Now he chickened out and drank but apparently the thought of it led to being hanged. He wasn’t a notable, just a lush that no one wanted around anymore.

The last of of our uninteresting men is Michael O’Laughlen. He wanted to kidnap the president and exchange him for prisoners with the confederacy. Now Lincoln didn’t go to the show that they were laying in wait for and why that carriage kidnapping didn’t result in these men being put away is beyond me. But I suspect it was O’Laughlen’s money. He was also smart enough to rebuff Booth probably thinking the fates were steering clear of a problem. See Booth wanted to attempt a kidnapping on the way to Ford’s theater. It seemed consulted since they could once again get the wrong people. They they would tie up the president and lower him down. Michael wisely walked away and was never bothered for the first failed attempt.

Our last character is the stage hand Edmund Sprangler who likely fed Booth’s hasty desire for change. They spoke briefly and Edmund said hey I get that you wanted to do it this way but realistically you will not have time for it. He shared that rumors of what they had planned were spreading. “The caution will only get worse so take bold action now.” What Booth heard was shoot Lincoln as this may have been the first, last, and only chance. So he did and he jumped down and ran off. And Edmund doesn’t get convicted for inspiring the man. He gets convicted for helping Booth escape because nobody thought he would push the man into the dark side.

Even though it was known Booth was encouraging the deaths of the vice president and Secretary of State. Since he didn’t say he was going to kill the president, it was thought he wouldn’t. There were some in the group who thought no one would die because some of those men were thought to be scared of their own shadows. They didn’t think Booth was such a hot head. But that hot head was cool enough to escape even if some of these people on the list didn’t.