Something about John Wilkes Booth you may not know...

[J. Beckert]

It is beating a dead horse, Rob. We've agreed to disagree on this before and I'm sure we can again, but here's my spin on the whole mess.

While I feel the assassination was a complete rogue operation, at some point Booth had some backing from Confederate higher ups - at least for his kidnap plan. His decision on April 14th., to shoot Lincoln had some political, although misguided, motives behind it. I believe he thought he was on a self appointed mission to do something that in his mind, could turn the tides. His motives are really a moot point. His actions, like I said earlier, don't show any cowardice in my mind.

I just can't see a coward walking into a crowded theater with over 1,000 patrons, some of whom were armed military men, in the Union Capital, not knowing how or if Lincoln was guarded and still be determined to push his plan forward. His actions toward Rathbone and the fact he actually stopped to address the crowd scream defiance to me. Like I said earlier, a coward would have shot Lincoln in his carriage and achieved the same objective.

As a former State Trooper, (Boy, did it feel good to type that! Today's my first day as a civilian!) I've been in situations with cowards and you can actually see the fear in their faces. Sometimes when you have to go forward with a task and you don't know what the outcome will be or if you're going to come out alive, some people will shy away. They're cowards. I've had to go into buildings looking for suicidal people who've said, if you send a Trooper in here, I'm killing him. One time that happened 3 guys elected to stay outside while another Trooper volunteered to go in with me. That's how I've formed my opinion that Booth was not a coward. He had no idea what was going to transpire after he fired his shot and he did it anyway. Was his act despicable? Yes, absolutely. Cowardly? Not in my opinion.