Booth's Note to Johnson

[STS Lincolnite]

(01-12-2015 12:29 PM)Wild Bill Wrote:  According to Hamilton Howard (son of Senator Jacob Howard, Radical Republican from Michigan), in his book Civil War Echoes (1907), Johnson and Booth knew each other from Nashville. Johnson was military governor of Tennessee and Booth appearing as an actor, as usual. Johnson evidently knew a pair of promiscuous sisters and knowing Booth's reputation as a hustler of women asked the actor to share the girls. Later, Booth allegedly serviced both of them when Johnson was away in DC. Johnson's wife, a consumptive, was also damaged from childbearing and could no longer satisfy him sexually and another pregnancy would have been life-threatening. This same story is in Jerry Madonna's, A Threat to the Republic. He and I used the same source independently. So Johnson and Booth were likely more "intimate" than normally assumed. What this all means, if anything, is up to you.

Thanks Bill, for some additional details on the acquaintence between Booth and Johnson. I had never heard about the illnesses of Mrs. Johnson. I would be interested to know how many times these, umm, "meetings" occurred. When I get home, I will check in Loux book and see when Booth was in Nashville during the time Johnson was military governer.