Booth's Note to Johnson

[LincolnToddFan]

(01-12-2015 08:12 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I recently read "American Brutus", and M. K.'s assumption is that Booth wanted to give the appearance of intimacy, involvement and co-conspiration with as many people as possible to make everyone think like Mary did. Although this sure may not have saved Booth.

Hi Eva,
I was going to mention Michael Kauffman's "American Brutus" too. I totally agree with MK. Booth was spinning a large, deceitful web and intended to involve certain people in his plot. He had no intention of going down alone.

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(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.

I shouldn't be shocked by this info considering what is known about both JWB and Johnson. So why am I sitting here with my lower jaw touching the floor?! The things I learn on this Forum!

Thanks Wild Bill-