Sic Semper Tyrannis - Revenge for the South

[LincolnMan]

Jim: too funny! Did Hawk "blow" the line? I don't think I ever heard that he did.

[JMadonna]

(11-24-2012 05:21 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Jerry, my question is, "Was the meter box located on the same side as Spangler was located when the shot was fired?"

I don't know where Spangler was located. I quoted Thomas Gourlay's opinion of Spangler's intentions based upon the location of his sister and Withers. BTW Jennie confirms the Sic Semper Tyrannis line in the same citation.

[Jim Garrett]

(11-24-2012 08:27 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Jim: too funny! Did Hawk "blow" the line? I don't think I ever heard that he did.

No just kidding. I repeat that line about every other week at Ford's and it is a mouthfull to get out.

[LincolnMan]

And of course, I imagine most folks have no idea what it means.

[Jim Garrett]

It's kinda lost some of the humor over the past 150 years

[wsanto]

I am fascinated by the differing recollections of what Booth said by those in the theater that night.

An interesting link--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_iq5yzJ-Dk is a segment of an episode of the the 1950's television program "I've Got a Secret" with the last surviving witness to the assassination as a contestant on the show.

[LincolnMan]

It is fascinating!

[Jim Garrett]

There was a recollection from a ninety year old women who said that a rope was lowered from the rafters to Booth on stage and he was pulled up to safety and escape!!!

[RJNorton]

(11-25-2012 12:10 PM)Jim Garrett Wrote:  "....a rope was lowered from the rafters to Booth on stage and he was pulled up to safety and escape!!!"

Years ago I received this eyewitness account from Clara Todd whose great great grandmother was Mathilda Garthwaite Rodwell (Mrs. Nelson Todd).

This account clears up some of the questions we have wondered about. The account is also in Tim Good's book; the date of the broadcast differs a little from what he has.

------------------------------------------------------

THE TRUE STORY OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION AS BROADCAST BY MRS. NELSON TODD FROM STATION W.O.R.

AT 10 P.M., SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11th, 1928.

What a wonderful storehouse, the mind! Here am I, feeling like a comparatively young woman, and if I live twelve more years, I shall be a hundred years old. Eighty-eight years old! And how many things I have seen in those years. My earliest recollection dates from the age of three, when I saw William Henry Harrison, who came to the old Park House at Newark to make a speech the next day. When I was nine I heard Jonny Lind sing at the old Castle Garden.

I have shaken hands with every President since the first Harrison, also with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and Kossuth. I have known many splendid and distinguished men, and of all I have known there never was a finer one than John Wilkes Booth, a fine looking mannerly chap about my own age. I had heard that he had fallen into bad company. We all know that his sympathies wore with the Southern States, and we learned later that he was a member of a set of young fellows - radicals we would call them today - who drew lots to see who should kill Lincoln. It just happened that the lot fell to Booth.

I shall never forget the first time I saw Lincoln - nor the last. The first time was just a little before his second inauguration, when he passed through Newark by train. I was horse-back riding and rode through side streets so that I saw Lincoln not once but several times on the rear platform. My persistence must have attracted the President's attention for William Coulter, friend of my father and conductor of the train, told me later that the President pointed me out and said, “That young lady there is a fine horsewoman.” That was the first time I saw Lincoln. Now I must tell you of the last.

I was married in 1858. The war, as you know, followed a couple of years later. Those were awful times. What a relief when it ended on the ninth of April, 1865.

Immediately upon learning of Lee's surrender my husband planned a Trip to Washington. The day after we arrived was Good Friday, April 14th. I remember because we went to church. My husband was active in Trinity Church Sunday School, Newark. I was amazed when later in the day he said, “We are going to the theater this evening.” “To the theater on Good Friday?” I said. He explained that the President was to attend a benefit and last night performance of Laura Keen in “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theatre and being a gala occasion and our only opportunity, probably, of seeing President Lincoln, we might waive our religious scruples.

Theaters began earlier in those days. We were in our places on the centre aisle just few rows back from the stage at seven thirty when the curtain rose. There was a flag draped box on the left for the President, Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris and major Rathborne. They sat in the second box.

The curtain had gone up on the second act when there was a shot. At the same instant I was amazed to see John Wilkes Booth, whom I had known so well, half jump, half fall from the first box to the stage twelve feet below. His spur had caught in the drapery on the box so that his leap turned out to be a bad fall.

For an instant no one realized what had happened. It struck me, John Wilkes Booth had committed suicide. It was not until some seconds later that Mrs. Lincoln screamed. The house turned from the stage where all eyes had been on Booth, and saw the President, his head fallen on his chest, slumped down in the old fashioned rocking chair in which he had been sitting. Then, of course, we knew the great tragedy that had happened.

Few people know how badly Booth was hurt by his fall. I had read accounts and seen pictures of him hobbling off the stage to make his escape. This is as false as the story that he shouted "Sic Semper Tyrannis”.

Here is what did happen, and I think I am the only person that knows how Booth made his escape. Knowing Booth, it was only natural that my interest was keen enough to attract my attention back to the stage even though I know Lincoln was assassinated. When Booth's spur caught and threw him to the stage he broke his leg in a terrible way, so that the bone actually protruded through his trousers and smeared the stage with blood. Naturally he couldn't move. Laura Keen leaned over and patted his head. Then to my amazement I saw a rope swing out, evidently thrown by some confederates, lasso him and whisk him into the wings. That was the last time I ever saw John Wilkes Booth.

As we walked away from the theater and the great tragedy, my husband said to me – “What next?” – “We must go home.” I said. And so we went to the hotel, packed our things and went immediately to the railroad station. The streets were seething with people. At the station the train men on a cattle train that was about to leave for Now York had not heard the news yet. They let us ride in the caboose.

We rode all night from Washington and arrived in New York in the early morning. Newark was just a way station in those days and the train did not stop there. When we got in we learned that Lincoln was dead.

Our family was surprised to see us back before we had planned. Being strict Episcopalians we did not tell them we had gone to the theatre on Good Friday, so we told no one of the thrilling scene of history WD had seen enacted. Nor throughout my husband's life did we ever tell. It was only a few years ago when I let the truth out. I had gone to a performance of “The Birth of Nation” in which the assassination of Lincoln was shown. When I saw the scene, I gasped “Why it wasn’t that way!” “How do you know?” I was asked. Then I told I was one of the few remaining witnesses of that great tragedy.

[Jim Garrett]

THAT'S IT! Roger, you put that up in no time flat!

[JMadonna]

Meanwhile the orchestra played the Looney Tunes theme song...

[Jim Page]

(11-25-2012 03:20 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  Meanwhile the orchestra played the Looney Tunes theme song...

Well, Jerry, there's Diet Coke on my keyboard now!

--Jim

[LincolnMan]

Not to be disrespectful but to piggyback on Jerry's comment about the Looney Tunes theme song, I pictured Bugs Bunny coming out and announcing: "That's all folks!"- and of course for Lincoln it really was.

[jonathan]

Yeah, for anybody who happens to have not read We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Timothy S. Good, you should probably check it out. There are some fairly fascinating things in there, but none more amazing than the account of Clara Todd posted above. Reading the book it's very interesting to see how people's memories become affected by newspapers and word of mouth, though I'm not sure those things are completely responsible for Clara's rollicking tale lol.

[wsanto]

(11-26-2012 10:50 AM)jonathan Wrote:  ...We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Timothy S. Good...very interesting to see how people's memories become affected by newspapers and word of mouth, though I'm not sure those things are completely responsible for Clara's rollicking tale lol.

You are sitting in the theatre...You are laughing out loud to the line delivered by the actor on-stage...You hear and see something very unexpected that startles you a bit...there is a pause....you see and smell smoke... people around you start screaming....pandemonium breaks out around you...the president has been shot...

It's easy to see how everyone would piece it together differently recalling these events minutes/hours/days/years later.