Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[Steve]

(04-15-2018 04:11 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(04-15-2018 03:55 PM)Steve Wrote:  I know Booth threatened Jackson over the pardon of some pirates, does anybody know why Booth wanted them pardoned?

This was covered in posts here on this forum in 2013: Another Booth threatens assassination
If the photocopy of the letter is hard to read, here's the transcript:

Brown's Hotel, Philadelphia
July 4th, 1835
You damned old Scoundrel if you don't sign the pardon of your fellow men now under sentence of Death DeRuiz & DeSoto, I will cut your throat whilst you are sleeping, I wrote to you repeated Cautions so look out or damn you I'll have you burnt at the Stake in the City of Washington.

Your Master
Junius Brutus Booth

You know me! Look out!

There's a bit of a story here, however, that many books don't tell you. Mike Kauffman makes it a little clearer in American Brutus: Shortly after coming to America, Junius became friends with both Sam Houston and Andrew Jackson (both of whom were characters in their own right!). He occasionally visited Jackson at his home even. Bill Richter brings this out in Last Confederate Heroes, also. When President Jackson began to change to more autocratic politics, Booth turned against him.

BTW: Jackson did commute the death sentence of those two (accused of piracy), but there were five others in the group who were hanged. Can we say "favoritism?"

Steve - I think others have attributed the letter to Booth's growing inclination towards heavy drinking. Someone even compared his feelings to the anger that arose with many during the OJ Simpson trial.

Here is an article about the pirates (well the crew these two pirates belonged to):

http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.c...antic-sea/

and a blog post with some more information:

http://paulinespiratesandprivateers.blog...t-mew.html

The Library of Congress has images of the report of the trial:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/lawlib/law...321600.pdf