Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[HerbS]

Laurie,I think LincolnToddFan,put my answer more eloquently than I ever could!

[L Verge]

A political assassin acts as judge, jury and executioner when he or(she) subverts the will of the people by destroying the person they have elected to lead them. A political assassination impacts history in a very serious-occasionally-devastating way.

Mass murderers/terrorists like Brown and Quantrell destroy more lives but affect the destinies of nations only rarely, although one could argue that John Brown's crimes did trigger events that influenced history.

Excellent point, Toia, and I will concede it. However, it still doesn't change my mind as to what constitutes a "crazy" act as opposed to an act of war. I see Booth driven by motive, not by demons.

[LincolnToddFan]

Laurie you and I agree in agreement. I have never believed that Booth was mad either.

As far as motive, one of the things he is alleged to have shouted as he waved the bloody knife on stage at Ford's Theater is "the South is AVENGED!!"

So I think he was driven by motive as well, and that motive was revenge.

[Pamela]

I believe Booth was driven by "demons" in as much as his narcissism was so profound, that his "political" talk and writings said more about his psychology than any political reality. Narcissism is underrated; psychopaths get most of the attention, but narcissists also have no empathy and can be enormously destructive people.

[Jenny]

I believe Booth was driven by "demons" in as much as his narcissism was so profound, that his "political" talk and writings said more about his psychology than any political reality. Narcissism is underrated; psychopaths get most of the attention, but narcissists also have no empathy and can be enormously destructive people.

I disagree completely.
P.S. Could we move this topic back to the mental health tread?

[RJNorton]

P.S. Could we move this topic back to the mental health tread?

Yes, I think Jenny made a good point. This thread is entitled "Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!"

We currently have another thread going with the title of "Booth's Mental Health."

My bad - I think I got things going in a different direction when I posted the late Art Loux's paragraph about Booth's apparent pro-Union sentiments in Montgomery in this thread.

[Pamela]

After this, I will be happy to write about any other psychology issues on the other thread. Just following where others have led!

I want to point out to Jenny that your signature Booth quote is a perfect example of my opinion.

[Jenny]

It's fine. I know how we all tend to go off into other subjects in different threads.

Pamela, I am going to quote you and answer in the mental health thread if that's all right!

[Jenny]

Heads up that someone from the Wisconsin Historical Society managed to get a copy of the The Great Conspiracy: Founded on Fact, and Copiously Illustrated with Notes From Rare Pamphlets (1866) online - you can get it as an eBook or just read it by searching the title in Google Books. I know some folks have been trying to find a copy for a while so I had to let you guys know.

This is the "penny novel" that contains the "whether in time or eternity" message that was supposedly written to Ella Starr by John Wilkes Booth. Unsurprisingly it proves that said message wasn't legitimate.

The entire thing is a work of fiction despite the title (I got pretty bored with it myself), and it has some very, uh, interesting illustrations of the plot. Here are just a few - I can round up all of them and post if anyone is interested.

[L Verge]

Great find, Jenny. Thank you.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for sharing, Jenny!

[Gene C]

Here is the link to the Google Book

https://books.google.com/books?id=NcFuC0...ct&f=false

[Jenny]

Gene, thank you for posting the link!

In Abel’s new book about Booth’s women, he came up with an alleged “new letter” from Starr to Booth (not the “my darling boy” letter but a previously unknown one); unfortunately he lists The Evidence as the source, and there is absolutely *nothing* I see in The Evidence that mentions anything of the sort. Pretty disappointed about that. Would love to know where he came up with it.

Here’s the alleged second note:

“Please try and come down tomorrow as soon after two as possible? You can dine privately with me.
So do not mind your dinner. Be very good until I see you. Anything that pleases you will be acceptable.”

Signed by “N” on “Friday 6:00 pm.”

Source for this is Edward and Steers, Evidence, 1192 (Ella Starr note). However The Evidence doesn’t mention ANYTHING about it. So am I missing something here? Help?

He also assumes Booth saw Starr the night before the assassination (I know Jerry has a theory about that) and writes it as fact even though there’s no concrete evidence of it. And he claims that the letter Edwin referred to as being written by the “poor little girl” whom Wilkes had promised such happiness wasn’t written by Lucy Hale, but by Ella Starr because, quote, “Edwin would have hardly described Lucy as a ‘poor little girl.’” (That’s odd conclusion in my opinion.)

Honestly the chapters on Ella have a lot of little mistakes, but since she’s a hard one to track facts down on, I can’t get too upset. It does upset me to see a “new quote” from her when the source material given doesn’t add up, period.

If anyone has any information or insight on this new letter, please let me know!

[Steve]

I don't know where this other Ella note first appeared, but it's quoted in this book from 1992:

https://books.google.com/books?id=obm_DA...9D&f=false

[Jenny]

I don't know where this other Ella note first appeared, but it's quoted in this book from 1992:

https://books.google.com/books?id=obm_DA...9D&f=false

Ooh, THANK YOU, Steve! This “second note” is actually referred to as being from the mysterious “Etta,” NOT Ella Starr, yet it is signed “N?” I will look into this - I don’t have a copy of The Evidence on me but I know there’s something about an Etta in there.

EDIT: It looks like this second note is part of the one from the alleged “Etta” who was keeping herself “secluded as a nun” for Booth. Abel left out part of the letter completely (and I guess he tried to pass it off as being from Ella Starr because he needed a good chapter title? Heh, I don’t know). Is the “Etta” letter still around? Didn’t “Etta” write this in New York (I don’t remember)?

I guess I will snoop around on fold3 and see if that letter is in there since that’s the place I found the copy of Ella’s “my darling boy” letter. At least we could compare handwriting.

If anyone has access to the Etta letter text in The Evidence, please post it if you have a moment! Would be greatly appreciated.

---

Looking at Abel’s book again, he absolutely acknowledges the “Etta” letter that was written from New York on April 12... the SAME letter that contains the quote he’s trying to pass off as Ella Starr’s. This really irritates me. There’s no way he couldn’t know the letter was from Etta yet he tried to pass it off as Starr’s note.

*sigh* I know it’s a small thing that most people could care less about but I do. I understand he was probably just trying to make his Ella Starr chapter more interesting... but this kind of thing just demonstrates how easy it can be for someone to use misuse information for their own purposes and start getting facts screwed up for others.

This was what I was talking about when I mentioned “sketchy” information in the other thread. Who is to say there aren’t other issues like this in the rest of the book?

I will shut up now.