♪ ♪ ♪ history book shelf features popular american history writers of the past decade and airs on american history tv every weekend at this time. this time on history book shelf, author nora tight toan tatone t

her book "my thoughts be bloody." the author examining the relationship between john wilkes booth and his older brother edwin. it's an hour. good evening. the scene in ford's theater on april 14, 1865 is stamped in national memory. there was the gunshot. the actor jumping from balcony to stage, slashing a knife before the footlights. lincoln fatally hit, slumped in a chair. rage. the union victory. and hatred for lincoln drove john wilkes booth to pull the trigger. this story has been told many times. but there is more to the story of john wilkes booth and the assassination of lincoln than the familiar facts we all know.

it is a story largely unexplored, a story hidden in private letters, diaries, memoirs and manuscripts, and it is the story of a remarkable and dysfunctional theatrical family, the booths. but above all, it is the story of john wilkes and the man who was his rival and competitor, his older brother edwin. edwin booth's name is forgotten now, buried by his brother's infamous deed, but a century ago, he was the actor king. the greatest, most influential star on the american stage. four years older than john wilkes, edwin was a dramatic genius. a prodigy who earn eed colossal

national fame before the civil war began. during the war, edwin booth owned his own theater on broadway where he could earn in a week the civil war equivalent of $200,000, and he gave generously of those profits to the union war effort. he called himself corporate edwin booth. he called his actors the federal dramatic corps, and together they raised thousands through charity performances of shakespeare for the widows and orphans of u.s. soldiers and for military hospitals. but the crowning moment in the wartime career of this patriotic actor was when he was summoned to washington to give command performances for his beloved

president lincoln, on a special occasion. the third anniversary of lincoln's inaugural. for six nights in 1864 at the national theater by special arrangement with lincoln and the first lady, edwin booth played hamlet, macbeth and other shakespeare plays to deafening ov ovations. this was john wilkes booth's older brother. so how could it have happened? one brother, the 19th century's most notorious assassin, and the other, a loyal supporter of the union and that century's brightest star? the answer lies in part in their relationship. they were competitors in the professional of acting, and they were political opponents.

their rivalry would shape both their lives, but it would prove particularly disastrous for john wilkes. the record of this brothers' conflict is not hard to find. it is in play bills, dramatic reviews and especially in the booth family's private papers. many of them here at the lincoln presidential library. booth's assassination of the president while certainly the act of a confederate sympathizer and a conspirator can also be understood as the tragic finale of a tangled family story. i started researching the brothers at a place called the players. this is a private club founded by edwin booth himself in 1888 in new york with his very close friends, mark twain and u.s.

president grover cleveland. the club still stands today. it still has membership, and it holds the most rare portions of the booth family papers. the room where edwin lived in this club until the last days of his life is carefully preserved, and when you walk in, nothing's been changed. on the wall near his desk is a sign he hung there. it's a warning. it's a motto taken from the tomb of shakespeare at stratford on avon and i'm goin' read g to reo you. good friend, for jesus' sake, forbear to dig the dust enclosed here. blessed be the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones. when i read that coming in to do

research it hit me, because i was there to move those bones. that was a warn iing. and the book i wrote, "my thoughts be bloody" is a result of my excavating, and tonight i'm going to tell you some episodes from this family's remarkable story. but before i do, i'd like to say that the booths were the premiere theatrical dynasty of the 19th century. edwin and his father junius were considered towering geniuses, and they stood at the center of our nation's cultural life for 60 years. from the 1820s through the 1880s. so from the early decades of our republic to the end of the gilded age, the booths lived in the spotlight of the national public eye. they were tragic.

they were scandalous. they were eccentric. they were dysfunctional and haphazardly endowed with genius. they were strivers. they wanted wealth, and they wanted to be figures of national prominence, and as public figures, they witnessed or participated in defining moments in the century, from the settlement of the west, to the california gold rush. from john brown's execution to the 1860 presidential election and, of course, to the years of the civil war. so in many ways, the booths' story is our national story in the 19th century. the story begins with this man -- junius brutus booth, fathered edwin and john wilkes. he arrived on american shores in 1821 on a ship ironically enough

called "two brothers." junius was a shakespearean actor. he was an international star. his bizarre volcanic and sensational interpretations of shakespeare sparked riots in london. he belonged to a circle of famous men, romantic artists that included lord byron and the poets shelly and keats. junius was a radical non-conformist. he rejected christianity. he dabbled in islam and hinduism, he was a vegetarian which in the 1820s was like being a lunatic. he was an opponent of savory, and he was a genius who could write poetry, sculpt marble, speak ten ancient and modern languages and act. booth had what he liked to call with a gesture appear on his

forehead, mind. he believed he was a rare being. someone separated from the rest of humanity by his incredible talents and american residents agreed. booth was huge here. he toured nationally every year. he was admired by presidents from john quincy adams to andrew jackson, and he raised his two sons, edwin and john wilkes, to believe that fame was a marvelous prize. mind or genius, he told these boys. happily belongs to no age, climb, sex or condition. instances, he said, can be quoted when even from the most despised classes, genius develops itself and towers above all the circle of the human race. powerful words to tell adolescent boys, and despised

classes were the key words. for junius had an important reason to leave england and come to america. the threat of scandal. he had come here not with his wife, who he left in london, but with his pregnant mistress, and over the next two decades, the couple had ten children, all of them illegitimate, including edwin and john wilkes. and it was when the boys were in their early teenage years that junius' wife came to baltimore from london to hunt her husband's second family down. she pursued edwin, john wilkes and their mother up through the streets of baltimore shouting insults, harlot, scarlet woman, the boys' mother and saying even worse things to the children. she wanted to establish in a

very public way the illegitimacy of the american booth children, because she was bringing a suit for divorce before the courts of baltimore. this noisy, public scandal hue mill yamted the booth family, and the hefty divorce suit bankrupted them. in court, junius brutus booth was forced to testify before a judge that his sons, edwin and john wilkes "were the fruits of an adulteress liaison." a father so famous and so infamous, afflicted his sons. leaving them both with driving ambition, as they grew older, but also a burden of shame. and that early legacy was a challenge for edwin and john, that edwin later acknowledged towards the end of his life when

he wrote -- i am glad i have not sons, for when a name becomes great, it had better die with the one who made it distinguished. now, here in this picture are junius and his son edwin booth. the photograph was taken very soon after junius chose edwin to be his theatrical apprentice and the heir to his fame that he had created here in america. tellingly, there are no photographs of john wilkes booth with his father. growing up in an actor's house, a place filled with, if you can imagine it, hundreds of costumes, stage swords, makeup cases. all the par fer naturaphernalia

had left john with a yearning to be a part of the theater, but only one would have that chance early on, and as junius noted, my sons are as wide apart as points on a compass. they were very different boys. john wilkes was physically strong. he was the image of his father. he was charismatic, aggressive, bold, but he was not a scholar. he had a different time reading. he had a slow memory, and no head for languages. edwin, though scrawny and admittedly strange looking, physically weak, he would cry when bullies in baltimore gave him a hard time, and his brother had to fight his battles for him. nonetheless, edwin had an intuitive grasp of shakespeare's word, even from a young age. they even said at the age of 4. he was a child who inherited not his father's looks, butintellec.

so for junius, edwin was his obvious choice to be his successor on the american stage, and it was that dhis sowed the first seats of conflict between edwin and john wilkes, for junius took edwin out of school at age 12, making him his assistant and together this pair traveled every year from albany to new orleans, savannah to cincinnati, while the father acted, the son was a valet, but he was also a guardian. junius was an incurable alcoholic. if he drank too much or found his way to a tavern, he could refuse to perform that night, or if he did go onstage, he would break down midperformance weeping and screaming, or he'd give all of his income for the evening april way to strangers. it was edwin's job to keep this

man out of taverns, on time for his performances and disciplined. it was not work for a child. john wilkes envied this job. he said it was golden holiday for his brother to do this. he never understood what this reality was like for edwin. edwin's childhood was miserable, missed education but as training as an actor, the experience as ideal. his father performed all the main roles and edwin absorbed and internalize everything he watched from behind-the-scenes. meanwhile, john was at home in maryland with their mother watching her endure more public humiliation for, of course, junius' by now ex-wife stayed in baltimore and continued to persecute the family. because of the damage to the booth's reputation by this

scandal, john wilkes's mother was determined that john of all her children would be socially responsible. she wanted to train him to about gentleman, and so all the cash that edwin sent home from touring with their father, she spent on boarding school, etiquette chances even dancing lessons for john wilkes. but john wanted a different future. denied his father's teaching, denied the experience of touring, he studied shakespeare alone, by himself, at the family farm, and it was not easy for him to do so. in 1852, the great junius brutus booth dies, after 30 years dazzling american audiences. he dies on the road. a trip to san francisco to act for the minor 49ers and tour the california gold fields turned dangerous. he caught a fever on the steamboat coming back and died. the loss of the father freed

john to step off this course that had been prepared to him to be a gentleman and to try become an actor, but in that race he was far behind his older brother. this woman is lora keen. you may recognize her face and name. she was the director and the star of our american cousin, the play performed when lincoln was shot and she was the woman who held the president's head in her lap. what was less known is that lora kean was edwin booth's mistress and she play add key role in launching his career. the pair med after the death of junius booth, lora was ten years older than edwin but early on

recognized his talent. she wanted to be his co-star, his director, and it was her that planned their first tour together. he was the leading man. she, the leading lady. edwin's genius was evident to everyone who saw him act. his performances in new york and boston attracted the interests of very powerful people. drama critics and writers. one of these was the abolitionist julia ward howl. future author of "battle hymn of the republic" adopted edwin as her proet sgla 1858 publishing poems in his honor in national magazines. these writings helped cement his reputati reputation, and being the friend of julia ward howl also shaped edwin's political views. so it was with the help of these very advantageous friendships that by age 25, before the civil war began, critics were calls

edwin booth the greatest actor of his generation. john wilkes started acting at age 19, in 1857. but without training. without experience, and without connections, he could only get work as a soup. that's sort for super newspapererary, the walk-on guy with no lines. you might think john could have trade and his famous family name, but edwin, head of the family by virtue of his stardom and income, wouldn't let john call himself a booth. not until this younger brother had proved some ability onstage. edwin said, could we dwluz lahe

last name. until then he had to be j.b. wilkes. so hi toilaled as a soup for years. it was low paying work and humiliating. john earned typically $300 in a nine-month season. edwin, by contrast, could earn that much in a night. it was finally in 1860 that edwin allowed john to start touring as a star on his own using the name booth. this was about three years as an extra. but john was not free to go where he wanted. edwin divided a map of the country right along the mason-dixon line in 1860. not for political reasons, but for business reasons. edwin wanted to preserve his monopoly, his profits in theaters in new york, boston and philadelphia. john was free to tour in the south, edwin said, where cities

were small, farther apart and profits were less. the north, where the big money and the crowds were, was going to be edwin's. so john's first experience of touring as a star was in montgomery, alabama, in the fall of 1860. this was the turbulent presidential election that split the union. it was a disastrous experience for john wilkes. the people instead of coming to seep his play was too busy with cessation and drilling in the streets to ever walk into a theater and what's worse, john's manager a drunk, accidentally shot him in the rear at this juncture and put an end to his performing for the season. but in 1861, when the civil war began, john had recovered from that injury. his sympathies for the south

were strong. his childhood spent in maryland and the years he spent working in richmond shaped his political feelings, and he was not afraid of a fight, but he did not enlist in the confederacy, even though he was inclined to do it. he had a golden opportunity. when war broke out, edwin left the country. he had been invited to perform in europe, in london and paris. so for the first time, with edwin gone, there were not restrictions on john wilkes booth as to where he could act. the map was wide open, and civil war audiences without edwin booth, they were hungry for another son of the great junius brutus booth. they were eager to see john wilkes. this picture was taken at that moment, and it captures, i think, unlike all other pictures i've seen of john wilkes booth,

the sense of possibility, even optimism, as if this were maybe one of the best times in john's life. he was making money. he was getting bookings, even on broadway, where he'd never been allowed to perform by his older brother, and he was living and profiting in the north. this moment did not last long. reviews of john's work, as hamlet, as yago, as shylock, were scathing. john was like a stuntman. he was great in the bruising battles that you needed to do onstage, but the moment a soliloquy was required he was lost, and when edwin returned from europe in late 1862, once again, john would be left scrambling for work. this is a scene from the draft riots that took flas new york in july of 1863.

this event would be the closest that the booth brothers, edwin and john wilkes, ever came to scenes of actual combat during the civil war. in that summer, a union officer, a man named adam badoe was staying at edwin booth's mansion in new york. he'd been injured on a battlefield in louisiana, and he came to the actor's thousands recuperate. john wilkes was there, too. he had no home of his own, and he stayed with his brother whenever he wasn't working, and he had to follow one rule while he was staying with edwin. never talk confederate under the roof of edwin's house. in july, as these three men, john wilkes booth, edwin booth and captain adam badoe were staying together, riots broke out across the city to protest

the new federal draft. african-americans and union officers were targets of violence. john, at this point, was forced to help hide the injured captain badoe and his african-american medic in the basement of edwin's house, protecting them from lynch mobs, arsonists and gangs. eventually, the riots died down and order was restored, and adam badoe left the city safely to join the staff of general ulysses s. grant for whom he would work for the rest of the war, and would be standing at grant's side when he surrendered. badoe late in life marveled that he had spent the period of the draft riots being protected from a mob by john wilkes booth. he wrote that he was amazed that in all the exciting period of

the riot, the future assassin of president lincoln said no word that indicated sympathy with the south. but in private, john had been furious at the role edwin forced him to play during the riots. to his sister john confessed, imagine me helping that wounded soldier with my rebel sinews. in 1864 when edwin was performing for lincoln at the national theater, john wilkes was snowbound on the high plains of kansas where he had gone to act in town hall theaters. he was trapped by blizzards. he earned very little money, and frustrated after seven years of hardship onstage, john decided to try something new.

oil. it had been discovered in western pennsylvania at the beginning of the war in place people liked to call petrolia, or oil durado. following in the footsteps of other wartime prospector, john sank all his savings into building three wells. these derek-leg structures you see here in almost like a forest in the picture. the scheme, he hoped, would make him a rich man, and perhaps free him from the drudgery of touring on the western theatrical circuit. it was a bad gamble. notice how many are in this picture and try to imagine how many of those were active wells. not many. john was not one of the lucky prospectors. he had chosen a financial gain with as much hope of success as

acting, unfortunately. edwin booth, meanwhile, hit a geyser of cash as the owner, director and star of that broadway theater, the winter garden, his box office made him a millionaire. or the civil war equivalent of a millionaire. from the stage of the winter garden, edwin could launch attention-grabbing stunts as he did when he performed hamlet 100 nights in a row without stopping. becoming the first actor ever even from shakespeare's time to do such a time, and he received a gold medal from the people of new york for doing that. john wilkes had not been invited to be a partner in the venture of the winter garden theater. not even as a stage manager or a ticket taker. as usual, edwin booth had shut his brother out of the family