so in his shack in petrolia, very similar to the one pictured here, john papered the walls, visitors reported, with images of his famous family. when he returned to new york for visits, john wilkes did not tell edwin and the other booths that his oil venture had been a bust. on the contrary, he told the booths he was becoming rich, and that he would never act again, because petroleum, he said, was more profitable than the theatrical profession. at that time, john was recruited by the confederate secret service. so when the news reached edwin booth that his brother had shot

the president, the actor was not at all surprised. he said the intelligence hit him on the forehead like a hammer. he wrote, my mind accepted the fact at once. i thought to myself that my brother was capable of just such an action. his brother's murder of lincoln was devastating to edwin, but the reactions he records in his letters seem to speak less of the blow to the union than of the blow to the actor himself. oh where has my glory gone, edwin wrote in the agony. i have been blasted in my hopes by a villain. edwin vowed to quit acting forever in penance for his brother's crime. in a letter to the american people that he wrote in the summer of 1865 and published in various newspaper, edwin said, i

shall struggle on in my retirement bearing an oppressed memory and a wounded name to my all too welcome grave. but edwin booth did not keep this promise. six months amp liafter lincoln' body was laid in the tomb here in springfield, edwin announced his return to the stage. more surprisingly still, he brought a production of our american cousin to the stage of the winter garden theater in september of 1865. and who was starring in it? his brother-in-law john sleeper clark, fresh from the old capital prison where he had been held under suspicion of assassinating the president. lora keen forever associated with his play was disgusted.

this play, she wrote, ought to have only a memory of shame and horror for you and your family. but few people shared lora's disdain. the public welcomed edwin booth's return. when he walked on the stage of his broadway theater in january 1866, less than a year after the assassination, worshipful crowds packed the auditorium, weeping and april plodding at every line he spoke. a new york theatrical agent from the civil war period explained. edwin booth, he said, was devoured by a theirs for famirs it made money, and edwin booth droop the largest profits after the assassination of limpincoln.

americans hungered to see edwin onstage. not only for the thrill that his genius could deliver, but to feel the sense of connection he provided to the martyred lincoln. edwin booth was a touchstone, almost, to that tragic last scene of the civil war. when the actor finally retired after a long and very profitable career, he took up residence in this luxurious club i mentioned before, the players. in grammersy park in new york. this club he decorated with images of his father, junius brute its boobrutus booth and ft whip his father's costumes, stage swords and paraphernalia. the club was also filled with treasures. treasures donated by its wealthy and distinguished membership. first folio editions of

shakespeare, sculptures, paintings. edwin's club was a gathering place for high achievers, for geniuses, for men of rare talent and ambition. and included people, as i mentioned earlier, like mark twain, growerer cleveland, the investor, nicola testtra. at the club surrind by great talents, edwin booth was never troubled by illusions to the assassination. everyone at the players pretended edwin had nerver had brother and they never spoke the name in the actor the presence, but it you visit there today and you see this room he lived in unchanged, you'll see by his bed at eye level still hanging there today something the actor looked at every morning and every night. a photograph of john wilkes booth.

over the years, edwin has been largely forgotten. his talent, the trajectory of his career, erased. out of respect for edwin during his life, newspapers in new york rarely wrote about the assassination of john wilkes. only after edwin died in 1893 did a popular fascination with john wilkes and the assassination begin to flourish. a legend was created about the dramatic genius of lincoln's killer. about how he had been the inheriter of his father's greatness and in generations of myth-making about john wilkes booth, edwin's name and his story have been lost leaving his younger brother to stand alone on the stage of national memory

as he no doubt would the have wished. thank you. [ applause ] . i ho . >> i hope you have lots of questions. i'd love to answer them. >> [ inaudible ] -- brother, cloud his judgment? >> what a great question. was john wilkes booth a true patriot of the south or did his

rivalry with his brother cloud his judgment or mind? i think he was a zealous confederate. i have no doubt about it. i mean, everything he ever wrote is filled with that conviction. but i think what happened for him is that there was a parallel, metaphorical, between the imbalance between the power difference between his brother and himself that seemed to mirror the fates of the north and south during the war. they were both unequal contests, and certainly john wilkes, there's no question in my mind, was a true confederate, but i think this relationship with his brother drove him to a place where he was trying to compete in a fight that he could never

win. >> what of the story that junius once threatened andrew jackson's life? >> what of the story that junius brutus booth once threatened the life of president andrew jackson? i've read the letter. people said that junius brutus booth, they wondered if he were insane or simply drunk all the time. l [ laughter ] and opinions differ on this point, but it's certainly clear that he loved his brandy, and a lot of his letters when you read them are scrawled. they're -- they're confused. they're almost impressionistic, and he would often say to theater managers, he'd send ahead, you know, i may not make

it there. i'm drinking today. don't announce me until the beast arrives. meaning himself. and so the letter he wrote to andrew jackson talking about a hanging, i think, to me reads like a drunken joke. you know? i don't think it was an actual threat of assassination. i think he was just bluflterring in a way a guy had two pints of brandy would bluster, but he was friends with andrew jackson. i mean, their friendship would, i think, permit that kind of teasing or, you know what we would seep at completely inappropriate statements to make to a president, but it was -- i think it was that kind of friendship forged on the american frontier. you know, in those pay days of the 1830s, and late 1820s, junius, in fact, in addition to being a great drinking buddy of andrew jackson also drank a lot

with sam houston, the texas you know, the first president of the texas republic. they were very close friends, and there was this kind of mask lynn camaraderie that circulated around the tharch tht they shar. so i think his threat was joke clouded by alcohol. >> there are two questions here that are similar. so i'm going to kind of combine them. one asks if you can elaborate about john wilkes booth's connection with the confederate skit service and the other one asks how do we know that john wilkes was connected, since those records were burned? >> i'll answer that in two short perts. what i found in my research -- i mean, it's very difficult to document the doinging ins of a

organization, but when john went to new orleans to act at the saint charles theater in the spring of 1864, he met individuals there who were blockade runners for the south, and who were under suspicion by federal authorities, because new orleans was occupied by federal authorities at the time, as being connected with the government in richmond. and so theater managers and actors noticed those relationships, and noecticed th john wilkes corresponded with those men after he left new orleans. it is hard to write about the confederate secret service in great detail, but we do know that john deposited money in a bank in washington, d.c. after attending a meeting in canada that has been characterized as a secret service meeting. so looking at the flow of money,

looking at whom he met and where, people, i think, have safely posited that he was involved in the secret service. >> there are also several questions that are similar in asking how edwin could have such control over john wilkes where he could perform and the question about not using the booth name. >> yes. the people i've left out tonight in talking with you are very important characters, and they partially answer that question, which is a very important question. marianne holmes is the woman, the -- this poor woman, the mistrishgs the pregnant mistrishgs remember who came with junius from london to the united states. the mother of the ten booth children. her livelihood depended on edwin

booth. not only her livelihood, but the rest of her children, her daughters, her younger sons, the sons that were younger than john wilkes. and so when edwin and the father go to california on this mission to the gold fields, where they hope that they'll act for the minor 49ers and become very wealthy and junius dies on that trip, edwin stays in california for five years. that leaves marianne holmes, the mother, and all the children, including john, on the maryland farm with no money. for five years. they had no income. they had no wage earner to support them, and the hardships they experienced, if you read the journals of this family from the time, they were close to going hungry at certain periods. so when edwin returns a star in the late 1850s, a wage earner, the person who's going revive

the booth family fortunes, that gives him tremendous power in this family. because whatever john wilkes did as he asserted his career, if it affected edwin's wage earning, that affected the fortunes of the whole family, because edwin was supporting the mother, his sisters, his other brothers. so that by making -- by edwin becoming the head of the family, he was basically taking junius brutus booth's place, and that gave him almost a paternal authority over john wilkes. and so having a booth out there acting who wasn't a great talent, who might tarnish the name or who might lead to audience fatigue was an issue that the whole family was concerned in, and that gave kind of impetus to edwin's power over john. >> there are a number of people who want to the know what

happened to the other booth children? >> oh, it is -- it is a sad story. there was another brother, junius jr., whom they called june, whom like john wilkes didn't have that spark that edwin said. they said he wmediocre in everything. very cruel, but he tried to make a living as an actor, too. what you see in his later life is heartbreaking. edwin, as we know, was a equivalent of a millionaire. right? he was a towering star, especially after the assassination, but even junius in his very small niche that he'd carved for himself as a leading man had to ask edwin if he could perform at theaters on the east coast. even as they were into their 40s, 50s and 60s. i mean, it was sad.

and so junius had a very small career. help was always struggling for money and he'd write letters to his brother saying, i have a man's typical problems. too many children and not enough income. and he never really made a success of anything, and he was completely in the shadow of edwin. and, again, like john wilkes, junius was never, you know, his fortune was not made by his older brother. edwin could have helped him, and he didn't. >> did -- do you believe -- if booth broke his leg after shooting lincoln and jumping on to the stage -- u. kn >> you know i think i can answer that question very specifically. i'd read a letter. an amazing letter, written by the neighbor of the booths' at their family farm in harvard county, maryland. there was a woman named mrs.

elijah rogers who lived next door to the booth family for year, and when john wilkes' body was released from where it had been. its unmarked grave in washington, d.c., and returned to the booth family, for reburial in the booth family plot in baltimore, this neighbor was present when the casket was opened because, of course, edwin had bought at new coffin for his brother, and she saw the body lifted out and placed in the other box, and she describes it -- it's so hard to read. so graphic, because she had known john wilkes when he was a toddler, when he was growing up and she doted on him, like any neighbor dotes on any little child who lives next door, and she said, his body was broken. the leg was snapped and the bone protruding through the skin.

when i read that, i thought oh -- this had been a decade, well, not a decade, but many years had passed from the sealing of the casket to the opening of it. so she soughtaw a bone broken a protruding through the skin. i don't know what you want to dot with that piece of evidence, but that's what i read in the letter written by the woman who saw his casket opened. >> what was edwin and john's personal relationship? we know they had a professional rivalry and their politics was different, but did they get along otherwise? >> there were physical fights in edwin's house in new york during the war over politics. you know, the kind of fights where, at the breakfast table someone tries to -- to choke the other person or punch them, and then -- john being ejected down the front steps of the house. so there were -- you know, there

were very ugly moments, and that kind of physical antagonism is something that you see inbrothe they're children. i mean, i found these newspaper clippings, reminiscences, by kids who had grown up in baltimore with the booth brothers. so when they were older, they gave their reminiscences to newspapers. so i remember when edwin and john wilkes were little boys, and they were putting on theoretical performances for the children of the neighborhood in basements of hotels in baltimore. and even then edwin and john wilkes had this resentment towards each other where you would have these classic situations where edwin would steal a costume from his father's wardrobe, take it down to one of these basements where all the neighborhood kids had paid a penny to come in and see some crazy play the boys had written.

and he was wearing his father's stolen costumes. john wilkes tells on edwin, the father comes in a towering rage, breaks into the basement, drags edwin out by the scrap of the neck and beats him, of course, because it's the 19th century. and i mean, that kind of, you know, brotherly -- i don't know, just cruelty to each other was typical of their relationship. >> do you believe that there was a conspiracy beyond john wilks booth that stanton was involved and andrew johnson was involved? >> i -- i -- don't -- no, i don't believe that. i think he acted, you know, on his own. >> is it true that john wilks was kept in a draconian prison, continuous -- prison conditions

after his capture? >> i -- from what i understand, he was shot on-site, before there was any imprisonment. yeah, he was never in prison. >> adam bedeaux was a theater critic. can you describe the relationship? >> absolutely. this is one of the best parts of researching this book. the fact that general grant's private secretary, who was with grant through some of the hardest parts of this whole war, on the battlefields, at the headquarters, was constantly corresponding with edwin booth. that entire time. you can read their letters at the players, this private club edwin has established. they're beautiful.

they had this incredibly close friendship. and adam badeaux, before he became a soldier, was a drama critic in new york, and he was the one, alongside julia ward howe, they were all friends, who really launched edwin's career. so in many ways, edwin's great success was the creation of adam badeaux, this theater critic, who endorsed his interpretations of shakespeare, and who called him the great shining talent of their generation. and their remarkable friendship that lasted, unfortunately, not beyond the civil war, this closeness that they shared, and their incredible letters, adam b badeux was the one who after john wilks killed lincoln, brought these letters to general grant, other people within the lincoln administration and said, look, edwin booth is a union

man. i have 300 letters where he is saying bring me the head on a plate or kill those rebels. very patriotic letters. and so adam badeux was an advocate for edwin in the roundup of suspects after the assassination. but when -- but it -- the breakdown of their relationship reveals kind of the cruelty and the ruthlessness at the heart of this star, because once edwin put that play, "our american cousin" up on stage in boston, i think adam badeaux, he couldn't accept that. and he couldn't accept edwin's coldness towards him after all the labor he had gone through to prove his innocence. so their friendship ended in '65. but adam badeaux would go on to be general grant's ghost writer, helping him write his memoirs. and he also is the best source

we have about edwin booth. he wrote a lot after edwin died about their friendship, and about the character of this great actor. >> final question. >> yes. >> what is your next book focusing on? >> do you have any ideas? actually, this is -- this is going to be sound completely crazy. and i'm sure anyone listening in my family is going to say why are you saying this? but i am fascinated, one of my favorite parts of writing this book -- i mean, this family story, i don't think, i will be ever able to find sources that are like this family sources again. i mean, the drama, the intrigue, the mystery, the passions, the divisions in their letters were just exhilarating to read. and extremely sad, as well. so finding another family to write about that matches the

booths, i think, would be very hard. so what i'd like to do is one of my favorite parts of researching that didn't involve the family, was documenting that trip to california. that junius and edwin took in 1851. it was an amazing trip. they went from new york down the atlantic coast by steam ship, and then hiked across the ismus of panama, and up the specific coast on steam ship. it was an amazing journey. and thinking about that part of the west, california, the southwest, it just -- it gripped me. and especially gripping was to realize that general grant -- general grant then -- he was lieutenant grant, followed the booths' route two weeks behind them. he was two weeks behind junius and edwin, crossed at the same part of the ismus, hiked the same part of the trails. he lost 100 men to cholera on that trip.

two weeks later. and i always wondered, what would have happened if edwin booth had died of cholera on that trip. you know, as so many of grant's men did two weeks later. would we be, you know, talking about what happened in ford's theater today? >> ladies and gentlemen, let's thank nora titon. 25 years ago, on june 12th, 1987, president ronald reagan spoke by the brandon bird gate at the berlin wall and delivered the famous line, "mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall." next week, romesh talks about his book, "tear down this wall." history bookshelf airs three

times each weekend on american history tv, including saturday at noon eastern. this year, c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country, exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to wichita, kansas. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. on c-span 3. >> i am not now the authorized spokesman for congress, but i did occupy that position. and that was the period of the great rise of the labor movement in the midst of which the communists played an honorable and effective part in and won a certain degree of influence in america. that influence has always been exerted toward actively solidifying the labor movement. communists do not control any labor unions.

and do not want control. especially during the war. the communists made an indispensable contribution in showing and practice how the full defense of labor's rights could be combined with the most complete support of the war effort. >> what we're looking at is kellogg. it's the major thoroughfare through wichita. and that grassy area to my back there, that was where the house was for earl browder his birthplace. he was the general secretary of the communist party from about 1920 through 1950. he ran for president twice under the communist party. in 1936 and 1940. in 1989, there was -- when kellogg was widened, there was talk about moving his house. it was one of -- at that time, one of the oldest occupied houses in wichita. it