John Wilkes Booth: The Money Trail
by James O. Hall with Michael Maione
Lincoln Herald, Volume105, Number 1 (Spring 2003): 7-14
Editor's Note: James O. Hall is an expert on the Lincoln assassination and is co-author with William Tidwell and David Gaddy of Come Retribution: The Confederate secret Service and the Death of Lincoln. Mike Maione , Park Ranger and historian with the National Park service died on February 21, 2003.
It is said that truth is the daughter of time. Perhaps this means that scholars sort slowly through the tangled affairs of mankind to arrive at what can be agreed upon. The result is called history. With respect to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of the dangling questions is this: How did John Wilkes Booth's finances and expectations impact his decisions and actions? The authors resolved to assemble the pertinent bits and pieces, to connect the little dots, to follow the "money trail," and to go where the evidence takes us. This trail is more readily followed if placed in the context of Booth's travels and personal contacts. The evidence here developed led us to these basic conclusions:
1. When Booth came to Washington on November 9, 1864, to activate the Lincoln capture operation, he was not a wealthy actor with large investments and bulging bank accounts. He soon had to borrow money.
2. At some point, Booth was promised a large reward - a fortune - if he captured Lincoln and delivered him to Richmond as a hostage.
A closer look at Booth's finances for the theater season 1860-1861 and 1861-1862 reveals that he barely earned enough to cover living expenses and travel. After a delay until October 23 in opening the 1862-1863 theater season at Lexington Kentucky, Booth began to have increasing box office appeal as a star and to command pay accordingly. For the first time, he sent his mother $800 from Chicago. On February 28, 1863, he sent his young friend, Joseph Simonds, then a clerk in the Merchant's bank, Boston, a draft for $1,500. Simonds was to use the money to buy stock (25 shares) in the Boston Water Power Company. In the same letter, Booth asked Simonds to explore the merits of investing $2,000 in a rail road. Nothing came of this and Booth switched to buying $3,000 in United States bonds and $1,000 in Philadelphia city bonds. He may have made his mother co-owner as she cashed them later. John Sleeper Clarke, Booth's brother-in-law, told of finding the bonds with other Booth papers in his Philadelphia safe on April 16, 1865. No other evidence of investment was found in the safe.
Early in 1863, Booth became interested in unimproved building lots in an exclusive Back Bay residential section of Boston. Assisted by Joseph Simonds and Orlando Tompkins, a theater manager, Booth entered a bid for a choice lot at 115 Commonwealth Avenue. His bid of $8,192.10 was successful in the auction held on April 9, 1863. He agreed to pay one-fourth down and the balance in three equal semi-annual installments. this payment schedule was met. With his almost legendary devotion to his mother, title to this lot was placed in her name. Mary Ann Booth deeded this lot to her son, Dr. Joseph Booth, after the war.
In December of 1863, John Wilkes Booth and two Cleveland friends, john Ellsler, a theater manager, and Thomas Y. Mears, a rough character, decided to form a loose partnership to drill for oil in Venango County, Pennsylvania. The understanding was that land rights would be acquired but that Booth and Ellsler would finish the theater season and begin drilling operation in June of 1864. In keeping with this understanding, Booth closed out his Boston engagement on may 28, 1864. While in Boston, Booth persuaded Joseph Simonds to give up his job at the Merchants Bank to become business manager for the partnership. Booth wrote to his new girl friend, young Isabel Sumner, on June 7, 1864, saying that he was leaving for Pennsylvania the next day. Simonds joined Booth there a few days later.
Here we must consider an important fact that colors all other research into Booth's finances - a fact often overlooked or ignored by historians. When Booth was paid for the matinee performance at the Boston Museum on may 28, 1864, it was the last dollar he would earn from any source for the rest of his life - eleven months. For a classic example of how this central fact was overlooked, a respected historian included the following sentence in his little book, taking no notice that Booth has abandoned his profession as a traveling "star" on May 28, 1864, to go into the oil business:
While he played a bit less once he became obsessed with the plot to kidnap the president his career was not in decline.
Booth appeared in only three theater performances after May 28, 1864, all unpaid benefits: (1) at the Winter Garden in New York on November 25, 1864, with his brothers Edwin and Junius in Julius Caesar to benefit the Central park fund for a Shakespeare statue; (2) at Grover's Theatre, Washington, on January 20, 1865, in Romeo and Juliet for the benefit of actress Avonia Jones; and (3) at Ford's Theatre, Washington, on march 18, 1865, in The Apostate for the benefit of the actor, John McCullough.
The oil venture was in money trouble from the start. Ellsler still owed for some portion of the first costs and had not yet come up with the money to help cover drilling. Booth wrote a "pay up" letter to him from Franklin, Pennsylvania, on June 11. In this letter Booth described the state of his personal finances in these words: "I have as little money and as much use for that money as any man can have."
Apparently this letter did not produce results so Booth followed it up with another letter on June 17. in this he wrote, "I want to see you here bad." Ellsler failure to pay his share of expenses on a timely basis was putting a pinch on Booth's depleted money reserves. Somehow the test well was put down in early July, 1864. The result was disappointing. All efforts failed to start the expected flow of oil, and work on the well was suspended. Simonds testified at the conspiracy trial on May 13, 1865, that Booth lost some $6,000. It was probably more.
Leaving Simonds to pick up the pieces, Booth left for New York on July 12 and put up at Edwin's home where his mother was then visiting. He wrote to Isabel Sumner on the 14th. There was no reply as he again wrote to her on July 24 asking if he had offended her. In the letter, he wrote that he intended to come to Boston. He registered at the Parker House in Boston on July 26, 1864.
There is a division of opinion among historians as to whether Booth's capture scheme was his own idea or whether it was fed to him by Confederate agents. The possibility that he met with such agents from Canada during his stay at the Parker House was developed by the authors of Come Retribution.
To begin with, no record has been found to show that Booth was considering this scheme prior to the time he registered at the Parker House on July 26, 1864. Yet the evidence is persuasive that he left the hotel four days later for Baltimore to enlist the first two recruits into the evolving conspiracy that would ultimately take the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Booth checked out of the Parker House on July 30 and dropped off to spend a few days with members of his family who were on vacation near New London, Connecticut, at the country home of one of Edwin's business associates. he left there with Edwin "in a heavy fog" on August 2 and continued on to New York. Together with Edwin and John Sleeper Clarke, John Wilkes Booth took a Philadelphia train on August 7. On August 9, Booth registered in at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore. Apparently his intended destination was Baltimore from the time he left the Parker House in Boston.
Once settled in at the hotel, Booth invited two of his boyhood friends, Michael O'Laughlen and Samuel B. Arnold, both former Confederate soldiers, to call on him there. Arnold came first, soon followed by O'Laughlen. The two had not met previously. Over much wine and even more Booth charm, they agreed to became a party to a proposal to capture President Lincoln while en route to or from the Soldiers' Home on the outskirts of Washington. The Lincolns lived in a cottage on the grounds during warm weather. Booth had information that Lincoln often went back and forth without escort. It would be easy. Dash down to Richmond with Lincoln a hostage and force the renewal of prisoner exchange. The Confederacy was running out of manpower.
Before the conference broke up, Booth talked about his immediate plans. Arnold later put it this way:
Booth stating that he would return to New York the next day to wind up his affairs, and make over his property to different members of his family, reserving enough to carry out his projected scheme, and would soon return.
Booth was looking ahead when he spoke of disposing of assets and retaining enough to carry through the Lincoln capture scheme. We do not know how much was reserved or where it was kept at the time. We do know that he could not sell or mortgage the building lot in Boston because it was in his mother's name. Further, the $4,000 in bonds kept in John S. Clarke's Philadelphia safe was probably considered untouchable because of a deeply-held feeling about his mother's future security. If the reserved money ran out, what then? To whom would he turn to replenish it? Here we shall look for answers by gathering the scattered bits and pieces of the "money trail."
The secrecy surrounding the clandestine Lincoln capture scheme makes it next to impossible to trace Booth's expenditures with bookkeeping precision after he became committed to the operation in late July 1864. Even so, it can be ascertained with fair accuracy what assets and money he had going in and what he borrowed later.
Booth did not make it back to Baltimore "soon" as he had promised Arnold and O'Laughlen. Shortly after he arrived at Edwin's New York home - probably on August 10 or August 11 - he developed a severe case of erysipelas, a form of staph infection, in his right arm. This kept him bed-ridden for a time and inactive for about three weeks.
In mid-September, Booth felt well enough to go back to Pennsylvania and close out his failure to get rich in the oil business. Now he had another all-consuming passion - capturing Lincoln. In the end, these two passions - getting rich and capturing Lincoln - would merge. To keep Arnold "warm," he wrote to him from Pennsylvania and sent him $20 for "expenses." In the letter, he asked Arnold to look around for a suitable horse he could buy.
Back in New York, Booth sorted and packed his theatrical wardrobe for a necessary trip to Montreal. He set out on October 16, 1864. The journey was interrupted by an unexplained one-day stop up river at Newburgh, New York. There is a day missing in the chronology of this journey. The Montreal journey had two purposes: to ship his wardrobe by sea to some port in the Confederacy; and to confer with Confederate agents there about details for the Lincoln capture plan. Booth arrived at the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal at 9:30 p.m. on October 18, 1864, and was given room 150.
The Confederate commissioners in Canada, Clement C. Clay and Jacob Thompson, did not reside in Montreal but came as necessary. Clay lived in a borrowed house in St. Catharine, and Thompson made his headquarters in the Queens Hotel, Toronto. So far as known, Booth had no direct contact with either of them during his ten-day stay in Canada. There is ample evidence that Booth was in intimate contact with Confederate agents George N. Sanders and Patrick C. Martin.
Martin, a former Baltimore liquor dealer, was primarily engaged in running the blockade by sea. Booth arranged with him to ship his theatrical wardrobe to Nassau. The sloop, Marie Victoria, bound for Halifax, ran aground in the St. Lawrence River near Bic, Quebec, during a storm. The wardrobe was ruined by salt water.
Patrick C. Martin also helped Booth in other matters. For one thing, he furnished Booth with letters of introduction to Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, leaders of the Confederate underground in pro-Confederate Charles County, Maryland. A captured Lincoln would be taken across the Potomac River into Virginia from Charles County, and the local apparatus could help in various ways.
On October 27, the last full day Booth was at the St. Lawrence Hall, Martin accompanied him to the Ontario bank where he deposited $455 and bought a bill of exchange in sterling. At the bank he talked with Robert Anson Campbell. Campbell explained in testimony at the conspiracy trial that the deposit consisted of a local broker's check for $255 and ten $20 Montreal bills. Booth told Campbell he was going to run the blockade and needed an instrument only he could cash. Campbell suggested the bill of exchange. Booth "pulled out" $300 in American gold. At the existing rate, this converted into 61 pounds, 12 shillings, 10 pence sterling (At that time about $700 in greenbacks.)
A bank draft found on Booth's body at the Garrett farm. Booth purchased the draft from the Ontario Bank during his stay in Montreal from October 18 - 27, 1864.
The $455 deposit was never withdrawn. The bill of exchange was found in Booth's pocket at the Garrett farm and became an exhibit at the conspiracy trial. Some years later, the Ontario Bank closed its doors and its remaining assets were liquidated.
Booth left Montreal on the morning of October 28 and returned to Edwin's home in New York. Waiting for him there was a complex document sent by Joseph Simonds in Pennsylvania. This assigned his remaining oil interests partly to Junius Brutus Booth [John's older brother] and partly to Simonds. Booth signed this document on October 29th. This cut his last tie to the oil business. He had previously given his interest in the Pithole Group to his sister, Rosalie. In all, he lost some $6,000 in this fiasco.
Booth did not tarry in New York. Junius planned to be in Baltimore so he decided to spend election day, November 8, with him there. The next day he checked into the National Hotel in washington. Ut was time to crank up the Lincoln capture operation.
The logical first step was to deliver the Patrick C. Martin letters of introduction to Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel Mud at Brynatown, Charles County, Maryland. Accordingly, Booth took the stage to Bryantown on November 11 and spent the weekend as a guest of the Queens at their farm home. That Sunday, November 13, he attended mass with the Queens at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Bryantown. There he met Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was also a guest at this church. Dr. Mudd's own church was ST. Peter's, some eight miles distant. The letters were delivered, Booth returned to Washington by stage and checked back into the National Hotel, Monday, November 14.
On November 16, two days after his return to Washington from Bryantown, Booth went into the Jay Cooke & Co. Bank and deposited $1,500 in a checking account. We do not know the source of this money. It could have come from the Confederates in Canada or New York, or from planters in Charles County, Maryland. Most likely it was the money Booth reserved as he promised Arnold and O'Laughlen back in August.
An additional $250 was deposited into this account on January 5, 1865. Again, we do know the source of this money. It may have been part of the $500 Booth borrowed from his friend, Joseph Simonds, on December 31, 1864.
The bank ledger sheet of the Booth checking account has survived. The face of this sheet looks like this:
Five of these checks are known to exist: numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. The other two have not been found.
Booth paid some of the early costs of the capture operation with "out of pocket" money. But this money soon ran out and he began depending on the Cooke account to pay operating expenses He lived well; traveled frequently; consorted with several women - respectable and otherwise; "paid some living costs of his 'action team'"; acquired the necessary river boat; bought a buggy, harness, and kept [boarded] two horses; bought handcuffs, several pistols, knives and two Spencer repeating carbines; and bought an expensive set of French field glasses. Except for $25, the Cooke account was exhausted by January 18.
As time passed, the money had simply dribbled away. Arnold told about it in these words:
The month of January had passed, and nothing had been accomplished. February ushered itself in only to be a repetition of the former month, as Booth through riotous living and dissipation was compelled to visit the City of New York for the purpose of replenishing his squandered means. His absence continued for nearly the entire month, caused from the great difficulty experienced in borrowing money.
We do not know how much he borrowed in New York or from whom, but it was not enough. At about this time, Booth also borrowed $500 from O'Laughlen. So far as we can find, these loans were never repaid: the $500 from Simonds, the New York loan, or the $500 from O'Laughlen. At this point, Booth was almost desperately seeking cash to keep his great obsession alive.
When Booth mounted his rented mare back of Ford's Theatre after shooting Lincoln, he could not have had more than $300 in greenbacks. This dwindled down as the escape progressed through southern Maryland and the Northern Neck of Virginia; a few dollars here, a few dollars there. In the end, when Ever ton J. Conger and Luther B. Baker searched him as he lay on the front porch of the Garrett house, they found the Canadian bill of exchange and a few greenbacks. Conger did not remember the amount of currency but said it was small. Baker said in was $45 in one account and $75 in another.
Writing in the fall of 1864, Booth used these prophetic words about going south: " I go penniless to her side."
We must now come back to Professor Thomas R. Turner's little book, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and his treatment of Booth's income. Despite scattered errors of fact (for example, he has the 1865 conspiracy trial conducted at the Old Capitol Prison), his book is an insightful and useful addition to the "Booth acted alone" genre popular with college historians - who tend to quote each other. Pertinent in our inquiry into money, Turner wrote in part:
SUCCESSFUL AND WEALTHY ACTOR. Booth also became a successful actor, playing to good reviews and making between $25,000 and $30,000 a year.
The source for this assertion appears to be Arnold's holographic statement in Baltimore on April 18. In part, this what Arnold actually wrote:
He showed me different entries in his diary of what his engagements paid him in his profession and I judge from what I have heard his income there from to be $25,000 to $30,000.
The two versions differ in meaning. Possibly Dr. Turner quoted Arnold from memory and dropped the hearsay portion; and then added the two words, "a year." because it seemed a natural thing to do. So far as can be learned, Booth himself never used the $25,000 to $30,000 statement of his income for any theater season or calendar year. In his famous "To whom it may concern" letter, Booth described this income in these words: "My profession alone has gained an income of more than twenty thousand dollars a year."
As previously stated, Booth's earning in the 1860-1861 and 1861-1863 theater seasons did not leave a surplus for savings and investment. In the 1862-1863 theater season Booth did not earn one dollar until October 23. His first real monetary success came in the Chicago engagement which started December 1. He wrote a bragging letter to Edwin Keach at the Boston Museum on December 8 saying in part: "My goose does indeed hang high."
A star career was on the rise. Booth's success continued in spotty fashion for the rest of the 1862-1863 theater season and on into the 1863-1864 theater season, his last. Booth left the stage at Boston on May 28, 1864, after a four-week run before crowded houses. When Booth used the "more than $20,000 a year" income figure, he undoubtedly had reference to the 1863-1864 theater season fresh in his mind. He did not earn another dollar from any source for the rest of his life.
A recapitulation would be useful at this point. The best estimate is that Booth's gross acting income for the eighteen-month period, December 1, 1862 - May 28, 1864, would come to about $38,000. When personal expenses and travel are deducted, it would still leave a substantial surplus for other uses. Booth found other uses, such as the following:
The first conclusion reached into this exhaustive research into Booth's finances, the "money trail," is that he was not a wealthy actor with large investments and bulging bank accounts at the time he embarked on the scheme to capture Lincoln. The facts are just the opposite. Whatever the excess of acting income over expenses in the period December 1, 1862 - through May 28, 1864, not much was still available in late July, 1864, to be applied to the costs of the capture operation. The Boston residential lot and the $4,000 in bonds were tied to Booth's mother and thus emotionally untouchable for any other purpose. The $455 deposited in the Ontario bank and the sterling bill of exchange were held by Booth as his personal "get away" money. This left him to begin the capture operation with a limited amount of cash in hand, plus the money deposited in Cooke's bank, Washington. All this money was soon spent, including the $500 he borrowed from Joseph Simonds on December 31, 1864. Booth had to turn to other sources for money, such as the undisclosed amount he borrowed in New York, and the $500 he borrowed from O'Laughlen. Further, there is a reference in the conspiracy trial testimony of Samuel K. Chester, an actor friend of Booth, that Booth planned to tap the Confederates in Richmond for more money. We will come to this later.
The "money trail" research generated piles of document copies and references. The key words looked for were "money" and "capture" used in a context that could have a possible Booth connection. Attention kept returning to two acts passed in secret sessions by the Confederate congress in January - February, 1864. The first act was entitled: "An act to organize bodies of men for the capture and destruction of enemy property on land or sea, and to provide compensation for the same," The second bill added "$5 million to the appropriation for secret service."
Taken together, these acts of the Confederate congress demonstrated a willingness to pay for the capture and destruction of Union property wherever found and to provide secret service funds as compensation. So here we have the type of little dots so loved by intelligence officers the world over; four of them in a neat row - capture, destruction, secret service money, compensation. The question arises naturally. Could Booth have also been promised money if he succeeded in capturing lincoln and delivering him to Richmond as a hostage? The answer is yes, such a promise had been made to Booth and believed him. The evidence has been there all along, waiting for the bits and pieces to be assembled, waiting for the little dots to be connected.
TO MAKE A FORTUNE
The following, with listed sources, puts this evidence in an orderly fashion. The underscoring has been added for emphasis.
1. Thomas H. Harbin (alias Thomas Wilson), a hard-nosed Confederate agent who reported to Jefferson Davis, was asked by Dr. Samuel A. Mudd to come up from Virginia to meet with Booth at the old tavern in Bryantown, Charles County, Maryland, The three - Harbin, Booth, and Mudd - met there after church on Sunday, December 18,1864. The purpose was to enlist Harbin in the capture plan. He agreed. His part was to help move a captured Lincoln across the Potomac River and on to Richmond. After the war, when Harbin considered it safe to do so, he returned from England and took a job as a desk clerk at the National Hotel in Washington. Here Harbin was interviewed by the famous war correspondent, George Alfred Townsend (GATH), about this meeting with Booth and Mudd. As reported by Townsend, Harbin thought Booth was very dramatic, very theatrical. In part, Booth told Harbin, "there is not only glory, but profits in the undertaking." And there it was - a promise of money if Booth showed up in Richmond with a captive Lincoln. Townsend published his notes of this Harbin interview on the front page of the Cincinnati Inquirer on April 18, 1892.
2.One day in December, 1864, Booth told his former manager, Matthew Canning, that he was going down into Virginia on a land deal and "would make an immense fortune." For this statement see Canning interview with Capt. John Jack, Assistant Provost Marshal, Philadelphia, April 15, 1865, M-599, reel 5, frames 0049-0057, National Archives. It should be noted that Booth used the cover story in Charles County, Maryland, that he was looking for farmland to buy.
3. On March 30, 1865, James L. McPhail, Maryland Provost Marshal (civilian), received a report from one of his detectives that a man named George Atzerodt of Port Tobacco, Maryland was heard to say that he with others was engaged in an enterprise that would either make them [rich] or get them hung on the spot if detected. McPhail wrote to Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana, on April 15, 1865, saying he now understood the "enterprise" that would either make them rich or hang them. It was a planned strike against Lincoln. See McPhail's letter to Dana, M-619, reel 458, frames 0337-0339, National Archives.
4. Union Colonel John Foster took a statement from John C. Atzerodt, George Atzerodt's brother, on April 18, 1865. Col. Foster quoted John Atzerodt in pertinent part as follows: "I heard my sister say that he [George] had made boasts as to what he was going to do. She would either hear of him being hung or making a good deal of money - a fortune, or something like that." See M-599, reel 3, frames 0557-0567, National Archives. The sister mentioned here was catharine Atzerodt, wife of John L. Smith, a Union detective in Baltimore.
5. Col. Foster later wrote an undated summary of the Atzerodt evidence for use by the prosecution in the upcoming conspiracy trial. In this summary, he put numbers to the fortune George boasted about - $20,000 to $30,000. See M-599, reel 3, frames 0537-0545, National Archives.
6. John Greenawalt, who kept a flea-bag hotel in Washington, the Pennsylvania House, testified at the conspiracy trial on May 17, 1865. George Atzerodt was a sometime guest at his hotel in the spring of 1865. Booth (identified by photograph) frequently called on Atzerodt. At one time, Atzerodt complained to Greenawalt that he was about broke, then went on to say, "I am going away some of these days, but I will return with as much gold as will keep me all of my lifetime." Obviously the talkative Atzerodt was passing along the money promise given to Booth. See Poore, Vol. I, pp. 346-52.
7. The Lincoln collector, Osborn H. Oldroyd, began his walking tour of the Booth-Herold escape route on May 12, 1901. Later that year, Oldroyd recorded his travels and interviews in a little book, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, privately publishing in Washington. One informant in Port Tobacco, Maryland, gave Oldroyd interesting "money" information about david E. Herold and George A. Atzerodt. The pertinent excerpt appears on page 274 of Oldroyd's book:
Herold visited this place three weeks before the assassination, and while in company with some boys said that the next time they heard from him he would be in Spain, and that he would have a barrel of money. He frequently visited this neighborhood, for, being an expert sportsman, he hunted this section over, and had friends and acquaintances in almost every farmhouse. At the last visit that Atzerodt made to his former home he told his companion that if he ever came back to Port Tobacco he would be rich enough to buy the whole place.
Clearly, this loose-lipped pair, Herold and Atzerodt, were expecting to come into money soon - a lot of money. Apparently they were merely recycling the promise of reward made to Booth if he managed to capture Lincoln and deliver him to Richmond.
8. David E. Herold was captured at the Garrett farm in Caroline County, Virginia, on the early morning of April 26, 1865, and brought to Washington. The next day he was questioned aboard the U.S.S. Montauk, which was anchored at the Navy Yard. The account he gave to Special Judge Advocate John A. Bingham was full of misdirections, evasions, and outright lies. The last question Bingham asked was about banks and money. In part, Herold answered this way: "Booth asked me four or five weeks ago if I would like to go into an enterprise to make money." This almost casual response to a question about Booth and money reinforces the account Osborn Oldroyd picked up at Port Tobacco about Herold going to Spain with a barrel of money. For Herold's statement see M-599, reel 4, frames 0422-0485, National Archives.
9. Louis J. Wiechmann, a boarder in the home of Mrs. mary Surratt, worked in the office of the Commissary General of Prisoners. Wiechmann picked up talk around the Surratt House of an enterprise he could join and "make a lot of money." John Wilkes Booth was a frequent visitor there, and he had enlisted John H. Surratt, Jr., in the Lincoln capture plan. One day at the office - probably March 18, 1865, Wiechmann talked about this money-making opportunity to another employee, Gilbert J. Raynor. After Lincoln was shot, this account was traced back to Rayner, who was questioned on April 19. Rayner repeated what Wiechmann had said. He thought the money figure Wiechmann had used was , "twenty or thirty thousand dollars, something like that." For Rayner's statement, see M-599, reel 6, frames 0104-0106, National Archives.
10. In February, 1865, John Wilkes Booth met an old friend, actor Charles Pope, at the Metropolitan Hotel in New York. Booth felt Pope out about joining the Lincoln capture plot. Here is how Pope recalled Booth's words: "When you are through here, take a run down to Washington. I have some enterprise on hand that may interest you ... if you fall in with my ideas, we'll make a fortune." Pope, New York Sun, March 28, 1897. Again, the operative word is "fortune."
11. C. D. Hess, an employee of Grover's Theatre, Washington, talked with Booth a few days before the assassination of Lincoln. Booth spoke mysteriously of needing "a fast horse" and making "a pile." That is, in the understanding of that period, "a pile" means "money," a lot of it. Hess, M-599, reel 4, frame 0381, National Archives.
12. On April 13, 1865, Edward Person, a friend of Booth met him on the street.. In a brief conversation, Booth told Person that, "he had the biggest thing on his hands that ever turned up, and that there was a great deal of money in it." Person, M-599, reel 6, frames 0016-0017, National Archives. Note the day April 13, 1865; was the "biggest thing" at that point capture or assassination?
13. Samuel Knapp Chester, a long-time actor friend of Booth, was living in New York. He was brought to Washington where he was questioned an April 28, 1865, by union Col. John Foster. Booth had several times sought to recruit Chester into the capture scheme, both in person and by mail. In his statement, Chester quoted Booth as saying that his group intended to capture the president and carry him to Richmond and that "parties on the other side" would cooperate. Chester interpreted this to mean the rebel government. Then Booth followed up with the astonishing statement, "there would be money in it after the thing is done." Chester, M-599, reel 4, frames 0143-0170, National Archives.
Chester testified on May 12, 1865, at the conspiracy trial. The testimony was damning and explicit. See Poore, Vol. I, pp. 43-51. Here is how he described Booth's recruiting methods> "He said there was plenty of money in the affair; that if I would do it, I would not want again for as long as I lived; that I would never want for money."
Chester went on to testify that he refused to even consider Booth's efforts to recruit him for the scheme. At one time in January, Chester received a letter from Booth enclosing $50 for expenses to make the trip to Washington. In February, Booth was back in New York, and he again called on Chester, who again refused to have any part in the capture enterprise. Chester put the refusal in these words:
I then returned the money he had sent to me. He said he would not allow me to do so, but he was very short of funds, - so very short, that either himself or some member of the party must go to Richmond to obtain means to carry out their designs.
Short of what? Money. Go where? Richmond. After what? Money.
So the bits and pieces have been assembled, the little dots have been connected. In following "the money trail," we were led to our second conclusion: Booth had been promised a large reward - a fortune - if he captured Lincoln and delivered him to Richmond. Such a promise could only come from a Confederate source Booth trusted.
Where else?
