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John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was a popular American stage actor, a member of the famous Booth family. He was also a Southern sympathizer and a proponent of slavery, although he did not join the military service of the Confederate States. He led a conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward, and General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, after the South lost the American Civil War. Booth personally fatally wounded Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC on April 14 (Lincoln died on April 15), but his accomplices failed to kill any of the other targets. Intending to flee to Mexico, Booth bungled his escape path, and was tracked down and killed by soldiers of the United States Army on April 26 in Maryland.
Three men and one woman were hanged as Booth's coconspirators on July 7, 1865, and some others were jailed, although three of them were pardoned in early 1869 after outgoing President Johnson reviewed the evidence against them and found it lacking. Historians still debate how many of the accused were really guilty as charged, and a number of conspiracy theories that widen the net beyond Booth's known associates have also been posited.
Booth is a character in Stephen Sondheim's musical play Assassins (1990).
John Wilkes Booth in "Before the Beginning"[]
"Before the Beginning" Set in the Future | |
Type of Appearance: | Posthumous reference |
Recordings of John Wilkes Booth murdering Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theatre became quite popular with the invention of the time-viewer.
John Wilkes Booth in "The Great White Way"[]
"The Great White Way" by Laura Frankos Set in OTL | |
Type of Appearance: | Direct |
Species: | VR avatar |
Military Branch: | Sondheads |
John Wilkes Booth was one of the leading strongmen in Trina Hutchinson's army of virtual Sondheads during the Sondheim-Webber battle. He had the historical Booth's monomaniacal hatred of President Abraham Lincoln programmed into him. Booth survived the numerous Webberite traps which Brent Birley laid out.

Victor Garber as Booth in the 1990-1991 Off-Broadway production of Assassins.
When Hutchinson, Booth, and their co-belligerents approached the entrance to the Webberites' final treasure trove, they found it guarded by Jesus of Nazareth, who holding Christine's music box. Booth's squad mate Charles Guiteau immediately surrendered to the rock-opera Messiah, singing a hymn of his own composing. Booth was virtually paralyzed - he was programmed for Presidenticide, but Deicide was quite beyond his psychological capabilities.
Hutchinson then turned to George Seurat, who had been put in her army as a joke, to overcome this obstacle. Using only painting tools which the historical Georges Seurat could have had, George painted a life-size portrait of Lincoln (using a $5 bill as reference) in Seurat's pointillist style, which Hutchinson then placed in front of Jesus. Booth, overcome by his historical instinct, shot the presidential phantasm with a bullet that passed straight through it, and fatally wounded the simulated Savior. Booth therefore won the battle for his side, but was horrified at his own sacrilegious act.[1]
John Wilkes Booth in Southern Victory[]
Southern Victory POD: September 10, 1862 | |
Appearance(s): | How Few Remain; Breakthroughs |
Type of Appearance: | Contemporary and posthumous references |
Date of Death: | Unrevealed, after 1882, before 1914 |
John Wilkes Booth (1838-after 1882) was a popular actor during the 19th century. After the War of Secession, Booth toured the United States and Confederate States with his elder brothers, Edwin and Junius. They became very popular in both countries.
On April 22, 1882, the day that the Second Mexican War ended, Samuel Clemens began to prepare an editorial for The San Francisco Morning Call, and discovered he had a case of writer's block. He likened it to an instance of veteran actors like the Booth brothers suddenly struck with stage fright.
By the early 20th century, Booth and his brothers were still remembered as the greatest actors of all time.[2]
See also[]
- References to Historical Figures in Turtledove's Work, for additional minor references.
- Barre, a fictional character based on Booth in The War Between the Provinces: Advance and Retreat.
- Succot brothers, an acting troupe from Atlantis in "The Scarlet Band", apparently analogous to the Booth Brothers.
References[]
- ↑ Analog, September 2000, pgs. 129-132.
- ↑ Breakthroughs, pg. 247 Paperback.
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