Remember writing your first college term paper?
Depending on when you were in school, you browsed the library shelves or
Googled the Internet. Your title was something profound, like “Avian
Images in Poe’s The Raven,” and, to your surprise, you were not the first to think of
such a theme. In fact, after dutifully scribbling 85 notecards, with no end
in sight, you started to have a sinking feeling in the pit of your pendulum
that there was absolutely nothing original to say on this ponderous, weary topic. Picking up American Brutus by Michael
Kauffman, I wondered whether he, too, had felt such trepidation about
choosing as his subject the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A friend told that me he didn’t care to read
Kaufmann’s book because he already knew what happened at the end.
Such are the risks an author takes when approaching a piece of history that
hundreds of others have put their pens to. The Brutus of the title is, of
course, John Wilkes Booth. To unravel the workings of this sinister mind,
scholars must first untangle the myths and legends that surround it.
Exhaustive research aside, Kaufmann, an independent scholar and historian,
knows how to tell a story. Good writers have many tricks in their bags, and
he pulls out several with élan.
He begins by starting at the end, painting the most
dramatic scene. It is April 14, 1865. President and Mrs. Lincoln are going
to Ford’s Theatre this night and have invited Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses
S. Grant to join them. It is Good Friday, and ticket sales are not expected
to be brisk, but when word of the president’s plan circulates, the
house begins to sell. Booth doesn’t need a ticket; he is a well-known
actor, and his face is familiar to the staff. No one notices as he snakes
his way through the darkened theater to give the performance of his life. A
few pages later, the reader is kneeling at Lincoln’s deathbed, and
the stage has been set. We have a villain, and we can’t wait to learn
what makes him tick.
Kaufmann’s description of the pandemonium that
befell the theater and the city of Washington after the assassination
strongly echoes the reaction to the 2001 terrorist attacks. The citizenry
reeled with a combination of shock, disbelief, grief, and fear. Booth,
known both for his acting career and as a Rebel sympathizer, was instantly
recognized. So when Secretary of State William H. Seward, a Republican and
abolitionist hated in the South, was viciously attacked in his home only
minutes later, the idea of a Confederate conspiracy gained momentum. Gen.
Robert E. Lee had just surrendered, and some had decided to apply guerrilla
tactics to this “civil” war. Many Confederate-leaning
newspapers had openly called for Lincoln’s assassination.
Conspiracy theories have become part and parcel of
presidential assassinations. No one has ever proved that Booth conspired
with the likes of Jefferson Davis. He chose instead as allies those whom he
could easily manipulate. Kaufmann shows a certain amount of pity for
Booth’s co-conspirators, but there are no apologies for the actor at
center stage, who comes across as arrogant and egomaniacal. Though he may
have chosen the Ides of April for his plan, his act was no heroic defeat of
tyrants. It was simply the act of a man desperate for glory. In his diary
Booth wrote that he was God’s instrument; in fact, he was the tool of
his own delusions. Even his beloved South rebuked him, fearing the severe
consequences his act would bring to their hopes for reconstruction.
Kaufmann succeeds throughout the book in making the
story new again. Perhaps the best example is his description of
Booth’s flight to Maryland. Our knowledge that the assassin was
hunted down and killed does not diminish the suspense leading to these
events. Nor does knowing that the other conspirators will be hanged
diminish our curiosity about the details of their trial. That the
defendants were tried in a military court is another eerie echo of today.
The country in time of war was a place where civil liberties suffered.
It is easy to be blasé about our 16th
president, especially here in Springfield, where his name is affixed to
practically everything. American Brutus serves as an excellent reminder of how much we owe the man
who sacrificed his life to save our Union.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2005.
