Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth

After Lincoln's assassination, government officials destroyed most of Booth's personal effects, and many of the 26-year-old actor's correspondents sought to erase any evidence of a connection with him, however innocent. Now Rhodehamel and Taper have pulled together the most extensive record of what remains, more than doubling what had been published previously. Among the longer letters to his family and friends and a newly discovered cache of love letters to a young Boston girl, are many terse businesslike missives (""Tell John to telegraph number and street at once""). What makes all of this work is the editors thorough and astute work. Rhodehamel and Taper have not only found new letters, but, through a useful introduction and extensive notes, put every document into context. The result is an interesting narrative that provides an understanding of Booth and the events that led up to April 14, 1865. The youngest son and brother of famous actors, Booth soon matched their fame, earning the then-princely sum of $20,000 a year. Like other Marylanders, he came to sympathize with the secessionists, feeling that ""this country was formed for the white not for the black man"" and that it was the right of Southern states to withdraw from the ""partnership"" formed in 1787. But he also wanted to be ""of the South... to be loved of the Southern people above all things."" In the final irony, Booth discovered while hiding by the Potomac, that his murder of Lincoln was widely condemned in the Southern papers. ""A country groaned beneath this tyranny and prayed for this end,"" he wrote in the final entry of his pocket diary. ""Now behold the cold hand they extend to me."" Eleven illustrations. (Sept.)