Screeria nigeria. Lincolns life. Professor wilson. [applause] professor wilson good morning. See what it says here. My name is douglas wilson. [laughter] im the codirector of the Lincoln Studies Center in illinois. It is my privilege to introduce the first speaker in the 2015 Abraham Lincoln institute symposium. He is a young scholar. He has already earned an array of honors. He was educated at penn state where he took his bachelors degree in two dozen one, and the receipt of maryland where he earned a masters degree in 2003, and a phd in 2008. The department of history maryland awarded him a price in potable history. His doctoral dissertation earned a prestigious prize and thousand 10. He has already authored several books. Including to lincoln titles most recently, emancipation, and the union army and reelection of lincoln. More than two dozen articles have appeared under his name in scholarly journals and Popular History magazines. In 2005, he won the john t hubble prize for the best article in civil war history. His current book project is midnight in america night sleep, and dreams in the civil war. This energetic young historian is currently assistant professor at Christopher Newport university. He is here to speak on lincoln and dreams of death. It is a pleasure to enter his professor jonathan w white. [applause] professor white thanks, doug. Im honored to be here today. Ive sat in the audience here at fords theatre a dozen of times, but this is my first time on the stage. I almost thought i should wait until the end of the introduction and make a dramatic appearance on the stage. I was wondering if maybe i could recline in one of the couches in the box up there for the rest of the symposium. [laughter] i have to say from the outset that i have been coming to the symposium for more than 10 years. It just so happens that my wifes birthday is tomorrow, which means im out of town for her birthday almost every year. Lauren, if youre watching from home happy birthday. I had a but youd gift yet but when im done, i will go out to the book table and ill see if theres something you would like. At about two years ago, i have the idea of writing a history of dreams during the civil war. I have a chapter on lincoln. That is where i will focus moc st of my remarks on today. The civil war place new genes on lincoln and his generation. The dreams reflected the hardships. Sometimes dreams intruded on their slumber, bringing horrors of the conflict to lead to them in their sleep. For others, nighttime was an escape from the wartime. The dreams of civil war americans reveal that generations deepest longings, hopes, and fears. Its desires and shame. When americans recorded their dreams in their diaries, letters, and memoirs they sought to make sense of the changing world around them and cope with the confusion, despair, and loneliness of life among the turmoil of a gigantic civil war. In my research, i found that northerners and southerners dreamt about lincoln during the war. Union officers sometimes dreamt that they met with him to discuss promotions. [laughter] it did not always work out how they hope. Po talked pows jumped about exchanges. My favorite happens to be a confederate civilian stream. On july 7, 1864, one died that h one junk that he died and went to another war. Woman said, is the mayor fritchman appeared . And he replied, you will find him in the other place. He turned around and went to what he described as being a somber looking castle. Above the castle was written the word help. He saw satan and all of these seats on the floor. Some of them were they get they get, others were occupied by lawyers. He sat on one seat, and the devil said no, you cant sit there, that is for the mayor of richmond. He sat in another seat, and he said no that is reserved for the Union General butler. He sat in another seat, and people yelled at him, dont sit in that seat. They said, that is for old abe. He wrote from the stream shaking and shivering, but also saying that he hoped it wasnt a dream. In my last book, i found one new york soldier i exited the included in that book, i will include it in my next one he included this about lincoln, he said lincoln has become at vampire, the nightmare be beneath the nation. There you have it. Before Abraham Lincoln ever became a vampire hunter, he was a vampire himself. [laughter] since the civil war, americans have been fascinated by lincoln streams and prophetic statements. Such as in 1861 at Independence Hall he said he would rather be assassinated in that spot then sacrifice the principles of the declaration of independence. Sometimes lincoln sense of humor came out in his dreams. His private secretary recorded one such stream and his diary. He wrote, lincoln dreams that he is a party of people. As they become familiar with the is, they common on his appearance. One says, he is a common looking man. The president replied in his dream, Common People most of what we know about lincoln stdreams come from secondhand accounts, but there are times when we get accounts from his own hand. He wrote to mary, about a dream that he had about their child. It made him very concerned until you got a letter from mary saying that robert was ok. In june of 1863, lincoln sent a telegram to mary telling her to quote put teds pistol away because he had a ugly dream about him. According to the last dr eam, Richard Brightman fox wrote that they gave one a sense, however murky, of what might come to pass. I think this is a very good assessment of what lincolns view dreams was. One of his most famous trees was depicted in a famous spielberg movie. On april 14, 1865, lincoln said this to his cabinet, i had a strange dream again last night. We shall soon have great news. The secretary of the navy asked him about the nature of this remarkable dream to which lincoln replied, it had to do with his expertise, the water. He described the dream and some in some detail. He was in the wate in a vessel moving towards an indefinite shore. He told the cabinet that he had had this dream before the confederate attack on fort sumter, as well as preceding the battles of bull gettysburg, and the surrender at vicksburg. Lincoln believe the stream for Great Results, hopefully involving shermans army. Title ulysses s general grant pointed out that stones river was no great victory and there were no Great Results that resulted. Sitting at the Cabinet Meeting that morning, secretary wells did not think much about the dream. He remembered it shortly thereafter and wrote it down in his diary. Great evidence did indeed follow , he wrote mournfully. For within a few hours, the good and gentle, as well as truly great man who narrated that dream close forever his earthly career. For witnesses reported on separate occasions. The most secretary of war also told the dream to charles dickens. Dickens in wrote about it to a friend in england. Frederick stewart, the assistant secretary of state, was at the meeting since his father just had a carriage accident, and stewart then recorded it in his memoirs in the early 20th century. Finally, the New York Herald reported the dream in 1865 before any of his cabinet members even wrote it down. By may of 65, the story had been repeated in newspapers as far as san francisco. The dream has fascinated readers, and is even the subject of a childrens book. Another genes in place around the time of his presidency in 1860. While reclining on his couch at his home in springfield, he looked across the room to a mirror. He saw a double image of himself. One image was very lifelike, while the other was ghostly pale. The image disappeared, he looks back, and the double image appeared again. He walked across the room to look at it and couldnt see the double image. This was curious to lincoln. In fact, there were several accounts that said while he was president in the white house, he tried to reproduce this fun almond on and was never able to make a happen. The people who heard this, and the meaning of it, some claims that lincoln thought this meant he would live through his first term in office, but die in his second. The surgery and is the most startling. Lincoln allegedly drunk this a few weeks before his assassination in april 1860 five. At first he kept it a secret until it overwhelmed them. One day in early 1865, according to lincolns friend, he approached a small group of friends at the white house included laman and Mary Todd Lincoln. He was in a melancholy and meditative mood. Finally, very aroused her husband to speak what was on his mind. It seems strange how much there is in the bible about dreams lincoln said. There are i think, 16 chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the new, in which dreams are mentioned. There are many other passages scattered throughout the book that refer divisions. If we believee the bible, we must accept the fact that in the old days, and god and his angels came to people in their sleep and made themselves known in their dreams. Mary lincoln was struck and asked him, do you believe in dreams. . I cant say i do, he replied, but i had one the other night that was haunting. After he had the dream, he open his bible, and he said the pages of genesis he then turned to other passages, each one dealt with dreams or visions. As he was saying this, he was now so seriously disturbed, mary said, you frighten me, whats the matter . Lincoln replied, you should have brought the subject up. Somehow, it has gotten possession of me. According to laman, this only made merry more curious. She strongly urged him to tell the dream. He was hesitant, but decided he would tell the dream. Laman said he did so with his brow overcast. Laman recounted his words as accurately as he remembered them. This is what the gloomy president said. About 10 days ago i retire late. I had been up waiting important dispatches from the front. I couldnt be long in bed when i fell into a slumber, because i was weary. I soon began to dream. They seem to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then, i heard subdued sobs as if the number of people were weeping. I thought i left my bed and went downstairs. There, the silence was broken by more sobbing. The mourners were invisible. I went from room to room, but no one was in sight. It was light in all the rooms. All the objects were familiar to me, but where where all the people who were weeping as if their hearts would break . I was puzzled and alarm. What could be the meaning of all this . There i met with a sickening a surprise. It before me was a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. It around it were soldiers acting as guards. It there was a crowded. It others were weeping pitifully. Who is dead in the white house . The president was his answer. Then it came allowed burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night. It i have been strangely annoyed with it ever since. Mary lincoln responded that the story was horrid and she wished lincoln have not told it. I am glad i dont believe in dreams, she said it. Lincoln responded that it was only a dream. Say no more about it. He continued his telling of the story that the dream was so horrible and real and in keeping with other dreams that mr. Lincoln was profoundly disturbed by it. It lincoln looked grave and visibly pale as he described the vision. There was something about it that was real, true to the actual tragedy which occurred soon after that more than moral strength and wisdom what have been required to let it pass without a shutter or paying it. This is a remarkable story. The drink president dreamed of his own assassination a few days before it happened. Its no wonder that writers like Carl Sandburg of all included in their books. Just last week, i was reading a book. Its a wonderful book about the assassination of james garfield. Robert todd lincoln told the stream to president garfield during the final Cabinet Meeting in 1881, two days before he was assassinated. What irony. You cant get more than that. A historian appropriated it for their own book. Dont buy that book. Wait for mine to come out. It [laughter] is the story true . I think we should be hesitant to take such a fantastical story. It should because for concern. The account was First Published in 1887, 22 years after lincoln died. It appeared in recollections of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1895. Laman claimed that it came from notes made in 1865. Scholars have treated the story with some reservation. David donald said he was highly unreliable in some accounts while a stanford historian claims that more than a little of his quotation of lincoln was invented it. He demolishes lamans credibility of the funeral dream. The timing doesnt make any sense. It there are a few ways that he points this out. Laman lincoln as saying he was waiting for dispatches from the front. Lincoln was at the front from march 24 until april 9. The analysis should have been enough to discredit the story. He did not do you deeply enough into the origins of the stream. I found several versions of the dream that predate lamans telling. The earliest came from a spence pennsylvania newspaper. A more detailed version appears in an unsigned article in a literary magazine called gleasons monthly companion. It was after the dream appeared in this literary magazine the newspapers around the country began circulating it. It the details differ in several ways from lamans account and recollection. The 1880 version has no chronological clues as to when lincoln was supposed to have had the stream compared to laman who said it was an early 1865 before his death area. Lincoln was in conversation with mrs. Lincoln and the children in the 1880 version. It was lincolns son who implored his father to tell the dream and later called dreadful. Robert todd lincoln makes an appearance in the 1880 version of the story. According to the 1880 version, mary lincolns first exclamation after John Wilkes Booth shot her husband was this, his dream was prophetic. The author of the 1880 article that this remark has not been understood. It makes me think that laman could not have written the version since he claimed to be present the telling of the story. He would have known what the dream meant and what mary meant by that statement. No other source has mary saying his dream was prophetic when he was shot. In 1866, mary told herndon that lincoln never dreamt of death. There are other discrepancies, i wont get into them here. The most important is that he is nowhere to be seen in the 1880 version of the story. That piece concludes subsequently the dream was told to many in washington. I have done a digital sirs search of newspapers. I found that the ship on the water dream was reproduced in 1865 and got widespread attention in the months after lincolns death. I found no mention of this funeral dream. If it was the talk around washington, surely without its way into the papers. Two weeks ago, i traveled to the Huntington Library to look at the collection of papers to see if i could find any evidence of the story. I searched to see if there were any notes that laman took. He said he took notes after lincoln said. I found no notes related to this story. I did find plenty of other notes that laman took for other stories. I found no correspondence with the publisher. It was common for laman to communicate with editors. I did find a set of drafts of letters that laman wrote to editors all of the country in 1887 saying i have some great recollections of lincoln and i will sell them for 25 each. He was trying to make a profit off his connection to lincoln. The most interesting evidence, i found a letter in which a correspondent sent a letter to laman about lincoln. Part of this correspondence thanked eight presentiment. The entire letter was about lincoln and it being dated 1882 after the story began circulating in newspapers, laman read the story in the newspaper and called it a counterfeit presentment. It was only later that he realized this was a great story that he can insert himself into. On april 27, laman wrote a letter to the secretary of war saying he met with lincoln on april 13 had not spoken with him for three weeks before that. By his own testimony he could not have heard the story from lincoln a few weeks before the assassination, which is how he rendered thanks 22 years later. Did he give story from lincoln . I dont think so. I think this was a fictional piece written for a newspaper. It was embellished by a literary magazine. I think the dream was another fabrication. I found a newspaper article from the 1940s where some of the todd family claims that Mary Todd Lincoln had the dream for the assassination. Somebody read it and as the story was told over generations it was mary. A number of stories i found like this. I think they are forgeries. I would be happy to tell you about them during the q a. The question is, why are dreams like this included in the most widely read books about lincoln . They are great stories. Americans want to read stories about our greatest leaders. John adams and Thomas Jefferson both tied on july 4 1826, the 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence. That was true, by the way. We are fascinated to know that one of our most revered leaders envision his own assassination just days before it happened. The tragedy is gripping. It confirms our place in history. It seems believable because its in keeping with what we know about lincoln. Stories like these confirm the myths about lincoln that americans long to believe, that he was almost supernatural. The fascination with biographers and their readers with lincolns dreams may say more about lincolns admirers. During the war, he became a symbol of gods hand in the conflict. A woman wrote to Mary Todd Lincoln about a dream she had that she believed had significant meaning. She saw a great storm with terrible thunder and lightning and she said it was as if the heavens and earth were coming together. She saw lincoln standing above the clouds. He was towering over the city of washington with a book in his hand. He was crowned with honors. He looked very smiling. I thought i clapped my hand. I rose from my bed and tend this to paper. A voice from the north has proclaimed the glad morning and slavery has ended and freedom is born, the south is restored. Secession has ended and slavery is over. Think about that. May, 1861 prior to the first battle of the civil war. This woman envisions lincoln as a savior to the nation and liberator to the slaves. She hoped the dream would be a comfort to mrs. Lincoln. This woman was not alone. Illinois republican declared in 1864 that the great man is a special gift from god almighty and if we reject him, we reject god almighty. Lincoln almost universally assumes the status of a martyr. The timing of his death could not be more prescient. He died the following morning after being shot on good friday. From the moment of his death americans began to process the mythmaking about lincoln, making him the most exalted secular american saint. That is the voice of god speaking to the lips of Abraham Lincoln. In 1890, Shelby Cullum praised the great hearted patriot. He continued, never was a nobler man born of woman and never throbbed a purer heart. No man has ever existed on the American Continent superior to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had one immortality when he died with a crown of glory upon his brow. A senator from iowa proclaimed that lincoln had been transfigured since his death. He had become a mysterious personality. An idaho center declared, sacred writers would have placed him among the sears and profits and invested him with hidden powers of the mystic world. Antiquity would have closed a being with the attributes of deity. The white house funeral dream occurred in newspapers frequently. One union that are in said no intelligent man questions the vision that crossed the disk of Abraham Lincolns slumbers. Over time, the mythology surrounding lincoln continued to grow. The hardscrabble beginnings, his selfeducation, his hard work, his adherence to principle. His moral triumphs in freeing the slaves and restoring the union. His premature death on easter weekend. All of these attributes are true. Somehow they have become largerthanlife. The whole has become bigger than the sum of its parts. Lincoln the myth is an important part of americas public memory. It makes sense that his prophetic dreams have such wide appeal. For all that modern science has given us, for as rational as we think we are, we still want to believe that dreams have significance and meeting. Something greater than themselves is superintending their lives and faye is real. Ordinary human beings are capable of extraordinary greatness. Their nation is the best hope on earth. Americans who lived through the civil war recorded and communicated their dreams to one another as a coping mechanism. In a real way, this process helped the civil war generation sustain themselves through a bloody conflict. In the same way, the continued retelling of stories is an essential part of our national identity. The stories are part of who we are. It should come as no prize that the author of the anonymous article closed with a reflection that lincolns dream was one of the most impressive incidents connected with the tragedy which gave our nation its immortal martyr. Imagine that. A fictitious dream, being put forth as one of the most significant incidents of the civil war. It was and it remains so today. It affirms for us the greatness of our greatest leader. Thank you. [applause] there are two mics up front. I am happy to answer any questions you might have read. I believe there is evidence that mary lincoln had seances in the white house. Have you come across if he participated . Did he believe in them or was he just doing it to satisfy his wife . There were seances at the white housee. I dont know the later part of your question. This is something that is often debated about lincoln in terms of what his religious beliefs were or what his beliefs about a cultish things were. Scholars often differ on those matters. I dont know that he wrote anything down about his views of those seances. I have not seen anything. I could not answer definitively. I do know that he did attend. You talk about the myth, to what extent has the myth influenced historians . Thats a big question. I think its inevitable that the myth influences historians. Why do they get interested in lincoln it . You grow up hearing great stories. I think he is our greatest leader. There is a reason why there is a myth. All of those things about him are true in terms of his rise to greatness. I think what good historians do is they look at the evidence and they try to hold themselves to the evidence that is before them. While the myth will influence us, we try to be diligent. Its hard to be more precise. You mentioned other dreams . I will talk about a few of the others. I dont think these are true, although this is just my view. The one i figured out is there was an Auction Catalog that had a manuscript of lincoln writing that he drank tea was being buried alive. It was sold at auction in 1944. There was another one where this one is an invert forgery. We may address the last question. I was reading a book. It was published in 1991. There is a section on dreams. He describes lincoln. On the last night of 1862 after news of the fighting lick and dreamed of corpses on the battlefield in tennessee, then fire in the night and sources test soldiers in the rain. This is a remarkable dream of. There is a battle going on in tennessee hundreds of miles away and lincoln is dreaming about it. There is not a footnote for that story. Later, i was going through Stephen Oates biography. He had written this. That night, lincoln tossed in fitful sleep. He dreamed of corpses on a battlefield in tennessee, guns flashing in the night. Of crowds reading casualty returns at willards hotel. Nobody was cited, i think he took this story from Stephen Oates. The language is almost identical. Both cited Benjamin Thomases biography. Apparitions of dead in belated soldiers lying on the cold ground soaked in winter rain tortured the president s sleep. Benjamin thomas did not have a footnote. I could not trace where he got the story from. I found that he had a tendency to try to put himself into lincolns mind and figure out what was going on. Capture a scene with some artistic license. He admitted to doing this on four occasions. I think this is one of those. What happens . Lincoln issues the emancipation proclamation. He mustve been thinking about the death on the battlefield. He took some license and wrote this story. Stephen oates took it as a dream and the story evolves over time he even went so far as to say this dream allowed lincoln to experience combat in a way that the soldiers did. The myths grow over time. There is one other one. I will just point to one. Lincoln had another bodyguard. William crook wrote two memoirs. In the 1911 memoir he claimed lincoln told him of an assassination dream on the three nights leading up to his assassination. He had this dream three recurring nights. As he was getting ready to come here to fords theatre, he tells crook about these dreams. He pleads with lincoln to let him come to afford with them. Lincoln turns to crook and says, goodbye, crook. Whatever they had departed, lincoln had said good night. It is compelling. We dont know what the dream was. Crook did not write it down. How reliable is this remembrance . We cant know definitively. I went back to 1910. In that memoir, crook does not mention this scary assassination dream that lincoln had three days before his assassination. He only mentions the ship on the water dream. He did not mention that he had heard it from lincoln. I think that he published his first memoir and he had a good story in there about the ship on the water. He thought i can make this an even better story. I think thats what he did. I cant disprove it. My theory is the one to tell his other story. This may be a trivial point my understanding is that while lincoln didnt bring up the story of the ship on the water he did not mention that he had the dream the night before. He had had that dream the night before his final Cabinet Meeting. I discovered the writings of thomas harris. He wrote a book. He served on the tribunal that prosecuted the conspiracy. Can you comment on his actual conversations . Lincoln felt a mark of a heretic had been placed on him with rome recognizing the union. ~ that is beyond my research. Have there been anything on John Wilkes Booths dreams . I dont know. In god we trust on the coins is or any relation between lincolns outlook and those things . When i was in high school i had a two cent piece that said in god we trust on it. It was from 1864. I used to collect coins and then. I river taking that to school and show it to my classmates. It did not come home with me that day. I think i blocked from my memory i dont remember. It wouldve been passed by congress. Lincoln would have signed it. I dont know the motivation. Are you asking if it had a connection to his dreams . 1864, that connection. I would imagine in part that it would be to motivate northerners. I could not imagine that its connected to lincolns dreams at all. You see a development in lincolns views of religion over his life. When he runs for congress, he is accused of being an infidel and an atheist. By 1865, you get this inaugural address filled with biblical allusions. He may have been a mover behind getting that on the point. I just dont know. Is that a question . I thought i was off the hot seat. You talk about how the nation was in, and resorted to dreams for solace. Our nation after 9 11 seemed to resort to conspiracy theories. Can you talk about the psychology of the nation during the civil war and why they were more likely to turn to dreams . I should say, im not a licensed psychologist. I will approach it from a historians perspective. I am looking at sleep and dreams during the civil war. No one has written about sleep during the war. I worry that its because it might make for a snooze of a read it. I will be that my first chapter one put people to sleep. Soldiers wrote about sleep all the time in their letters. I think they did that because that was a way for them to connect with people at home. A soldier who might be hundreds of miles away and weeks from having communicated with a spouse or parent or child they know they were going to bed at the same time and that was a shared periods. Soldiers right to their loved ones and say its january 1 and im going to read two chapters from the bible every night. If you want to read along with me, you can do that. I think that sleep became a powerful way for soldiers and their loved ones to communicate with one another and feel like they were closer than they were. The discussion of dreams grew out of that. Soldiers and civilians loved to communicate their dreams with one another. That was a way for them to encourage one another. Soldiers would say that i dreamt i was with you. Psychologically, that provided a firm connection between people who were hundreds of miles apart. That was the only way they could communicate. I cant speak to today. That is what i see going on during the civil war. You have been waiting. I am a park ranger. We are present in at the garfield site. He wrote that a generation or two before. Thank you. That drugs my memory grid. Did Mary Todd Lincoln have dreams . Were they recorded in any way . How common were seances back then . There was a rise of cultish things. I know how common it wouldve been to have a seance in the white house. In terms of marys dreams, i feel like i should turn to joan on that. I know that mary was concerned about lincolns dreams. I cant speak to her dreams in themselves. Lincoln was traveling in virginia at the front. He had a dream that the white house was on fire. He may have had reason to be concerned. The stable had caught on fire. Mary got very involved in terms of making sure everything was ok. They made sure that everything was ok. She went back to the white house and telegraph lincoln. I cant speak to her dreams. She was involved in listening to his dreams and participating in some way. I can tell you mrs. Davis had a number of dreams about the Jefferson Davis. She dreamt that she kissed him as he was leaving and in 1862 she had a dream where she was giving him a kiss, this time everybody was watching and laughing at them. There might be something psychological going on where she is more selfconscious about her role as first lady. She dreamt that he had his arm cut off. One more question . Last question. I have been live tweeting the talk. I got a question the atwitter. What is the most commonly overlooked part of the assassination . The accomplices . Thats a good tweet. Thats the first tweet ive ever received. [laughter] i believe that to the next speaker. Thank you so much. [applause] presentation the assassination and meaning of the civil war. Now, all of these are find sources. But no one had thought to read exclusively through the diaries people kept, and the letters they wrote, in the pivotal hours, days, and weeks in the wake of lincolns murder. The tweet that came in during Jonathan Weitz talk i believe asked, what has been the most overlooked part . Well, read my book. [laughter] it became clear that personal response to the assassination eliminated the route to a long aftermath. In particular, personal responses to the assassination eliminated irreconcilable visions of the nations future after the civil war, and of the war upon meaning. And yet curiously i found that many personal accounts including those written at the time, portrayed a monolithic nation in mourning. 9 11 again. In the days that follow the attack, it felt like the whole world was morning and in grief mounrrning and in grief. Then, when i was writing mourning lincoln, i dug up photographs that i took on the morning of september 12, 2001. Photographs of the makeshift memorial that mourners had created in new york city. And in those photos, issa evidence of something else. I saw evidence of tension and contention. One sign called for peace, another for peace after payback. Messages calling for how many were defaced for calls to war. In turn, entered for cries with justice for Justice Without revenge. Others warned mortars to distrust the media. Mourners to distrust the media. I had to ask, who exactly comprised the nation at the end of the civil war . After four years of bloody conflict, was the nation once again and all the sudden a single entity . Of course not. And of course not even north or south as section were of one mind. Lincoln posits supporters encompassed black northerners and black southerners, and the majority of white northerners. Lincolns antagonists encompass the vast majority of white settlers southerners. It was precisely this multivocal been of voices that interested me. So in dozens of archives over about five years, i read hundreds and hundreds of personal account. From the spring and summer of 1865. I read union and these are the soldiers responses that Steven Goldman found missing. I read men and women, rich and poor, the known and unknown. In the course of this immersion in diaries and personal writings, i found quite a bit that surprised me. That made clear to me that no matter how majestic and resplendent were the public ceremonies honoring lincoln this end of war moment was not a time of unity and closure. In the cacophony that ensued people that disagreed about the meaning of the war talked past and over one another. The immediate aftermath of lincolns assassination, those hours, days, and weeks, i soon realized were a key moment of intense strife that had been left out of the story. And a moment that resonates into the present day. With Union Victory in confederate defeat that first week of april 1865, everything was at stake. Black freedom had been seized and delivered, but would it last . Peace would soon be declared but coded into her could it endure . Where and how would former slaves live and work, could they become citizens . What kind of nation with the people and their leaders create . Two days after lees surrender president lincoln addressed a crowd at the white house. No one knew at the time that this would be his last speech. Reflecting on the nations reconstruction, lincoln stated that he would prefer his word the Voting Rights be extended to black men who were very intelligence and who serve our cause as soldiers. This cautious suggestion irritated abolitionists heard as one white new england are in her diary, why cant he cut down the whole tree instead of just lopping off the branches. Unsurprisingly, the same suggestion that suffrage be extended to a select group of black men struck lincolns antagonist as entirely too revolutionary. Thats where the young shakespearean actor who stood in a crowd that evening vowed to kill the president. Among his exact words now, by god, ill put him through. When booth fired a single shot in the back of lincolns head three nights later, in the president ial box, it was goodbye. That same evening, one of the conspirators attacked William Seward in his bed at home in washington. Seward lived, while the news of president lincolns death spread to the telegraph wires and across the nation and the world. Now, suddenly, new questions became pressing. What would become of the emancipation proclamation . All of president Andrew Johnson do. What would president Andrew Johnson do . What would happen the next day. Trepidation was particularly acute for africanamericans. Black leaders hesitated criticize the hesitation for emancipation but lincoln had been influenced the conviction of blackandwhite evolutionists evolutionists abolitionists. One boy echoing the fear of grownups around him asked if he would have to be a slave again. I knew when i began my research at the principal responses of mourners would be shocking grief. People were astonished astounded, stupefied. These are all the things they wrote in their diaries and letters. People wrote that word of lincolns death was like a dagger to the heart and a thunderclap from a clear blue sky. It was a dreadful dream, a play on the stage. Today we would say i felt like i was in a movie. It was a joke, a hoax, a lie and in particular for former slaves, it was a falsehood propagated by secessionist whites. One former slaves that even the trees were weeping for lincoln. By the rules of dominant American Culture expressions of grief had to be properly controlled, especially for men. But at this moment, all those rules of decor had lost their power. Clergyman struggled to make it through their servants, some of the their sermons, some unsuccessfully. One parishioner wrote the minister broke down in tears roll down his cheek. Union soldiers were weeping like children. But lincolns mourners were also angry. Very angry. If another battle came to pass, one soldier wrote, there confederate opponents would wish that they had never been born. The men of the famous troops stationed in South Carolina said to another now there is no more piece. Let us turn back, again the lower armistice and exterminate the race they could do such things. For these men, the confederates were not merely enemies, they were distinct race exterminate the race i could do such things. I did find evidence of reprisals in the immediate moment after the assassination. These kinds of expressions of wrath contradicted the proclamation of universal grief made by mourners that everyone everywhere across the whole nation, even the whole world was of one heart and mind. North and south are weeping together, lincoln knew no north, no south, only his country. I found sentiments like that across many personal writings. Of course that wasnt true, not at all. To begin with, if the assassination seen the greatest possible treasury for the union for the confederacy, surrender remained immediate and disastrous. Many confederates reveled in the assassination, blatantly contradiction contradicting visions of north and south united in grief. A young woman wrote about the attacks, thanking god for the first gleam of light in this midnight darkness. The darkness, of course, being surrender. Also in South Carolina, a 17yearold was in the middle of a german lesson when someone interrupted to break the news. Hurrah, she cheered, only lincoln has been assassinated the lesson forgotten, she flew home, her heart beating with excitement. She stop. First at her rantss house, where everyone shouted what do you think of the news . Isnt it splendid . The in a tremor of excitement. These kinds of divergent responses made for violent clashes between white southerners and black southerners. In portsmouth, virginia, for example, a was dangerous to venture out at night, when northerner explained, since the assassination of the president and since the return of sony rebel prisoners. The fact was confederates were angry too. One of my richest discoveries was the diary of an ardent secessionist and lawyer, preserved at the library of congress in washington. Living in the union occupied city of Jacksonville Florida he was thoroughly disgusted with lincolns mourners, and he didnt hold back his private writings. As he looked around and saw black men and soldiers uniforms, quite people begging in the streets and northerners teaching black people to read and write you could not contain his fury. Lincoln and white abolitionists were in his words, ignorant wretches, craven hearted knaves, contemptible pukes and cowards desecrated, prostituted, perverted. When he called them dogs, he apologized to dogs. There were also white northerners who despised lincoln. These were lincolns political opponents, the socalled copperheads. The archive preserves their words and actions also. A wealthy woman wrote it for irish immigrants, they hate lincoln for emancipating the negro fearing they will employ them and reduce their wages. Nor did all lincolns Union Soldiers love the president. To the dismay of their comrades some laughed and clapped when they heard the news area these actions in the words that accompany them are preserved in the National Archives in Court Martial records. When word arrived among new regiment in origin in oregon, one that announced im glad the old site of a sort of a son of a bitch is dead. Meanwhile, lincolns mourners went to church on Easter Sunday april 16, and the crowds were unprecedented. From california to kansas to washington after new england black churches and white churches were jammed with worshipers eager to make sense of what felt incomprehensible. Listening as their ministers tried to explain the assassination as part of gods divine plan for the nations future. Confederates were also sure that the assassination was gods will. One wrote the whole thing to money his band of selfsatisfied northern villains and hypocrites should tremble and repent. And lincolns mourners did tremble. Many took comfort in their ministers explanations, but i was most interested in those who wrestled with their faith, who wrestled with god in the face of such unprecedented calamity. I cannot reconcile myself, one soldier admitted, stumped as to why the almighty would take away the great Abraham Lincoln just at the moment of Union Victory. I cannot believe it was for the best, he wrote. Lincolns death was such an incredible atrocity, wrote a great woman a quaker woman that she wondered that love and mercy still waiting reigned in heaven while unprovoked wickedness walks the earth. I was interested to figure out who lincolns mourners blamed. Reconciliation to the will of god did not leave them guilty from facing the will of justice. Nearly all wanted John Wilkes Booth prosecutor for his crimes. Most pointed to confederate leadership as the culprit, and many place the blame squarely on the institution of slavery. At 7 00 in the morning on april 16, a german immigrant from new york city wrote it is slavery slavery he capitalize the word. Lincoln had been sacrificed to slavery. Taken by an agent of that accursed system of slavery and states rights, killed by all the hate, wickedness, and guilt of slavery. At the same time, reading through so many diaries and letters, i realized that in order to understand personal and political responses to lincolns assassination, i had to grapple with the persistence of everyday life in the face of catastrophe. This is one of the places where personal responses differ the most from public sources. I think the first time this struck me was when i read the diary of a nineyearold away from new jersey. Who wrote that school had let out early on the day of the president s funeral, then added in the afternoon, i played ball. Mourners indulged in the idea that lincolns assassination had stopped the world. As a boston minister put it, all things stood still when the president was killed. But reading through diaries and letters, they realize that just the opposite was true. Instead of everyday life coming to a halt, everyday life intruded into this cataclysmic events. I was surprised at just how much ink people devoted to daily trivia alongside the reactions to the assassination. Take the diary of emily davis, an africanamerican servant and student, alongside recording her grief and her multiple attempts to the views of to view the president s body, davis also recorded visits with female friends, a sore throat, and whether or not her suitor had come by. That attention to daily life didnt diminish the meaning of emily daviss tribute to lincoln. We also know from the diary that her two brothers have fought in the war. She attended a jubilee celebration for the emancipation proclamation, and listened to a lecture by friendly Frederick Douglass months earlier. This diary and other personal writings made clear that mourners turned to matters of everyday life without apology or compunction for measure of consolation. A rare selfconscious immersion in everyday life as a form of consolation. From ohio, and man wrote to his friend in pennsylvania. Henry was getting married and frank would not be able to attend the wedding. Henry has his francais his fiancee had long set the date for april, which turned out to be the date of president against funeral. President lincolns funeral. I will shut my eyes to all tokens of mourning and close my years to all sorrowful tonings. And here only joy bells because it is your wedding day. Frank tried to stay on the happy topic, but pleaded that it had been ghastly to be replenished from the heights of joy following Union Victory to the depths of sorrow by the horrible murder. Now, frank confessed, he was glad for the distraction of henrys wedding. I have not felt like myself since the assassination and im thankful from time away from it. To that end, frank asked henry to tell him all about the wedding, whether you behaved yourself or not, and how many mistakes you made in the service. Frank also wanted to know the most details, asking about his new domestic life, including how your rooms look and what you can see from their window. Mourners like these immerse themselves in the everyday as diversion from grief, but also for another purpose. As a means to embrace the way forward after Union Victory. To face the future approved much more difficult for defeated confederates. Most especially for former slaveholders. When a white mississippi woman wrote that all our morning and their hearts are crushed president lincoln is nowhere in her thoughts. She estimated she had lost 65,000 worth of human chattel. Or as a white man in tennessee wrote with aching hearts, we mourn for many days in the weeks, months, and years to come. In the ideal vision of lincolns mourners, the world come to a standstill, time suspended in order to allow proper grieving before turning to the unions glorious future. Lincolns enemies, on the other hand didnt so much wish to stop time as they wished to reverse time, taking them back to the antebellum south. All of these responses to the assassination all were tied deeply to the visions of the nations future and particularly to clashing and irreconcilable vision of the nations future. With Union Victory, African Americans and their white allies looks forward to equality education, land, citizenship Voting Rights for black men all with the guarantee of federal enforcement. Former confederates for their part looked forward to the reestablishment of their own Political Rights with no federal interference. Nor, i discovered, have the nations first president ial assassinations subdued the vanquished confederates. On the day of lincolns grand funeral in washington, a young southern woman contemplated a second war for independence precisely what the civil war had been for African Americans since the revolution had excluded them from its principles of freedom. A southern lawyer likewise wrote the south will rise again. Best of lincolns more radical mourners come to believe there are soon after his death that god had permitted lincolns demise for a specific political reason. That is in order to alert the victors of the intransigence of their defeated enemies. As one minister put it, without the assassination, the antislavery forces might not have insisted, might not have realized the need for radical policies like lack suffrage in the effort the aftermath of Union Victory. Very rapidly, president Andrew Johnson made apparent his complete dismissal of calls for black equality. Then i found africanamericans just as rapidly reached for lincoln. Black petitioners told president johnson that he was replacing a man who had proved himself indeed our friend. Reminding johnson of the liberty brought to us and our wives in our little ones by your noble predecessor. Africanamericans and their white allies now held lincolns visions as a model for radical future of freedom and equality. They look to the emancipation proclamation of course, and they looked to lincolns last speech, despite the president s quite modest proposal that only very intelligent black men and black soldiers should be granted the vote. But lincolns more radical mourners also looked to a speech that had already become famous. The second inaugural address the lincoln delivered six weeks before he was assassinated. They are, lincoln had declared that the war the battlefield would last until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword. The war he meant would not end until slavery ended. Lincoln close that address with the appeal, and richard fox had us speak these words this morning these words were already famous when he was assassinated. Malice towards none, charity for all. Lincoln exhorted his listeners to strive on, to finish the work we are in, and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace. Many of the time thought they knew what lincoln meant, and many today come above historians and not historians understand these words in the same way. As the union army approached triumph, it seemed lincoln wanted the congress to treat their vanquished confederate enemies with mercy. But after researching morning lincoln, mourning lincoln, African Americans interpreted malice towards none, Charity Towards all, to apply not to former confederates but just the opposite. To apply to themselves, to former slaves, to africanamericans in their quest for freedom and equality. Thats why lincolns black mourners inscribed those words on the banner they carried to the Nations Capital on the fourth of july, 1865. With lincolns imperative of a just and lasting peace in mind frederick doubtless Frederick Douglass told his supporters that Permanent Peace could not be accomplished without justice. Today we would say no justice no peace. Justice in 1850 five required going beyond legal freedom to encompass Voting Rights. Slavery, douglass believed, is not abolished until the black man has the balance. That is what lincoln meant too, parent in his calls a parent in his calls. Or at least that was the case made by africanamerican victors turned mourners, when they look to the spirit of the martyred president to realize their visions of freedom and equality. Thats why Frederick Douglas concluded that his words to the colored people lincolns death was an unspeakable calamity. The assassination had opened the eyes of these radicals, both black and white, to the necessity of revolutionary policies following confederate defeat on the battlefield. Because defeated confederates who held political power could still win the war off the battlefield. Two years later, when the radical republicans in congress overrode the policies of president johnson to implement their program of radical reconstruction, lincolns mourners were not avenging lincolns death. Instead, as they made clear after the assassination, they wanted to avenge secession and war, and the cause of the war. Slavery. Which they also understood to be the root cause of lincolns assassination. Of course, that stunning moment of black equality and democracy known as radical reconstruction was accompanied by the birth of the good looks glam. By the end of reconstruct the ku klux klan. Him him as a read through confederate diaries, i found sentiments of white southerners from later decades. In 1905, confederate veteran John Johnston was leaving to his civil war diary when he came across an entry from april 1865 in which he had prayed to god that the rumors of lincolns assassination were true. 40 years later, johnston added a note on that same page this was a sincere prayer he wrote, that included lincolns death. By the turn of a new century, it seems clear that the shot John Wilkes Booth and fired here at fords theatre on april 14 1865 was the first shot in the war the came after appomattox, a war on black freedom and equality. And so my last point. We cannot know what happened had lincoln lived. We do know that the slain president s martyrdom permitted black americans and their white allies to invoke his name in the quest for equality. In 2015, the 150th anniversary of lincolns assassination, we know also that this quest is not yet resolved. The meaning of the civil war not yet resolved. Which is why we turned with such intense interest to the legacies of president Abraham Lincoln. Thank you. [applause] martha questions, thoughts reflections . You mentioned there was a fear, that the emancipation proclamation namely the 13th of and with the go away, even though it january of 1865. Martha what i found especially in the sentiments of africanamericans at the moment that moment of crisis of the assassination, often the documents i have for these are northern teachers who are teaching free people in the south, and wrote letters to the american missionary association, which had sent them, describing the scene in their classrooms. That is where children and grownups alike expressed that fear. But thats not the only place. Editors of African American newspapers in the north also expressed great termination trepidation that freedom was endangered, even if legal freedom seemed like it was about to happen. Freedom for africanamericans meant more than just the absence of slavery. Thats what people were talking about, more than literal reenslavement. It meant inequality, and met citizenship, it meant Voting Rights for the men, it meant education, immense land. Thats what people were afraid of. It meant land. Thats what people were afraid of. Thank you. Do have some thoughts about what draws us here to fords in the same context as to what draws the crowds to the world trade site in new york as a way to mourn that kind of incident . Martha i do have some idea. I think part of it comes from the sources i read while researching morning mourtning lincoln, people in 1865 made pilgrimages here to washington. Fords theater was close in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. The people would come to washington and right in their diaries i walked around the theater, i walked out and saw the alley where John Wilkes Booth escaped, and there is one wonderful diary of a boston woman who comes down for the great commemorative event of the army is in early may and she comes to fords theater and then goes across the street to Peterson House which is open for business and writes in her diary how she went to the room where lincoln had died, the back room, the bloody pillow was still they are, and she explains why she wanted to go there. She says i needed to see this because it was an historical fact, but also she said because it makes it so vivid. I think part of the visits to the world trade center, the popularity of fords theater making such a cataclysmic event seem real, even standing here today in this theater, sitting in the audience, looking up at that box, i felt something i hadnt felt before. Although i have been to fords theatre, i havent been part of an audience before. Theres a sense of this happened in this place. Right here, even though the theater has been reconstructed its very realistic area there is a sense of making something that seems so impossible to imagine, a way in which it makes it true, in which it makes it go from unbelievable too believable. Thank you. I directed national present reform organization, and i have been surprised at the lack of research that has gone into the exception clause in the 13th amendment, where we still have slavery within our prison system. We now have 2. 3 Million People in prison, we have 25 of the worlds prisoners and only 5 of the worlds population. I thought there would be some connection in regards we still have slavery within our constitution. We just have in regard to prisoners. I was looking maybe even today to find it some connection, the amendment actually became effective in 1965, december 18. We are looking at 150 years of its anniversary, maybe there should be a move to remove all slavery maybe that the unfinished work. Martha thank you for that comment. You are quite right that prisoners are not able to vote in this country. Your slaves. They are slaves. Martha i would say their activists on this issue, one of them is an historian, i cant remember her name. She is a temple university. Shes a scholar of prisons and a scholar of the history of prisons, and she is very active in this movement to allow prisoners to vote. Im talking about removing the exception clause, which is a constitutional amendment prisoners are considered slaves in our constitution. Presently. Martha lets have them next speaker. Thank you for the comments. I appreciate the confederate people who were celebrating they reminisce and dyers of reseller rating. But the assessment that i have always believed, and of course there was lincoln wanting to be very merciful and in reconstruction a significant part of his own party wanted to be vengeful after the assassination, they were more determined to be vengeful in reconstruction policy. What confederate diary writings, observations have you found about people who were horrified by what booth did that said hey, were looking towards the future, this is doomed us to a lot of northern retribution is going to make it very difficult the next few years as we try to get on with our lives and rebuild our economy and go on to another way of life. Martha i actually disagree with that very common reading that lincolns assassination further the retribution of northerners during reconstruction. If you read, as i have done, all of the sources, so many sources right at the moment of the assassination, people are very clear that its secession, war, and slavery that they are avenging. But let me speak to your very interesting last point. What is so fascinating about Abraham Lincoln, one of the reasons we are here today, is that once lincoln was assassinated, there were two groups of people who said that lincoln was their best friend. The first were the free africanamericans, free and former slaves. The second, despite the fact the confederates were gleeful in their personal writings, they were also very worried. I thought when i started my research that lincoln is the best friend of the confederates was a later development, maybe a lost cause Development Something you see in the film birth of a nation. That day, confederates were writing in their diaries, now is what now what is going to happen . Like it was her best friend. Lincoln was our best friend. They were glad from the moment of reprieve from the terrible moment of surrender, they were also very worried. Confederates were very clear that they wanted booth alone to be blamed for the assassination. In other words, Union Supporters were saying it was the spirit of the confederacy that did this, slavery with the did this. You see people saying two things , this is fascinating. Everything is a conservation. The first thing they say is booth is our hero, we welcome them to the south and protect him. The second thing they say is he was a lone madman, and he does not represent the sentiments of the confederacy. You are quite right that there were many confederates who were looking forward. There were also many confederates who, at the same time as they were intransigent also knew they needed to move forward. It was a very competent at time of the confederacy, as it would be in any defeated population. I have and live tweeting this talk and we have a couple of questions that have come in via twitter. One of them is how did your research for your book Impact Review on the assassination your view on the assassination . Martha ive been teaching the civil war for 25 years. I had a soft description of the assassination that i gave. I did imagine a nation in mourning in the way that i recalled 9 11 is the world in grief and shock. When i started to do all this research and i saw these manifold responses, not just between union and confederate, but within the north as well, it became a much more complicated complex event. When i look back at my 9 11 photographs, i saw the same thing. The best answer is my view became more nuanced, complex, and hard to understand. Thats the job of historians, to try to make things harder to understand because life is compensated and confusing. That will make for a perfect wheat. Tweet. The other question is where their top Conspiracy Theory is that you read . Martha interesting. There were conspiracy theories at the time of the assassination. The judge, joseph hold, and was prosecuting conspirators tried with all his might alter the trial to convicts members of the confederacy and the confederate leadership but was unsuccessful. As soon as the assassination that happened, lincolns mourners did right in their diaries that they were quite sure that the confederate leadership was involved. And often mourners would write out long list of names and their positions, the obvious ones were Jefferson Davis and robert e lee, but they would write out long list of cabinet members and confederate diplomats, quite sure that it had been more than booth, and that was part of their belief that whether or not these men were responsible, the spirit of booth, that was i believe douglass phrase, had assassinated the president. Thank you. We have had four president ial assassinations. We hear a lot about this one almost as much about kennedys. And very little about the other two. This may be offtopic, it may not be your area of expertise but you have any idea, with a were they considered cataclysmic in their time . When we hear so little about those . Martha with garfield and mckinley, the first reason that scholars tend to give is that lincoln and kennedy died immediately or almost immediately, where is and mckinley did not. But what i found so interesting i will speak for my own Research Experience some of the diaries i worked with i followed through up to later moments. You will see fewer the book that there is an abolitionist couple along with the rabid diehard rebels, i follow this couple up through reconstruction through the end of their lives. The woman keeps a diary and when garfields assassinated in 1981, im not sure i can explain this, she is devastated, utterly devastated. She writes about it in the same way she wrote about lincoln although minus the politics of slavery and civil war. But she does not even mention Abraham Lincoln. Someone you will see, if you read the book, i followed her through the whole story because she wrote so much about lincoln. There is a sense of at the immediate moment, i think garfield and mckinley were devastating events, but they didnt have the legacies that lincoln and kennedy had, partly because they were not although garfield was a very good president , they were not understood to be the kind of great statesman that lincoln and kennedy were understood to be. Thank you. Talking about peoples feelings, i just wonder if you can tell 150 years ago about lincolns assassination, we said 100 years later, we had the kennedy assassination and how people feel and also how they address the issues because the cause of the assassination may be freedom and justice and peace, could you give us a little bit related issues in the way how people feel . Why to the sfa this person did they assassinate this person . Why jfk is still . Martha i think kennedys assassination is still a trend is event. The peoples lives and in terms of commemorations and centennials. I do think whats so fascinating about thinking about kennedy and lincoln and the two assassinations was the difference in the world when the two took place. The first difference is civil war versus no civil war. Thats enormous. The other is more immediate and personal. When people got word of lincolns assassination, the first thing they did was left their houses, because they needed to look into peoples faces, they needed to see confirmation of this event by seeing other people crying weeping, sad. They went outside. Kennedys assassination, i was very young, but i do river this and ive spoken to other people about it. Maybe people in the audience member. What people did when they were out on the street was they gathered around Appliance Stores with Television Sets in the window. In those days, not every household in a television. Even if you did, you wanted to go outside to confirm this is happened that this had happened. You sit around watching television together so you can all confirm this event. 9 11 was prefacebook and tweeting, but 9 11 was about cell phones. You could get your cell phone and called someone to see what was happening. I also think that the persistence of everyday life is something that was true for both events during for example, asked my father what were you doing when you heard the news of kennedys assassination. He was in new york city in an Auto Parts Store buying parts for his ford. The guy behind the counter heard the news on the radio and brought the radio out front so the customers could hear. Everyone was devastated, but everyone finish their purchases and then went on to respond. Maybe thats not exactly what you asked, but i think perhaps scholars of kennedys assassination can speak more directly to your points. I do think the kennedy and that assassination are enormous historical events that have gotten a great deal and continue to get a great deal of attention. Thank you. [applause] on the night of april 11 1855, a large crowd gathered outside of the north portico of the white house come of it come the president speak, and now with the war although one, is with the words northerners most wanted to hear and southerners most needed to hear. He spoke of black Voting Rights he spoke of reconciliation tolerance, and moderation towards fallen foes. It was not the best speech he had ever made, far from it. It stated outright that it fell dead with out effect on the audience. But given the time to make ease of his words, it might have been more far reaching. Tragically, he was not to be granted that time. As has been noted, there was one in the audience that night he would use lincolns words as the catalyst for one of the most heinous and disruptive acts destructive acts in our nations history. From childhood we are taught that to know John Wilkes Booth is to hate him. He is universally vilified, dismissed as a madman, demonized as the embodiment of consummate evil. And yet few of us know very much about him other than the fact that he is a handsome and popular member of the nations leading thespian family until he jumped the track. His own brother described him as a goodhearted, harmless, the wild readable way. Though wild brained boy. What has been lacking is a complete defensible and highly readable biography of booth until now. After spending a quarter century in the most painstaking research dr. Terry alford has written fortunes fool, a book that i believe along defined subject will longer to find the subject for scholar and layman alike. The story was shot as a documentary by pbs, attracting more than 3 million viewers. Dr. Alford has appeared on such terms as 20 20, but it is as a teacher that he shines the brightest. Since 1872, dr. Alford has been at a community college. He was one of only a handful of teachers to receive the outstanding faculty awards. The highest honor bestowed upon educators by the commonwealth of virginia. Here are just a few of the online comments by nearly 300 of his former students. If you dont like this guy, you have to be a more on. A moron. [laughter] quote he is the best professor ive ever had. I mean, the guy wrote his own book. Quote i hate history. All caps five exclamation points. You made it so interesting. Who would have guessed history could be fun . Quote god of history. Im impressed. Quote this class is really helpful and it liked it so much. No papers, no homework, no stress. The final paper is so easy. I got a low grade in this class. [laughter] but i believe you will do a really good job. Quote the funniest old guy i have ever met. [laughter] i had such a good time finding these. Quote ah, as you can see there is over like what, 200 comments on this prof. He is so normal. He makes to when you pinches the wants to make you pinches cheeks. This man is as close to god as is humanly possible. [laughter] alford was awesome. I had him fall semester and failed his class. Not because he was bad, but because i did not come to class. Dont expect to fail. That was just me being stupid. Hes cool. [laughter] quotes alfred manages to be wetyourpants funny at 8 00 a. M. In the morning. It is as if you are watching a movie, but it is him just reading the tapestry of american history. And finally, my favorite stop reading these reviews and sign up for his class before all the seats are taken. Please welcome my friend and fellow board member, dr. Terry alford. [applause] professor alford thank you for this great invitation. It is great to see such a large audience. He got invited to read his poems at 7 00 friday night at the community center. He was delighted and showed up at 6 30. No one was there. 6 45 tone was there. 7 00, no one was there, not even the person who invited him. [laughter] so, you know, finally at 7 051 person walked in, but they sat all the way back in this immense room. Our good poet was mortified. He thought about leaving but thought i cannot leave this one person here. The poet got up and said, i think i will get started. One of you come down front tier . The men backs it, no, the man in the back said, no, i i will sit here, i have to slip out a little early. [laughter] glad to see such a great crowd. My biography of booth got started a few years ago when i was teaching a class on great crimes. Each weeks we would take a great crime, the kennedy assassination, the lincoln assassination and the lincoln assassination was the favorite of the students. I dont know if it was because were close to fords, but the next thing i knew that had been expanded into an entire semester on the lincoln assassination and i would assign students find everything out you can find about booth, mrs. A rat mrs. Surrat, and they would report on what they would find out. Our final exam would be a trial. We would put every one of these people, even lincoln on the stand, to explain what he had been up to. It was at the end of the Spring Semester when i was getting ready for commencement so i had my academic gown. I would put my down on like judge dredd. In the process i met a wonderful friends of mine, james hall. I dedicate this to james hall for all the encouragement. He loved coming to class. You take me on the escape route as we would follow booths path. Mr. Hall could not go on the home of dr. Mudd. That is because he had been hard on dr. Mudd in his writing. The mudds did not want them coming in. I said mr. Hall, weight, you meet booth wait, you mean booth could go in but you cant . He would hang out in the cars when we win it. Mrs. Erhardt, one of mudds granddaughters was very gracious. Finally, she pulled me aside and said is that Jame Otis Hall out there . She used his middle name, so i knew he was trouble. I said, your eyes are better than mine, i dont see anyone out there. God bless those people. I will say for the mudd children , if i get in trouble i want grandchildren like that. The booth story begins in 1821 when a young couple arrives from london and they settle in an area north of baltimore. I think everyone knows 95 going up towards wilmington, philadelphia. 30 miles up that way you come to bel air, maryland. Often the country, the booth family built a cabin, a log house, and at 1851 they built a more substantial home known as tudor hall. He would spend most of his time there. Also at a townhouse in baltimore. The townhouse is gone no. It is not there, but it was east of the citys commercial core. It was a substantial middleclass neighborhood. Im sure some of us know the father, Julius Williams booth. Maybe during the Henry Jackson era, the great actor of the 1820s and 1830s. When he was on, he was a successful actor. When he was off, he was very challenging. He could insult audiences, walk out on them, or simply sometimes refuse to show up. I think alcohol was the main thing in his life, but there seemed to be organic problems there ,too. Was very challenging as a parent. Maybe i do that, maybe i didnt, but as i got further into it i realized this is a really difficult dad. He could be violent with the kids. He is not a violent person 24 7 because he had great periods too, but he could be physically bad. And then he would punish his kids with silence. Everyone in here has dealt with someone who would just shut up and clam up and freeze you out. That was intimidating for his kids because he had actor eyes that could bore a hole in you. That shutting was another method you use. Thank goodness that the mother, marion holmes, was a very good counterweight. She was loving open, tried to be cheerful. Very good as a parent, very indulgent as a parent. I think what happened with her is that her hands were so full with her husband and her big brood of kids that as long as they were content, she was content. Every parent knows that feeling. If it is good enough, leave it alone, right . She got through. Never able to change her husband. How can you change a person like that . You tidy up after them. John and his siblings were taught to regard their father was with sympathy when he had these fits. John wilkes booth had three brothers. I reminded of the minister who preached a funeral sermon. After the eulogy, he said is there anyone who would like to say anything about the departed . Someone in the congregation said his brother was even worse. [laughter] i dont think John Wilkes Booth s brothers are going to be hearing that. Two were actors, one was not. One was the famous edwin booth. He had two older sisters. He was closest to the oldest sister. Her name was rosalie. We know less about her than the other siblings. She was a sympathetic person, an unbeautified saint. He followed her around like a puppy. When you write a book, you have to do two things. You have to find new things, new materials, or come up with fresh interpretations of old things. I believe i was able to do a little bit of both. One person that lived at tudor hall longer than the booze was ella mahoney. She died there in the 1940s. Shes been 60 years in and around the booth house. One of the things that happened to mrs. Mahoney is that in the 1930s, Stanley Kimmel showed up. He would go on to write a book titled the mad booths of maryland. Im not sure if kimmel was not upfront with mrs. Mahoney or whether she was too elderly to appreciate the signs. She had a book in mind herself. She was greatly upset when he published his book and she resented the title. It was fortunate that she had met a young woman named helen kofi who had come to visit at tutor hall. She and helen began to work together. They did a bit of work on a manuscript. It was titled the house that booth built. Then world war ii came along. Helen got married. They moved. Mrs. Mahoney got ill. Then she passed away. Helen disappeared. For years, it was not known where all the research helen had done, the writing, the trask of things they had done together was. When i came on the research scene years ago, there was a outline of the book but none of the manuscripts. I made a mission to see if i could not find what happened to that stuff. I did not know if helen was alive because if she was, she would be quite elderly herself by that time. She had kind of disappeared from the bel air neighborhood in the 1940s. I was reluctant to call them aboard drop them a line. One day, there she was. She had great memories of mrs. Mahoney. Very fond of mrs. Mahoney. Brought out boxes of work they had done together. The mother lode. Literally boxes. Just handed it over to me. There was the lost manuscript, the lost house manuscript which was wonderful. I was able to use it. I hope to some good effect in the book. John wilkes booths childhood, i drew a little bit from there. One of the disturbing things from his childhood was cruelty to cats. I had read this in a source and thought, well, it was just one sentence. I dont know if i believe this or not. And then i found a really indepth second account from someone who was an absolute associate and comrade of his. He was abusive to cats and cruel to them. This must have been when he was 12 or 13 years old. Oddly enough, and of course everyone in here knows that can be a bad sign, right . I mentioned john locke, the philosopher, and a comment he made back in the 17th century about this and what it might tell you about a personality. Oddly enough, it is a complication with booth. He was notably kind to other animals. He was very fond of dogs. He went out of his way to avoid injuring Lightning Bugs and butterflies. His sister had an insect collection and she was about to skewer a katie did one time and he rescued the bug and put it in a tree. Booth like horses better than he did most people. I remember an incident when he was in his 20s. He sighed teamster beating a horse who could not point heavy wagon out of a model pull a heavy wagon out of a mud hole and booth jumped up, grabbed the whipe, punched the guy, and said lets see i you like being it. That is a complicated aspect to his personality. He enjoyed doing theatricals. He and his brother were doing william tell and he was supposed to shoot an apple off of his head. The apple was on the head of a kidney Martin Koerner who was yeah. [laughter] 12yearold John Wilkes Booth is aiming an arrow at you. He was trembling but that went successfully. Childhood of the ethics fun for everyone