The life, crime, and capture of John Wilkes Booth,: with a full sketch of the conspiracy of which he was the leader, and the pursuit, trial and execution of his accomplices./ By George Alfred Townsend.

42 2le Lije, Crime, and Captre of ohn Wilkes Booth.
ate authorities. The most that can be urged to meet prepoaterous claims
of this sort is, that out of the rebellion grew the murder; which is like
attributing the measles to the creation of man, But Mlebonald and his
party had money at discretion, and under their control the vilest fellows
on tne continent. Their personal influence over those errant ones amount ed to omnipotence. Most of the latter were young and sanguine people,
like Beale an.d Booth; their plots were made up at St. Catharine's, Toronto,
Lnd Montre 1, and they have maintained since the war began, rebel mail
routes between Canada and Richmond, leading directly passed Washington.
If Booth received no positive instructions, he was at any rate adjudged
a man likely to be of use, and therefore introduced to the rebel agencies
in and around Washington. Doubtless by direct letter, or verbal instruce.
tion, he received a password to the house of Mrs. Surratt.
Half applauded, half rebuffed by the rebel. agents in Canada, Booth's
impressions of.his visit were just those which would whet him soonest for
the tragedy. His vanity had been fed by the assurance that success depended upon' himself alone, and that as he had the resp(o.sibility he would.
absorb the fame; and the method of correspondence was of that dark and
mysterious shape which powerfully operated upon his dramatic temperament.
What could please an actor, and the son of an actor, better than. to min.
gle as a principal in a real conspiracy, the aims of which were pseudopatriotic, and the end so astounding that at its coming the whole globe
would reel. Booth reasoned that theancient world would not feel more
sensitively the death of Julius Cesar than the new the sudden taking off
of Abraham Lincoln.
And so he grew into the idea of murder. It became his business thought
It was his recreation and his study. Ite had not worked half so hard for
histrionic success as for his terrible graduation into an assassin. Hle had
fought often on'the boards, and seen men die in well-imitated horror, with
flowNing, blood upon his keen sword's edge, and the strong stride of mimio
victory with which he flourished his. weapon at the closing of the curtain.
He embraced conspiracy.like an old diplomatist, and found in the woman
and the spot subjects for emulation.
Southeast of Washin'gton stretches a tapering peninsula, composed of
. four fertile counties, which at the remote.tip make Point Lookout, and do
not contain any town within them of more than a few hundred inhabitants.
Tobacco has ruined the land of these, and slavery has ruined the.people.
Yet in the beginning they. were of that splendid stock of Calvert and Lord
Baltimore, but retain today only the religion of the peaceful founder. I
mention it is'an exceptional and remarkable fact, that every conspirator in
custody is'by education a Catholic. These are our most loyal citizens else.
where, but the western shore of Maryland is a noxious and pestilential place
for patriotism. The county immediately outside of the District of Columbia,
to the south, is named Prince Gorgia's and the pleasantest village of this
county, close to Washington, is called Surrattsville. This. consists of a
few cabins at a cross-road, surrounding a fine old hotel, the master whereof,
giving the settlement his na-m, left the property to his *ife, who for a long
time carried it on with indifferent success. Having a son and several
daughters, she moved to Washington soon after the beginning of the war
and let the tavern to a trusty friend-one John'Lloyd.. Surrattsville has
gained nothing in patronage or business from the war, except that it became
at an early date, a rebel postoffice. The great secret mail from Matthias
Creek, Virginia, to Port Tobacco, struck Surrattsville, and thence headed