A Clockwork Murder
The murder of Abraham Lincoln was like a script in a play being performed by John Wilkes Booth. He knew everything he needed to know in order to successful carry out the murder. That he was so familiar with Ford’s Theatre that getting to the Lincoln was no problem was compounded by his familiarity with the play being performed. The odds could not have been more stacked against Lincoln.
“The play was like a clock, every word spoken was another tick of the second hand. After hearing some familiar dialogue, Booth would know, to the minute, how much time remained in the performance.”
"You sockdologizing old mantrap."
The most infamous and memorable metaphor in the book—indeed, in the story of the assassination—is a line from the play being performed at Ford’s Theater with the President in attendance. Wilkes was so intimately familiar with the play—a huge hit in its time, but merely a curio from history today—that he knew the delivery of this line would the perfect moment to pull the trigger. The roar of laughter the line produced would be loud enough to at least partially dull the sound of his assassin’s gun. The laughter which greeted this line with such predictability was apparently not related to the meaning of the metaphorical insult itself, but rather the comic sound of the words. The actual meaning of the phrase was no clearer to audiences in the 19th century than it is today. The only “nice” thing to come out of that terrible night is that at least the laugh words that Abraham Lincoln heard were words that made him laugh.
Pretty on the Outside
John Wilkes Booth was rabidly racist and just generally a distinctly unpleasant person. He possessed a thread of pure evil within him, which makes it all the more ironic that on the outside he manifested a “physical beauty astonished all who saw him.” His eyes, in particular, were a gift to the actor:
“A fellow actor described his eyes as being `like living jewels.’"
Booth's One Fatal Miscalculation
Everything converged perfectly for Booth when it came to carrying out the assassination. The one thing he can’t be faulted for is thinking that the forces of fate were entirely with him: the smiling gods were even benign enough to bring the President to the assassin’s “home.” The only flaw in his otherwise brilliantly calculated plan was thinking that he would be hailed as a hero who killed a tyrant.
“Booth saw the beginning of a change in how Abraham Lincoln was viewed by America. Lincoln was transformed from a controversial and often unpopular war leader into a martyr and hero.”
The Passion of John Wilkes Booth
The description of Booth’s having eyes like jewels goes on to list his passions. He was a man who liked a nice suit, appreciated a beautiful woman and—except when killing Presidents—demonstrated good manners. So far, so good. The rest of the list, however, is not just metaphorical, but profoundly questionable on the merits of its veracity:
“Southern honor…and the romance of lost causes.”
