Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Of all the theaters in America, the most interesting is the Ford Theater in Washington DC, which had its first performance in 1863. Before that, it was the second house of the First Baptist Church. After they moved, John T. Ford, a bookseller, writer, sometimes politician, and theater manager, purchased the property and made it into a theater, named after himself naturally. On April 14, 1865, he presented the hit play of the time, Our American Cousin. English playwright Tom Taylor wrote the farce in 1858, and the first performance was in New York City at Laura Keene's Theater. The play is about an American hick introduced to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to obtain the family estate. Our American Cousin was a very successful play that appealed to a broad audience, including President Abraham Lincoln.
A well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth killed President Lincoln in the Ford Theater's balcony while the President and his party were watching Our American Cousin's performance. The actor knew the layout of the theater and its staff. He had no difficulties in getting to the balcony. Booth knew the play and waited until the moment when there is a big laugh, which came to the line delivered by actor Harry Hawk. "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizingold man-trap!" As the audience laughed, including Lincoln, Booth shot him from behind with a derringer. He then had a brief fight with Major Henry Rathbone, a Lincoln guest, where he stabbed the Major with a knife. He then jumped from the balcony to the stage. The audience thought it was part of the show, and Booth either yelled out "Revenge for the South!", or "The South shall be free!" Some in the audience heard him say in Latin, Sic Semper tyrannis! ("Thus always to tyrants").
Booth managed to escape with a waiting horse behind the theater but was eventually tracked down and shot to death. Ford, the theater owner, was arrested after the assassination as a suspect. Mainly due to his friendship with Booth and being in Richmond, Virginia, at the time of Lincoln's killing in his theater. At that time, Richmond was known as an active area of Lincoln hatred. He had to stay in prison, with his two brothers, for 39 days. They were fully exonerated and set free since there was no evidence of their complicity in the crime.
The twisted irony is that Lincoln's son Robert, a year before his father's assassination, was saved from possible injury or death when he fell between the platform and train as it was moving. An arm reached out for his collar and pulled him back on the train. It was Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes, who pulled Lincoln from harm's way.
