Last Thoughts

            John Wilkes Booth is only twenty-six years old and his life is going to be over in a matter of days, if not hours. Booth, a mere five foot eight inches and 160 pounds, with curly jet-black hair and an interest in theater, has just assassinated the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, at Ford’s Theater. Two days earlier, Booth buys a ticket to Ford’s Theater with the help of Anarchy 66, a group of politicians and businessmen secretly allied to assassinate Lincoln. Though the group had some important Congressmen, such as Ohio senators Benjamin Wade and John Sherman, the two main conspirators were businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt and Vice President Andrew Johnson, the prior upset with Lincoln’s Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, and the latter being power-hungry. Booth enters the building and watches the movie for some twenty minutes before making his move. Entering the presidential box upstairs, Booth immediately shoots his shot, hitting Lincoln in the back of the head. With the entire country hunting down his back, Booth is now on the run. A born and raised anarchist, Booth makes plans to flee to British Columbia, but the plans come to a screeching halt when his ride is missing. “The driver bailed”, they said. Booth escapes out of the back entrance of the theater, knowing the interior from his many plays as a child there. Booth then runs south, where he picks up weapons at the Surratt Tavern before he spends the night at the home of Samuel Cox, a true Confederate, before having to flee due to an anonymous tip. Now, running on little sleep, Booth writes to a childhood friend on a small rowboat in the Potomac River. “I cannot run any farther. Once you receive this message, let them know of my first plan. This is the only way to buy me time. Maybe by then, I’ll end up in the Smokies.” The mountains were as free land as the west to Booth. Booth dreams of his future freedom before his hunger kicks in. Booth ponders his next move. He tells the boat pilot to turn left into a small creek, where he hides the boat under some foliage. He stays there for some five hours, but with the feds down his throat, five hours feels like twenty years. Booth wishes he could give over the truth, and of the involvement of soon-to-be president Andrew Johnson and Anarchy 66. But it was too late, as a bullet seared through his esophagus. Now the truth could never be told.