1
/
of
1
Balefire Publishing
The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth: First True Account of Lincoln's Assassination
The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth: First True Account of Lincoln's Assassination
Regular price
$0.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$0.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
The complete title for this edition is "The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth or the First True Account of Lincoln's Assassination Containing a Complete Confession by Booth Many Years After the Crime". The book gives in full detail the plans, plot, and intrigue of the conspirators, and the treachery of Andrew johnson, then Vice President of the United States. According to the author, the book was written for the correction of history.
Author Finis Langdon Bates ( August 22, 1848 – November 29, 1923 ) was a Memphis, Tennessee, lawyer and author of The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907). In this 309-page book, Bates claimed that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, not only was not mortally wounded by Union Army Sergeant Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett on April 26, 1865, but that Booth successfully eluded capture altogether, and lived for many years thereafter under a series of assumed names, notably John St. Helen and David E. George.
Bates was born on a plantation in Itawamba County, Mississippi, in 1848. He was the ninth of 12 children of planter Henderson Wesley Bates (Sept. 30, 1807–1869) and Eliza Elvira Jarratt Bourland (Dec. 26, 1815 – Feb. 23, 1900). Finis Bates studied law in Carrollton, Mississippi, and in the 1870s he and his family moved to Texas, where he met John St. Helen. Bates returned to Mississippi, then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, after the death of his first wife and his subsequent marriage.
According to The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, in 1873, Bates met John St. Helen, a liquor and tobacco merchant in Granbury, Texas. The man had a particular tendency toward the theatrical and could recite Shakespeare from memory. Bates and St. Helen cultivated a friendship over five years. In 1878, St. Helen became ill, stating:
"I am dying. My name is John Wilkes Booth, and I am the assassin of President Lincoln. Get the picture of myself from under the pillow. I leave it with you for my future identification. Notify my brother Edwin Booth, of New York City."
St. Helen later recovered and explained in greater detail: The leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln was Vice-President Andrew Johnson.
The identity of the man mortally wounded in the Garrett tobacco barn by Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett was a plantation overseer by the name of Ruddy. St. Helen/Booth had asked Ruddy to fetch his papers, which had fallen out of his pocket while crossing the Rappahannock River. Ruddy was able to retrieve Booth's papers, and while still in possession of them, Ruddy was mortally wounded in the Garrett barn, thus leading his captors to believe that he was Booth.
Shortly thereafter, St. Helen moved on to Leadville, Colorado, to pursue mining, and Bates moved to Memphis, losing track of St. Helen. Bates claimed not to have believed St. Helen's story at the time, calling it an "unpleasant side of St. Helen's character." Bates described him as "modest, unobtrusive and congenial, ever pleasant in association with me. He was a social favorite with all with whom he came in contact." Despite his claims of disbelief, in 1900, Bates wrote the War Department in an unsuccessful attempt to claim the $100,000 reward advertised following Lincoln's assassination.
Author Finis Langdon Bates ( August 22, 1848 – November 29, 1923 ) was a Memphis, Tennessee, lawyer and author of The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907). In this 309-page book, Bates claimed that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, not only was not mortally wounded by Union Army Sergeant Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett on April 26, 1865, but that Booth successfully eluded capture altogether, and lived for many years thereafter under a series of assumed names, notably John St. Helen and David E. George.
Bates was born on a plantation in Itawamba County, Mississippi, in 1848. He was the ninth of 12 children of planter Henderson Wesley Bates (Sept. 30, 1807–1869) and Eliza Elvira Jarratt Bourland (Dec. 26, 1815 – Feb. 23, 1900). Finis Bates studied law in Carrollton, Mississippi, and in the 1870s he and his family moved to Texas, where he met John St. Helen. Bates returned to Mississippi, then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, after the death of his first wife and his subsequent marriage.
According to The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, in 1873, Bates met John St. Helen, a liquor and tobacco merchant in Granbury, Texas. The man had a particular tendency toward the theatrical and could recite Shakespeare from memory. Bates and St. Helen cultivated a friendship over five years. In 1878, St. Helen became ill, stating:
"I am dying. My name is John Wilkes Booth, and I am the assassin of President Lincoln. Get the picture of myself from under the pillow. I leave it with you for my future identification. Notify my brother Edwin Booth, of New York City."
St. Helen later recovered and explained in greater detail: The leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln was Vice-President Andrew Johnson.
The identity of the man mortally wounded in the Garrett tobacco barn by Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett was a plantation overseer by the name of Ruddy. St. Helen/Booth had asked Ruddy to fetch his papers, which had fallen out of his pocket while crossing the Rappahannock River. Ruddy was able to retrieve Booth's papers, and while still in possession of them, Ruddy was mortally wounded in the Garrett barn, thus leading his captors to believe that he was Booth.
Shortly thereafter, St. Helen moved on to Leadville, Colorado, to pursue mining, and Bates moved to Memphis, losing track of St. Helen. Bates claimed not to have believed St. Helen's story at the time, calling it an "unpleasant side of St. Helen's character." Bates described him as "modest, unobtrusive and congenial, ever pleasant in association with me. He was a social favorite with all with whom he came in contact." Despite his claims of disbelief, in 1900, Bates wrote the War Department in an unsuccessful attempt to claim the $100,000 reward advertised following Lincoln's assassination.
Share
