The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes BoothTownsend, George Alfred
History
The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth
Townsend, George Alfred
Assassins -- United States -- Biography; Booth, John Wilkes, 1838-1865; Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Assassination
Harold would have enjoyed this execution vastly as a spectator. He was,
I think, capable of a greater degree of depravity than any of his
accomplices. Atzerott might have made a sneak thief, Booth a forger, but
Harold was not far from a professional pickpocket. He was keen-eyed,
insolent, idle, and, by a small experience in Houston street, would have
been qualified for a first-class "knuck." He had not, like the rest, any
political suggestion for the murder of the heads of the nation; and upon
the gallows, in his dirty felt hat, soiled cloth coat, light pantaloons
and stockings, he seemed unworthy of his manacles.
A very fussy Dutchman tied him up and fanned him, and he wept
forgetfully, but did not make a halt or absurd spectacle.
Atzerott was my ideal of a man to be hung--a dilution of Wallack's
rendering of the last hours of Fagan, the Jew; a sort of sick man, quite
garrulous and smitten, with his head thrown forward, muttering to the
air, and a pallidness transparent through his dirt as he jabbered
prayers and pleas confusedly, and looked in a complaining sort of way at
the noose, as if not quite certain that it might not have designs upon
him.
He wore a greyish coat, black vest, light pantaloons and slippers, and a
white affair on his head, perhaps a handkerchief.
His spiritual adviser stood behind him, evidently disgusted with him.
Atzerott lost his life through too much gabbing. He could have had
serious designs upon nothing greater than a chicken, but talked
assassination with the silent and absolute Booth, until entrapped into
conspiracy and the gallows, much against his calculation. This man was
visited by his mother and a poor, ignorant woman with whom he cohabited.
He was the picture of despair, and died ridiculously, whistling up his
courage.
These were the dramatis personę, no more to be sketched, no more to be
cross-examined, no more to be shackled, soon to be cold in their
coffins.
They were, altogether, a motley and miserable set. Ravaillae might have
looked well swinging in chains; Charlotte Corday is said to have died
like an actress; Beale hung not without dignity, but these people,
aspiring to overturn a nation, bore the appearance of a troop of
ignorant folks, expiating the blood-shed of a brawl.
When General Hartrauft ceased reading there was momentary lull, broken
only by the cadences of the priests.
Then the Rev. Mr. Gillette addressed the spectators in a deep impressive
tone. The prisoner, Lewis Thornton Powell, otherwise Payne, requested
him to thus publicly and sincerely return his thanks to General
Hartrauft, the other officers, the soldiers, and all persons who had
charge of him and had attended him. Not one unkind word, look, or
gesture, had been given to him by any one. Dr. Gillette then followed in
a fervent prayer in behalf of the prisoner, during which Payne's eyes
momentarily filled with tears, and he followed in the prayer with
visible feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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