Read Books Online, for Free |
The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth | George Alfred Townsend | |
Extra Mural Scenes |
Page 1 of 3 |
As everything connected with this expiation will be greedily read I compile from gossip and report a statement of the last intramural hours of the prisoners. During the morning a female friend of Atzerott, from Port Tobacco, had an interview with him--she leaving him about eleven o'clock. He made the following statement: He took a room at the Kirkwood House on Thursday, in order to get a pass from Vice-President Johnson to go to Richmond. Booth was to lease the Richmond theater and the President was to be invited to attend it when visiting Richmond, and captured there. Harold brought the pistol and knife to the room about half-past two o'clock on Friday. He (Atzerott) said he would have nothing to do with the murder of Johnson, when Booth said that Harold had more courage than Atzerott, and he wanted Atzerott to be with Harold to urge him to do it. There was a meeting at a restaurant about the middle of March, at which John Surratt, O'Laughlin, Booth, Arnold, Payne, Harold and himself were present, when a plan to capture the President was discussed. They had heard the President was to visit a camp, and they proposed to capture him, coach and all, drive through long old fields to "T. B.," where the coach was to be left and fresh horses were to be got, and the party would proceed to the river to take a boat. Harold took a buggy to "T. B." in anticipation that Mr. Lincoln would be captured, and he was to go with the party to the river. Slavery had put him on the side of the South. He had heard it preached in church that the curse of God was upon the slaves, for they were turned black. He always hated the nigger and felt that they should be kept in ignorance. He had not received any money from Booth, although he had been promised that if they were successful they should never want, that they would be honored throughout the South, and that they could secure an exchange of prisoners and the recognition of the confederacy. |
Who's On Your Reading List? Read Classic Books Online for Free at Page by Page Books.TM |
The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth George Alfred Townsend |
Home | More Books | About Us | Copyright 2002