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Updated: September 22, 2025
At a few minutes past 10 o'clock, an actor whose name was John Wilkes Booth, came into the box where Mr. Lincoln sat. No one saw him enter. He pointed a pistol at the President's head, and fired. He leaped down upon the stage, shouting "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" Then he ran behind the scenes and out by the stage door. The President fell forward. His eyes closed.
ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 31, 1769. The affair of Wilkes is rather undecided yet, than in suspense. It has been a fair trial between faction and corruption; of two such common creatures, the richest will carry it. The Court of Aldermen set aside the election of Wilkes on some informality, but he was immediately re-chosen.
The sneering, satyr face, the sinister squint, the thrust-out chin and protruding lower jaw belong to a face severely visited by Nature, even when liberal allowance is made for the animosity that prompted the hand of the caricaturist. The caricature was a savage stroke; to Wilkes's friends it seemed to be a traitor's stroke. Wilkes appears to have taken it, as he took most things, with composure.
The Trent Affair, 1861.% One of the vessels sent in pursuit of the Sumter was the San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes. This he had no right to do. It was exactly the sort of thing the United States had protested against ever since 1790, and had been one of the causes of war with Great Britain in 1812.
He then alluded ironically to the "good favour and money" with which he had been so contented of late, that if Mr. Wilkes would discharge him of his promise to Lord Leicester, he would take his leave with all his heart. Captain, officers, and soldiers, had been living on half a pound of cheese a day.
Wilkes Booth has often spoken of the memory of the young man, envied his success, and, perhaps, boasted of more intimacy than he ever had. The exemplars of young Wilkes, it was soon seen, were anything but literary. He hated school and pent-up life, and loved the open air.
He crossed over to England, where he made the acquaintance of Wilkes, and one or two agents of the American colonies, then just commencing their insurrection; and, partly from political sympathy with their views of freedom, partly, as he declared, to retaliate on England for the injuries which France had suffered at her hands in the Seven Years' War, he became a political agent himself, procuring arms and ships to be sent across the Atlantic, and also a great quantity of stores of a more peaceful character, out of which he had hoped to make a handsome profit.
The almost forgotten story of Benjamin's birth was remembered and sent out upon the winds of scandal in picaresque and incredible forms. It was said that Benjamin was really the father of Roger Button, that he was his brother who had been in prison for forty years, that he was John Wilkes Booth in disguise and, finally, that he had two small conical horns sprouting from his head.
All the efforts of Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst, had been insufficient to raise even a doubt in Elizabeth's mind as to the wisdom and integrity by which his administration of the Provinces had been characterised from beginning to end. Those who had appealed from his hatred to the justice of their sovereign, had met with disgrace and chastisement.
It was no wonder that poor Wilkes should have thought the letter "too sharp," when he heard it read in the assembly, and that he should have done his best to prevent it from being despatched. He would have thought it sharper could he have seen how the pride of her Majesty and of Leicester was wounded by it to the quick. Her list of grievances against the States seem to vanish into air.
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