Had Booth missed, Lincoln could have risen from his chair to confront his assassin. At that moment the president, cornered, with not only his own life in danger but also Mary’s, would almost certainly have fought back. If he did, Booth would have found himself outmatched facing not kindly Father Abraham, but the aroused fury of the Mississippi River flatboatman who fought off a gang of murderous river pirates in the dead of night, the champion wrestler who, years before, humbled the Clary’s Grove boys in New Salem in a still legendary match, or even the fifty-six-year-old president who could still pick up a long, splitting-axe by his fingertips, raise it, extend his arm out parallel with the ground, and suspend the axe in midair. Lincoln could have choked the life out of the five-foot-eight-inch, 150-pound thespian, or wrestled him over the side of the box, launching Booth on a crippling dive to the stage almost twelve feet below.
But Lincoln had not seen Booth coming.
From James L. Swanson’s Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. Fifty pages in, this book reads like a novel just as Jill said in a comment here last week.
Go try that thing with an axe or other long-handled tool.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the book.
Here’s a tidbit I learned in the book that I’d never heard before. When Lincoln was killed, he shared his theater box with his wife, and also with an engaged couple, Clara Harris and Major Rathbone. The pair became historical footnotes due to their proximity to the assassination. Rathbone also received a serious knife wound when he confronted Booth.
Anyway, they did marry and had children. Years later, Rathbone shot and stabbed Clara to death in a psychotic rage. He also injured himself, but survived to be placed in an asylum for the rest of his life.
I just thought that was interesting, if sad, trivia.
Lincoln kicking Booth’s ass in front of a theater full of people. I like the imagery.