My Thoughts Be Bloody

The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes B

By: Nora Titone, Doris Kearns Goodwin - introduction

Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd

Historian Nora Titone takes a fresh look at the strange and startling history of the Booth brothers, answering the question of why one became the nineteenth-century’s brightest, most beloved star, and the other became the most notorious assassin in American history.

The sceneof John Wilkes Booth shooting Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre is among the most vivid and indelible images in American history. The literal story of what happened on April 14, 1865, is familiar: Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth, a lunatic enraged by the Union victory and the prospect of black citizenship. Yet who Booth really was—besides a killer—is less well known. The magnitude of his crime has obscured for generations a startling personal story that was integral to his motivation.

My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln’s death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes’s older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln’s assassin has never been told. Using an array of private letters, diaries, and reminiscences of the Booth family, Titone has uncovered a hidden history that reveals the reasons why John Wilkes Booth became this country’s most notorious assassin.

The details of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln have been well documented elsewhere. My Thoughts Be Bloody tells a new story, one that explains for the first time why Lincoln’s assassin decided to conspire against the president in the first place, and sets that decision in the context of a bitterly divided family—and nation. By the end of this riveting journey, readers will see Abraham Lincoln’s death less as the result of the war between the North and South and more as the climax of a dark struggle between two brothers who never wore the uniform of soldiers, except on stage.

A new take on the assassination of Lincoln

Titone's thesis is that JW Booth wanted fame so badly that he murdered the president to secure a place in history. JW had failed in his efforts to be an actor, whereas his father and older brother had excelled in dramatic acting, becoming two of the best and most acclaimed actors in US history prior to the age of cinema. JW had also failed in business....and pretty much everything else, except for charming the ladies owing to his exceptional good looks and physique. But conquering women did not compensate for his failure to equal his father and brother on the stage, so JW acted the most dramatic role any actor ever played: he shot the president in view of a few hundred theater goers, jumped on the stage in front of them, and deliberately made a bold statement to the crowd (reported variously) even as the smoke was hanging in the air in the presidential box and Mary Lincoln was screaming. Then he strode off stage deliberately (not with a broken leg as has been mistakenly reported) and jumped on a horse and rode into history.

Titone does an excellent job supporting her thesis. The story she tells of JW's father and brother and other family members is detailed and quite interesting. She also documents JW's collaboration with Rebel agents in the last year of the war, and she details the escape and capture of JW, which resulted in his being fatally shot by an army sargeant who had such finely tuned religious sensibilities that he had castrated himself to defend against being tempted by loose women.

What a story!

The narrator does an excellent job interpreting this highly dramatic tale.

Worth your credit

I knew very little about the Booths when starting this book. It is a very interesting story with a lot of information. If you already know some history about this tale I can't guarantee that you'll hang onto every word like I did. Also with so many hours of audio you definitely get your moneys worth. I have recommended this audiobook to many of my friends. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

wow!

loved it, finished it fast, may revisit. gripping characters, lots of lush historical detail, learned a lot about the entertainment industry of the era. loved Junius Brutus most, such a tragic tragedian <3 still a jerk. all of them are loveable jerks, even JW, except you like him less as he gets older because he gets progressively worse, of course

Wonderful!

This is a wonderful, totally absorbing biography of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth. Nora Titone has an almost magical ability to create a sense of place and time as she follows the Booth brothers from their family farm to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. It really is about both brothers, and the look at 19th-century American theater fully justifies the dual focus: how is it possible that Edwin Booth (and their father Junius Brutus Booth -- not to mention their resourceful mother!) has been overlooked for so long? There is plenty of time as well in this generous narrative to develop a number of figures peripheral to the main story, like Julia Ward Howe and her husband "Chev" (short for "Chevalier"); John Brown; and a number of theatrical colleagues and managers.

John B. Lloyd provides a clear, well-paced reading. My only regret is that Titone leaves the description of the actual conspiracy to kill Lincoln to others; but reading this makes it clear what direction John Wilkes Booth was headed in, and why. I loved it. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Lincoln, the Civil War, the American theater, or the 19th century in general.

Detailed information about all of the family.

First time I have ever felt sorry for the way John Wilkes was neglected as a child.