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108 letter 34  To Wilson Barstow Jr. [April] 16, [1865] Mattapoisett, Massachusetts 16th Monday1 Dear Wilson— I expected so anxiously to hear something respecting the astounding fact of Lincoln’s assassination, and his assassin John Booth:2 I never was more overwhelmed by any outside matter than by this. We get telegrams all the time & hear the news as soon as you. I can hardly keep away from N.Y., for I am half wild, & to be so pent up, having Eliza B.3 & Father4 to exclaim to only, it is too much to bear. Your news of Edwin’s marriage is about as astounding as the rest.5 Is it Laura Edmonds6 or Maty Woodman?7 Do find out. Two or three nights ago I had a dream of him. He will undoubtedly go to the devil sooner or later. All the elements that make up life are in his composition, except one—that of courage. John B. has brute courage. Do you believe at all in human fidelity? Think of Edwin’s marrying again. I pity the woman, unless she has a dramatic genius superior to his and then she can overpower him. I shall be most curious to learn who the person is. His family will have to retire again, but won’t this business break it up. What does Dick think now of the business I have heard him advocate—“that of killing a tyrant”?8 I beg you to write me all you can—I never felt so great a disgust and impatience at being here as I do now—I curse my chances. I am devoured with anxiety to be in the excitement & am compelled to remain as inert as dead matter or Freeman Clark9 who still sits under the shed. Lorry is splendid—his face is well, so he is handsome. He grows cunning every minute. Eliza B. sends her love to you—She is devoted to Lorry & I. Yours in confusion and disgust, ennui, and a painful arm. EDBS No more stamps—no money 109 No nothing— I’ll write you better by and by. Excuse my want of philosophy—Is anything more going to turn up amongst our set? Manuscript: Edwin Booth Collection, Hampden-Booth Theatre Library notes 1. Stoddard writes only “16th Monday” as a way to date this letter, but she is clearly writing just days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. April 16, 1865, fell on a Sunday, not a Monday. 2. John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865), actor and brother to Edwin Booth, fatally shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next day. Booth fled, but was tracked down and killed by Union soldiers two weeks later. 3. While serving at Fort Monroe in Virginia, Wilson sent a “contraband” or escaped slave to live with and work for Elizabeth. “Eliza B.” may be this woman, or she may be Eliza Barstow, a relative whose father purchased the former Wilson Barstow Sr. family home in Mattapoisett. 4. Wilson Barstow Sr. 5.BoothwasengagedtoBlancheHanel(??–??)ofPhiladelphia;aftertheassassination , Hanel’s father forced her to break the engagement. Stoddard is unsure of the facts surrounding Booth’s engagement because she and Booth had been estranged for more than a year. See Letter 32, note 14. 6. Laura Edmonds (??–??), trance medium, was the daughter of John Worth Edmonds (1816–1874), politician and lawyer who resigned his position as Justice of the Supreme Court of New York after making his beliefs in spiritualism public. Stoddard may have believed that Booth was romantically involved with Laura Edmonds because he had visited her after Mary’s death in order to contact his wife’s spirit. 7.MattieWoodman(??–??),sisterof LilianWoodman(Aldrich);bothweregood friends of the Booths. Lilian married Thomas Bailey Aldrich in November 1865. 8. Richard Stoddard was a pro-Union Democrat and a severe critic of abolitionists and the Republican Party. The phrase “killing a tyrant” refers to Thomas Aquinas’s(1225–1274)proclamationthat“onewholiberateshiscountrybykilling a tyrant is to be praised and rewarded” (Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book II, Distinction 44); Richard seems to have shown public support for such a sentiment. Despite his pronouncements prior to the assassination, Richard published Abraham Lincoln—A Horatian Ode in 1865. 9. Freeman Clark (1825?–1883), laborer and house painter from Mattapoisett. ...

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