JOHN WILKES BOOTH AND THE RICHMOND GRAYS
“What is Past is Prologue” William Shakespeare – The Tempest (Act 2, Scene 1)
May 10, 2010
Has He Been Hiding in Plain Sight: John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Has He Been Hiding in Plain Sight” (“Hiding”) sought to determine if any known pictures of the Richmond Grays, a pre-Civil War Virginia militia group, taken during the John Brown deployment in Charlestown (Nov – Dec 1859) could contain Asia’s brother, the “unsought” militia volunteer, John Wilkes Booth.
MORE – Read and Download “HIDING”
May 10, 2011
Out of Hiding: John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Out of Hiding” supplemented the work undertaken in “Hiding” the previous year. It examined distinctive facts surrounding RG #1, one of many 6th plate ambrotypes taken at Charlestown by Lewis Dinkle during the John Brown Raid deployment. RG#1 is one of three sequential companion images containing approximately the same men who posed along George Street across from the John Brown jail with the jail yard wall seen in the background. The primary focus of the paper was on the singular fact that shortly after this particular ambrotype was taken in 1859, it alone was reproduced and enlarged by a then rarely used early glass plate negative process to make albumen prints from ambrotypes. Because this process was so rare in the south at this time, a resultant surviving print when found in 1911 was misidentified in Francis Trevelyan Miller’s The Photographic History of the Civil War as “Young Southerners at Richmond Making Light of War” just before Bull Run.” Misidentified as such, RG#1 would become one of the, if not the, most widely recognized and reproduced picture purporting to represent the American Civil War. “Out of Hiding” also confirmed that multiple vintage prints of RG#1 existed well in advance of the 1911 publication.
On May 16, 2011 Professor William C. Davis, the dean of Civil War Research commented
Well, all I can say is that this is magnificent analytical work on every front. Your research is exhaustive, your approach comprehensive, and your conclusions judicious. While it is always dangerous to make any definitive conclusions based on identifying people in old photographs, you amass a compelling body of evidence and logic to make the argument that Booth is there, and one of these is the photo Asia saw. If this isn’t the last word on the subject, than any words to come in future are just going to echo yours.”
MORE – Read and Download “OUT OF HIDING“
May 10, 2012
Bound for Glory: John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“”Glory” was a historical narrative that solely utilized factual events to reconstruct the journey of John Wilkes Booth from Richmond Virginia to Charlestown in 1859 as he accompanied the Richmond Grays following the John Brown Raid at Harpers Ferry. “ Glory” began by describing the events surrounding the calling out of the militia in response to rumors of an invasion of Virginia to free John Brown. It explored some of the possible reasons behind why John Wilkes Booth, who while not an enrolled member of the militia, was nevertheless allowed to make that journey. It described early train travel and documented in detail the route taken by the militia to get to Charlestown and their experiences along the way. It touched upon the lives of some of those that made that journey including Governor Henry Wise, his son O. Jennings Wise, and Richmond Grays Captain Wyatt Moseley Elliott. It also explored the social importance of the southern militia experience including the role militia bands played in the popular excursions of the period, and the cultural significance of what it meant in John Wilkes Booth’s Antebellum Richmond to be a “Virginia Gentleman” and a “Southern Knight.”
MORE – Read and Download “BOUND FOR GLORY“
May 10, 2013
Chasing Shadows 150 Years Old, PART I: Chasing Shadows from Richmond (“Shadow”)
John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Chasing a Shadow from Richmond” opens in 1911 when The Review of Reviews Company delayed publication of Francis Trevelyan Miller’s landmark ten volume The Photographic History of the Civil War for one of its editors, Roy M. Mason, to be dispatched from New York in a frantic search for southern “war-time” photographs to include in it’s “Volume One: Opening Battles” : Mason likened his daunting task as “Chasing a shadow 50 years old.”
In Richmond Mason found a pristine vintage print of one particular shadow, RG#1’s. “Shadow” traced RG#1’s journey in publication history as it transitioned from its erroneous introduction in that publication as “Young Southerners at Richmond 1861” until 1962 when the eminent historian Lee A. Wallace correctly identified the men as” Virginia Militiamen at Charlestown 1859”.
MORE – Read and Download “CHASING SHADOWS FROM RICHMOND “
March 30, 2014
Glimpsing a Shadow
John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Glimpsing” documented the fact that Mrs. Ella Mahoney, whose close association with the Booth family is indisputable, both saw and at one time possessed a photographic print given to her by the Booth family which described John Wilkes Booth as seen “in a group of uniformed men, center rear.” Her descriptive phrase “center rear” is consistent with the location for the man who was proposed as being Booth in “Hiding” and “Out of Hiding.” and was a described as a photograph, not an ambrotype or picture. Mrs. Mahoney’s words, combined with the Booth family’s provenance for her picture, provided clear and convincing evidence that RG#1, Mrs. Mahoney’s picture, and the one which Asia Booth saw were one and the same. Additionally, “Glimpsing” provided forensic facial comparatives on untouched images of John Wilkes Booth with the man seen “center rear” in RG#1, which further supported the identification.
MORE – Read and Download “GLIMPSING A SHADOW“
May 10, 2014
The Power of Prings
John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Prints” examined the photographic transition period from the “one of a kind” glass image, the ambrotype, to multiple albumen prints, and the utilization of prints during this time by actors and actresses for promotional purposes. Examples of early prints made for actors included Edwin Forest, Charlotte Cushman, and John Wilkes Booth’s older brother, Edwin.
“Prints” provided both the purpose and a likely occupation of the man for whom RG#1 was made. A singular oddity for its time and place, it was most likely undertaken by John Wilkes Booth, the only man in the Richmond Grays during the 1859 deployment to Charlestown who by occupation was an actor.
“Prints” also identified the leading candidate, George Minnis, to have made prints from the ambrotype of RG#1 shortly after Booth’s return to Richmond. Minnis extensively advertised his proven ability to successfully provide this atypical work for the South in 1859.
MORE – Read and Download “THE POWER OF PRINTS“
May 10, 2014
Chasing Shadows 150 Years Old, PART II : John Wilkes Booth’s other Photograph from Richmond 1859-1860 – Uncus
“John Wilkes Booth’s Other Photograph from Richmond” documented that John Wilkes Booth, like his fellow actors in 1859, utilized this innovative process to make multiple prints for promotional purposes. Sometime after 1865, Garrison Davidson while assisting in the destruction of Booth’s personal effects described seeing a photograph pinned to a stunning Indian costume with the note “dated Richmond Virginia 1859-1860.” Davidson’s recollection correctly identified John Wilkes Booth costume for an obscure role that he only played during that venue and timeframe: Booth played the supporting role of “Uncas, Chief of the Mohicans” in the play Wept Of Wish-Ton-Wish to his close friend Maggie Mitchell in her starring role as “Narramattah.”
MORE – Read and Download “JOHN WILKES BOOTH’S OTHER PHOTOGRAPH FROM RICHMOND “
May 10, 2014
Chasing Shadows 150 Years Old, PART II : Conversations Through The Glass
John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays
“Chasing Shadows 150 Years Old, Part II, “Conversations” provided the final pieces of information necessary to unlock the mystery behind RG#1’s composition. It identified the date, approximate time, unique circumstances of its making, including the relationship with its two companion ambrotypes (RG#2 and RG#3). It revealed pivotal key identities of the men in each ambrotype, the order of the making of the ambrotypes, and the sequential movement of the men from one ambrotype to the next. “Conversations” concluded that RG#1 was intended to commemorate members of the Richmond Grays who comprised the 1st Regiment of Virginia Volunteers’ Quartermaster Corps at Charlestown: Cyrus G. Bossieux, John Wilkes Booth, and Louis F. Bossieux, anchored in the center, by the “man in the middle,” Acting Regimental Quartermaster, Robert Alexander Caskie, “Conversations” identified Caskie, not only as the man who signed Booth’s pay audit for his services as the 1st Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant at Charlestown, but also was instrumental for Booth’s inclusion on the journey as an “unsought” volunteer militia member. “Conversations” provided detailed information on that relationship as well as biographical information on both Robert and his brother William Henderson Caskie, documented to have also been at Charlestown and who “Conversations” theorized is the man barely seen in profile in RG#1.
MORE – Read and Download “CONVERSATIONS THROUGH THE GLASS “
Update 2016
For an additional summary of “Conversations ” – See LOC “Soldiers from Richmond Grays at execution of abolitionist John Brown in Charles Town, West Virginia.“
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