Munching pastries and sipping coffee in her parlor, Louise Taper chats about her favorite subject: Abraham Lincoln.
A glance around the room gives a clear indication of just how much a devotee Taper is of the 16th president: A grandfather clock that kept Lincoln company in his Springfield law office ticks near the entryway. Lincoln’s visage keeps watch from numerous paintings, masks and sculptures around the room. Mary Todd Lincoln’s black velvet gown hangs like new on a mannequin from a perch above. The daybed on which Taper sits was crafted by Lincoln’s father, Thomas.
But for all her fascination, Taper, who has amassed the largest private collection of Lincoln memorabilia in the world, for the longest time had avoided anything to do with the president’s assassination.
Now that has changed. Not only has she acquired a seat from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., where the assassination occurred, and a swatch from the blood-stained coat Lincoln wore that evening, but Taper has delved deeply into the life of the man responsible for the dastardly act: John Wilkes Booth.
She has collected playbills and costumes from Booth’s illustrious stage career as well as original wanted posters hung while the 26-year-old actor was on the lam.
Most interestingly, though, Taper has purchased several long-hidden letters written by Booth — six of which were sent to a 17-year-old girl with whom he was in love — that shed new light on his character. Taper and her research partner have assembled the letters and numerous other documents in a recently published book on the assassin’s life titled “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth” (University of Illinois Press).
“He met her at the height of his career and he could have had his pick of many women,” said Taper, whose husband, Barry, comes from a family of philanthropists and real estate and banking magnates. “These are wonderful letters and (Booth) was obviously in love with her.”
Before discovering the Booth writings, said Taper’s co-author, John Rhodehamel, “All I knew was that he was crazy.”
“But that is wrong,” added Rhodehamel, a curator of American History at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. “He was a very successful actor and Confederate secret agent who killed Lincoln to further his white supremacy point of view.”
The object of Booth’s affections was a girl named Isabel Sumner, the daughter of a Boston grocer. It is not known when or where Booth met Isabel. It is possible that they met backstage at the Boston Museum, where Booth had an engagement, or on the street, since Isabel lived near the hotel where he stayed.
What is clear, though, is that he was smitten with her. In addition to the letters, Booth sent her a ring inscribed “J.W.B. to I.S.”; Isabel sent him flowers when he was ill; and the two exchanged photographs.
“How shall I write you; as lover, friend or brother. I think so much of you . . .,” Booth wrote on June 7, 1864, 10 months before that Good Friday evening when he pulled out a pocket pistol and fatally shot Lincoln in the back of the head.
“. . . Tell me (and from your heart) do you think the least little bit of me; forgive me for asking such a question, but I know the world, and had begun to hate it. I saw you, things seem changed.”
On July 14, 1864, he wrote: “. . . I love you, and I feel that in the fountain of my heart a seal is set to keep its waters, pure and bright for thee alone. God bless you . . .”
During the time the letters were written, Booth was a well-known actor. Though he was rugged, handsome and known to be a womanizer, his writings reveal a shyness and vulnerability.
In the June 7 letter, Booth, who always sent his mail for Isabel to a post office box, implores her to keep their relationship a secret.
“Will you grant me a little favor? It is never to show my letters even to your dearest friends. I have no fear that you will do so, but you might think like others that it would be no harm. But dear friend it would do you no good and to tell you a secret . . . (I was just about to say, I love you. Well perhaps I do.) But the secret is that I am ashamed to read my own letters, must less to have them seen by strangers . . .”
There is no indication why Booth wanted to keep the relationship a secret.
Isabel, who carefully tucked away the letters, apparently honored Booth’s wish until the day she died. The letters were passed on to her daughter, who also kept them hidden. But recognizing their historic significance and probable value, Sumner’s granddaughter put them on the market several years ago.
Word quickly got to Taper, who is well known on the collectors’ circuit because of the dozens and dozens of Lincoln and Booth items in her possession.
“One day I got a phone call about six love letters written to a young girl. I went to see (the granddaughter) and I ended up buying them,” said Taper, who had the letters authenticated by an expert. “I thought the letters were pretty significant because no one knew about this romance.”
(Taper wouldn’t say how much she paid for the letters or how much her collection is worth. Her book, though, gives some indication how much such collectibles can command: A $100 check written by Booth was sold for 150 times the face value.)
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Taper called Rhodehamel, who suggested that the letters could become the basis of a book. The two set out to augment the letters with other Booth writings and documents.
But that was no easy task. Though Booth was a prolific letter writer, much of his correspondence sent to relatives and friends was burned by them after the assassination to eliminate any evidence of their association, out of fear of possible prosecution.
The two retraced Booth’s steps, to Baltimore, where he was born and reared; to Richmond, Va., where he got his first acting job; to Washington, where he assassinated Lincoln; to an area in northern Virginia near the Rappahannock River, previously a tobacco farm, where Booth was shot dead by federal agents.
Another valuable find was a never-delivered speech Booth wrote that outlines his pro-slavery sentiments. The speech had been safeguarded by the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library at The Players, a New York actors club that his brother, Edwin, founded.
“I tell you the Abolition doctrine is the fire which if allowed to rage will consume the house and crush us all beneath its ruins,” Booth wrote in December 1860. “They see not that such freedom is slavery for ourselves. That is breaking up our peace, our union and our power.”
Booth expected the assassination of Lincoln to make him a hero, at least with the pro-slavery side. “He thought the world would say, `What a wonderful thing you’ve done,’ ” Rhodehamel said. But just the opposite happened.
The authors say they hope their book can breathe new life into an old, familiar story and paint Booth as a three-dimensional character.
Taper leans back a bit on the daybed and reflects on the Booth-Sumner love affair.
No one knows why the relationship broke off. Booth apparently moved on, getting engaged to a senator’s daughter who coincidentally had previously been linked romantically with Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln. Several years after Lincoln’s death, Sumner married; but she became a widow early and experienced many unhappy years in poverty.
That she kept his letters perhaps symbolizes her enduring love for Booth.
“It makes you wonder,” Taper said, “if he married the girl, maybe Lincoln would have lived.”