I'll admit it. Though I've always been single on Valentine's Day (sometimes a counselor to my friends) I'm a sucker for romance. Plus, being a historian, I love reading and writing stories about historical couples.
For example, in one of the confessions of HH Holmes, he professes a love for Minnie Williams. Yes, I'm well aware that he killed her eventually but I thought it was very romantic (that may be a bit strange but whatever). The following was a snippet from a conversation I had with one of my professors about it.
Me: See? He did have a soul.
Professor: Or he was lying to gain sympathy.
Me: It was a romantic sentiment. Don't ruin it for me.
Anyway, for many reasons, the heart of one of my favorite historical relationships beat during the American Civil War. The story of the love that existed between a northern belle and a southern sympathizer. The story of John Wilkes Booth and Lucy Lambert Hale.
(Just a note, neither of these pictures were taken during the Civil War. The photo of John was taken around the time of his first Richmond engagement in 1858. The photo of Lucy has never been dated but it was probably taken around the time she married William Chandler in 1874).
It is unknown when John and Lucy first met but it was most likely in 1862. Both had rooms in the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC and may have met in or around that location. They were independent, vivacious, bold, forward thinking, and liked having control. In each other, John and Lucy met their match and carried out a loving, passionate, and sometimes intense relationship that mixed both love and war. In 1863, John proposed to Lucy and they were engaged to be married come 1865.
John's death (and the following events) crushed Lucy and sent her into a deep depression that lasted for the rest of her life (she died in 1915 at the age of 74. She was a mere 24 years old in 1865. He was 26). Her mourning gown was, in fact, her wedding gown dyed black. She wrote a letter to Edwin Booth, John's older brother, confessing she would have married John even at the foot of the gallows. Edwin mentioned this letter when he wrote to his sister, Asia Booth Clarke, "I have had a heart-broken letter from the poor little girl to whom he had promised so much happiness."
"He gave the greater part of a day to the torturing composition of a valentine acrostic to send to the lady of his love. Junius tried to be serious over his poetic agonies, but they recalled the labors of the boy at school, and now it seemed as difficult to invent as it had been to remember. Unheeding the amusement he caused, he persevered, even through the night, and the next morning he triumphantly read out his easy flowing verses; the result of his lubrication was a success. The following passage from a letter by Junius Booth after he and Wilkes had returned to New York alludes to this valentine."
"John (Wilkes) sat up all Monday night to put Miss H's Valentine in the mail, and slept on the sofa so as to be up early; kept me up last night till 3 1/2 AM to wait while he wrote her a long letter - kept me awake by every now and then using me as a Dictionary."
-Asia Booth Clarke and Junius Booth Jr.
It's impossible that John and Lucy could have first met in February of 1865. Among other reasons, he attended Abraham Lincoln's Second Inauguration as her guest in March of 1865 and it would have been unlikely for her to have brought him if they had just met.
The letter Asia and Junius speak of no longer exists. However, there is a Valentine's Day letter that has survived the test of time. The note, probably written around 1862, was very short and did not resemble the longer letter Asia referred to. Furthermore, it was signed anonymously (John wrote his name as "A Stranger"). John had gone out once with Elizabeth Hale, Lucy's older sister, and having felt no attraction to her, was trying to woo Lucy, who he had become smitten with. However, communications became misunderstood between them and she began toying with him by acting as if he didn't exist.
"Ever since our little dining room debacle, I’ve imagined that he fell of the face of the Earth and have treated his presence in my life as such. And that is a rather large presence considering we are in the same hotel and he has apparently memorized my daily routines."
-Lucy Hale (from my in-progress book about her)
This first Valentine's Day note was written before the beginning of their courtship and was one of John's final efforts to win Lucy's heart.
My dear Miss Hale,
Were it not for the License which a time-honored observance of this day allows, I had not written you this poor note...You resemble in a most remarkable degree a lady, very dear to me, now dead and your close resemblance to her surprised me the first time I saw you. This must be my apology for any apparent rudeness noticeable.
To see you has indeed afforded me a melancholy pleasure, if you can conceive of such, and should we never meet nor I see you again-believe me, I shall always associate you in my memory, with her, who was very beautiful, and whose face, like your own I trust, was a faithful index of gentleness and amiability. With a Thousand kind wishes for your future happiness
I am, to you,
A Stranger
Finally, John was successful. Lucy fell in love with the letter and eventually (when he revealed himself) with the author. He and Lucy would begin a courtship soon after, eventually become engaged, and remain together until his death in 1865.
Sometimes, when I look up from my writing and catch a glimpse of the photos of John and Lucy on my desk, I say a prayer they have found each other again.
Until next time.
XOXO, Kate
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