Maggie Mitchell - Actress and "Intimate" Friend of John Wilkes Booth - Circa 1869

3D red/cyan anaglyph created from a hand-tinted stereo card, courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

 

Link to stereo card: collections.artsmia.org/art/25967/maggie-mitchell-jeremia...

 

Title: Maggie Mitchell (1832-1918)

 

Date: 1869-1874

 

Photographer: Jeremiah Gurney

 

Notes: Today, most articles about Maggie Mitchell characterize her as: (1) a famous American stage actress; (2) a Confederate sympathizer; and, (3) one of the many girl friends of John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin.

 

In March 1918, when she died, probably all the major newspapers carried an obituary for her, but the collective memory had seemingly forgotten (2) and (3) above. The obituaries that I've read, presented her as an ever-faithful Unionist, who was one of the first persons to raise the Stars and Stripes over former Confederate territory, after the surrender. Below is a sampling (1-4) of what I found on the web, by way of background, for this 3D portrait by Jeremiah Gurney.

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1. Several web articles mentioned, without any specifics, of her dancing on the U.S Flag during the Civil War in support of the South. There is a book by William C. Davis, called "Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy," where he gives a detailed account of just such an incident. Summarizing, it happened in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 19, 1860, when after her stage performance, she was presented with the new Alabama flag, and by prearrangement, sang the "Southern Marseillaise," before striding across the stage and tearing down the U.S. flag, trampling it underfoot to cheers from the crowd. Davis' book seemed well researched and documented, and he had a reference for the account.

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2. Mitchell gave an interview in 1881, picked up by papers across the country, where she tells of her "intimate" friendship with John Wilkes Booth, and an astounding dream about him leaping from the Presidential box at Ford's Theatre - a dream she claims she had the very same night Lincoln was assassinated, but before she actually learned about it the next morning, see below:

 

THE ST. PAUL SUNDAY GLOBE

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1881

MAGGIE MITCHELL

Tells How She Saw Wilkes Booth In a Remarkable Dream on the Night of Lincoln's Assassination, and Denies Another Romantic Story.

 

“…The sight of so much black everywhere in this gay city recalls a wondrous story related to me away down in Texas toward the close of the year 1866. The memory of the awful tragedy was then fresh in the minds of the people. Every word of gossip or history relating to it was eagerly seized and devoured by the gaping multitude. The story ran in this wise: That after the death of Wilkes Booth, while the body lay under guard and covered with an old tarpaulin, his affianced lover, like a poor wounded thing, hiding from every human eye and fretting her life away in hopeless grief, suddenly conceived the idea that there might be some mistake, and that her lover was not dead. She then sent for Maggie Mitchell, and besought her to go to the place where the body lay, and bring her some proof of his identity.

 

The story said that the distinguished lady approached the trestle on which the body lay, and by her wonderful fascination so won upon the guard that he allowed her to clip a lock of his hair without raising the tarpaulin; that she did so, and discovered that the lock that was clipped was not the hair of Wilkes Booth.

 

Remembering all these wild stories and many others, recalled by the sad surroundings, I determined to go down to the Hotel Grand, where Mrs. Maggie Mitchell Paddock is now boarding during a highly successful engagement In this city, and seek an interview with the charming little lady, and ascertain the facts about this story.

 

I sent up my card to Mr. and Mrs. Paddock, and was invited up to one of the parlors of the Grand. Taking my seat, very soon I heard the sprightly steps of; the lady, those fairy-like footfalls that have charmed the hearts and gladdened the sight of so many throughout the length and breadth of this land. She advanced to meet me with the frank cordiality that characterizes her. In a few moments we were at ease and conversing about Louisville and its people. I heard with pleasure her expressions of deep regard for our city and the pleasure it always gives her to appear before so appreciative an audience.

 

She is as bright and piquante as ever, and in private is even more attractive than on the stage. Her delicate features, bright, earnest eyes, and those indescribable expressions that play about the lips like sunbeams on roses, are inexpressibly charming and attractive. She has the rare power of drawing everyone to her, and nine times out of ten everyone is willing to be drawn.

 

In a few words I told her the old story I had heard away down in Texas, long, long ago; and a shade of melancholy came over her bright face as I mentioned the sad details. She shook her head and said: "There is no foundation in fact for the story as told to you. John Wilkes Booth was an intimate friend of my family and of myself. But I was not at Washington when that fearful tragedy occurred. I was at St. Louis then, stopping at the Lindell hotel, as I well remember from a dream, a most remarkable dream, I had the night of the tragedy. I will tell it to you presently. The story about the lock of hair must have originated in this wise. After John's body— all called him John —was disinterred and taken to his father's burial lot in Baltimore, Miss Annie Ford, another intimate friend of John, was solicited to get a lock of his hair. She did so, and with her own hands clipped from his head a little lock of his beautiful hair and gave it to me. It was his hair Beyond a doubt. No one ever had more beautiful hair than he. 'Twas the loveliest hair in the world."

 

“Was he a very handsome and agreeable man, Mrs. Paddock?" I asked.

 

“Oh, very indeed," she replied, "he was a delightful companion through his great attainments and intellectual superiority. He was a splendid horseman and rode with ease and grace. Being fond of the exercise myself, I was often out with him on horseback."

 

"Then you have no doubt that it was really John Wilkes Booth who was killed?" I asked.

 

"Oh, dear no; not the shadow of a doubt. It is true. The lock of hair clipped from his head by Miss Annie Ford and given to me, I sent to his mother, poor woman, who was grieving for his untimely end. It was much as a woman's life was worth in those days to have had an intimate friendship and acquaintance with him, but I braved all this and secured the lock of hair and gave it to his mother."

 

"I will now tell you about my dream at St. Louis the night of the tragedy, Good Friday. "I had been playing there, and was stopping at the Lindell.

 

“I dreamed on that memorable night that I saw John Wilkes Booth leap from the private box of the president at Ford's theater to the stage. He was dressed, as usual, with inimitable taste and neatness. He wore a short Spanish cloak, lined with crimson satin. As he leaped on to the stage from the box, hurriedly and excitedly, his cloak flew open and disclosed a little white poodle dog under his arm. He ran past me and made his exit by the door through which he did actually escape after committing the horrid deed.

 

"I was telling this dream next morning to my sister Mary and a party of select friends while eating our breakfasts. I was engaged in telling my dream, and before getting through with the remarkable details the head waiter came up to us with a scared look on his face.

 

"We were interrupted by his asking us if we had heard the news. He then said that President Lincoln had been shot the night before; and in less than ten minutes we were all electrified with the astounding news that the assassin was John Wilkes Booth, about whom we were talking when the head waiter first interrupted our chat at the table. It made a lasting impression on me. I have often told it to my friends, and it is strange that it has never got into the papers, because everyone who heard me telling my dream, before we had heard the news from Washington, considered it remarkable and wondrous from its astounding coincidences."

 

"Are you superstitious, Mrs. Paddock?" I asked.

 

"Oh, yes, she is a little so," interrupted Mr. Paddock, her husband.

 

"I do not blame her, with such an experience as that," I replied.

 

Thanking Mrs. Paddock for the entertainment she had given me, I bowed myself out of her gracious presence…..”

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3. An account (which seems a bit suspect) in an 1894 book called "Union: A Story of the Great Rebellion," by John Roy Musick, of Mitchell and Booth having a lovers quarrel in a restaurant, which was overheard by a waiter, and later recounted in the Cincinnati Tribune. Booth warns her that if she rejects him, a terrible deed is coming - here's a link to the section which covers several pages: books.google.com/books?id=ec0dAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA412&l...

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4. Below is an obituary that tells of her stage career, her devotion to the North, and of meeting President Lincoln (but no mention of Booth), from the Library of Congress digital newspaper collection:

 

Evening Public Ledger

Philadelphia, Saturday, March 23, 1918

 

"FAMOUS STAGE STAR

DIES IN 86TH YEAR

 

Maggie Mitchell, Praised by Lincoln, Succumbs In New York

New York, March 23

 

Maggie Mitchell, eighty-six years old, one of the most famous of American actresses, died yesterday at her home in this city.

 

Miss Mitchell, whose name in private life was Mrs. Charles Abbott, began her career on the stage when she was five years old, taking child parts. The play in which she later achieved her greatest fame was "Fanchon the Cricket," first produced in New Orleans in I860. In this and other plays she appeared often before President Lincoln. She retired from the stage about twenty years ago.

 

She had been in poor health since last August, but her death came unexpectedly and was due to apoplexy.

 

Born in this city, she first played at the Old Bowery Theatre. In 1851 she appeared at Burton's Chambers Street Theatre in “The Soldier's Daughter," and then began a tour as a star, appearing in repertory.

 

An ardent Northerner, she was in Mobile, Ala, when the Civil War ended, and she often told her friends with pride of the furor she created by being the first woman to raise the Stars and Stripes in that city after the declaration of peace.

 

In the early spring of 1863 she was playing Washington when one day a messenger came to her dressing room to say that President Lincoln would esteem it an honor if she would call at the White House the next day, "And the President sent his own carriage for me," Maggie Mitchell would say as she often retold the great event. "And when I got there he shook my hand and looked at me steadily for a minute and then he said: ‘I heard of you so much, young woman, that I wanted to meet you here in our home.’ That's the way he said It. ‘I heard of you so much.’ And that was the greatest day of my life."

 

She was married twice. Her first husband was Henry Paddock, of Cleveland, whom she married at Troy. N.Y., after a courtship of fourteen years. Later she became the wife of Charles Abbott, of this city, who survives her with a son and daughter.”

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Red/Cyan (not red/blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting. Anaglyph prepared using red cyan glasses from The Center For Civil War Photography / Civil War Trust. CCWP Link: www.civilwarphotography.org/

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