Booth Saved Lincoln's Life

Close relatives of the Booth and Lincoln most people associate with the names had their very own twist of fate. And on one occasion Booth saved Lincoln's life.

One night at a railway station in Jersey City, NJ. Edwin Booth saved the life of a young man who had been pushed into the small space between the train and it's loading platform. As the man fell the train also began to move...twisting him into a position that he could not recover from.

Realizing the man's peril and without regard for his own safety, Edwin quickly snatched the collar of the man's jacket and yanked him from death's grip back onto the platform. The man turned to face his rescuer and to his astonishment he saw that it was none other than the famous actor Edwin Booth.

Edwin came from a family of actors, including his younger brother John Wilkes who later assassinated President Lincoln. Ironically the young man Edwin saved at the train station that night was none other than President Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln.

Edwin is reported to have said that saving Robert was the only thing that comforted him after learning that his brother murdered the President. The event devastated Edwin to the end of his days.

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Edwin had a friend travelling along with him the night he saved Robert Lincoln. Ironically it was John T. Ford, the owner of the theater where John Wilkes committed treason.

Although Edwin Booth had been born in the South he was a Lincoln sympathizer. It was a fact that tore the relationship between him and his younger brother. After Edwin saved Robert Lincoln's life he had befriended the Lincoln's...a fact which only made the assassination all that much harder to bare.

Another interesting fact was that one of John's conspirators fled the US after the assassination and joined the Swiss guard whose duty it was to protect the Vatican in Rome (of all places). He was later found out and shipped back to the United States. He was charged with treason.