Was John Wilkes Booth shot in the butt in Columbus?
It’s accepted historical fact that the infamous actor John Wilkes Booth appeared on stage in Columbus and was accidentally shot prior to a performance by a man named Matthew Canning in 1860.
That much we know.
But accounts differ as to the venue where the shooting took place and exactly where the man who would later assassinate President Abraham Lincoln was wounded.
On Presidents Day, Columbus State University posted on its Facebook page an item saying that Booth was shot “in what is now CSU's Rankin student housing complex.”
But some accounts of the incident have it happening at the old Temperance Hall, one of the city’s earliest gathering places and one of its first theaters. It was blocks away from Rankin Square, on First Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets, on the west side of the street.
Again, accounts differ.
In his biography of Booth, “Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth,” author Gordon Samples writes:
“The fact that Booth was shot is unquestioned. Where the history gets ‘fuzzy’ is exactly where did Booth get shot -- and on what part of his body?” Samples writes. “The Columbus Enquirer reported Booth was wounded in the ‘thigh’ at the hotel. Another report had Booth as being shot in the ‘rear’ (and it didn't mean rear of the building!).”
A scouring of the Ledger-Enquirer’s archives produced what are probably the differing accounts Samples refers to.
The Columbus Enquirer-Sun makes reference to the shooting in a 1906 story about a building being erected on the site of the old Temperance Hall, where Booth was performing and in one account, where he was shot.
“A year or two before the civil war, John Wilkes Booth was accidentally shot in Temperance Hall, then the town’s theatre,” the Enquirer-Sun wrote. “The well-known actor was here to fill an engagement, Columbus being one of the town on the Southern theatrical circuit. He was shot with a pistol in some purely accidental manner, but the wound was only of a slight nature and received a notice of only about a half dozen lines in the Columbus newspapers at the time.”
Later, in 1940, two accounts of the same incident appear in two editions of the Enquirer that year. In both, Booth was in town to play Hamlet and in both he was accidentally shot by Canning, but in the backside in the theater in one, and in the thigh in a hotel room in the other.
“The night he was to play Hamlet, another actor was with him in his dressing room when Canning entered and jokingly threatened to shoot both of them. The gun unexpectedly exploded and Wilkes was shot in the rear. The accident kept him off the stage for several weeks.”
In the other account, Booth was shot in the thigh.
“Mr. Canning returned in October of 1860 with John Wilkes Booth featured; but on October 12 while Booth and Canning were practicing with a pistol in their hotel room, Canning let the hammer of the pistol slip and Booth received a flesh wound in his thigh. Though the wound was not severe, it prevented Booth’s appearance as Hamlet that night in his benefit performance.”
There is an historical marker in the Historic District that deals with the city’s early theaters, of which Temperance Hall was one. The marker says Booth was shot here while touring with the Canning Company and its manager did the shooting. Neither the venue nor the location of the wound is mentioned.
Another newspaper report says Canning himself said he accidentally shot Booth in his side, and a New York paper suggested he was shot in the neck.
Dr. Virginia Causey, a retired history professor and noted local historian, didn’t speculate so much on the venue of the shooting or the location of the wound so much as a possible motive.
Causey said newspaper accounts of the day reported that Booth was billed at the time as “John Wilkes” and was playing to large audiences that included a number of “debutantes,” and that he was described as “handsome and prepossessing” in the papers.
Combine that with author Jim Bishop’s observation in his 1955 book “The Day Lincoln Was Shot.”
“His backstage conquests were buzzed from New York to Philadelphia to Washington to Columbus, Ga.,” Bishop wrote.
“This led me to speculate that the shooting might not have been ‘accidental’ as the papers claimed,” Causey said.
There is even speculation that Booth’s wound remained a handicap to him, and eventually hindered his escape on horseback after he assassinated Lincoln, helping to facilitate his ultimate and fatal capture.
Wherever he was shot, he survived so that he could eventually assassinate the 16th president of the United States. He, too, was soon killed, of course, but his brother, Edwin Booth, managed to carry on the family’s theater name. He appeared on stage back in Columbus at the newly erected Springer Opera House, next door to the Rankin Hotel and down the street from Temperance Hall, at one of which his infamous brother was shot, somewhere.
This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 7:35 AM with the headline "Was John Wilkes Booth shot in the butt in Columbus?."