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in the applause of adoring fans. I have not done so.
    In the fall of 1860, I was in Montgomery, Alabama, playing to fans who loved me. I remember the partiesmost. I was the guest of honor in many a fine home. We were at dinner during one of those parties when the hostess turned to me and said. “We have just bought a fine new racehorse, Mr. Booth, paid dearly for him, I can tell you.”
    She was a pretty woman dressed in a gown of black and white, her fair hair piled high on her head. Her blue eyes danced as she spoke. “You enjoy racing, I assume,” I said.
    “Oh my, yes, Forrest and I both do, but we shall enjoy it more with this wonderful horse.”
    Her husband, Forrest, at the other end of the table, entered the conversation. “Tell Mr. Booth what you want to name the horse, my dear.”
    The lady laughed. She bent her head in pretended embarrassment. Then glancing up at me, her gaze coquettish, she said, “I’d like to name him John Wilkes if you’ve no objection. He is a handsome animal and fine. I am sure the mares adore him.”
    I laughed. “I would be honored, my lady,” I said, and I lifted my glass for a toast. “To John Wilkes, may he race always to the front.”
    After the meal, I walked about the plantation with my host and hostess. The late afternoon sun was still warm. We toured the barn to see the horses, and we walked along beside the fields that lay beyond the barn.
    “What a lovely scene,” I said, gesturing toward the fields where the slaves bent over cotton. They sang asthey worked, and their voices carried to our ears. I remember thinking that it was a picture in danger of disappearing.
    Only a few weeks after that party, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. In a four-way race, he won only 39 percent of the popular vote, but was elected by a wide electoral majority. I was backstage when a fellow actor showed me the
Montgomery Advertiser
. Staring down at the headlines that announced the election, I felt tears roll down my cheeks.
    The newspaper recommended that Alabama secede, and all about me voices echoed the sentiment. When I left Alabama shortly after the election, I knew I would not again come to the dear state as part of the Union.
    I went from Alabama to a theater in Philadelphia. Although I played to appreciative fans, I did not find the people there as warm as the people of the South. My sister Asia had married a man we had known from childhood, John Clarke Sleeper. He was beginning to do well on the stage as a sort of low comedy actor, and he reversed his middle and last names, thinking it would not be good to be known as a Sleeper.
    Asia looked beautiful on her wedding day, and I tried to be glad for her, but I had never really cared for the groom. I did love Asia’s babies. She had two by the time I visited her in her Philadelphia home. She sat on a love seat, smiling, as I rolled with the babies on the floor. How I loved those sweet boys, loved to kiss their soft sweetskin and feel their small hands clutching at my cheek. Asia was with child again, and I remember looking up at her and saying, “You might want to name the next child after your younger brother.”
    “You think I should name the next child Joseph, do you?” Asia laughed, but she knew that I meant myself. Even then, though, I doubted her husband would agree to have his son named for me.
    John Clarke had a small mind. Therefore I should not have been surprised to learn that he was a Lincoln supporter. On that first visit to their home after the election, I simply avoided discussing politics with the man. A few weeks later the peace was impossible to keep.
    I was at dinner with Asia and John when a neighbor came breathlessly into the dining room shouting, “South Carolina has seceded. The Union has been destroyed.”
    “It was bound to happen,” said John. “Others will follow, and they won’t go peacefully.” He shook his thick head. “The fools will push us to war now.”
    Without