Booth’s escape journal offers an unparalleled window into the assassin’s mind. Into this pocket date book, Booth inscribed for all time his deepest emotions. He justifies Lincoln’s murder: “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.” He loses hope: “After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gun boats . . . with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair.” But he will not give up, and rallies his spirits: “I think I have done well, though I am abandoned, with the Curse of Cain upon me . . .To night I try to escape these blood hounds once more.” His plight as an injured, hunted man has not robbed him of his characteristic vanity: “I have too great a soul to die like a criminal . . . spare me that and let me die bravely.” And then, the final entry, quoting the villain Macbeth: “‘I must fight the course.’ Tis all that’s left me.” He does not know it when he writes those words, but John Wilkes Booth has five days to live.