(07-06-2016 11:37 PM)Pamela Wrote:  Again, Richards knew there was one actor on the stage when the shot was fired. The entire country knew it and probably half of the world. As you know, reporters can misquote and make mistakes. Do you really think that Richards didn't know that Hawkes was on the stage? And that not knowing, felt comfortable coming up with-noone was on the stage!
Another again, Richards knew that Grant wasn't there that night. I wouldn't rule out that in the surreal first moments after the shot a few people may have thought of Grant since killing the president was unimaginable. This part of Richard's account only makes it more credible.
Not surprising that Stewart didn't mention Richards. He wanted to be the hero or almost hero.
The McDevitt issue was interesting in the way it evolved over time in the letters and that Richards concluded that there were two visits by police that night, the first was Richards without McDevitt. I certainly understand why you want to invalidate Richards since his observations don't support Mary who you depict as a romance heroine on the cover of Hanging Mary. I didn't know who it was at first because I didn't realize that Mary had blonde ringlets.

(07-08-2016 11:29 AM)L Verge Wrote:  In the first half of the 20th century, there was a D.C. gentleman (probably what we call a "street person" today) who advertised cough drops on the streets while also claiming to have been Peanuts John in the alley in 1865. I have talked to several old-timers who remembered him in the 1920s and 30s.

(07-08-2016 11:29 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Cough Drop Joe Ratto was Italian, and the gentlemen who had met him said that he claimed he had a bump on his head from where Booth had struck him with the butt of his knife while mounting the mare in the alley.

(07-06-2016 03:02 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  The original article in the Critic quotes Richards as stating that the stage was "entirely" free of all persons. The reprinted version in We Saw Lincoln Shot mistakenly renders "entirely" as "nearly." See column 7:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014424/1885-04-17/ed-1/seq-1/

(That's why I prefer to check originals whenever possible. Mistakes do creep in.)

As for Grant, you're quoting quite selectively. Later in the article, Richards states that "in a few seconds word went round that General Grant had been shot," which suggests that the audience thought that the person shot had been Grant. The Presidential party, however, had entered the theater late and with fanfare, and with Major Rathbone and Clara Harris in the place of the Grants, so the audience at that point was well aware that Grant was not in the theater, whatever Richards himself might have supposed when he entered the theater.

Incidentally, J. B. Stewart in his April 15 statement makes no mention of meeting Richards at the theater after the assassination.

I've read Richards' letters to Weichmann. Interestingly, as Richards himself admitted to Weichmann, McDevitt was adamant at the time of the Richards-Weichmann correspondence that Richards had not been at the boardinghouse after the assassination, and McDevitt didn't place him there in his 1865 testimony either. In fact, none of the four men who came to the boardinghouse place Richards there, IIRC.

(07-02-2016 10:48 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-01-2016 12:20 AM)Pamela Wrote:  Richards described those events because of what he had read in chapter 15 of Weichmann's book, and said that Stewart's account of events and testimony were largely imagined and not accurate.

I also wonder about the validity of Richards' account. Personally I do not know of any contemporary evidence that he was present at Ford's Theatre when the President was shot (other than Richards' own word that he was).

Richards says he was there, but was he?

According to Good's book, Richards' "revelation" that he was there came on April 17, 1885, which is 20 years after the event. Captain Reed, who could have verified Richards' presence, is deceased. So is Stewart dead by this time. Richards also says in his account that Peanut John was a black boy. In other discussions we've had, it seems the evidence is quite conclusive that Peanut John was white. Richards claims Mary Lincoln yelled "guerillas" after the shot; as far as I know, no one else made this claim. Richards said he thought Booth yelled "Sic semper tyrannis" twice while on the stage; I think the vast majority of other accounts have Booth yelling this once.

If anyone can provide contemporary evidence that Richards really was in the theater when Lincoln was shot then I will stand corrected in my suspicions.

(07-09-2016 10:41 PM)SSlater Wrote:  

(07-06-2016 03:02 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  The original article in the Critic quotes Richards as stating that the stage was "entirely" free of all persons. The reprinted version in We Saw Lincoln Shot mistakenly renders "entirely" as "nearly." See column 7:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014424/1885-04-17/ed-1/seq-1/

(That's why I prefer to check originals whenever possible. Mistakes do creep in.)

As for Grant, you're quoting quite selectively. Later in the article, Richards states that "in a few seconds word went round that General Grant had been shot," which suggests that the audience thought that the person shot had been Grant. The Presidential party, however, had entered the theater late and with fanfare, and with Major Rathbone and Clara Harris in the place of the Grants, so the audience at that point was well aware that Grant was not in the theater, whatever Richards himself might have supposed when he entered the theater.

Incidentally, J. B. Stewart in his April 15 statement makes no mention of meeting Richards at the theater after the assassination.

I've read Richards' letters to Weichmann. Interestingly, as Richards himself admitted to Weichmann, McDevitt was adamant at the time of the Richards-Weichmann correspondence that Richards had not been at the boardinghouse after the assassination, and McDevitt didn't place him there in his 1865 testimony either. In fact, none of the four men who came to the boardinghouse place Richards there, IIRC.

Susan. Did you ever read the "The Original Atzerodt Confession"? Surrratt Courier Oct 1988. Atzerodt never said that they were going to mine the White House. He said they were going to Mine the Kirk House. Can anyon explain that one? NO GUSSES. Plez
Pardon my spelling "Guesses" JFS