Program on C-Span this weekend

[Anita]

I guess he wants us to buy the book!

[Jenny]

From the reviews, I don't even know if he gives away "the secret" in the book! Has anyone read this one? I'd never heard of it until today.

[L Verge]

I finally broke down and ordered it from Amazon the other day and should receive it before Christmas. It's another piece of historical fiction, but I will dutifully wade through it.

[Anita]

(12-12-2013 05:22 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thanks for posting this, Sally. I admit to being fascinated by the possibility Mary Surratt told such a terrible secret to John Bingham. Apparently Bingham told Edwin Stanton, and Stanton also felt it was too important to reveal. Both Stanton and Bingham took the secret to their graves (at least that's the story). Does anyone know if there is an actual record of John Bingham meeting privately with Mary Surratt when she was incarcerated?

Roger, I can't find any record that Bingham ever spoke to her while she was incarcerated. Wouldn't it be unusual for the prosecutor to see her? Wouldn't the prison keep records of all visitors?

[Sally]

(12-17-2013 01:43 PM)Jenny Wrote:  From the reviews, I don't even know if he gives away "the secret" in the book! Has anyone read this one? I'd never heard of it until today.

I "sort of" read it. It's basically a detective novel and I don't care for those. I skipped through to the end, but, honestly, I couldn't figure out what the big secret was, probably because I didn't read it very closely.

But, Jenny, you might like the book. The author has an interesting take on Ella Turner. On the other hand, he is very disparaging of Lucy Hale, which irritated me. (To each his own!)

As for the talk on C-Span, I think some members of this forum would have been amused by his remarks about Lewis Powell's mug shots vs. that of George Atzerodt.

[L Verge]

The issue of the "historical rumor" that John Bingham visited Mary Surratt in her cell and was told a secret that he took to his grave continues to bug me. I know of only a few researchers who have carefully studied what went on "Inside the Walls" (credit line to Elliott and Cauchon), so I turned to John Elliott to find out if he had ever encountered any information that would have Bingham visiting Mary. Here's his reply:

"No such visit was ever recorded to my knowledge and I seriously doubt it ever happened for many reasons. As far as I know, there were no other logs to show who visited the prisoners."

[RJNorton]

Jerry's book has the name of the doctor who allegedly heard Bingham say on his deathbed, "The truth must remain sealed." His name was Dr. John S. Campbell. The information comes from an article titled "Secretary Stanton and Congressman Bingham" by Ervin G. Beauregard in the Winter 1989 Lincoln Herald. Does anyone have that article?

[Jenny]

Laurie, you'll have to tell us what you think!

Sally: Haha, I might know what the author's take on Ella Turner is in the book, judging by Google book preview. As for as Lucy Hale bashing, boo!!

[L Verge]

The James O. Hall Research Center here may have that issue. For awhile, however, we let our subscription lapse because we ran out of space before getting the additional building.

Jenny, I suspect you already know what I think...

[Gene C]

(12-19-2013 04:01 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Jenny, I suspect you already know what I think...

For those of us who may think we know what your think, but love the way you express it, what do you think?

[L Verge]

Not sure I want to watch CSpan, but let me read the book and then express my opinion. It's Christmas time, and I am supposed to behave myself and be kind and generous... Unfortunately, I am already being tested to my limits on that one!

[L Verge]

(12-19-2013 03:40 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Jerry's book has the name of the doctor who allegedly heard Bingham say on his deathbed, "The truth must remain sealed." His name was Dr. John S. Campbell. The information comes from an article titled "Secretary Stanton and Congressman Bingham" by Ervin G. Beauregard in the Winter 1989 Lincoln Herald. Does anyone have that article?

I actually remembered that I have had that article sitting on my desk for over a year after using it for another project. At the time of the article's publication, Dr. Beauregard was a professor of history at the University of Dayton and membership director of the American Catholic Historical Association. I added that latter role because of its significance in there being a possible bias in the author's mentions of the case of Mrs. Surratt.

John Bingham was appointed special judge advocate at the Conspiracy Trial by President Johnson upon the recommendation of Sec. Stanton, and was active in obtaining the convictions of the conspirators. He was also approached by five members of the Commission to write the clemency plea for Mrs. Surratt. One unknown source said that Bingham cooperated "much against the grain."

When it became known that there was a clemency plea that had not been acted upon one way or the other, blame was placed on JAG Holt as not having given it to Johnson. Holt charged that the lie was started by Johnson and Attorney General James Speed. (Citations for this are an 1888 letter from Holt to Bingham and also Benn Pitman stating that he never saw the clemency plea, but believed that it was made.)

Bingham had written a letter on August 4, 1865, to Professor Andrew F. Ross in Cadiz, Ohio, stating, "No defendant stirred the depth of my mind and the bottom of my heart than did Mrs. Surratt. I deliberated inwardly again and again as to why this dignified woman had followed a lamentable trail that had led to such a wickedly inglorious end. Her fate led me to recall the opposite side of womanhood, the Biblical heroines and also those of pagan antiquity. I remembered the patient suffering of my mother whose passing had so affected my youth. I thought and think of my dear wife as a superb model of female loyalty to the memorable cause of the Union. Yet Mrs. Surratt let herself succumb to the evil snares of the satanic cause of the rebels. Thus justice demanded her supreme punishment. Yet the Divine Will acted through the court's plea, which I drew up at the Military Commission's request, to President Johnson that he spare her life, replacing hanging with imprisonment for life. We had the petition brought to him but he did not see fit to honor it."

Bingham later told Holt (2/17/1873) that he had been told by Secretaries Stanton and Seward that Johnson had been presented the petition for clemency and had been duly considered by both Johnson and his advisers before continuing with the death sentence.

As to Mrs. Surratt being visited by Bingham and telling him the "great secret," the author of this article mentions it in a convoluted way. He first says that, shortly before his death in 1869, Stanton swore Bingham to perpetual silence on the case of Mrs. Surratt (at this point, no mention of the visit to Mrs. Surratt or to a reporting to Stanton in 1865).

He then skips to Bingham close to death nearly revealing "the secret" to his physician, Dr. John S. Campbell. The dying man stopped short and instead said, "The truth must remain sealed." The only citation for this story is the doctor supposedly telling the story to his son, who repeated it to the author Beauregard in an interview on May 22, 1978.

John Bingham died in 1900, so his deathbed story to Dr. Campbell would have occurred then. Seventy-eight years later, Campbell's son would tell it to Erving E. Beauregard, who would include it eleven years later in an article for The Lincoln Herald. Some big leaps in time there...

[RJNorton]

Thank you, Laurie, for looking into this and adding so much to our knowledge. After reading your post my initial impression is the story is apocryphal, but maybe others will have a different view. Personally I don't see any evidence Bingham ever met privately with Mary Surratt. I hope Jerry sees this and comments as he used the story in his book. I am curious as to his opinion. Jerry writes that Mary Surratt told Bingham that the "evidence presented by Mrs. Surratt proved so shocking that its publication would threaten the Republic." Because of the horrendous nature of what Mary Surratt told him, Bingham, as he was dying, said, "The truth must remain sealed."

[Gene C]

Library of Congress Lincoln Collection -on C Span 3 this weekend (Saturday at 10PM)

http://www.c-span.org/History/Events/The...737443057/

and if you missed it earlier, or you just want to see it again - The Conspiracy Behind the Lincoln Assassination also on C Span 3 this weekend (Sunday 4 AM - you'll still be able to make it to church)
http://www.c-span.org/History/Events/The...737442484/

[L Verge]

I may have to lose some of my negativity about David O. Stewart's book, The Lincoln Deception. My copy arrived in today's mail, and I have only had time to flip through several sections. I will have to forgive Stewart for writing a piece of fiction because he has already authored three works of non-fiction: one on the writing of the Constitution, another on Aaron Burr, and the last on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. It was during the writing of the last one that he stumbled upon the Bingham story.

Erving E. Beauregard, author of the article discussed above, wrote a little-known biography of John A. Bingham in 1989, entitled Bingham of the Hills. There was a very brief mention of the deathbed "confession and retraction" to the physician. That story about Bingham and Mrs. Surratt stuck in Stewart's head for three years before he decided what to do with it. He knew that the provenance was very weak and that Bingham never did reveal the secret, so Stewart decided that the story needed to be relegated to fiction, but with strong ties to the actual facts of the Lincoln assassination. I'll let you know after Christmas how well he did.

One thing I like about the book is a short Q&A section at the end where some pertinent questions were posed to the author. When asked why he would write about one of the worst crimes in American history, he replied that the assassination denied America the leadership of its greatest president at the beginning of perhaps his greatest challenge -- rebuilding a nation and integrating the freed slaves into American life.

Stewart also believes that the assassination was meant to be a coup d'etat because of the number of potential targets. He also lists five major points as to why he considers the conspiracy to be wider than generally thought: the above coup d'etat evidence, "follow the money" to see how the conspirators were able to live without visible means of support for months ahead of the assassination, ties to the Confederate secret service, the escape route that enabled him to have help in evading thousands of Union soldiers and agents for as long as he did, and the questionable statement by Mary Surratt that would destroy the Republic.

I was especially taken by his comment on resorting to a fictional novel. He says that there is a saying about writing historical fiction - that you can make up a lot, but Abraham Lincoln has to be tall; that is, you should be faithful to the facts when they are known. BTW, the book is set in 1900.

More will be revealed after the holiday hysteria calms down.