Disease at the National?

[L Verge]

The alley or the outhouses might serve the gentlemen's needs, but there is no way in god's little green acres that an appropriately dressed lady of that period would have attempted it unless in dire emergency. Been there, done that in modern stalls and porta-johns. Too many layers and too many hoops without a struggle.

I did find mention of the Willard Hotel having running water and toilets in 1860 when the Japanese delegation arrived in town to begin their diplomatic offices with the U.S. for the first time. The delegates remarked about those facilities in their writings. Still working to find if Booth's haunts at the National Hotel had such niceties. I don't think it was as upscale as the Willard, but it wasn't a flop house by any means.