J. J. Reford and J. J. Chaffee...who were they?...Really??

[Laurie Verge]

Now that Bill has given you the gist of Dixie Reckoning (the part that I was sworn to secrecy with), I would like to interject my personal opinion. I read all 350+ pages of the manuscript about three years ago, and it certainly seems very plausible -- at least the part that was digestible because it is written in such archaic, flowery, confusing style that it boggles one's mind!

That said, however, so far as I know, no one (including Bill) has seen the documentation for all of this. Over 500 footnotes, and all they refer to are things like "Demill files," " Henson papers," etc. The Henson descendant who supposedly has/had his papers first said that she owned them and would let a representative of our community see them. A second contact with her had her denying that she had the papers.

After plowing my way through the manuscript, I was left with the feeling of "Boy, if this is true, what a great find." One second after that, my thought was, "Show me the proof." There is just too much resemblance to the Neff escapades with the spurious Potter Papers and the Joseph Lynch escapades with the so-called missing pages of Booth's diary for me not to be a skeptic.

For those of you who may have been members of the Surratt Society back in 2010 or 2011, check your newsletters (if you keep them). Chapters 1 and 2 of Dixie Reckoning were the feature articles in January and February of one of those years (can't get to my online index to find out which one).

Also, Google Philip Henson: His memoirs used to be online. He supposedly did a private investigation of Lincoln's assassination for then-President Grant and turned his findings over to Grant - never to be seen again. I even went so far as to contact the FBI and the CIA historians with no luck. All I can say is that I would love to have it proven that Yankees were definitely behind the plot to assassinate their own president, but we need to see documentable evidence and have it analyzed by leading authorities in the field.

I'm now going into hiding...