Is there a list of the best Lincoln Assassination Consp. books for our library?

[Laurie Verge]

Back to the Why Didn't Eckert Accompany Lincoln question: Some of you have already requested copies of John Stanton's article and they are on their way to you. However, I also found this article from a previous newsletter that you might find interesting. The author is a former NPS Ranger and Curator at Ford's Theatre.

A FINAL THOUGHT ON THE ECKERT AS BODYGUARD ISSUE
by Frank Hebblethwaite

I feel compelled to make a last response to H. Donald Winkler concerning his reply to my questions about Thomas Eckert that appeared in the October edition of this newsletter:

In the second sentence of his article, Mr. Winkler states that, “…[E]vidence comes, in part, from the men who heard Lincoln’s request for Eckert and years later [my emphasis] reported it.” To be more precise, David Homer Bates, who was in the telegraph office on the night of the Lincoln assassination, published his reminiscences in his book, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, in 1907 (42 years later). The recollections of William H. Crook, who apparently saw Lincoln shortly before he went to Ford’s Theatre and walked with him from the White House to the War Department Telegraph Office, appeared in an article entitled “Lincoln’s Last Day” in the September 1907 edition of Harper’s Weekly (also 42 years later).
There is the rub. If Bates and Crook did, indeed, witness Lincoln requesting that Thomas Eckert serve as his bodyguard at Ford’s Theatre, why did it take them 42 years to talk about it? I cannot help but wonder exactly how accurate their recollections were after 42 years.
As noted in Blood on the Moon by Edward Steers, Jr., “Crook’s reminiscence has become a favorite among storytellers. But there are several difficulties with the account, making it unlikely that it ever happened…” The Lincolns began their dinner a little late, just after 7 pm. At 7:30 pm, Lincoln met with Speaker Colfax. The only time Lincoln could have accompanied Crook to Stanton’s office was between the end of dinner and Lincoln’s 7:30 pm meeting with Colfax. In the interval between 7 pm and 7:30 pm, there was not enough time to eat dinner, visit with Stanton, and return to visit with Colfax. Most damaging to Crook’s veracity, however, is the finding of a statement by historian William Hanchett that quotes Stanton as saying that the last visit to his office by Lincoln was on the evening of Wednesday, April 12 – not April 14.
Hanchett points out that no mention is made before the year 1907 by Crook or anyone else of Lincoln’s visiting the War Department on the night of April 14, 1865. Since publication of Crook’s book, nearly every author has included the episode in writing about Lincoln’s last hours. Crook’s reminiscence cannot be accepted; and, while some of his observations are undoubtedly true, each must be scrutinized carefully before accepting them as an accurate part of the Lincoln assassination story.
In The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, Dr. Hanchett put the recollections of David Homer Bates in context as follows: “The story about Stanton denying Lincoln the company of Eckert at Ford’s Theatre comes from the memoir of David H. Bates…whose memory of how Stanton had given an ‘implied order’ to Grant to change his plans had so impressed Eisenschiml, Eisenschiml admitted that Bates’s ‘charge,’ published forty-two years after the event, could have been the product of an old man’s imagination. But since Bates had admired Stanton and been a lifelong friend of Eckert, he considered it unlikely. The truth is that Bates made no ‘charge’ against Stanton. He stated that, upon hearing that the Lincolns were planning to attend the theater in company with General and Mrs. Grant, Stanton ‘made a vigorous protest’ against it on grounds of security…When [Lincoln] asked for the company of Eckert, Stanton refused, according to Bates, because he was ‘still unwilling to encourage the theater project,’ and Eckert ‘knowing Stanton’s views,’ declined for the same reason… Bates wondered if ‘the alert and vigorous Eckert’ might not have been able to save the president’s life if he had been in the box instead of Major Rathbone. He might have. But it must be remembered that Eckert was to have been a guest inside the box rather than a guard outside of it, a distinction Eisenschiml blurs by referring to Eckert as an escort for Lincoln and his ‘guests.’”
Allow me to point out one more detail in regard to the question of whether or not General Grant’s presence would have caused a military guard to provide more adequate protection for Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. As reported in the Washington Star, President Lincoln attended a performance of Love in Livery at Ford’s Theatre on March 10, 1865, with both General Grant and General Burnside. Neither Grant nor Burnside had a military guard to protect them that night. No one guarded the presidential box, and at least two people walked into the box to give Lincoln messages. Since there was no military guard at Ford’s Theatre on March 10, there is nothing to indicate that a guard would have been assigned to General Grant on April 14. Hence, if Grant had attended Our American Cousin with Lincoln, Booth may have killed him as well. Then again, Grant may have subdued Booth. We will never know.
I am still left with the larger question: If Lincoln asked him to serve as his bodyguard at Ford’s Theatre, why didn’t Eckert ever write about it? For that matter, why didn’t Secretary of War Edwin Stanton mention it?

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