The Name Game

[Dave Taylor]

Right after the assassination, the detectives and newspapers were trying their hardest to identify the conspirators and their backgrounds. Mistakes were made, of course, such as the names of the conspirators being confused. People wanted to know the names of those responsible for the assassination and while John Wilkes Booth was easy to identify, the others were a bit more difficult. Wanting to give their readers a name, however, it appears that some of the newspapers just provided random initials when they were in doubt. Here a few of my favorites:



Like the wanted poster, here's David C. Herold instead of the correct, David E. Herold. My hypothesis: the C stands for conspirator until they learn his real middle name.



Looks like someone slipped up and turned George A. Atzerodt into J(ohn) W(ilkes) Atzerodt.



Samuel Bland Arnold got a new middle name in this later newspaper engraving. What does the "G" stand for? My guess: "Go to Jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200"

But my favorite incorrect identification of a conspirator actually comes from a book released in 1901 entitled, "Our Martyr Presidents". It relates the assassination of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, and really should know better than to have this mess:



So here we have a drawing of Lewis Powell identified as "Samuel Atzeroth", who is not a real person, but rather a combination of Samuel Arnold and George Atzerodt. Ouch.