Garrett Farm

[Dave Taylor]

(09-19-2013 07:57 AM)wsanto Wrote:  Troy,

I assume you believe Herold was involved with Booth as a conspirator to Lincoln's murder. If so, you must take into account Herold's need, at the time of his capture, of an aliby to explain his being in Garrett's barn that night with Booth. I realize you don't believe it was Booth, but if it was, Herold needed to come up with some story to convince his captors that he was an innocent.

So he starts by claiming he doesn't know Booth and that the body in the barn was, to his knowledge, some guy he just met named Boyd? Ok maybe. Was Herold telling the truth? Of course not. We know he was lying. And Wiiliam Garrett relating what he remembered Herold saying is no evidence that Herold was telling the truth.

The report of a confederate sympathizer that probably had no love lost for Lincoln or for the Federal Government might have been willing to believe, and hope, that Booth escaped that night and that the evil government was covering up the facts. He might have even relayed that story, as fictitious as it might be, to his family. He probably even convinced himself it was true. But like most conspiracy theories--it most likely wasn't

Bill Carnevali

Bill,

Just to make you aware, the aforementioned "William Garrett" account is a fake. I have seen the original handwritten letter and it does not have William Garrett's signature. Rather, it is a letter written by postmaster W.P. Carneal "remembering" (i.e. fabricating) a conversation with William Garrett. Put your trust in William Garrett's actual words, like this account that he wrote for Confederate Veteran magazine published the year before he died: http://archive.org/stream/confederatevet...9/mode/2up

None of the Garretts ever had any doubts. They all knew that the man shot in their barn was John Wilkes Booth.