One more post, on one broken leg.

[wsanto]

(09-24-2013 12:51 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I agree with Joe 100% (and don't let that go to your head, Yankee). What is being described in that statement appears more to be a rendition of the door brace that Booth supposedly fashioned out of the music stand - not the hole in the door. I suspect that the gentleman was looking for his day in the spotlight and cooperating with the government - just as others had done two years earlier in 1865. Who knows, he may have actually met Booth doing the carpentry work.

As for the hole in the door, I have always credited Booth with the handiwork. My thoughts have been that Frank Ford was covering for the fact that he and other members of the staff were lax in security by allowing Booth free roam of the theater to prepare for his grand performance that night. He didn't want the authorities to know that Booth had time to make preparations.

Booth's intention in drilling the hole, I think, was to get a position on Lincoln's head (taking into consideration the height of the rocker's back) in case he had to fire from that door. Did he expect the door to Box 8 to be open and welcoming when he was in the theater that afternoon?

I agree with Laurie. This testimony may have been fiction or an account of meeting Booth or some other known or unknown conspirator in the President's box. During the Conspirator's trial the prosecution was trying to prove it was Spangler that bored the hole and created the notch and stashed the bar for Booth. It seems inconcievable that Suratt would have been tasked to do this deed having no connection to Ford's Theater otherwise.

It seems to me the hole to the door to box 7 would have been very valuable to Booth. He could confirm who was and was not in the box, where they were sitting, confirm they were all sitting, and observe how intently they were all watching the play before he moved down the hall to the open door for box 8.

I also agree that Ford was trying to cover his own culpability in allowing anyone, in this case the President's assassin, the time and access to the President's box on that day to prepare the box for the crime.