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John Fazio · (This post was last modified: 11-11-2013 12:34 AM by John Fazio.)

(11-10-2013 08:38 AM)JMadonna Wrote:
(11-09-2013 06:31 AM)John Fazio Wrote: Jerry:

You have GOT to be kidding!!! Benjamin, the mastermind behind the Confederate year of terror (March, 1864, through April, 1865). Benjamin, without whose imprimatur, nothing was done by the Secret Service. Benjamin, in regular communication with the Canadian Cabinet, with Davis and with Surratt, the latter in regular communication with Booth. Benjamin, who ran for his life, even from Davis and his party, "anywhere, even if it takes me to the middle of China", because he knew he would not escape the hangman. Benjamin, who, after establishing a new career in England, never spoke about the war or of his role in it and never returned to the United States. That Benjamin! I repeat: You have got to be kidding.

John

John,
In the lengthy letter I sent you from Thompson to Benjamin dated 12/8/1864, Thompson begins by saying; “Sir: Several times I have attempted to send you communications, I have no assurance that any one of them have been received. I have relaxed no effort to carry out the objects the Government had in view of sending me here”….

Does this sound like Benjamin was the man ‘without whose imprimatur, nothing was done by the Secret Service’?
Thompson goes on to inform him of all the operations carried out by his group since April ’64 and their failures. It seems obvious that Thompson was given a list of objectives by Davis and he was responsible for the methods to carry them out.
Thompson does mention that a note from Benjamin through Lt. Headley did reach him re-enforcing the goal of freeing prisoners but Thompson apologizes telling him that they had to abandon that goal due to a lack of Copperhead support. Wouldn’t the ‘mastermind behind the Confederate year of terror’ be aware of this long before December?

The reason for Thompson’s long report was that he was getting fired. On December 30, General Edwin G. Lee arrived in Canada to hand Thompson the following directive from Benjamin:

'From reports which reach us from trustworthy sources, we are satisfied that so close an espionage is kept upon you that your services have been deprived of the value which is attached to your residence in Canada. The President thinks that it is better that you return to the Confederacy.'

But as you know, Thompson did not return to the Confederacy. He stayed in Montreal. However, Benjamin communicated only with Lee from then on.

When Surratt returned to Montreal he had an order for Lee to make certain that Thompson gave him control of the money. Lee had the authority to demand it so there was no need for a letter from Benjamin to Thompson. Yet, Surratt also delivered a letter to Thompson, which from all indications seemed to give the green light to assassinating Lincoln. It is pretty safe to assume that the authorization had to come from Davis alone.

Lee was completely blindsided by the assassination. He wrote in his diary; ‘News of Lincoln’s death came this morning, exciting universal shock of…” He then crossed out ‘shock of’ and substituted ‘horror and amazement’.

If the head of the Canadian Confederate operations was horrified you can imagine how the ‘mastermind’ must have felt.

Jerry:

Unless I am missing something, it does not appear to me that you said anything that is in derogation of anything I said. Much of what you said relates to time lapses in communication, which, given the technology of the time, and the need to avoid easily compromised means of communication, such as the telegraph, is perfectly understandable. The Thompson letter you refer to, for example, was sent on Dec. 4 and was not received by Benjamin until February 13. But this does not in any way diminish Benjamin's authority; it simply means that some of his orders would not be executed as soon as he would have liked them to be and that he would sometimes have to authorize his subordinates to take independent action in lieu of orders from him. OK. So what? He's still the major domo where terror is concerned if and when he chooses to exercise authority and if and when he can and does make his wishes known. You can be absolutely sure that before terror plots of any significance were carried out, they were first approved by Benjamin, at least, and sometimes Davis. That would include the raids on Calais and St. Albans; the Northwest Conspiracy; the burning of New York; the spreading of pestilence in the North (Dr. Blackburn's scheme and Hyams's testimony); the voyage of the CSS Tallahassee; the Boatburner's work on inland waterways; the explosion at City Point; and John Yeats Beall's attempt to free prisoners from Johnson's Island and to derail trains from Buffalo; among other acts of terror.

Why was it necessary for Richmond to authorize the Canadian Cabinet to kill Lincoln, inasmuch as Booth was in Washington? Why not get the order to Booth directly? My surmise, and it is only that, is that the Canadian Cabinet had to be authorized because there was much more to April 14 than Booth and his team, who appear to have had responsibility for killing only five government officeholders. The Cabinet had to coordinate a broader program, namely decapitation of probably ten others, including every member of Lincoln's Cabinet.

As for General Lee's "horror and amazement", I have a section in the book devoted to "gratuitous exculpations", "portentous comments" and "florid denials".

John

(11-09-2013 11:24 PM)SSlater Wrote: John F. I have been reading your stuff on Google for years, so I appreciate your dialog on Surratt's whereabouts, but I differ from you on the "8 DAYS". Mar18 to 25. On Mar 19, Watson wrote to Surratt in D.C., thus he believed Surratt to be in D.C., clearly, he was not in New York. We don't know if Surratt replied to him, via telegraph - as requested, and told him that Booth was in NY and would attend to the work needing to be done. (Escort Sarah? - that I believe.) Booth and Surratt were both in D.C. on the 25th, but there is no record of them meeting face-to-face. (Booth went to his hotel, and Surratt picked up Sarah, but where???) From that point on they were inseparable well into April. I can't believe that Surratt would have gone to NY in that time period. So, Booth might have seen Surratt on Mar. 19 and maybe Mar25, but that's all. That wouldn't have been enough time to develop a New Plot. The continuance of the original "team" is extremely "Iffy". I will grant you the thought that - there is the possibility that Surratt part may have been to report the new "Assassination Plan" to the authorities in Canada for their approval, but he did not have an active part in the plan, because he had other duties for the Confederacy, (with Sarah and/or Elmira) and could not make it back to D.C. on time. Question: Was the date of the Assassination a set date, or could it have been "when possible"? and it came sooner that expected, so Surratt wasn't available. Watcha' Think?

SSlater:

Thank you for your response.

I cannot say with certainty that Surratt met with Booth after 3-17; I can say only that the evidence we have makes it probable. Booth did not leave for NY until 3-21. So he and Surratt were in Washington through that date. Would you not suppose that they saw each other during that period (3-18 through 3-21)? Knowing that Booth left for NY on 3-21 and that Powell was already there, as well as Parr and "the NY crowd", and having received a telegram on the 19th from Roderick Watson soliciting his presence there, would you not suppose that he would join all of them there at that time, giving him plenty of time to go and return to Washington, with Booth, on the 25th? And being in the same city on the 25th, would you not suppose that they saw each other there, probably at the boardinghouse, which is probably where Sarah Slater went upon arrival.

In my opinion, there was no "new assassination plan". It was ALWAYS an assassination plan, after the Wistar and Dahlgren-Kilpatrick Raids. It was only a matter of engineering it. According to Ms. Hamm (or Hann), the idea of murdering Lincoln in a theater was hatched in Richmond weeks before it was carried out. There was no real kidnapping plot; that was the ruse and cover to conceal the real purpose, which was decapitation. A kidnapped Lincoln would have done them no good at all, and Davis even said so! What would they have done in the face of Northern stonewalling? Take off his arms? Pull out his fingernails? Decapitation was their last and only hope. In my opinion, you are well advised to jettison all the nonsense about kidnapping and concentrate on what really happened and what was really tried.

John