Drawing of Booth Body

[L Verge]

Linda - When John first told me about Lawrence Gardner's denial of the photograph, my first thought was that Lawrence was covering up for the photo being missing. Then I asked myself why he would need to do that.

The photo would have been overshadowed by the physical identifications that were made by so many others, by the re-examination -- with dental records -- upon exhumation of Booth in 1869, and Eisenschmil and his villainous Stanton theories and the escape theory had not appeared on the assassination story line as yet. Why would Lawrence Gardner need to lie?

As far as Booth's body changing drastically, I got shot down years ago when I questioned how it could have changed so much in one day's time! The first to pull the trigger on me was Mike Kauffman, who filled me in on livor mortis causing freckling at the body's lowest point (Booth was wrapped in the blanket and placed face down in the wagon heading to the John S. Ide). I personally knew that exposure to sunlight brings out the red highlights in someone's dark hair.

Then the final "bullet" was aimed at me by Bill Richter, who took the time to consult the weather in Caroline County, Virginia, and up the Potomac River to D.C. at the time of the body's transport. Once he got that information, he consulted a medical examiner with the State of Arizona for his opinion on deterioration of a human body under those conditions. I have shut my mouth from that point on. I think Seaton Munroe misspoke - or delivered the flowery, sentimental statements that Victorian culture expected.

As I said before, I would love to have the "missing" photo "found" as much as anyone. After 150 years of searching (by some very reputable historians), however, maybe it's time to accept Lawrence Gardner's more reasonable statement -- you can't find something that never existed in the first place.

One more question: The man that people take to be Alexander Gardner in the engraving also reminds me of Allen Pinkerton. Does anyone know if the PI was in on the identification process?

John - Love the Nemo cartoon. The originator of that must have been a fan of Jules Verne to assign himself the pen name of Nemo - which I believe translates to "No Man."