A Bit of Levity re: O'Reilly's "Killing Lincoln"

[Gerald D. Swick]

BettyO and L Verge, thanks for your response; sorry I haven't been able to get back to you sooner. Your responses match what we found, that the "87 drowned" was probably inspired by the collision between the barge Black Diamond and the steamer Massachusetts on April 24, although even the numbers don't match. Possibly the authors came across some erroneous newspaper report of soldiers drowning in Maryland - anyone who's spent much time reading old newspapers has probably run across some totally bogus stories - but O'Riley's co-author, Martin Dugard, didn't respond to our request for information on where they got their statistic. Thanks again for your response.