The Old Scrap Book

[RJNorton]

Laurie, I found another story about Mr. Dietrich.

Publication: Daily News-Democrat
Location: Huntington, Indiana
Issue Date: Monday, April 3, 1899
Page: Page 7

"Many of the stories about John Wilkes Booth are very absurd," says Mr. Louis Dietrich, an old Washingtonian "I have heard people throughout the country say that Booth was never killed or captured and that the body which was brought to Washington was a dummy. I have seen such statements in the papers, as though the writers believed the nonsense about which they write. But I can tell you that I was one of the very few who actually did see and touch the dead body of the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. "I knew Mr. Lincoln very well and I knew the crazy man who slew him. Booth was better known to the people of Washington than Lincoln. Of course, the president was seen at different times, on great occasions, and his pictures were everywhere. But he was not often personally seen by the people. John Wilkes Booth was a character well known to Washington. He was almost as eccentric as his eccentric father, who was in many respects a crazy man. "The elder (Booth was a man who would go to a saloon and pawn his body for liquor, and the theatrical managers would have to hunt him up at the saloons and pay the money which he owed in order to get him on the stage. He became excited once, when he was playing 'Richard III,' and tried to kill the man who played Richmond. He chased him off the stage and all over the theater until he was himself was captured by a policeman and disarmed. "His son, John Wilkes, was a man of uneven mind. He drank to excess and did many eccentric things. He was a great pedestrian. He was constantly taking long walks. Everybody in the city knew him by sight. "When his body was brought here on a gunboat I wanted to see him; but it was almost impossible to get a chance. I thought of all schemes to get on board and at last went to my friend, Dr. Todd, of the army, and asked him how I should get to see the body. He said: 'We are to make a post - mortem examination to - morrow In the afternoon. You come to the boat and tell the guards that you have a message for me. I will be on board and will tell them to send you to me as I am expecting you. I did so and was admitted. ' ' "Just before the post mortem examination Dr. Todd lifted the big tarpaulin that was laid over the body on the upper deck, and showed me the face of the dead man.' It was calm and peaceful as a baby's, and it was John Wilkes Booth. It is all nonsense to say that he was not there. I saw him and touched his head. It was cold and dead; and it was Booth. I know what I know, and I saw Booth lying there. The gunboat was anchored between the arsenal and the navy yard, but nearer the yard than the arsenal." "Among other absurd stories told about Booth was one to the effect that his body had been sunk - in the eastern branch of the Potomac, at midnight, and that no one knew where it was. That was false as everything else they told. His body was buried in the old penitentiary ground, where the arsenal now is, together with those of the other conspirators, ', Harold, " Payne," Mrs. Surratt and Atzerodt. There the body laid for ten years, until it was finally disinterred and carried to Baltimore and buried beside, that of his father in the family burying ground."