Thomas F. Harney

[Dave Taylor]

Very well put, Kate.

To me, the most poignant example of Herold's true intelligence lies in the poem he wrote for Willie Jett. It's clear from his own writing that Herold was a well educated and thoughtful man - the exact opposite of what the defense tried to portray him as in their effort to save his life.

Far too often in the literature today the complex characters of the conspirators are misrepresented as one dimensional taglines. "Atzerodt was nothing but a drunk, Herold had the intelligence of an 11 year-old, Powell was a heartless soldier" All of these representations are not only incorrect but also damaging to the study of our history. If we boil down these multifaceted men and women into single (and erroneous) bullet points, we lesson the impact of Lincoln's death. The whole story then loses the very important context which makes it so interesting to study. The true conspiracy of Booth's plot does not stem from any hypothetical outside influence, but rather from the complex internal and external interactions between his core conspirators and their own personal belief systems and values. No one was a pawn in this. They were all complex individuals who acted the way they did based on their unique personal histories. When we subjugate the identities of the conspirators to cliched taglines, we prevent ourselves from getting a complete and accurate view of story.