Thomas F. Harney

[John Fazio]

Laurie, Roger and anyone else who is not convinced that Stanton and Grant were not targets:

Here is the evidence I have that favors Stanton being a target:

1. He was mentioned as an intended victim in the many conversations between the Confederate operatives in Canada (the "Canadian Cabinet"), as reported by Montgomery, Dunham, Merritt and Von Steinacker at the trial.
2. When Davis learned of the assassination, he said: "...and if the same had been done to ...Secretary Stanton, the job would have been complete", which suggests that assassinating Stanton was part of the "job", which, because of the failure, was not complete. In his summation, Bingham interpreted the statement just so.
3. An anonymous report was sent to Stanton on May 15, 1865, advising him of a conspiracy to murder him, the President and Seward and that it was known to McClellan and Copperheads Belmont, Wood, Haswell and Larocque.
4.Britton Hill, a Stanton aide, conducted an investigation on April 15 and concluded that Stanton and Johnson were to have been killed.
5. A Lafayette Baker agent, one D. V. Coldazer, advised Baker, who in turn advised Eckert, that according to information he obtained in Boston, there was a plot to murder Lincoln, Seward, Stanton and Halleck. The latter left Washington for Richmond and may have, by so doing, saved himself.
6.David Homer Bates, Manager of the Telegraph Office, concluded that Johnson and Stanton were targeted.
7. Allan Pinkerton telegraphed Stanton on April 15, requesting that he exercise extreme caution for his safety.
8. Three witnesses at the trial testified that O'Laughlen was at Stanton's home on the night of the 13th. Their testimony was corroborated by Atzerodt in one of his confessions.
9. The T.I.O.S. letter to Booth mentions that one assassin had been assigned to each member of Lincoln's Cabinet.
10. A cipher letter that came into the possession of Union intelligence stated that "The brute Stanton will also meet his deserts (sic) by a sure hand."
11. Thomas A. Jones wrote, in his book on Booth in 1893, that Stanton was an intended victim.
12. Stanton himself told of the skulking figure on his porch. He said he was in the back room playing with the children, which may account for why he didn't hear knocking, if the intruder knocked. As to how he knew the intruder rang the bell, he surmised it, inasmuch as the intruder was seen on the porch, but no bell was heard. Stanton's biographer, Frank A. Flower, stated categorically that the broken doorbell saved Stanton's life. The account also appeared in the New York Times and in Orville Hickman Browning's Diary. Steers is in accord.
13. According to Secretary of the Interior Usher, a man was found at Stanton's house hiding behind a tree box. He fled. Another person, unidentified, also told Stanton he had seen a man behind the tree box. Whether this was the same man who was on the porch cannot be known. "Suspicious persons...seen about the residence of Mr. Stanton..." was also reported by one Edwin Bates, a patron of Ford's Theatre on the fateful night.

None of the foregoing items is, by itself, in my opinion, sufficient to conclude that Stanton was targeted. But taken together, I believe they constitute a persuasive case, indeed I would say a very persuasive case, that Stanton was an intended victim on the 14th.

I will let you respond to this before I give you the evidence relating to Grant.

Once again I say, if anyone has evidence contradicting any of the above, please present it.

John


14. The account of the intruder on the porch receives some support from one Hudson Taylor, a bookseller in Washington who was a very good friend of Stanton's.
15.