Booth's Note to Johnson

[STS Lincolnite]

These are two interesting possibilities that when examining create more questions.

Per what Eva posted about Kauffman's assertion that Booth was trying to project an image of Johnson and he as intimates: Following Booth's assasination of Lincoln this certainly would have cast shadows on Johnson (and did to some degree - certainly in Mary Lincoln's eyes). But I can't help but wonder why he would bother doing so if the plan was to assassinate Johnson as well (Atzerodt or Herold's assignment)? Would make no difference to Booth & co. if Johnson was looked on negatively in that regard if he was dead. So if the reason that Booth left the note was solely to make Johnson look bad it would then seem that there was in fact no plan to kill Johnson, only to make him look bad. Well...that certainly would change the assassination narrative! I suppose Booth could have been doing trying to cast Johnson in a negative light as a plan B in case the assassination attempt failed. But I don't think he tooks such steps in any other case. Maybe that tells us something about his faith in Atzerodt and Herold.

Leaving the note to find out if Johnson was in and what room he was staying in would make sense if he was a target. Along with the "Plan B" scenario above he could have killed two birds with one stone.

The other option is that, as some might believe, Johnson was in on the plot and Booth honestly wanted to see him to apprise him of the status of the plan.

All are possible, but which is the most probable? At least at this point, I would say he left it to find out where Johnson was and hedged his bet and did try to make Johnson look bad just in case.