JW Booth and Quinine

[L Verge]

(03-05-2015 07:40 PM)Anita Wrote:  I found this on page 29 of W. C. Jameson's book "John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave" "... and O'Laughlen once assisted Booth in smuggling quinine and other medicines into the South." Didn't see a footnote or indication of a source.

I don't think definitive proof exists that Booth smuggled quinine other than what he told Asia as mentioned in Kaufman's book.

I agree that there likely is no definitive proof that Booth was engaged in the smuggling of drugs to the Confederacy - other than his telling his closest confidante, Asia, as revealed to our generation by James O. Hall and then Terry Alford's editing of Asia's work years before Mike repeated it in American Brutus.

However, clandestine ventures usually do not leave paper trails. I also do not think that we can assume that Booth, himself, carried drugs into the South. He might only have been the procurer with some other "mule" being the transporter.