JW Booth and Quinine

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The entire Higginson affidavit can be read on p. 349 of Kimmel's Mad Booths of Maryland.
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Excellent, Roger! Thank you for pointing me in that direction.

For those who may not have it at hand, on page 179, Kimmel writes: "Wilkes was now trouping over a circuit of theaters that guaranteed him three hundred dollars a week. These engagements enabled him at times to assist in sending medical supplies into the South."

The accompanying "comment" on page 349 reads: "In the War Department Archives is an affidavit by Henry C. Higginson, who had been a prisoner at Andersonville, which discloses: 'I had frequent conversations with Ritchie, [a Confederate soldier] and he often referred to the men North who were their friends and aiding them. One day in speaking of actors in general, he particularly mentioned the name of J. Wilkes Booth. This name was mentioned off and on every day for a week or so. He made this remark: "We find in him a firm friend." Shortly after he came into the prison and spoke of the benefits the South were daily receiving from the North. Says he, "Here, Higginson, I have a letter in my pocket from as able a man as the North can produce." He took it out and showed it to me. It was dated Louisville, December 1863. I think it was about the 12th of that month. The letter was headed "Dear Fellow," and it went on to state that a man of the name of Perkins had started down the Kanawha Valley (he named two or three little towns he had passed through down there) with a wagon load of medicine, saying that they had better send a small cavalry guard to meet him. This letter was signed "J. Wilkes". . . .'"
-- Stanley Kimmel. The Mad Booths of Maryland. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1940.

The time frame does not quite sync-up with Mr. Loux's account, which has Booth in Cleveland on Friday, December 11, 1863, and -- with a question mark -- in the oil region of Pennsylvania December 14-17. Mr. Loux has Booth in Louisville a month later on January 17-31, 1864. However, given the challenges of remembering dates and Mr. Loux's uncertainty, this seems fairly solid substantiation of Asia's account (especially since, as Laurie noted, "clandestine ventures usually do not leave paper trails").

Thanks again, Roger, for the cite.