Why was Booth admitted into the presidential box?

[loetar44]

I deeply admire the work of Mr. Fazio, and highly recommend his recent book “Decapitating the Union: Jefferson Davis, Judah Benjamin and the Plot to Assassinate Lincoln.” Great stuff and very well written! If you are not in the possession of this book, place it now on your bucket list, because this book certainly belongs to your bookshelf. I just read chapter 16 “The Enigmas of Charles Forbes” (thank you Roger for your advice), and special kudos for Mr. Fazio’s extraordinary effort to write almost 10 pages about Charles Forbes, still for me a “mystery man”.

After finishing reading, the first person I was thinking of was strange enough: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was Doyle who once let his fictional character of detective Sherlock Holmes say: “Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.” Even after reading Fazio’s points of view, it once again struck me that there is no direct evidence about the exact whereabouts of Charles Forbes at certain moments of the evening of April 14, 1865, only indirect (circumstantial) evidence. I think Mr. Fazio is aware of this, because he writes: “it is reasonable to suppose....”, “we may safely conclude..., “he was probably thinking”...”, “it can only have been Forbes ....”, “another possibility is that ...”, “one possible answer is ....”.

Don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion the most detailed report comes from James P. Ferguson, who owned a restaurant (the Greenback Saloon) next to Ford’s Theatre. He went to the play hoping to see General Grant. When the presidential party arrived without Grant, Ferguson supposed that Grant would arrive later, and therefore he kept looking at the box. He had conversed with Booth earlier in the day and recognized Booth (Ferguson stated that he met Booth quite frequently) when he entered the second-level balcony. Here is the description: “He walked down around the upper row of the dress circle next to the wall. He stopped about two or three steps before he went to the door, then entered the private box, took off his hat and held it in his left hand. He had a black slouch hat which was a hat he often wore; stooped down and cast his eyes about over the dress circle and the orchestra, stepped one step down, put his knee against the door and opened it.” Ferguson, was sitting exactly opposite and could see the door shut after Booth had stepped in. It struck Ferguson that Booth went into that box and while he was wondering whether he was going to shake hands he heard the shot. Ferguson makes no mention of Forbes near (or “guarding”) the door.