Why was Booth admitted into the presidential box?

[John Fazio]

(04-23-2015 12:46 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  

(04-23-2015 10:37 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  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.

Loetar44:

I welcome you as an honorable member in good standing of The Lovers of Truth, of which I am the President, which organization, you have no doubt heard, works tirelessly to follow the evidence (eyewitness, material and circumstantial), wherever it takes us, and to overcome the limitations of perception, interpretation, language, bias and prejudice, pitfalls which have ensnared the members of the Society of Ossified Curmudgeons, with whom we wage a never-ending struggle.

I admire your reference to James P.Ferguson's report, because it has been problematic for the Lovers of Truth, and also because it challenges one of its members to adduce additional evidence in support of his position, which I am happy to do as soon as I get back from the Post Office. In the meantime, please give some thought to how we Lovers of Truth reconcile Ferguson's account with the accounts of those who were much closer to the outer door than Ferguson, namely McGowan, Crawford, Leale and Booth himself (through Herold). Consider, too, the statements of those who surely spoke to Forbes when the dust had settled, or to others who had spoken to Forbes, like Nicolay and Stoddard.

Until later.

John

I'm back

Recognizing that eyewitness testimony is likely to be all over the board, as it is with respect to what happened in front of the outer door of the presidential box at Ford's Theatre between 10 and 10:30 on April 14, 1865, we have no alternative but to find truth in the preponderance of the evidence. On the one hand we have James Ferguson saying Booth walked right in, with no mention of Forbes or anyone else to contend with, much less that he actually contended with him. On the other hand we have Stoddard, Lincoln' Assistant Secretary, writing that Booth presented a card to "one of the President's messengers" at the end of the inner passage, adding that either Booth or the card stated that Mr. Lincoln had sent for him. Nicolay, the President's Secretary (with Hay) later wrote that Booth showed "a card to the servant in attendance". Both of those accounts, coming as they do from White House personnel, probably came from Forbes himself--who else? It is only reasonable that someone in the White House would have questioned Forbes pretty closely after the dust had settled. Further, we have already seen that Dr. Leale, who was only 40 or so feet away, said that Booth engaged "a man" and that the man put up some resistance before finally allowing Booth to pass. This accords well with Booth's saying, in his diary, that he was stopped, but pushed on. Further, McGowan, who was almost on top of the scene, said that Booth handed a writing to the "President's messenger". Further, another eyewitness, Koontz, said that Booth told "Lincoln's servant at the door" that Lincoln had sent for him. Further, in June, 1865, a Harper's Magazine article stated that Booth was stopped by the "sentinel", but was permitted to pass when Booth told him that the President wished to see him. Gath told essentially the same story in the New York World. Observe that the last four accounts all include the element that Booth told the person at the door that Lincoln wished to see him, which is consistent with Leale's, Stoddard's and Nicolay's accounts as well as with Josiah Gilbert Holland's 1866 biography as well as Abraham Lincoln's remarks to Col. Charles Halpine concerning the ease with which he could be accessed by means of a "pass". So why did Ferguson say what he said? Probably because he wanted to sound authoritative (he later wrote a book titled "I Saw Lincoln Shot"), for monetary gain, and/or because he witnessed only part of what happened in front of the door (after all, a play was being performed), the part that followed the tete a tete between Booth and Forbes. The preponderance of the evidence (Including Hanscom's newspaper article, previously referred to) favors the conclusion that there was someone at the door, that the someone was Forbes and that he engaged Booth, though too briefly and weakly, before he was persuaded by Booth's documentation to permit him to pass, does it not? What documentation? How about a carte de visite and an authorization signed by Lincoln? Can't get much better than that.

John