Was there an assassin on Grant's train?

[John Fazio]

(07-19-2015 02:37 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Two questions: How old was Mrs. Grant when she wrote her memoirs? You know I'm questioning her recollections if they were written even ten years after the assassination. Also, given the critical nature of what she had to say, it certainly seems strange that she did not mention either the luncheon or the messenger details to anyone in authority (i.e. her husband) to have it thoroughly investigated after the assassination. How did the messenger get the Grants' room number without a hotel employee giving it to someone? If she had mentioned it on April 15, 1865, or a few days after that, there should have been a trail for investigators to follow.

Why are we assuming that David Herold had to be the one that was shabbily dressed? David's father had left the family very well-off when he died shortly before this. They had always been a well-respected family in society, and David had been sent to good schools that catered to the upper classes. Even the various men from Southern Maryland that he name-drops during his statement were upper middle-class landowners. He certainly was not on the same poverty level as Atzerodt (although we know Atzerodt was not the messenger due to no mention of language).

If my family's story is true that he spent the night of April 13 in our home, his clothes would have been wet when he arrived there since the purpose of his stopping was (supposedly) to get out of the rain. His sister said that he arrived home in D.C. in time for breakfast - which is consistent with him having left our house before the family (with a two-month-old infant) arose. Surely he would have changed clothes once he got home and surely those clothes were not shabby.

In my opinion, this little tidbit of one lady's recollections is not worth the time and effort of digging any deeper...

Laurie:

Your family's history is almost certainly accurate, because we know that Herold and Booth were both at the Navy Yard Bridge on the morning of the 14th, per Frederick Demond, one of the sentries on the Maryland side of the bridge.

I do not know how old Julia was when she wrote her Memoirs, but I would not question her statements about the messenger and the luncheon. Her description of the episode involving the messenger is clear and categorical. She had no motivation whatsoever to invent this episode. Furthermore, she DID tell her husband about the luncheon, as evidenced by his conversation with Lamon. Further, Booth's galloping sweep past their carriage is attested to by both Julia, Ulysses and Mathews. It was during this sweep that she said to her husband that the rider was the same man, the rude eavesdropper, she had seen at the luncheon, whom Ulysses identified as Booth.

Finding out the Grants' suite number would have been no problem for anyone intent on accessing the suite, and as for Herold''s dress, his frumpiness is a matter of record. He may or may not have changed clothes after a rain; I don't think matters.

I must confess, however , to having uncovered an inconsistency in the record, and I have no opinion yet as to how to resolve it. I have almost no doubt that Herold was the messenger and that he, Booth and the other two were at the luncheon. Add to that his sister's statement that he arrived home in D.C. in time for breakfast and everything fits. What doesn't fit is Demond's saying in one of his letters to Bates that when Booth and Herold refused to give him their names on the morning of the 14th, he held them in the block house and that they were not released until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. Something is wrong.

John