Yet Another View of the Branson Boarding House

[BettyO]

Quote:I rather doubt that Eckert would wall the notes up in his home or anywhere else, even if he was losing his faculties. The greater likelihood, it seems to me (assuming they existed and haven't been discarded by someone who did not realize their value, like millions of other records over the centuries) is that they are in a filing cabinet somewhere, in a file or folder, sandwiched between other papers, waiting for someone to discover them, in the same way that Joan discovered Atzerodt's May 1 confession. I vaguely recall Eckert testifying, either at the Surratt trial or at the Johnson impeachment hearing, that his notes were sketchy and that he had intended to go back, when he had the time, and flesh them out, but that he hadn't found the time to do so (surprise!). That may have been the fact of it or it may have been a convenient way for Eckert to conceal the fact that he either hadn't really taken notes at all or that he had since lost them. He said he did not take notes during the interviews (for obvious reasons), but committed the results of the interviews to paper later. The first part of the satement makes sense, but the second has an odor about it. Why didn't he flesh them out, produce them, write about them later? I believe there is a good possiibility that they will never be found, because, like orders in writing to assassinate, they never existed. I hope I am wrong.

John - first let me apologize for my delayed response. I've been inundated at work....

The "business" of Eckert walling up things in his home came from John Elliott's research regarding Mary Surratt's Bonnet on display in the Andersonville Civil War Museum. Supposedly, Eckert, suffering under Alzheimer's disease, walled up the bonnet amongst other things in his home. That is the bonnet's provenance. Don't know how true this is; John didn't know either. Eckert did indeed state at the impeachment trial that his notes were sketchy and he needed to revise them for Stanton but never did. That much is true. Eckert did die with Alzheimer's and in addition suffered greatly at the hands of his feuding sons.