The River Ghost

[Dave Taylor]

(10-23-2015 03:20 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Terry's citation on Booth and Harbin knowing each other from childhood is bugging the heck out of me! Someone please find me that GATH article from April 3, 1884. Townsend interviewed Harbin in 1885, right before Harbin died. So far as I can find, the Cincinnatti Enquirer did not run that interview until April 18, 1892 -- seven years later. What gives?

Here's what I was able to find https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thomas_Ha...er_Article
Are there two articles? I see no mention of a Harbin-Booth alliance before Dr. Mudd did his introductions. Harbin was also five years older than Booth (b. 1833) and I found no reference to a school friendship - especially since Baltimore City was probably the closest that Booth got to Southern Maryland as a child. Something is rotten somewhere - or there's a chunk of historical information missing.

I believe we are misinterpreting Alford's quote to imply that Harbin knew Booth in boyhood, which he did not. Here is the quote from page 18 of Fortune's Fool:

"Riding the open country, plunging through the streams, and exploring forest trails brought a sense of profound happiness to the boy, said his friend Thomas Harbin, later a famous Confederate agent."

I believe the way Alford wrote this quote is a bit misleading and makes us think that Harbin knew Booth as a child. Alford attests to the fact that the men had not met in boyhood later one when he states (on page 193):

"Within the next several weeks Mudd would introduce [Booth] to Thomas Harbin and John H. Surratt, two resourceful Confederate agents whose appetite for danger matched his own."

Alford clearly establishes, like other authors, that Booth and Harbin did not meet until the fall of 1864.

The quote Alford gives is from Gath's article of August 3, 1884, which is his more lengthy article regarding his interview with Harbin. The problem with Alford's quote is that is seems to be a paraphrasing of Gath's own commentary on Harbin's words. Here's the full quote from Gath's article:

"Mr. Harbin says that Booth was, in general, a modest man, and the only thing he was proud and almost boastful about was his physical strength. As a good spreer, fighter, good shot, good jumper and lover of the open air, he felt supreme. It was this passion for physical distinction which led him onward in his bloody scheme. The leap from the theater box and long horseback ride, the sense of joy, even after such a crime, in taking to the open country, and seeing trees and streams, were natural to the young boy bred in the forests of Harford County, not far from the roaring Susquehanna."

Alford used the above quote from Gath to help him round out Booth a bit more and referenced it as coming from Harbin, since the article is largely from him. Neither Harbin nor Gath knew Booth during childhood and this is likely just Gath making judgments based on his research.