Richard Baynham Garrett on Finis Bates

[Dennis Urban]

I was not previously aware of the Richard B. Garrett letter. It is remarkable in it's clarity and specificity. One fact strikes me as different from other facts noted about Booth's body. RB Garrett mentions the JWB inked initials "on his fore arm just below the elbow" an alludes to this description being in the printed material the soldiers had. Garrett wrote this when he was 54 years old so his memory was likely still intact and accurate. John Elliott and Barry Cauchon in their booklet "Inside the Walls, The Final Days of the Lincoln Conspirators" on page 8 cite a Washington Evening Star article of March 21, 1891 quoting Lawrence Gardner, son of photographer Alexander, who was with his father when Booth's body was examined on the U.S.S. Montauk, as saying "I unbuttoned the shirt cuff on his left arm and displayed on the forearm, the letters J.W.B., surrounded by a wreath of stars". Gardner was 42 when he made this statement so it too should be accurate. So many other accounts I have read over many years place the initials in the web of the hand between the thumb and index finger. These two locations are several inches apart. I wonder if there is any further definitive information on the location of these initials. I tend to think these two accounts are the more accurate of all those I have read. Absent period photographs or drawings, these two first person accounts may the best we have to rely upon.