Will the real Thomas F. Harney, PLEASE STAND UP!

[L Verge]

John Stanton - You have done a tremendous amount of work on this. Thank you. Is there any possibility that the black powder was already in the city awaiting the arrival of Harney? I'm thinking the availability of a place of storage like the Van Ness Mansion, which we used to speculate on being a point of storage and departure for the kidnapped Lincoln at an earlier stage in the game. I believe it even had ready access to the water?

Back in the 1980s, I was able to put Tidwell, Hall, and Gaddy in touch with William Seale, a White House historian who wrote a great book on the Executive Mansion. He was able to tell us that the building had sewer pipes big enough for a man to stand up in, so the trio speculated that might be Harney's point of entrance.

If possible, please try to follow Bill's suggestion and read at least parts of Mr. Stelnick's Dixie Reckoning. It confused the heqq out of me, but it should not be ignored - especially in the realm of the New York crowd. Don't discount the Copperheads of New York; and since I'm always rooting for Judah Benjamin to be the bad guy in all this, he and those wealthy guys up North could be a dangerous combination.