Has anyone done any research on Leonard T. Hogan?

[RJNorton]

I received a note from a forum member who could not open the link to the Orlando Sentinel article. So I thought I'd post the text. Here it is:

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Eustis Men Had Roles In Slaying Of Lincoln


April 16, 1987|By Bill Bond of The Sentinel Staff


Was Lake County a turn-of-the-century retirement den for a bevy of residents, including at least two ex-Confederate spies, who played significant roles in the Lincoln assassination?

The answer is a qualified yes, based on war documents, old letters and local folklore about the murder of Lincoln 122 years ago this week.

Here are some of the notable, and lesser known, Lake County actors said to have been among the cast of hundreds that played parts in one of the most tragic events in American history:

-- Alfred Richardson Story of Eustis claimed to have been a special agent for Confederate forces and said he knew of John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill the president -- but never told anyone until 35 years later. Story moved to the Eustis area in 1870, and kept his war experiences as a spy a secret until 1900. He died in 1923.

-- Almarin Cooley Richards, of Eustis, chief of the Metropolitan Washington police force the night of the assassination. He was in the audience at Ford Theater and played a major role in the investigation. He moved to Lake County in 1893 and died in 1907.

-- Leonard T. Hogan, of Eustis, who moved to Lake County in the late 1800s, was said to be a messenger for the South's high command and was carrying a message to Booth to abandon his plan to kill the president.

-- The Rev. George C. Powell, of the Mount Plymouth area, was a Baptist minister and father of Lewis Paine Powell, one of the four conspirators in the assassination who were hanged. Powell's father moved to Seminole Springs years after his son's execution.

The Story episode is clearly the grabber of the lot.

Ken Sears, 70, a retired Tavares postmaster and local history buff, tells it this way:

Sears said Story never publicly or privately liked to discuss his war record -- until November 1900 behind locked doors during a reunion of Confederate veterans.

Much of Sears' information is based on talks he had years ago with one of Story's sons -- Stratford St. Clair Story, who is now dead.

''Alf Story and others were picked to be spies for the Confederate Army,'' Sears said. ''On many occasions they would don Union Army uniforms, slip into an Army camp somewhere in the field and pick up information about troop movements.''

Sears said Story's spy partner was Lewis Powell Paine; the two met Booth at the Barnum Hotel in Baltimore in early 1865 to exchange information about federal troop movements.

''After they made their reports, John Wilkes Booth started outlining to them plans that he had for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,'' Sears said. Upon hearing the plan, Paine agreed to help, Sears said.

Story didn't go along with the plan and Booth drew a gun but was beat to the punch by Story, who held Booth at bay as he backed out of the hotel and fled.

Story lived in constant fear all his life that Booth had survived the shootout with federal forces after the assassination and would come looking for him, said Sears.

Story told the Confederate reunion audience that he thought he was marked for assassination, just as the president was, Sears said

For years Story believed he could be charged with complicity in Lincoln's assassination because he did not go to the authorities with information about the plot, Sears said.

Sear's tale about the reunion was repeated in 1931 in a biography of H.H. Duncan, first clerk of the Lake County Court, and written by Duncan's brother- in-law, Edwin Peet, of Tavares. Duncan, who was commander of the Confederate unit, is believed to have told Peet about Story's revelations.

Peet said in the 1931 writings: '' . . . Booth first broached his assassination plot'' with Story and Paine.

In 1907, Story claimed on a war pension application that he ''was on special detail as a messenger serving secretly in Washington, D.C. and the state of Maryland,'' but his military record shows he deserted in 1863.

''In August I was detached from my company to act as a special messenger and operated between Baltimore, Md., and our Army front until the end of the war -- acting as a secret agent within the enemy's line getting information from friends in Baltimore about the federal army.''

Former Police Chief Richards provided more details about his involvement with the historic event during a 1900 talk at Clifford Hall, according to a letter written in 1958 by former Eustis resident M.B. Gault. The letter now is in the hands of the Lake County Historical Society.

Gault wrote: ''At one of the entertainments given by some group, a Col. Richards came on the stage and told how he had been posted behind the box in which President Lincoln sat when he was shot. He said he jumped through the front of the box to get Booth, who got away, but he found on the stage a Bowie knife that Booth was supposed to have lost. And he Richards showed us the knife.''

The tale about Hogan provokes some of the most serious thoughts.

According to Gault, who was at the gathering that night in 1900, Hogan said he was a runner between the high command of the South and the underground in Washington. On the night of the shooting, Hogan said he had been sent to Washington and ''carried orders forbidding Booth to kill the president.''

Accounts did not explain why Hogan failed. But it makes you wonder how history might have changed if Hogan had been able to complete his mission, or if Story had gone to the authorities with what he knew.