Booth in Boston April 1865

[John Fazio]

(02-09-2017 06:55 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(02-09-2017 04:07 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  Steers, as I recall, places the capture on the 8th.

Here is what I found in these 7 books:

April 8 - Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia

April 9 - Decapitating the Union

April 10 - Blood on the Moon

April 10 - Come Retribution

April 10 - April '65

April 10 - Lincoln and Booth

April 10 - Assassin's Accomplice

Roger:

Nice work.

The preponderance of sources suggests the 10th as the proper date. I am inclined to accept this, despite the fact that historical error has a way of acquiring a life of its own, as an early erroneous source continues to be followed by later sources. An example of this is the account of the Lincolns' carriage stopping on its way to the theater to pick up Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone, despite the conclusive evidence that all four of them left together and directly from the White House. What swayed me, therefore, was not so much the preponderance of sources, but this:

https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-...s/097/0700


which seems to put the matter beyond doubt. I can explain Carpenter's eyewitness account in terms of ambiguity. On one page he gives the date of operations as April 9 and then a couple of pages later he describes the capture of Harney, but he does not unambiguously state that the capture took place on the 9th. Apparently, he moved into a description of the Rangers' activity on the 10th without distinguishing the dates. As for Booth and Surratt, McMillan testified that Surratt told him he was in Montreal at "the beginning of the week" of the assassination. That might mean Sunday, the 9th, or Monday, the 10th. He said, further, that Surratt told him he received a "letter" at this time advising him that their plans had changed and that he was to return to Washington forthwith. But he does not actually say that the "letter" was received on the 9th, the 10th or the 11th. It could have been any of those days. The source cited above states clearly that the capture took place on the morning of the 10th. It is therefore a safe surmise that word of it was communicated to Booth on the same day or, at the latest, the following day (the 11th) and that his "letter" (by which either he or McMillan must have meant a telegram) arrived on either of those days in consequence of what had happened at Burke's Station. Moving the capture from the 9th to the 10th, therefore, does not disturb the integrity of the connection between the failure of the Harney mission and the activation of the contingency plan for Booth to try to approximate the intended results of the mission.

John