Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[RJNorton]

W. Emerson Reck, in A. Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours, mentions a letter Sergeant Dye wrote to his father right after the assassination. The letter was printed in the April 25, 1865, Richmond Whig:

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Dear Father:

With sorrow I pen these lines. The death of President Lincoln has deeply affected me. And why shouldn’t it, when I might have saved his precious life?

I was standing in front of the theater when the two assassins were conversing. I heard part of their conversation. It was not sufficiently plain for an outsider to understand the true meaning of it; yet it apprised Sergeant Cooper and myself that they were anxious that the President should come out of his carriage which was standing just behind us. The second act would soon end, and they expected he would come out then. I stood awhile between them and the carriage, with my revolver ready, for I began to suspect them. The act ended but the President did not appear; so Booth went into the restaurant and took a drink … I was invited by my friend to have some oysters and went to a saloon around the corner, and had just gotten seated when a man came running in and said the President was shot.

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In addition to the Richmond Whig, Reck mentions a second source for Dye's letter: Allen C. Clark, "Abraham Lincoln in the National Capitol," Journal of the Columbia Historic Association (Washington, D.C.: The Society, 1925), p. 98.

At the 1865 conspiracy trial, Dye identified Booth as the well-dressed man, but did not mention Surratt by name in his testimony.