Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[Susan Higginbotham]

(03-20-2017 06:03 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 04:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 06:17 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

Mike, long ago I think I read somewhere that Susan Jackson had her dates confused. In other words, what she described in her testimony did not really happen on April 14th. Rather it happened much earlier (maybe in late March or very early April). Now I have looked for this in several books and cannot find where I read it. Does anyone recall ever reading something like this?

Roger, this is new for me, never read about it. But I remember a sort of confirmation that John Surratt was in the Surratt boarding house on the 14th. I think it was Richard Smoot who wrote in his “The Unwritten History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” (1908) that he visited the Surratt boarding house on April 12th because he wanted to see John Surratt about something. John was not there, but Mary Surratt told him that he would be there on the 14th.

Smoot also wrote that when he returned on the 14th, he asked Mary Surratt "if John had returned, and she replied that he had not."

Note also that in Susan Jackson's testimony at John Surratt's trial, she said that Mary had asked her if John did not resemble his sister Anna. If the conversation did indeed take place on April 14, and Mary had reason to know that John was up to something, why would she draw the attention of Susan, a servant she barely knew and a potential government witness, to John's personal appearance?