FYI on Stringfellow

[John Fazio]

(06-08-2017 12:25 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Stringfellow's letter to Davis also indicates he stayed a few days at the Kirkwood House. The exact dates are not given. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this.

Dave Taylor has posted the Kirkwood House register for April 14th, and George Atzerodt checked in under his own name. (see Dave's red arrow near the bottom)

Would it be likely Stringfellow checked in under an alias? Do other pages from the Kirkwood House register exist?

Roger:

The letter places Stringfellow in Washington in early March. His name would therefore not appear on the Kirkwood register for April 14, nor, most likely, for any day other than one in early March. I believe it likely that he would use an alias. Looking for his name in Kirkwood House registers for March and April, therefore, is unlikely to bear fruit.

Atzerodt claimed, in his confession of April 25, that he checked into the Kirkwood on Thursday, the 13th, pursuant to instruction from Booth. His instructions were to obtain a pass from Vice President Johnson. But Dave's evidence that he checked in on the 14th is persuasive. Atzerodt's brain was addled with alcohol and by the fact that he knew he was quite likely facing a rope. There are, therefore, many inconsistencies in his seven statements and confessions that have survived. This looks like one of them. Interestingly, testimony of Lyman S. Sprague, an office worker at the Kirkwood on the 14th, in the trial of John Surratt, also has Atzerodt registering on the 14th (Trial of John H. Surratt, Vol. 1, p. 323).

John