Does anyone know...?

[John Fazio]

(09-15-2017 12:37 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  John, here is John Surratt's version of the kidnapping plot. What parts do you think are true (if any), and what parts do you think are false?

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"After some difficulty everything was amicably arranged and we separated at 5 o'clock in the morning. Days, weeks and months passed by without an opportunity presenting itself for us to attempt the capture. We seldom saw one another owing to the many rumors afloat that a conspiracy of some kind was being concocted in Washington. We had all the arrangements perfected from Washington for the purpose. Boats were in readiness to carry us across the river. One day we received information that the President would visit the Seventh Street Hospital for the purpose of being present at an entertainment to be given for the benefit of the wounded soldiers. The report only reached us about three quarters of an hour before the time appointed, but so perfect was our communication that we were instantly in our saddles on the way to the hospital. This was between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. It was our intention to seize the carriage, which was drawn by a splendid pair of horses, and to have one of our men mount the box and drive direct for southern Maryland via Benning's bridge. We felt confident that all the cavalry in the city could never overhaul us. We were all mounted on swift horses, besides having a thorough knowledge of the country, it was determined to abandon the carriage after passing the city limits. Upon the suddenness of the blow and the celerity of our movements we depended for success. By the time the alarm could have been given and horses saddled, we would have been on our way through southern Maryland towards the Potomac River. To our great disappointment, however, the President was not there but one of the government officials - Mr. [Salmon P.] Chase, if I mistake not. We did not disturb him, as we wanted a bigger chase than he could have afforded us. It was certainly a bitter disappointment, but yet I think a most fortunate one for us. It was our last attempt. We soon after this became convinced that we could not remain much longer undiscovered, and that we must abandon our enterprise. Accordingly, a separation finally took place, and I never saw any of the party except one, and that was when I was on my way from Richmond to Canada on business of quite a different nature - about which, presently. Such is the story of our abduction plot."

Roger:

Sorry for not responding sooner. I just now noticed your message.

The quoted material, of course, comes from Surratt's Rockville lecture. Surratt, we all know (or should know), was a chronic liar. It was not the case that he was pathological, but merely that he found it necessary to lie about damned near everything in order to be a successful Secret Service agent. Accordingly, everything he said, including his remarks to Dr. Lewis J. A. McMillan aboard the Peruvian
, the Rockville lecture and his Hanson Hiss interview, needs to be taken with spoons full of salt. The three accounts he gives as to his meanderings after his arrival in Montreal on April 6, for example, are all very different--bearing no resemblance to each other. Thus, I do not believe any part of his account of the Campbell Hospital episode for the following reasons:

1. He was, as I said, a chronic liar;
2. He gave his Rockville lecture for the purpose of making money, to capitalize on his notoriety, at a time (1870) when he was most likely not receiving any financial support from the sources which had sustained him when he was an agent, when he was abroad and when he was tried (1867). In other words, he needed the money, so truth meant nothing to him. All he needed was an interesting story, one that would entertain his audience and, in the bargain, give him an opportunity to throw as much blame as possible on a dead man---Booth.
3. The kidnapping ruse had long been used by him and Booth to cover their more sinister plot of multiple assassinations, even to duping their own co-conspirators (which Booth would later admit in his conversation with Jett, Bainbridge and Ruggles), and it was therefore a simple matter for him to "validate" it by embellishing it with enough "detail" to give it plausibility.
4. Mike Kauffman concluded that the entire Campbell Hospital episode was most likely staged by Booth for the purpose of retrieving his guns and tools from Arnold and O'Laughlen and also to get his team nicely implicated in treason, thereby securing their loyalty ("Still, he needed everyone in position for the abduction, even if he knew it would never come off."--p. 185).
5. The Campbell Hospital episode has six versions, all very different. One came from Weichmann and Dan, the half-witted mulotto who did chores around the boardinghouse; three came from Arnold; one came from Surratt, as quoted by you; and one came from Atzerodt in his July 6 confession. They are all radically different from each other and for that reason it is impossible to know what really happened on March 17.
6. Arnold said of it, in his Memoirs, that the episode was so demented that "we concluded that it was done to try the nerve of his (Booth's) associates".

For all the foregoing reasons, and for all the reasons given in Chapter 12 of my book, especially pages 129-137, I do not believe anything Surratt said about the Campbell Hospital episode in his Rockville lecture.

John