Blowing up the White House - any interest?

[L Verge]

(10-26-2017 04:03 PM)SSlater Wrote:  

(10-26-2017 01:12 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(10-26-2017 11:55 AM)Steve Wrote:  The usual description of the plan had always seemed unfeasible to me. And looking over Atzerodt's description it doesn't actually say inside or outside but at the end of White House by the War Department.

Although one has to ask, how would they have hoped to have been able to place mines on the lawn, even at night, without anybody noticing?

As I have posted before, Tidwell, Hall and Gaddy asked me to consult with White House historian William Seales back in the 1980s when he had published his history of the mansion. He was then consulting with the gov't. agency that owns Surratt House.

Their question was regarding a "secret" entry point into the WH that could accommodate men transporting munitions. Seales replied that the sewer tunnels at that time were large enough for men to stand upright in them, and that he thought there was a decent possibility that the building could be damaged that way. I don't believe that SSlater (i.e. John Stanton) agrees with that possibility, however.

If my feeble brain remembers correctly, there was a mansion nearby (the Greens' ?) that had similar tunnels that were considered in a previous plan to abduct the President and get him out of town. If such pipes/tunnels were big enough to accommodate men and barrels, it makes sense to me that they might be access points in other large buildings in the city -- and certainly more inconspicuous than men digging holes on the WH lawn.

Laurie. At that time - the lawn was crowded with people. Some slept there. I would guess, that dressing like gardeners, would be enough disguise -to allow a crew to dig around the existing plants, without drawing attention. We mulled this topic long ago, is it possible to look back at those posts?
I wonder if the "diggers" had the brains to consider all this.
They didn't have powerful enough powder to destroy a building. Dynamite didn't come along until after the war. Black powder burned too slowly in the open.

Wouldn't Tidwell, Hall, and Gaddy have known the explosive power that was possible at that time? Why did they even consider the possibility then? Is there something that we aren't considering? Did the firepower have to take down the whole building, or just a section where Lincoln might usually be?