WHO Encouraged Booth To Kill Lincoln

[L Verge]

I agree with both Bill and Jerry that the Canadian connection was the Confederacy's behind-the-scenes operatives during the last part of the war, and the main men - especially Sanders - had very few qualms about doing what was necessary to save the cause. I believe that Sanders was well-known for sanctioning the overthrow of other tyrannical governments before our Civil War became an issue.

I would also like to toss the ball over to the other side: While we condemn Booth and others for their action against Lincoln and his administration, why don't we consider what the Feds were up to? How does one judge the Wistar Raid and the infamous Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid against Richmond? Are we so naive as to think that the letter found in connection with the latter raid was really a forgery done by a Confederate operative to make it look like the Feds were coming to kill the heads of state? Do we really think that those raiders were only in town to find shoes and supplies a la Gettysburg?

The end of the war was near; it was just a matter of time in convincing the Confederates that they needed to surrender. Why waste more Yankee lives? Go get Davis, Stephens, Benjamin, and anyone else who could still give orders to keep the Confederacy alive. Most civilizations over the centuries went after the enemy's leadership in times of war, and political assassinations were nothing new -- except perhaps to Seward...

And, here's the big question that James O. Hall and Bill Tidwell once threw at me: Who is the ultimate person to authorize an attack on another head of state? Who was at the top of the Union food chain when it came to such orders? Now consider who could authorize an attack from the Confederate side? What happens when the chain of command is broken? Someone steps in with the duct tape.

From my perspective, Wistar, Kilpatrick, and Dahlgren didn't have to be duct tape because the chain of command for the Feds was still intact. After April 3, Booth became the duct tape for the Confederacy, and he knew who would be an easy target. He already knew that a line of operatives south of D.C. had been functioning very well during the war, and he expected their help - which he got until he crossed the Potomac into Virginia, a state that had really taken a beating for four years and knew when to give up.

After this long Sunday sermon, the point of it all is to not make Booth the only villain in this story just because Lincoln was the chief victim. I certainly don't sanction his deed, but he was not the lone wolf - and there were other hungry wolves on the Union side who were ready to be assassins also IMO. Who was encouraging them?