My Journey on Lincoln's Assassination

[Dennis Urban]

When one reads the whole of what Smoot wrote, several holes and questionable information appears including the reference above to the stage crossing the Long Bridge at 10 pm. I have not seen this written elsewhere but the schedule of that public conveyance should be able to be checked. Was not the Long Bridge (today the 14th Street bridge) guarded and with restricted crossings on the night of April 14th? Smoot also mentions Booth had $6,500 in U.S. currency on him when he committed the assassination. This is written nowhere else that I know of. If true, how would Smoot know that detail, why did Booth not mention it, and what happened to the money?

Credible is his mention of the route Booth, Herold and Atzerott were to take to access his concealed large boat on King's Creek and the changing of the horses at the village of TB. I do believe that it is possible that Smoot is the person who visited Mary Surratt on the 9:00 PM hour on the 14th. However, to make a special trip to Washington City on the night of Good Friday, April 14 to seek out John Surratt, not knowing if he was in the city, to collect the balance of his money for the sale of the boat seems a stretch.

Like so many other statements written years after the fact (this being written circa 1903), they make for interesting reading but must be taken with a large dose of salt.