Identification of Booth's body

[RJNorton]

Thanks to Steve for sending more Boyd-related material. Steve writes, "I found a couple of more documents in regards to James W Boyd to post to the forum. One is a letter written by Boyd on February 14, 1865 where he references an earlier letter that he wrote as a POW (that I haven't found yet) where he claimed the 20 Dec. 1862 Confederate raid on the Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi had been assisted by a Union Army officer secretly sympathetic to the Confederates. In this letter he offers to spy for the Union if he can be released as a paroled POW. He says that he wants to spy in order to earn money to help support his 7 children who have been dependent on charity following his wife's death and to get revenge for being court-martialed twice. (Presumably, that has something to do with his being cashiered out of the 6th Tennessee prior to joining the secret service scouts and then afterwards rejoining the 6th Tenn. as a captain.) Most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, he volunteered to spy in western Tennessee and parts of Kentucky west of the Tennessee river. He even uses his knowledge of that area and it's people as a selling point on why that would make him a good spy. As the notation made on the back of the letter makes clear, he's making this offer because he wants to go to Tennessee. Since he takes the oath of allegiance and is released the next day (Feb. 15, 1865), it looks like his offer was likely accepted. If he was a spy and William Rowark discovered/suspected it, that could be another possible motive for Boyd's murder on Jan. 01, 1866. Most importantly, he would be headed toward Tennessee after his Feb. release and be nowhere near Booth and his conspirators or anywhere near Washington or Maryland after Lincoln's assassination.

The letter comes from the National Archives, Record Group 94, Microfilm M797, Roll 135. From the Baker case files of the Turner-Baker papers, original case file no. 718B.

The second document I'm sending to post to the forum is a copy of Boyd's Oath of Allegiance.