Booth's Denial of Foreknowledge of the Attack on Seward

[AussieMick]

I think it is always going to be the case with any significant event, especially involving government personnel, that there will be factors/issues which do not quite align with the official version. Then add in the fact that people will always have differing memories, and some will have their own reasons for twisting the truth. The result is that historians and researchers can have a field day forensically analysing what happened at a specific time. When it comes to discussing the ‘why’ something happened … well, the potential is limitless.
Most auditors know that the most suspicious accounting calculations are those that end with nice round figures (indeed there are mathematical formulae which can be used to pinpoint series of numbers which involve contrived numbers). My point being that if a historical event had every witness and participant agreeing as to what happened, with total precision, and with no unexplained inconsistency, then I’d be very suspicious and think “Why is this so neat and tidy?”
In my opinion, the fact that official details of historical events do contain inconsistencies and unexplained factors makes it essential that historians and researchers do their work so that people can make up their own minds. But the corollary is that those analysts need to be of high integrity and scrupulous as to what they identify as to what is ‘inconsistent’ or unexplained.
A major problem is that authors can see a market for historical texts. Books that delve into the well-known inconsistencies would be quite thin if those were the only the issues discussed. There will always be a temptation to dwell on, or even introduce, other issues which are based upon (for example) the words of one witness. And then to imagine what the participants were thinking and even to surmise as to ‘why’ a person did not do, or mention, specific issues.

(This is not the same as discussing what a person was referring to when, for example, they spoke about the severe injuries which flowed from the attack on Seward.)

All of this places an enormous responsibility on all researchers and historians, before publishing, to look back at their work and consider whether they have acted with integrity. If they want their work to be worthwhile and valued by those who come after, then they ought to ask themselves, “What would an intelligent independent reader think of that?”
The impetus for me writing the above was Mike’s final paragraph in post #1. I am not accusing him of lacking integrity. My aim is to encourage him to use his passion and focus on the real and accepted inconsistencies.

The paragraph reads as follows ... "And notice that Booth felt no need to say anything about any abortive attack on Johnson or Grant, most likely because he never thought about attacking either man."