Identification of Booth's body

[Steve]

Mike, I was making the point that contemporary accounts of the exhumation said there was only one boot on the body, not two like you claimed in your post. Well actually, you pasted somebody else's claim without critical or equivocating comment, in order to make the same argument but without "technically" being on record making the claim if someone found/posted evidence it wasn't true. I included the quote of the section of your earlier post to indicate specifically what I was replying to (the corpse having two boots), which was contradicted by contemporary 1869 newspaper reports. You just ignored my argument and made some comment about not trusting the 1869 identification. You also didn't reply to my earlier analysis of you Boyd evidence for a third time.

Here's a link to the passage of Griffin's book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=bFI9Ck...th&f=false

The quote from Blanche Chapman (later Ford) comes from a 1927 letter, written nearly sixty years later. Blanche would've been 17 years old in Feb. 1869. Her account in the 1927 letter also says that Mary Ann Booth was satisfied that the body was Booth and doesn't seem to note any significance to the body's footwear. If Blanche's account is true and the Booths indeed let their cousins, like Blanche, view the body - then how can you make an argument out of what seems to be an insignificant detail to Blanche where the passage of six decades and Blanche's age might have obscured some details like differences in the two pieces of footware worn by a corpse? Memories can mistakes after such a long period of time.

Now to this current discussion about Conger and "arms", I'm pasting below a transcription of the 28 April 1865 letter of Pvt Emory Parady of the New York 16th Cav. describing the events at Garrett's farm to his parents. As far as I know it's the earliest written account of the event. Note that Parady agrees with Corbett's account and saw the man in the barn raise his carbine, presumably in order to fire the weapon, when the shot that took the man out was fired.


Washington D.C. April 28th 1865

Dear Father & Mother

I will write again in hopes of hearing from you as it is so long since I've had intelligence it causes me much anexity. Bert is the only one I heard of for a long time he was well & stated he had not heard from you for several weeks & thought he would give up writing as he had no answers.

You have doubtless heard of Booth the Murderer of President Lincoln.

We caught him & Harrold on the morning of the 26th in a Barn.

Fortunately they were locked in or they would escaped when we surrounded the House as we thought they were there & after threatening the owner of the Places lif {sic} one of his sons (a soldier from Lees army) came up & told they were there or at least two suspicious characters & locked up in the Barn one by the name of John Wm. Boyd his reason for choosing that name was account the initials J.W.B. on his left hand.

Harrold surrendered & Booth would not on any conditions his only terms were if we moved back 50 paces from the Barn he would come out & fight us & told us if we shot him to shoot him through the Body through the heart says he Boys make a stretcher

We told him we would fire the Barn if he did not come out & give up his arms he was armed with two Revolvers a Carabine seven shooter & two Bowie Knives the longest one was Bloody on both sides of the blade

we fired the {barn} as it was dark between 3 & 4 in the morning & he could see us & we could not see him but as soon as the fire lit up he tried to stamp it out & found he could not so he ran back to the midle of the floor & was in the act of raising his caribine when crack when a Pistol & with with {sic} Col. Baker Chief detective rushed in & caried him out

He was shot through the Neck about 2 inches lower than Mr. Lincoln was his last words were Mother! My Mother My Mother he could just whisper

well I will close as I feel very dull today & when I see you will tell you more about it

we were on the chase three days & three nights without sleep & hardly any thing to eat so you may judge I am not very lively today

We caught him across the Raphannock three miles from Port Royal.

no more at present

from Emory
address as before Write soon


Here's the relevant portion of Conger's testimony during the Assassination Trial (I've underlined the most important part for this discussion):

The only thing I noticed he had in his hands when he came was a carbine. He came back, and looked along the cracks one after another rapidly. He could not see any thing. He looked at the fire; and, from the expression of his face, I am satisfied he looked to see if he could put it out, and was satisfied that he could not do it, it was burning so much. He dropped his arm, relaxed his muscles, and turned around, and started for the door for the front of the barn. I ran around to the other side; and, when about half round, I heard the report of a pistol. I went right to the door and went in, and found Lieutenant Baker looking at him, or holding him, raising him up, I do not know which. I said to him, "He shot himself." Said he, "No, he did not, either." Said I, "Where-about is he shot? — in the head or neck?" I raised him then, and looked on the right side of the neck. I saw a place where the blood was running out. Said I, "Yes, sir: he shot himself." Lieutenant Baker replied very earnestly, that he did not. I said to him, "Let us carry him out of here: this will soon be burning." We took him up, and carried him out on to the grass underneath the locust-trees, a little way from the door.

From the context of Conger's words (following "dropped his arm" with "relaxed his muscles") it's clear that he means the limb, not the carbine. Conger testified that he was running to the other side of the barn after he saw the man inside heading toward the door when he heard the pistol shot. So, he wasn't looking at the man inside the barn as the shot was fired and wouldn't have been able to see the man raise his carbine, presumably to fire, as Pvt. Parady and Sgt. Corbett both saw the man doing. Since Conger never saw Booth raise his carbine, it would've been logical for him to have suggested to Baker that Booth shot himself when they first came upon the body.

Here's a link to the full text of Conger's testimony at the trial so you can examine it for yourself. The link opens to the part of the text I've excerpted above:

https://archive.org/details/conspiracytr...r/page/316