Identification of Booth's body

[Steve]

(05-05-2019 08:29 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  The identity of the man in the barn who died in Booth's place is a secondary issue. I still think Guttridge and others have made a credible case that his name was Boyd, especially since the Garretts said he used that name. But, maybe it was just a cosmic coincidence that a Confederate Boyd with an injured leg was in southern MD/northern VA at the same time a man named Boyd visited the Garrett farm and was shot there.

Without any credible evidence of Booth alive after the encounter at Garrett's Farm, how is the identity of the dead man in the barn a secondary issue? You don't doubt there was a body found, meaning that a man must've died. Herold the man captured with him said it was Booth before the man was killed. The man had Booth's "diary" and had been writing in it after he arrived at the Garretts. Since we know Herold was the other man and that he was a fugitive for his involvement in the assassination, how does it make any sense for "the other man" who is fleeing justice with Herold to give out his real name, Boyd, not knowing if the authorities have it or not?

How can you think Guttridge makes a credible case when the other other James Boyd who's supposed to account for the known 1866 death of the James Boyd that he wants to place at Garrett's barn, is given a made up military career in Guttridge's account of Boyd that you posted a link to? That Guttridge made such an error make you wary about uncritically accepting his account as reliable without doing any research yourself?

For the record here's the some of the most important sources I used in my above post:

Here's the James W. Boyd 1860 census:
   

Here's the 1845 marriage license for James W. Boyd from Madison County, Tennessee:
   

Here's the only James Boyd in Fielding Hurst's Cav. regiment who's too young to be the same person Guttridge described:
   

Here are all the other Boyds in Hurst's regiment who are all too young to be who Guttridge describes:
               

Do you have any other sources for what Guttridge describes about the other James Boyd being the man named James W. Boyd murdered in 1866?