New Development in Booth Case Coming Soon

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-18-2019 05:36 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(07-18-2019 03:08 PM)Steve Wrote:  Too bad we don't know where the mummy is located exactly now. If we did, we could still measure its approximate size now.

I'm trying to respond to these posts while at home (where my personal books are out of reach) and am straining my aging memory. However, I believe that the accurate account (Rob Wick, where are you?) of Booth talking to his hands is that he asked to have his hands raised, and his request was granted. As for his ability to speak, James O. Hall explained that medically to us forty years ago, and it had something to do with him still having limited control of breathing.

Booth knew that the soldiers had identified him correctly, so he wasn't going to pretend any more. He was definitely his mother's favorite son, and he adored her, so it was very important to him that someone get word to her as to why he did what he did. Even dying, he still considered himself a hero by attempting to stave off the newly designed, central government and what ill effects it would have on the country.

As for the size of the Booth mummy, I believe that the article done in the 1930s, when the doctors examined and x-rayed the so-called Mr. George, contains such vital statistics. Fred Black, the newspaperman that Henry Ford trusted to investigate the mummy theory, was very thorough over an extended period of time. His work does a lot to dispel the mummy theory, as does the work of others over the years. Even at the 1995 exhumation trial, the Green Mount Cemetery team made the Bates book look like a fairy tale -- which, in many ways -- it is, imo.

Laurie Verge, as usual you are correct about someone raising Booth's hands, and I have that information, but was unfortunately going from an aging memory. From Wikipedia:

Conger tracked down Jett and interrogated him, learning of Booth's location at the Garrett farm. Before dawn on April 26, the soldiers caught up with the fugitives, who were hiding in Garrett's tobacco barn. David Herold surrendered, but Booth refused Conger's demand to surrender, saying, "I prefer to come out and fight." The soldiers then set the barn on fire.[143][144] As Booth moved about inside the blazing barn, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him. According to Corbett's later account, he fired at Booth because the fugitive "raised his pistol to shoot" at them.[144] Conger's report to Stanton stated that Corbett shot Booth "without order, pretext or excuse," and recommended that Corbett be punished for disobeying orders to take Booth alive.[144] Booth, fatally wounded in the neck, was dragged from the barn to the porch of Garrett's farmhouse, where he died three hours later, aged 26.[139] The bullet had pierced three vertebrae and partially severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him.[20][143] In his dying moments, he reportedly whispered, "Tell my mother I died for my country."[139][143] Asking that his hands be raised to his face so that he could see them, Booth uttered his last words, "Useless, useless," and died as dawn was breaking.[143][145] In Booth's pockets were found a compass, a candle, pictures of five women (actresses Alice Grey, Helen Western, Effie Germon, Fannie Brown, and Booth's fiancée Lucy Hale), and his diary, where he had written of Lincoln's death, "Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment."[146]"

Wikipedia wasn't the original source, as shown by footnotes, but the gist of it is:

"In his dying moments, he reportedly whispered, "Tell my mother I died for my country."[139][143] Asking that his hands be raised to his face so that he could see them, Booth uttered his last words, "Useless, useless," and died as dawn was breaking."

Yes, I'm saying that they knew he was John Wilkes Booth, and who his mother was, or they would have asked him who his mother was and where she was located.