Booth signature for sale

[L Verge]

After five days of gray, gloomy, and rainy skies in Southern Maryland, I got so bored that I scrolled through the auction catalog that contains this Booth signature. More interesting to me were a series of letters from a Pheebe Clark, who was residing with her husband in a rooming house in D.C. during the assassination and post-assassination chaos. She describes all buildings, even the "Negro shantys," being draped in mourning; a soldier being shot for saying that Lincoln should have been killed a year earlier, mention of another woman being in the President's Box with Mrs. Lincoln and Clara Harris, etc.

One letter is from her husband, William, and he mentions how sick Mrs. Surratt is and how she is expected to die. One of the letters gives a description of the security around the Arsenal. Check out pages 82-83 in the auction catalog.