Why was Mary Surratt not photographed after her arrest?

[Sally]

(11-13-2013 10:40 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Theodore Roscoe wrote, "But do not arrest the society woman who had consorted with him (Booth) in Washington drawingrooms. Do not impound this amourette who seated the killer near Lincoln at the Inaugural. Never breathe the name of Booth's betrothed. She is privileged, beyond the law, sacrosanct. She is the daughter of a United States Senator!....Senator Hale whisked his daughter to Spain soon after the Lincoln tragedy. There the veils that concealed her face were even more impenetrable that those offered by the War Department."

OUCH! Who was this Theodore Roscoe and what prompted his bitterness toward the Hales? (Though I do like the word "amourette"!)

And Gene wrote: "If you haven't done it yet, search her name on this site and you'll find all kinds of interesting info about her.

This is true. But if you just browse the rest of the internet looking for information, be prepared to suspend your disbelief. Most of what's written about Lucy Hale on the web (and in most books) is a lot of HOOEY! (to use a polite term for it.)

I recently had the opportunity to read through the papers of Lucy and her sister, Lizzie, at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord. Although there was nothing in them about her relationship with Booth, they helped give a personality to a woman who is known primarily as the Dumpy Dimwit Duped by JWB and Deserving of Disdain.

For example, who is the source of the quote that she'd "marry him at the foot of the scaffold if they let (me)"? As far as I know, any letter(s) she sent to Edwin Booth no longer exist. Asia mentions one in her memoir, but she says nothing about the scaffold line. I'm not saying that a "heartbroken little girl" (as Edwin called her) wouldn't say something stupid like that after the shock of finding out her dashing suitor was really a lying murderer. But that quote is so often put out there as absolute fact. Most everything that is "known" about Lucy Hale and her relationship to Booth is second, third, fourth, and fifth-hand information from dubious or biased sources.

It seems to me Lucy and her family took all her secrets (and the truth) to the grave. Unless Terry Alford can dig up some good scoop in his research for his forthcoming book. (Fingers crossed!) Who knows? Maybe he'll find proof that she really was a dumpy dimwit deserving of disdain!