Lincoln & Booth

[RJNorton]

(04-21-2014 03:27 PM)wsanto Wrote:  No one really ever comments on the likeness of other conspirators just below Lincoln.

I think the only book I own which makes a case for this as fact is the Kunhardts' Twenty Days. Other authors, such as William Hanchett, don't agree. Dr. Hanchett writes, "In Twenty Days (1865), Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., have combined hundreds of magnificently reproduced contemporary photographs and other pictures with an informed and judicious narrative of the assassination, its background and aftermath. One regrets only their claim to have identified Booth and some of the men associated with him in an enlarged (and well-publicized) photograph of the ceremony at Lincoln’s second inauguration, March 4, 1865."

Personally I have never accepted the Kunhardts' claim. This was a favorite discussion topic in my classroom as I used Twenty Days in class, and the students loved the challenge of comparing the conspirators' photos to the people in the Second Inaugural blow-up photo. The students were divided in their opinions.

One reason I never accepted it is the Kunhards claim Spangler to be standing with the others. As far as I know Spangler was never a part of Booth's group, not part of the meeting at Gautier's, and never even knew the others except for Booth himself.

IMO Booth may be in the photo but not the others. But I agree, Bill, that it is an interesting topic, and even my 8th graders were fascinated with the possibility.