John Surratt's real parents?

[Thomas Thorne]

Dear LincolnToddFan

I always thought JWB learned of Lincoln's appearance at Fords in the late AM. he went to the boardinghouse in the early PM and met with Mary Surratt who had Weichmann drive to the tavern afterward and instructed Lloyd to have the weapons ready for pick up on 4/15. We all know about her inquiries about the sentries,her nervousness and interesting statements to Weichmann.

The shooting irons were carried to Surrattsville after the abortive kidnapping. That they would not be available to the conspirators until the early hours of 4/15 tells me no kidnapping was planned for the evening of 4/14. The assassin JWB ,calculating on the element of surprise, would need far fewer weapons than the kidnapper JWB. The former surprised his target,jumped to the stage and ran off before his stunned audience had time to react. He galloped off,not heavily incumbered by weapons. If he ran into a patrol ,not having carbines would be a positive advantage as the lack of them would allay suspicion until the hue and cry was raised at which time he would have the carbines but would be many miles away.

The kidnapper Booth would need many people to capture Lincoln. They would have to be much more heavily armed to overcome the victim and cower the spectators than a lone assassin. Compared to the butcher and bolt murder,an abduction would be agonizingly slow. Lincoln would have to be bound,taken from the box, removed from the theater in which many spectators might have risked their lives to prevent the crime. A trussed up Lincoln put on a horse or carriage would prevent Booth from galloping away as he did after the shooting. In the street the gang would encounter mobs of Washingtonians eager to stop them.

So Mary Surratt knew at the very least that the shooting irons would not be available to JWB on 4/14. As I believe she might have had the highest IQ of the conspirators, tyrannicide,and not abduction was on her mind that nite.

You also said Confederate prisoners exchanged for Lincoln could go to Mexico and other parts of Latin America. As the goal of the Booth Kidnap Plot was to release POW's to rejoin the Confederate Army,they could hardly do so if they were thousands of miles away. Latin America was only a place of exile for defeated Confederates who could not bear living under Yankee rule.
Tom
PS For a good movie about exiled Confederates see "The Undefeated" with Rock Hudson and John Wayne. Rock has an excellent pseudoSouthern accent.