Why was Booth admitted into the presidential box?

[John Fazio]

(04-25-2015 07:13 PM)L Verge Wrote:  When (and if) I finish the book, John, I will be giving my impressions. I do not wish to review it (which my comments on your treatment of Booth and Surratt should not be construed as) until I see the whole picture.

You had to know, however, that I would object to a one-sided portrayal of the conspirators. While I certainly do not condone the Lincoln assassination, I think I understand why the tumultuous 1850s and 1860s made good men do bad things. I get the impression from those chapters that you see them as evil to the core -- not just dedicated to a political/social cause as I see them and millions of others who fought in the Civil War.

As part of your research, did you eve contact Mike Kauffman to see what his proof is for conclusions on Parker and Forbes.



Laurie:

If one begins with a false premise, one must come to a false conclusion. The premise that Booth and Surratt were "good men" is false. It is true that "good men" sometimes do bad things, but most often bad things are done by bad men. The word "good" is used so often and freely that it ceases to have meaning. An occasional act of goodness does not make a man good. Al Capone provided free soup to the poor during the Depression. He was still evil. Pontius Pilate freed a political prisoner every Passover. He was still evil. In my judgment, Booth and Surratt are beyond redemption. The evidence for that is abundant and conclusive, and I am far from the only to think so, then and now. As for the others, I expressed sympathy for all of them, despite their villainy and their incredibly bad judgment. They too were victims. Spangler was completely innocent. As for the "cause", no less a man than John Mosby acknowledged that he fought for "my country" not because it was right, but because the South was his country, and "one should fight for his country, right or wrong".

You and I are a couple of old oaks who aren't likely to bend much. We should spend more time congratulating each other for making it into old age than debating academic questions.

As for Mike Kauffman, I met with him and asked him to review parts of my manuscript. He declined, citing what for him was a good reason. Of course, I did read American Brutus. My feeling about his work is that even the masters go astray occasionally. Conversely, one can sometimes find a nugget in the most unlikely of places.

John

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[quote='L Verge' pid='47064' dateline='1429989471']
I didn't realize that Forbes was the driver of the carriage when it overturned and threw Mrs. Lincoln to the ground near Campbell Hospital.

Laurie:

Nor did I. That is surely one of the very few things we didn't know about the subject.

John

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(04-25-2015 11:09 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  Mr. Fazio,

Thank you for your lengthy response. I understand and fully respect that you see history in another way I do. It made me think about the words of our Dutch historian Pieter (Peter) Geyl (1887-1966), who said: “History is an argument without end.” This is one of my favorite quotations because it seems so true. There is no way we can see all sides of history no matter how many different books we read or stories we hear. There is no universally agreed definition of history. I agree with you that history will always have an element of speculation, because history will always be "a construct of the mind" and will always be an interpretation by an individual (from behind a desk) of what occurred. Ask four persons about the same event some hours afterward, and you're likely to get four different recounts of what happened. However it’s my opinion the job of the historian is to cut through the fog of perception and come as close to the truth as possible. That’s why (in my opinion) a historian has to focus on the events. At the most basic level he seeks to answer the question "What exactly happened?", based on what is known from (in the first place) documents. If you, by contrast, fill in gaps with assumptions, probabilities and possibilities, than you can draw other conclusions from the same evidence. In fact (in my opinion) you are than fictionalizing history, not describing the (known) "truth"; in other words writing historical fiction. I realize that both are close relatives and that for a lot of people history is seen as fact, as well as fict. A lot of people will not have any problems with “historicizing fiction” and “fictionalizing history”, but there is a difference. I once read that when we finish reading a history book we think: "So that's what happened!", and when we finish a work of historical fiction we think: "So that's what it (more or less) was like!". The last feeling was mine after reading your chapter 16. We are people, and people are often bound to disagree, because they are people, but that historians who have been trained for many years in historical methods cannot agree on issues of historical interpretation (small disagreements aside) is a riddle for me. I’m not a historian and wonder what Roger have to say in this.

I mentioned the 1980s, because (with no change in evidence) Forbes was never mentioned before and after the 1980s he suddenly was. Do we better understand the events in Ford’s Theatre after 1980, or became it a popular myth after publication of William Hanchett’s “The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies” (1983)?

Kees

Kees:

"...Forbes was never mentioned before...the 1980s..." But I have already shown that he was mentioned, expressly, by name, by Hanscom in his newspaper on June 8, 1865, and impliedly, as the President's "messenger", "usher", "servant", "servant at the door" or "sentinel", by McGowan, Dr. Leale, Dr. Todd, Koontz, Harper's Magazine, Booth himself (through Herold), Gath, Stoddard and Nicolay, all between 1865 and 1902.

John