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John Fazio · (This post was last modified: 07-29-2015 11:53 PM by John Fazio.)

(07-29-2015 03:15 PM)Wild Bill Wrote: Demond is mentioned in something I saw in the upstairs research center before the JOH library was built back in 1999 or 2000. I cited it as a letter from Douglas Truran to the Surratt Society, July 6, 1992. It was in a vertical file and was a copy of the original. It had to do with Booth arriving in the Uniontown side of the Navy Yard Bridge. It referred to a guard of a couple of men or more who ordered Booth to slow down as he came to their end of the bridge. They were also in the 3d Mass Heavy Arty and referred to Lt. Dana. The letter-writer, Truman, was quite agitated that no one had heard of this as had he. I mention it in Last Confed Heroes, one volume edition, 437, referring to one of the guards as Demond. I assume that the Demond you all are interested is the same soldier? I have no idea where that letter has gone to over the last 15 years, but it is somewhere in the new JOH library, I assume.

Wild Bill:

Your assumption is correct.

John

(07-29-2015 03:31 PM)L Verge Wrote: I could have sworn that one of your very early postings on Demond mentioned Booth and Herold being detained very early in the morning of the 14th. Pardon me if I misread it. Also, I checked Terry's chapter notes, and he does credit the Swaim Papers as being the source for Demond information. There is a note that the original was in a letter to a George Demond written on April 21, 1865, but reprinted in the Boston Traveler nearly 100 years later on April 14, 1964. Who is good at finding old articles from fifty years ago?

Laurie:

I do not have that letter. If you can make a copy available to me, I shall be grateful (either the 1865 original or the 1964 reprint).

John

(07-29-2015 03:53 PM)Wild Bill Wrote: I have found my copy of the Truman Letter and a reply from JOH (a miracle in itself, given the state of my files). The Demond letter is in the Swaim Collection at Georgetown U as stated above. Hall lists the guard on both sides of the bridge, under Sgt Cobb. On the Uniontown side are listed Cpl This Sullivan in command, Pvt Frederick A Demond, and Pvt George Drake, with Pvt Jacob Johnson to relieve one of them shortly..

Demond in his letter (also enclosed in the Hall Letter) mentions using the passwords TB and TB Road and the fact that they were never used again after that night. Fletcher was stopped from crossing and coming back that night because he did not have those passwords. There were two passwords in case the guard was suspicious of whoever gave the first the second countersign was asked for.

Wild Bill:

Everything you say here is consistent with my understanding except the business about Fletcher. In neither the statements nor the trial testimony of Fletcher and Cobb is anything said about a password or countersign. Cobb offered two reasons for Fletcher's failure to cross: He (Cobb) did not deem his business in Maryland sufficient to pass him; and, passage was authorized by him (Cobb), but refused by Fletcher when Cobb told him he could not return. The first reason is B.S. and casts a cloud of suspicion on Cobb. We know this because Fletcher's statement and trial testimony are consistent only with the second reason. Queries: 1) Why did Cobb try to pass off the story about turning Fletcher back because of the nature of his business? 2) Why did Cobb tell Fletcher he could not return inasmuch as the Washington-side detail would have nothing to say about his return once he had been passed by the Maryland-side detail, in the same way that the Maryland-side detail would have nothing to say about the passage of anyone cleared by the Washington-side detail, which was the rule, per Demond. The answer to both of these queries suggests that passage had more to do with design than chance. One thing is paramount and must therefore always be kept in mind: Booth and Herold (and Atzerodt if he had elected to follow them) would not approach the bridge without being absolutely certain that they would be passed. The business of "talking" their way across is nonsense; it is not consistent with the evidence, with reason or with human nature.
If you were making an escape after just committing regicide, knowing that the penalty if you are caught is, first, torture to reveal your secrets, and then death, would you leave the [i]sine qua non[/i] of crossing a river to chance? To even a particle of chance? No way.

John

(07-29-2015 04:07 PM)L Verge Wrote: Bill - That account is probably still in the library, but I just remember it referring to Booth leaving the city that night, not coming in on the morning of the 14th. The name Demond did not stick in my mind because that little report that Booth was told to slow down I considered rather inconsequential. Didn't that soldier also make some reference that he would have shot Booth that night if he had known what had happened?

The only thing that made my ears perk up on this forum is the reference to Booth coming into the city early in the morning of the 14th. I also think that the bridge might have opened earlier than 7 am for the truck farmers coming in to set up their wares at Central Market. I can't remember if Polk Gardiner and friend were coming into D.C. or leaving when Booth and Herold passed them that night? (Just looked it up in the trial testimony - they were entering the city that night and had stopped on Good Hope Hill when Booth came by. They had cleared the hill by the time they encountered Herold.) Enough of my useless information.

Laurie:

Your information is most certainly not useless. It is possible that Booth and Herold arrived earlier than 7:00 (gate opening time), but most unlikely. They more likely slept in for a while, got up, had breakfast, etc., before making their way into Washington from Maryland. Demond is unambiguous: He and Drake were sitting on a log doing nothing in particular when the two conspirators showed up. Asked their business, they said they were not doing anything in particular, just looking around. Demond told them they could not cross and then asked them to identify themselves. They refused to do so and were thus placed in the Block House. An aide of Gen. Augur came by and after talking with Booth told Demond and Drake that Booth and Herold were "alright". Drake refused to accept that, saying he took orders only from Dana. The aide rode off to confer with Dana. Later an orderly sent by Dana ordered Sullivan, Demond's superior, to release the two, It was done. The whole thing smells of treason and a likely candidate for it is not Augur but Dana. But there is no proof, only circumstantial evidence.

John