Assassination Trivia

[Steve]

I accepted the account of Bedee climbing into the box because as far as I knew he was the only soldier who claimed to have climbed into the box.

(There were 3 other people who claimed to have climbed into the box

2 Navy - Lt. William Flood and Capt. Silas Owen - their accounts didn't match Dr. Leale's

1 Civilian - War Department clerk Augustus Clark who claimed he climbed up just as they were about to move Lincoln)

But alas it turns out another soldier, Lt. John T. Bolton, also claimed to have climbed up to the box and he was in the Veteran Reserve Corp, just like in Clara Harris' affidavit:

https://archive.org/details/rarelincolni...7/mode/2up

One thing that concerns me about Bolton's account is he said that he led Mary to the "adjoining box". The divider between the boxes was removed, I'm not sure if that's poor wording or an inconsistency. Bolton's account of seeing Booth go back and forth into the theater several times is matched by what John Buckingham - the doorman at Ford's Theater - testified at the trial, though Booth would've had to have entered the theater earlier than Buckinham's estimate of when Booth entered the theater:

https://archive.org/details/conspiracytr...6/mode/2up

If Bolton's account is true, why wasn't his statement taken at the time taken about Booth's movements or made to testify at the trial?

Reck has Bedee joining the men carrying Lincoln as their leaving the theater based on Jacob Soles account. But based on what we discussed about Soles in this previous thread:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...l#pid70179

I feel pretty confident Soles was lying about carrying Lincoln's body.

We have contemporary records that Bedee carried the papers from Lincoln's coat from the theater - though no contemporary records/mentions that he was actually in the box. I tried looking for any newspaper accounts given by Bedee but couldn't find anything besides Bartlett's book which was published when he was still alive.

It seems logical he was either in the box or given the papers near the entrance of the box. But until we get evidence to the contrary, I have to think it's more likely Bolton was the soldier who climbed into the box following Dr. Taft.