Booth's field glass

[Laurie Verge]

Gene, I hope no student reads that and uses it in a school paper!

Betty, I have never seen anything to indicate any tension between John and his mother; but then no one kept a journal that we know of, and those are usually the best sources to snoop out family gossip. We know that her letters to a priest had her complaining about her husband's behavior, that's all.

From 1862 on, I don't see how she had time to be a smothering mother with John because he was away so much in service to the Confederacy. If anything, she probably wished he was home more to help with things around the farm.

I suspect that John meandered down South America way to see if he could build a new life there among Confederate-minded cohorts. With his mother gone, their property being auctioned, Anna about to be married, his past deeds working against him, and the economy of Maryland in bad shape, I think he had every reason to investigate a new life elsewhere.