What Was The Role of David Herold

[John Fazio]

(02-04-2013 10:19 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  

(01-02-2013 03:37 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  

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(12-30-2012 12:50 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Seward's next door neighbor was Benjamin Ogle Tayloe who had strong ties to the Confederacy. According to an April 16, 1865 article in the Daily National Intelligencer, Tayloe's servant saw Powell ride up to Seward's house. There is no mention of anyone accompanying Powell.

"A servant boy of Mr. Ogle Tayloe, who resides next door to Mr. Seward, saw the assassin ride up to the door of the latter and fasten his horse to the lamp-post. A few minutes afterwards Major Seward came to the door and told the boy to cry 'Murder!' asserting, at the same time, that the murderer was still in the house."

According to the Daily National Republican dated April, 18, 1865, Tayloe's servant, Ben, gave a statement that he saw Powell run out of the house after Powell attacked Seward. I have not been able to find the paper's "extra of Saturday."

"Mr. Tayloe's servant, Ben, corrects his statement published in our extra of Saturday, in relation to what he saw and heard as he stood at Mr. Seward's door Friday night. It was Governor Seward's servant and not Major Seward, who came first to the door and gave the alarm. He preceeded the assassin in coming out of the house, and said to Mr. Tayloe's servant, 'A man is in the house murdering everybody; run for your life and cry murder!' This was done by Ben who ran to the corner of Madison Place and Pennsylvania Avenue, and returned immediately, followed by several unarmed soldiers. When nearly opposite Mr. Seward's house again, a man came out of it, with a dagger in his hand, mounted his horse, and set off at a deliberate pace towards the north, until he reached Sixteenth street, when he went off at full speed, and disappeared around the corner of Governor Morgan's house, on Fifteenth and I streets, going towards the east."

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I wonder who gave the first cry of "murder," William H. Bell or the Tayloe's servant, Ben. Also, George Robinson testified in the John Surratt trial that Fanny Seward saw Powell "make a blow at her father. She then hallooed "murder," and ran out into the hall and cried out that there was someone there trying to kill her father. She came back into the room, and went to the window next to the avenue-next to where the provost officer's office then was-which I had shoved up some eight or ten inches, and which she shoved clear up, and then hallooed the same out there."

However, Fanny wrote in her diary, "I did not open any window and cry “murder” as the report of Robinson’s statement said, neither did I leave the room as then mentioned, but at the time I have stated."

In any case, it could have been more than one person crying "murder" that Alfred Cloughly or the orderlies in General Augur's office heard.

Linda and her respondent:

Very valuableinformation. Thank you.

John

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(02-05-2013 05:02 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  

(02-05-2013 06:56 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  

(02-03-2013 03:31 PM)L Verge Wrote:  John,

Thanks for somewhat holding up my end of the bridge fight. BTW, my grandfather was born in 1868 also and my grandmother in 1874. She lived to be 91 and is the one who instilled the love of history in me. It was easy to listen to her because she had lived so much of what I was learning in school.

As for the testing of the bridge. Mrs. Surratt and Weichmann made it over the bridge during daylight hours on both April 11 and April 14. However, we know on the 11th that she was a little concerned about sentries that were posted at night. She inquired of a man along the road as to when they were pulled in, and I believe the answer was 8 pm.

On the 14th, she was late arriving at the tavern, and Lloyd was even later. She was starting to get a bit antsy about making it back before the bridge closed. I believe it was around 6 pm when they finally headed back to D.C. According to my calculations, that would put her at the bridge about 8 pm. When you stop and think about everything that some of us suspicion went on at the boardinghouse in the next few hours, it was a bee hive! Dinner, start to church, turn back because of weather, talk with Smoot, and other things that I don't agree with...

Next thought: Sorry to bore you once again with the Herold/Huntt story, but I contend that Herold was sent into Southern Maryland sometime on April 12, after Booth made the final decision to strike after hearing the Lincoln speech on April 11. Davey never seemed to have a problem getting out of the city, but he did spend the night with my great-grandparents on April 13. Was it because he had gotten so wet during the rainstorm, or was it because he knew there would be problems getting back into the city? He was gone from the Huntts' by 6 am and had breakfast at his own home - according to a sister.

Since truck farmers from Southern Maryland would be arriving at the bridge early in order to set up at the various markets, could we assume that the bridge would open for traffic about 6 am? And, I agree with the idea that the authorities were more worried about people coming into the city than those leaving - especially when there was no indication that anything was wrong. Fletcher's problem was that he needed to get back into the city. Booth and Herold had no intentions of doing so.

Laurie:

Bore me with the Herold-Huntt story? You must be joking. Surely the most interesting history of all is that which comes from the horse's mouth. You were most certainly privileged to sit at the feet of your grandmother, who had it at her fingertips, who knew those who lived it, in the flesh, or who lived it herself. I never sat at the feet of a grandparent, but I did listen to my father tell me that his father shot a tiger one night in Somaliland or Ethiopia in the late 1800's when Italy was beating up on the natives there. So that's something. My guess is that the tiger was something less than a tiger, but grew into one, and with ever-increasing ferocity, with each passing year and each telling of the story. Someone once told me, when I was quite young, that my father went out west as a young man and lassoed rattlesnakes. But when I asked him about it, he said he never saw a rattlesnake, that he got sick on Mexican food in Arizona, vomited and came home. So much for popular history.

John

Did you just say that you are not bored with my family's story, but that you don't believe a word of it?

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Just my opinion, John, but I think you are over-reaching in an effort to have a comeback for me! I haven't read your chapters that you sent me yet (finding time to earn my paycheck is getting in my way); but from these postings, I'm starting to get the feeling that you are going to attempt to re-write the whole story?? Now the kidnap plot is just a ruse? I'm starting to need an Excedrin.

Laurie:

Truly, I am not over-reaching, nor am I re-writing the whole story. Sorry if I give that impression. But it remains true that Booth never intended to kidnap anyone. It was his cover story for recruiting members of his action team, in the same way that the "oil business" was his cover story for their source of funds. The evidence for this is, in my opinion, clear and convincing. Thomas Nelson Conrad (who probably intended to assassinate Lincoln himself) even wrote that "a child would know there was nothing to be gained by kidnapping the President". Davis vetoed what he later said was the only real kidnapping plot that was brought to him for approval (the Walker Taylor plot). Grant had resumed prisoner exchange in January, 1865, and was exchanging 3,000 POW's a week. That fact prompted Arnold to tell Booth he was crazy to proceed. But he did proceed, because "kidnapping" the Presdient to hold him for ransom of Confederate POW's was not his true purpose. Does anyone suppose he would show up in Richmond with Lincoln in handcuffs and say "Look what I have brought you, President Davis?" What would Davis have done with him? Does anyone suppose the Federal Government would have negotiated with a Confederate Government that held Lincoln against his will? A kidnapping would have destroyed all possibility of recognition by a foreign country. &c.

Hold the Excedrin.

I remain, your most obedient and humble servant,

John