What Was The Role of David Herold

[John Fazio]

Laurie, et al.:

My research, like just about everyone else's, has always led me to believe that Lewis Powell had numerous aliases, including Lewis Paine, Lewis Payne, Rev. Wood, Mosby, Mr. Kincheloe, etc. More recently, however, a doubt has crept into my mind as to whether or not "Wood" or "Woods" is an alias for Powell or a completely different person. I would like to present some evidence for Wood or Woods being a different person and ask that you advise me if anyone else has made this point before and, if so, what conclusions were reached relative to the same.

1. During the trial of the conspirators, a witness testified that Payne was a man named Wood (supposed to be a Payne alias). Herold thought it was such a good joke that he burst out laughing. (The Missouri Republican, quoted in New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 19, 1865, p. 4, and in Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weeping, p.13.

2. In a summary of Atzerodt's earliest confession, he is alleged to have said that late in the afternoon of the 14th of April, "he was called to the room of Wood, at that time boarding at the Herndon House...; that he found there Booth, Wood, Louis Payne, and Herold..." In the account that appears in The Lincoln Assassination: the Evidence, on p.61), "Louis" is stricken with a line through it, indicating that it was stricken by the original writer (not Atzerodt), and "alias" has carets before and and after it, indicating that it was added to the document (not by Atzerodt).

3. The problem of the 8:00 meeting of Booth, Powell, Atzerodt and Herold in Powell's room in the Herndon House, on the 14th, has bedeviled assassination historians from the very beginning, inasmuch as the owner of the establishment, Mrs. Murray, testified categorically (Pitman, p. 154) that Powell checked out at about 4 pm. All kinds of convoluted theories have been advanced by historians (including me)to try to explain this apparent contradiction in the record. Postulating that Wood or Woods and Powell are different people and that both had a room in the Herndon would solve the problem.

4. In his confession of April 25, Atzerodt said that after Booth returned from New York (i.e. after the Gautier's Restaurant meeting and the Campbell Hospital episode), he took Atzerodt to a lady's house near the Patent Office...a Hotel or Boarding house (probably the Herndon House said the transcriber) and "introduced me to a young man he called James Wood. This was after the fall of Richmond and two or three days before the President was killed..." This Wood could not have been Powell, because Atzerodt had already met Powell at Gautier's Restaurant on the 15th and paticipated in the Campbell Hospital episode with Powell on the 17th. Furthermore, Powell's alias was not "James Wood", but "Rev. Wood". Furthermore, he wasn't using the alias at this time, he was using "Mosby", which is how Atzerodt referred to him, and Mr. Kincheloe, to Mrs. Murray. He used "Rev. Wood" only when he came to Washington the first time and came to Mrs. Surratt's boarding-house. Weichmann, upon meeting him the second time, recalled that he had been to the boarding house before and that he had used the alias Rev. Wood.

5. Later in his April 25 confession, Atzerodt said that "I went up to Woods in the Navy Yard about 12 o'clock after the assassination..." This "Woods" could hardly have been Powell, because all the evidence points to Powell being on his way to Baltimore, having to abandon his one-eyed horse after a mishap of some kind and then taking refuge in cemeteries, trees and other strange places for about three days.

I submit that the foregoing evidence suggests that Wood or Woods may not be the same person as Powell and that he (Wood or Woods) was also involved in the assassination and attempted assassinations that night.

This issue may have come up before. Please advise if so. And please let me have your thoughts on this Laurie, as well as the thoughts of any other participants in this forum.

Thank you.

John