Garrett Farm

[Dave Taylor]

Hi all. Sorry for the delay. Today was our 6th day of school so I've been so busy lately. The first few weeks of 2nd grade are always so hectic, getting all the materials ready and training the kids.

Here's the cliff notes version of Booth's at Garretts that I know from memory:

Willie Jett, Bainbridge, Ruggles, Herold and Booth all ride over to the Garretts. Herold and Ruggles (I think) stay at the outer farm gate while Willie Jett, Bainbridge and Booth go towards the house. Jett introduces himself to Mr. Garrett, and according to one account, Mr. Garrett is familair with Willie Jett's father from their shared days as merchants. Willie Jett asks Mr. Garrett to take care of their friend "Mr. Boyd", who is a wounded Confederate soldier, for a couple days until he can come back for him. The hospitable Mr. Garrett welcomes Mr. Boyd with open arms. Willie Jett and Bainbridge leave Booth, rejoin with Herold and Ruggles and ride towards Bowling Green, where they ultimately spend the night. Booth eats dinner with the Garrett family, entertains the youngsters, and sleeps in the house that night. The next day Booth eats breakfast and lunch with the family. Then, in the afternoon, Herold, Bainbridge and Ruggles ride past the outer farm gate. The two soldiers drop Herold off and continue towards Port Royal. Herold walks up to the house and Booth goes out to meet him. The two walk back to the house and Booth introduce Herold as his cousin "Dave Boyd". Herold asks Jack Garrett (the oldest Garrett son) for lodging for the night. Jack says he will have to wait until his father comes home to ask him. Herold and Booth agree to wait for Mr. Garrett to come back home from the fields. After a bit, Ruggles and Bainbridge come riding back from Port Royal. They ride up to the Garrett house and inform Booth and Herold that the Federal troops are crossing the Rappahannock river and landing at Port Royal. Bainbridge and Ruggles ride off back south and Booth and Herold make their way into the woods behind the tobacco house. After a short while, Herold comes out of the woods and starts conversing with Jack, who by this point is confused and suspicious by their behavior. Herold tries to play it off as nothing. Eventually, the Federal troops do ride past the Garrett farm while Herold and Jack are conversing. After they pass, Herold goes and retrieves Booth from the woods. Herold then asks Jack if he knows any where that he and his cousin could get a conveyance. Jack suggests Ned Freeman, a free black who lived right at the edge of the Garrett property. Herold asks how much he thinks it would cost them to hire Freeman. Jack says he doesn't know but that Freeman prefers money in coin rather than greenbacks. Herold does a quick calculation on the ground and gives Jack a $10 note. He asks Jack to go to Freeman and see if he would take them for the $10. Jack leaves and makes his way to Freeman's. Unfortunately, Ned is not home at the time. When he gets back home, Jack tells the Boyd cousins that he will take them where they want to go. Jack suggests leaving right away, as he is suspicious of these men, but they don't want to depart until the next morning. Booth and Herold eat dinner with the family. Later Jack easily realizes that Herold is lying about his own service in the Confederacy, as the company he said he belonged to did not exist. Worried that the two men would steal their horses and make their escape under the cover of night, Jack locks Booth and Herold in the tobacco barn. The rest, as they say, is history.

Forgive any small errors I might have made. I'm going from memory after all.

But, yes, Jack did offer to take Booth and Herold further south, just to get them out of his hair. Ultimately though, Jack had to go back to Ned Freeman's in the early morning summoning him and his wagon so that he could carry Booth's dead body back north.

[hannahrozesmom]

(08-28-2013 03:33 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote:  Hi all. Sorry for the delay. Today was our 6th day of school so I've been so busy lately. The first few weeks of 2nd grade are always so hectic, getting all the materials ready and training the kids.

Here's the cliff notes version of Booth's at Garretts that I know from memory:

Willie Jett, Bainbridge, Ruggles, Herold and Booth all ride over to the Garretts. Herold and Ruggles (I think) stay at the outer farm gate while Willie Jett, Bainbridge and Booth go towards the house. Jett introduces himself to Mr. Garrett, and according to one account, Mr. Garrett is familair with Willie Jett's father from their shared days as merchants. Willie Jett asks Mr. Garrett to take care of their friend "Mr. Boyd", who is a wounded Confederate soldier, for a couple days until he can come back for him. The hospitable Mr. Garrett welcomes Mr. Boyd with open arms. Willie Jett and Bainbridge leave Booth, rejoin with Herold and Ruggles and ride towards Bowling Green, where they ultimately spend the night. Booth eats dinner with the Garrett family, entertains the youngsters, and sleeps in the house that night. The next day Booth eats breakfast and lunch with the family. Then, in the afternoon, Herold, Bainbridge and Ruggles ride past the outer farm gate. The two soldiers drop Herold off and continue towards Port Royal. Herold walks up to the house and Booth goes out to meet him. The two walk back to the house and Booth introduce Herold as his cousin "Dave Boyd". Herold asks Jack Garrett (the oldest Garrett son) for lodging for the night. Jack says he will have to wait until his father comes home to ask him. Herold and Booth agree to wait for Mr. Garrett to come back home from the fields. After a bit, Ruggles and Bainbridge come riding back from Port Royal. They ride up to the Garrett house and inform Booth and Herold that the Federal troops are crossing the Rappahannock river and landing at Port Royal. Bainbridge and Ruggles ride off back south and Booth and Herold make their way into the woods behind the tobacco house. After a short while, Herold comes out of the woods and starts conversing with Jack, who by this point is confused and suspicious by their behavior. Herold tries to play it off as nothing. Eventually, the Federal troops do ride past the Garrett farm while Herold and Jack are conversing. After they pass, Herold goes and retrieves Booth from the woods. Herold then asks Jack if he knows any where that he and his cousin could get a conveyance. Jack suggests Ned Freeman, a free black who lived right at the edge of the Garrett property. Herold asks how much he thinks it would cost them to hire Freeman. Jack says he doesn't know but that Freeman prefers money in coin rather than greenbacks. Herold does a quick calculation on the ground and gives Jack a $10 note. He asks Jack to go to Freeman and see if he would take them for the $10. Jack leaves and makes his way to Freeman's. Unfortunately, Ned is not home at the time. When he gets back home, Jack tells the Boyd cousins that he will take them where they want to go. Jack suggests leaving right away, as he is suspicious of these men, but they don't want to depart until the next morning. Booth and Herold eat dinner with the family. Later Jack easily realizes that Herold is lying about his own service in the Confederacy, as the company he said he belonged to did not exist. Worried that the two men would steal their horses and make their escape under the cover of night, Jack locks Booth and Herold in the tobacco barn. The rest, as they say, is history.

Forgive any small errors I might have made. I'm going from memory after all.

But, yes, Jack did offer to take Booth and Herold further south, just to get them out of his hair. Ultimately though, Jack had to go back to Ned Freeman's in the early morning summoning him and his wagon so that he could carry Booth's dead body back north.

Thank you so much Dave! That is pretty much the way I heard it on the CD from Mr. Swanson. It stumps me as to why they would not have taken him up on the offer and left? I wonder why in the world they would stay?

[L Verge]

Thank you, Dave, for filling in the blanks for me in reference to Ned Freeman (the first time his service was needed). Is this part of the trial testimony or a Garrett statement? I must admit to never reading entirely that dreadful trial testimony -- confusing, convoluted, downright boring to this old gal!

I am happy to know, however, that my friend James Swanson got things right. Perhaps other authors deleted the first references to Ned Freeman and the $10 note when they had to edit and re-edit their work to satisfy publishers.

[Dave Taylor]

(08-28-2013 03:44 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Thank you, Dave, for filling in the blanks for me in reference to Ned Freeman (the first time his service was needed). Is this part of the trial testimony or a Garrett statement? I must admit to never reading entirely that dreadful trial testimony -- confusing, convoluted, downright boring to this old gal!

I am happy to know, however, that my friend James Swanson got things right. Perhaps other authors deleted the first references to Ned Freeman and the $10 note when they had to edit and re-edit their work to satisfy publishers.

Most of my story comes from Jack Garrett's statement. While the two Garrett boys were held in DC and required to report to the trial every day, they never actually testified. Jack did testify two years later at the John Surratt trial.

Don't feel bad Laurie. Even though I consult the trial often in my research, I've never actually read the thing completely through either.

[BettyO]

Thanks, Dave!

As to actually reading the trial testimony from cover to cover - count me in as well! Although I use it extensively for research purposes - I have never completely read it either.... I doubt seriously if anyone has!

[Jim Garrett]

For the benefit of our newbie Hannah, welcome to the forum. If I could put the Lincoln Assassination in an IV, I would. Hannah, Dave did a presentation at the Surratt conference last March and it was a huge hit. His "Show N Tell" included an actual Garrett!

The best part that Dave related is after being captured and tied to a horse, David Herold , facing mortal doom, asked Jack Garrett for his $10 back.

[L Verge]

If I had been Jack, I would not have given it to him. Herold was getting what he wanted -- transportation, albeit at government expense...

[Rsmyth]

John Henry Coghill said that Ned Freeman lived on a small farm on the Garrett property between the barn and the main road. While transporting Booth's body and Herold in his wagon the axle broke. Attempting to fix it, Freeman got blood on his hands. Another wagon was procured and Freeman left the wagon there.

[J. Beckert]

Didn't he yell that it was murderer's blood and it would never come off?

[L Verge]

I've heard that too, Joe. Knowing the superstitions of old, I suspect that he likely did yell something similar at least. I remember an elderly gentleman from my childhood that walked everywhere he had to go. If he passed through one of those cold spots that you occasionally experience in the atmosphere, he would stop and go the other way, feeling sure that he had just encountered a ghost. If a funeral procession was heading past him, he would turn around and walk with the procession until it passed him by.

For a number of years, the Surratt Booth Tours were met in Bowling Green, Virginia, by a wonderful lady named Miss Maude Motley - definitely one of the last of the gentile Southern ladies of our time. Miss Maude had known Lucinda Holloway and knew family stories. She used to tell us about the bloody porch boards being taken up from the Garrett house and stored. However, boys used to sneak in and get them and chase the girls around threatening to get the villain's blood on them.

[RJNorton]

(08-29-2013 11:51 AM)L Verge Wrote:  For a number of years, the Surratt Booth Tours were met in Bowling Green, Virginia, by a wonderful lady named Miss Maude Motley - definitely one of the last of the gentile Southern ladies of our time. Miss Maude had known Lucinda Holloway and knew family stories. She used to tell us about the bloody porch boards being taken up from the Garrett house and stored. However, boys used to sneak in and get them and chase the girls around threatening to get the villain's blood on them.

[Jim Garrett]

Ms. Motley was a relative of Ms. Holloway.

[Troy Cowan]

(08-27-2013 07:36 AM)hannahrozesmom Wrote:  Hello Everyone! I am a newbie to this forum and have only been reading and studing the assassination of Lincoln a few months. I am totally addicted and have so many questions! I'm sure this has been discussed on this forum previously but can someone please direct me to a thread regarding why Booth and Herold decided to stay at the Garrett farm when they were offered transportation to leave?

Most people believe the statements of John Garrett and Willie Jett. But, those statements were made while under the thumb of Edwin Stanton. Their life depended on pleasing Stanton. There are additional statements in disagreement made by other people when they believed it safe to do so.
One of the most important statements about Booth's survival is from William Garrett. William's statement came forty years after Stanton's death at a time when he felt safe to tell the true story. Even at this late date, his statement couldn't be allowed to go unchallenged, because if believed, it would mean the end of the government cover-up. This statement and others like must be discredited, and all people claiming to have seen Booth after incident at the Garrett barn must be shown to be mistaken or a liar.

William Garrett’s Statement

One evening a while before dark, a couple of men on horseback
and in Confederate uniforms came to our place, having with them
another young man who had no uniform but had a sore leg. They
wanted the crippled young man taken in until arrangements could be
made to get him to a place of safety. At first father didn’t want to do
it, but the Confederate officers said they would see that he got into
no trouble, so the young man was taken in and the two cavalry men
paced off to keep picket and give warning if any federals came up, so
the crippled man told us. He stayed in the kitchen that night where
brother Jack and I sleep. The next evening when the crippled man
was in the front yard on the grass the two cavalry men came up as
fast as they could, said something about they must get to the woods,
so one of them took the crippled man on the horse and they started
toward the heavy woods this side of the Port. One of the cavalry men
started toward Bowling Green. They were in such a hurry that they
didn’t say good-bye or if they would come back. That night brother
Jack and I kept awake much of the time thinking the men might
come back, and father told us not to let any more strangers stay
there. A while before day when it was as dark as charcoal outside I
heard someone tap on the back door. I crawled out of bed without
making any fuss because I didn’t want to wake father and mother
who were asleep upstairs. So I opened the door but it was so dark I
could only see that there were two of them and one was larger and
seemingly older by his voice, but the younger one done most of the
talking. He said they had come a long ways on foot and was going
to some court house but was too tired to go any farther without rest,
and they wanted a place to stay. I told them father didn’t want to let
any strangers stay there, but if they would be careful and not wake
the folks they could stay awhile. They said as they might want to
leave at any moment they would prefer some outhouse or crib, so
they could go there without disturbing the “old folks” as they called
them. I told Jack to not for anything wake father and mother and the
men would be gone so they needn’t know they had stayed there. So
I showed the strangers to the crib. It was so dark you could not see
your hand before you, but I knew the place so well I found the crib
door and let them go in where there was hay and cornstalk blades for
them to rest on. I stopped around awhile to see that they didn’t take
the horses as they had none. Pretty soon I heard noise at the house
and hurried there where a lot of men in Union uniforms and one of
them an officer had the door open demanding that a light be lit and
“damn’d quick.” Just then I heard mother raise the upstairs window
and ask who was there and what they wanted. “No matter who we
are—we want a light.” Then I heard father coming downstairs and
he lit a candle and when he went to the door another officer came
up and said “You have someone in here and we want him.” Father
tried to tell the new officer that there had been a man there but he
wouldn’t let him. “We are not going to listen to any of your excuses,”
said the officer. “Where is he?” Then father told him they had gone.
“Gone where?” said the officer, and father told him to the woods.
Then brother Jack began ransacking the house to see if the crippled
man had come back. But the officer grabbed father and pulled him
on the porch and called for a rope and said he would swing him
to one of the sycamore limbs. I then told them not to harm father
and I would tell them. “Father is scared. He don’t know,” I said. I
was grabbed by the arm like all savage and I saw I had to tell them
something, so I told them, “They went to the crib. I’ll show you
where they are.” One of the officers took the candle and we went to
the crib, but it was dark as could be in there and not a sound. Pretty
soon there was a rustle in the fodder and the officer said I must go in
and tell the man in there to give up his arms and surrender. I didn’t
want to go but he said I must, and he called to the man in there that
he would send me in for the arms and he must surrender. Just then
there was whispering, showing that there was more than one in there.
One of them said to the other he could “go and be damned; I don’t
want you here anyway.” As soon as I got in the man inside snatched
up something I thought was a gun and told me to get out, that I had
given him a cold deck, or something, and I rushed back to the door
and told them the men in there were armed to the teeth and would
shoot me. I was let out and the officer again called for surrender or
there would be a bonfire and a shooting match. But one of the men
in the crib said, “There is a damned young fellow in here who wants
to give himself up. As for me—I want time to study.” The officer
told him he could have just two minutes. Then one of the men inside
told the other to “go, you damned coward! I don’t know you! You
have betrayed me and I don’t want you to stay.” He kept cursing him
to the last. About this time someone set fire to some hay and poked
it through a crack and almost as if it was a powder house the whole
inside of the crib was ablaze, and for the first time the men inside
could be seen, although they could see those outside. One of the men
at once began running from one side to the other looking for a way
to get out or a crack to pop anyone who got in the way. The door
was broke open and one of the men grabbed the young man and
piled on top of him and was dragging him out when someone shot
through a crack and the other man inside bounded toward the door
and fell on his face. In an instant one of the officers was on him and
his clothes was afire. The young man was taken outside and tied to a
tree, and the other man was taken out before he burned and carried
to the porch and put on some planks with an old coat and a pillow
for his head.
“Who was it got shot?” asked the young man who had
given up.
“You know well enough who it was,” answered the officer.
“No, I do not know who it was.”
“Yes, you do,” said the officer. “You know it is Booth.”
“No, I tell you I don’t know it was Booth,” said the young man.
“He told me his name was Boyd.”

William Garrett

(William Garrett’s statement given in the presence of the town’s
postmaster, W. P. Carneal)

Captain Dougherty was the officer in command at the Garrett’s
barn. During the trial of David Harold, Dougherty confirmed William
Garrett’s statement about Boyd. Dougherty testified that the following
conversation took place:
Harold asked, “Who had been shot?”
Dougherty replied, “Booth.”
Harold said, “It was not Booth, but Boyd.”

Other confirmation comes from a letter written by John A. Hopkins Jr. of Winchester, Ky.
"My father, the late John A Hopkins, served in Stonewall Jackson's division of Lee's army. He was wounded at Appomattox and paroled after Lee surrendered, but before he went to his home in Virginia, he spent several days at the home of Mr. Garrett.
He has told me many times that old man Garrett told him that the man killed in the building on his farm was not Booth....
Garrett said the army troops surrounded his premises and began a siege....they set fire to the barn and shot the poor man by the glare of the fire. It was a cowardly murder, and it was done in the hopes of passing the body off for that of Booth and getting the reward."

[wsanto]

Troy,

I assume you believe Herold was involved with Booth as a conspirator to Lincoln's murder. If so, you must take into account Herold's need, at the time of his capture, of an aliby to explain his being in Garrett's barn that night with Booth. I realize you don't believe it was Booth, but if it was, Herold needed to come up with some story to convince his captors that he was an innocent.

So he starts by claiming he doesn't know Booth and that the body in the barn was, to his knowledge, some guy he just met named Boyd? Ok maybe. Was Herold telling the truth? Of course not. We know he was lying. And Wiiliam Garrett relating what he remembered Herold saying is no evidence that Herold was telling the truth.

The report of a confederate sympathizer that probably had no love lost for Lincoln or for the Federal Government might have been willing to believe, and hope, that Booth escaped that night and that the evil government was covering up the facts. He might have even relayed that story, as fictitious as it might be, to his family. He probably even convinced himself it was true. But like most conspiracy theories--it most likely wasn't

Bill Carnevali

[LincolnMan]

Just as a point of interest on this subject- I knew a great-grandson of Mr. Garrett. His name was Herb Peters. After one of my "Lincoln assassination" presentations a few years ago, Herb and I talked (he was in the audience). Among other things pertaining to the assassination, the identity of the "man in the barn" was discussed. Mr. Peters stated that there was no doubt to anyone in the Peters family that the slain man in the barn was John Wilkes Booth. He also talked about the letter that was received by his family from Edwin Booth-thanking the Garretts for their kindness to Wilks Booth in his dying hours. He was very aware of the theory that it wasn't JWB in the barn- and didn't believe a word of it. Mr. Peters passed away a few years ago, sadly.