Notes on Booth's Diary

[Dave Taylor]

Though you can find transcriptions of Booth's diary in many places, I decided to transcribe it myself yesterday using images of the pages. In this way I could really note some of the details of the text and the way it was written. There were a few places where the text was faded to the point of illegibility, and during those times I used the transcript of the diary from the John Surratt Trail in 1867. During this whole process, I noticed a few interesting and mysterious things:

1. Davy is an afterthought:

Though David Herold was at Booth's side while he was writing his entries in the diary, he is brought up very little in the diary. This was supposed to be Booth's manifesto and so Davy got very little attention. At one point Davy is deliberately left out. The line that states, "After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gun boats till I was forced to return wet cold and starving," originally said "we" instead of "I". Booth changed his mind about including Davy and wrote over the word "we" with "I":



At the end of the diary, when Davy is finally mentioned (not by name, mind you), Booth writes the following: "And for this brave boy with me who often prays (yes before and since) with a true and sincere heart was it crime in him. if so why can he pray the same" The second sentence was an afterthought and was added later. You can tell because it is written smaller and between the lines that proceed and follow it:



2. Booth liked quotes

In the image right above this, you can see Booth quoting the line, "I must fight the course". This is a quote from Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 7 in which Macbeth states:

"They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly,
But, bearlike, I must fight the course. What’s he
That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none"

This quote by Booth is very appropriate to the message he has propagated in his diary. "The world has condemned me but I will fight as I can. I fear no man, only God." Booth - a Shakespearean to the end.

However, there is also this strange line that intrigues me:



To my eyes, those definitely look like quotation marks after the word "me". Before the word "I" there are two marks that could be quotation marks, or a period and a stray mark from the previous sentence. If this is a quote then it says "I care not what becomes of me". I tried searching for this quote, but I could not find anything that definitively fits Booth's persona. But perhaps this is a dramatic line from some play known in Booth's day.

3. The Mysterious I 14
Quiz - what words are underlined on this page:


Did you answer "was" "have" and "becomes"? Many transcriptions agree with you on those, however none of those words are actually underlined. Instead they only look like their underlined due to writing underneath them:



To my eyes it looks like I 14 with something else scribbled above the I. Perhaps Booth and Davy were playing Bingo in the pines?

4. M__ C__

I made this animation for Booth's handwritten calendar:


When looking at it closer, however, I think I made a mistake right under "Sund". At first blush, I thought it said, "Ms __" but now I'm not so sure. I now see several different strokes here. The word "Sund", the date "23", the strike through "23", and then text that looks like "M __ C __"



On the 23rd, Booth and Herold were near Mrs. Quesenberry's house for a time. Could "M __ C__" stand for "Mrs. Quesenberry"? If Booth was spelling phonetically, Quesenberry could sound like "Cue-sen-berry", hence the C instead of a Q.

So, while there are no secret cyphers or codices to be found in the pages of Booth's diary, there are still some mysterious markings and passages that make it an interesting relic.

[Jim Garrett]

So Dave, have you transcribed this into YOUR Booth diary word for word, underline for underline? Ingteresting that JWB changed the we to I. He wasn't going to share the spotlight.

[LincolnMan]

Great work Dave!

[L Verge]

"He wasn't going to share the spotlight." Or, he was trying to spare Herold the shame of being with him... Many claimed that Booth was a kind and generous friend. You don't necessarily lose all your good traits when you do something evil for what you consider a good cause.

[L Verge]

Someone who operates a blog known as Petrified Forest has posted his review of Erik's Nat Geo Killing Lincoln on Dave's current posting on the Booth diary. It's a pretty good synopsis.

He/she does take a tiny slap at Manhunt, but thank goodness that thousands of its readers would disagree. It continues to be the #1 book mentioned by visitors to Surratt House, and they love it. Many say that it is what has inspired them to travel over the Booth escape route. The Killing Lincoln film is doing much the same thing. Both Manhunt and Killing Lincoln add excitement and adventure where other tomes have failed.

[JMadonna]

Good job Dave,
I wonder if they ever put the pages under a black light and test it for invisible ink?
Wouldn't that be a discovery!

[Jim Garrett]

(10-13-2013 06:26 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  Good job Dave,
I wonder if they ever put the pages under a black light and test it for invisible ink?
Wouldn't that be a discovery!

Why would you ever put Manhunt under black light?

[J. Beckert]

Is the diary still on display, Jim? I've heard it's almost illegible now. Is that correct?

[L Verge]

On the 23rd, Booth and Herold were near Mrs. Quesenberry's house for a time. Could "M __ C__" stand for "Mrs. Quesenberry"? If Booth was spelling phonetically, Quesenberry could sound like "Cue-sen-berry", hence the C instead of a Q.

Dave - I'm more inclined to think that M C stands for Machodoc Creek.

[BettyO]

Fantastic detective work, Dave!

Thanks for the link on Killing Lincoln. Good review!

[L Verge]

It was two o'clock at night when I posted my thoughts above that M C on the diary page is likely short for Machodoc Creek. Now that it's daylight, I will expound on that thought.

That is the landmark that Thomas Jones had told them to steer towards because it would bring them within a short distance of Mrs. Quesenberry's home. Booth was careful not to mention names in his diary, so I don't think he would have even come close to writing anything that would harm a member of the underground.

---

More thoughts on the diary: Jerry asked about it being studied under black light. Decades ago, a spurious claim was made that the "missing pages" had turned up in the hands of an Americana dealer. Along with others, including then-Vice President Walter Mondale, James O. Hall secured the help of the NPS and the FBI labs to examine the little, 1864 memorandum book (that we call the diary). A variety of other samples known to have been written by Booth were also examined.

The FBI photographed everything in the book under a variety of special lights and determined that the entries and the samples had all been written by Booth. They also determined that a lot more pages were missing than the reported eighteen that have gone down in history. Everything from January 1, 1864, through June 10, 1864 were either torn or cut out - likely by Booth because they were past engagements that he no longer needed. After that, only four pages and a part of another are missing.

Booth's so-called diary begins on the June 11, 1864, page. The last of his first entry and a hand-drawn calendar occupy all of the page beginning June 14. There is nothing on the page for June 17 and the page beginning June 20. He picked up writing again on the page dated June 23, but re-dated that page to "Friday 21." The writing continues down to the bottom of the page beginning June 29. It ends there. The next page missing covers July 17-22, then part of the page for August 10-15 is missing as are two consecutive pages covering August 22-September 2, and finally a page for November 8-13, 1864.

As for the spurious missing pages: In the late-1970s, an Americana dealer by the name of Joseph Lynch claimed to have found them in materials that he had obtained from a Stanton descendant. However, he would not make them available for inspection in their original form -- only a transcript.
James O. Hall and Richard Sloan met with Lynch in a hotel room in White Plains, New York in 1977, and retrieved a copy of the transcript. Dr. Hall then proceeded to analyze it over an extended length of time and, with the help of others in the field, determined that the entries contained a number of historical errors - some so clear that the average good historian of the era will spot them.

The analysis is very lengthy and is contained in the James O. Hall Research Center at Surratt House Museum. However, a seven-page synopsis of some of the alleged entries was carried in the October 1994 Surratt Courier and included in one of the three volume set of newsletter articles turned into book form as of this date.

[Jim Garrett]

(10-13-2013 07:02 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Is the diary still on display, Jim? I've heard it's almost illegible now. Is that correct?

The diary is on display. The primary reason it is hard to read is not so much fading, but more from low lighting'

[RJNorton]

(10-14-2013 12:26 PM)Jim Garrett Wrote:  

(10-13-2013 07:02 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Is the diary still on display, Jim? I've heard it's almost illegible now. Is that correct?

The diary is on display. The primary reason it is hard to read is not so much fading, but more from low lighting'

Can it be said for certain how many pages are missing? I often see 18 (Laurie mentioned above that it is actually more than that), and I have seen the number as high as 86. Or can the actual number not really be determined?

[Dave Taylor]

Roger,

When I get home, I can tell you exactly how many missing pages there are. Off the top of my head, I believe that the entire book originally had 95 total leaves (190 pages) in it before Booth removed some.

Not only are some pages removed, but others have been partially ripped as well. The true number is higher than what is usually written about.

---

Also, Laurie, I completely agree with you that M__ C__ probably stands for Machodoc Creek. That's so cool that he put that in this.

[L Verge]

(10-14-2013 01:27 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote:  Roger,

When I get home, I can tell you exactly how many missing pages there are. Off the top of my head, I believe that the entire book originally had 95 total leaves (190 pages) in it before Booth removed some.

Not only are some pages removed, but others have been partially ripped as well. The true number is higher than what is usually written about.

---

Also, Laurie, I completely agree with you that M__ C__ probably stands for Machodoc Creek. That's so cool that he put that in this.

For some reason, the number 56 sticks in my head as the number of missing pages.