Has anyone done any research on Leonard T. Hogan?

[SSlater]

Hogan, sometimes spelled Hagan, was the individual who said that he handed John Wilkes the message that ordered him "not to shoot Lincoln". I found him after the war in Eustis FL. But other info is lacking. He married Clara C. Prescott in Washington D.C. in 1884.
He claimed that he was a messenger for the "higher ups". He would have been 17 in 1865, thus where did he get any experience ("earn he trust") that got him that job ? I'm slow to trust anything, until I can confirm the claim.
This part of the "Assassination Story" has been ignored. I think this Forum should fill in the missing vital info.

[Gene C]

I'm slow to believe it too.

Was/is it the usual practice for a common courier to read the messages they were to deliver?
I would guess not, and that they were also in code, in case the messenger was captured.

That's a message I would guess to be more likely sent through Surratt, Slater, Augustus Howell (any known photo's of him?), or a more experienced courier.

Any corroborating evidence to Mr. Hogan's story?
John, you uncover some really interesting, puzzling pieces to this story. How did you come across this fellow?

[Wild Bill]

I would look into the so-called New York Connection on this. It fits into Rick Stelnick's theories, although I do not remember him specifically mentioning Hogan.

[BettyO]

Another "Confederate Operative" was one Alfred Story, who supposed "partnered" with Lew Powell while working in Baltimore and New York. Story married and also moved to Eustis, Florida after the war. He was originally, like Powell, from Florida. I've been trying to find info on him, but have not had much luck outside of a couple of post war photographs and his pension record. I'm still digging.....this dude MAY have been involved with Hogan.....

   

   

   

[RJNorton]

(10-19-2016 11:40 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Hogan, sometimes spelled Hagan, was the individual who said that he handed John Wilkes the message that ordered him "not to shoot Lincoln". I found him after the war in Eustis FL. But other info is lacking. He married Clara C. Prescott in Washington D.C. in 1884.
He claimed that he was a messenger for the "higher ups". He would have been 17 in 1865, thus where did he get any experience ("earn he trust") that got him that job ? I'm slow to trust anything, until I can confirm the claim.
This part of the "Assassination Story" has been ignored. I think this Forum should fill in the missing vital info.

John, is there any evidence regarding Hogan's story beyond what it says in this article?

[BettyO]

This is the article where I found out about Story.....

[Gene C]

How do you find these articles? Do you subscribe to some kind of newspaper search service?
That little town of Euclid, must have been some kind of happening place. Other than orange groves was it a bit of a resort town back at the turn of the century?

BettyO, that fellow, Alfred Story, tells a whopper of a story.

[SSlater]

Thanks Roger, Betty O, et al, for your input. Your remarks are actually a confirmation of the Mission. It includes more people telling the same thing, at a different time, and the events didn't change.
I stumbled onto Hogan as I was researching A. C. Richards (He was the Chief of Police in D.C. on the night of the assassination,) My interest in him came from - His story is all lies. Some of them are mentioned in this version.
This info gives me a Push, to keep looking. I questioned Hogan's story - he was only 17 - but, he apparently volunteered for an assignment that not many would have ever risked. (They HAD to accept him.) It's easy to understand why - none of them ever talked about the operation, until 1900. In the parallel story about Harney, no one ever talked about his portion of the same mission.
I like the story that Story,( the man) tells about the "Special Unit" that was a special unit that Spied, and he wasn't just bragging. He told it in his Pension Application. Also, his Official Army Record claims he DESERTED. Isn't that typical of Spies. The only part of his story I question - as wrong - is "on the night of the shooting, he was sent to Washington". I think he was sent earlier, in an effort to stop Booth. Say, about April 1, when Harney got his orders and left Richmond. It wouldn't make sense to allow Booth to continue for 14 days or more, when the Higher-Ups wanted something different. I think that error slipped in sometime between 1865 and 1900. I think that Booth's trip to Boston, was his effort to get back into the scheme. (Story may have meant that "he had been sent to Washington, and on the night of the shooting, etc. etc.) However - I accept this story as an accurate version of the events at that time. (I am now looking for more, and I have more names to look into.)----- Thanks Guys and Gals, I will share all I find.

[RJNorton]

I received a note from a forum member who could not open the link to the Orlando Sentinel article. So I thought I'd post the text. Here it is:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Eustis Men Had Roles In Slaying Of Lincoln


April 16, 1987|By Bill Bond of The Sentinel Staff


Was Lake County a turn-of-the-century retirement den for a bevy of residents, including at least two ex-Confederate spies, who played significant roles in the Lincoln assassination?

The answer is a qualified yes, based on war documents, old letters and local folklore about the murder of Lincoln 122 years ago this week.

Here are some of the notable, and lesser known, Lake County actors said to have been among the cast of hundreds that played parts in one of the most tragic events in American history:

-- Alfred Richardson Story of Eustis claimed to have been a special agent for Confederate forces and said he knew of John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill the president -- but never told anyone until 35 years later. Story moved to the Eustis area in 1870, and kept his war experiences as a spy a secret until 1900. He died in 1923.

-- Almarin Cooley Richards, of Eustis, chief of the Metropolitan Washington police force the night of the assassination. He was in the audience at Ford Theater and played a major role in the investigation. He moved to Lake County in 1893 and died in 1907.

-- Leonard T. Hogan, of Eustis, who moved to Lake County in the late 1800s, was said to be a messenger for the South's high command and was carrying a message to Booth to abandon his plan to kill the president.

-- The Rev. George C. Powell, of the Mount Plymouth area, was a Baptist minister and father of Lewis Paine Powell, one of the four conspirators in the assassination who were hanged. Powell's father moved to Seminole Springs years after his son's execution.

The Story episode is clearly the grabber of the lot.

Ken Sears, 70, a retired Tavares postmaster and local history buff, tells it this way:

Sears said Story never publicly or privately liked to discuss his war record -- until November 1900 behind locked doors during a reunion of Confederate veterans.

Much of Sears' information is based on talks he had years ago with one of Story's sons -- Stratford St. Clair Story, who is now dead.

''Alf Story and others were picked to be spies for the Confederate Army,'' Sears said. ''On many occasions they would don Union Army uniforms, slip into an Army camp somewhere in the field and pick up information about troop movements.''

Sears said Story's spy partner was Lewis Powell Paine; the two met Booth at the Barnum Hotel in Baltimore in early 1865 to exchange information about federal troop movements.

''After they made their reports, John Wilkes Booth started outlining to them plans that he had for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,'' Sears said. Upon hearing the plan, Paine agreed to help, Sears said.

Story didn't go along with the plan and Booth drew a gun but was beat to the punch by Story, who held Booth at bay as he backed out of the hotel and fled.

Story lived in constant fear all his life that Booth had survived the shootout with federal forces after the assassination and would come looking for him, said Sears.

Story told the Confederate reunion audience that he thought he was marked for assassination, just as the president was, Sears said

For years Story believed he could be charged with complicity in Lincoln's assassination because he did not go to the authorities with information about the plot, Sears said.

Sear's tale about the reunion was repeated in 1931 in a biography of H.H. Duncan, first clerk of the Lake County Court, and written by Duncan's brother- in-law, Edwin Peet, of Tavares. Duncan, who was commander of the Confederate unit, is believed to have told Peet about Story's revelations.

Peet said in the 1931 writings: '' . . . Booth first broached his assassination plot'' with Story and Paine.

In 1907, Story claimed on a war pension application that he ''was on special detail as a messenger serving secretly in Washington, D.C. and the state of Maryland,'' but his military record shows he deserted in 1863.

''In August I was detached from my company to act as a special messenger and operated between Baltimore, Md., and our Army front until the end of the war -- acting as a secret agent within the enemy's line getting information from friends in Baltimore about the federal army.''

Former Police Chief Richards provided more details about his involvement with the historic event during a 1900 talk at Clifford Hall, according to a letter written in 1958 by former Eustis resident M.B. Gault. The letter now is in the hands of the Lake County Historical Society.

Gault wrote: ''At one of the entertainments given by some group, a Col. Richards came on the stage and told how he had been posted behind the box in which President Lincoln sat when he was shot. He said he jumped through the front of the box to get Booth, who got away, but he found on the stage a Bowie knife that Booth was supposed to have lost. And he Richards showed us the knife.''

The tale about Hogan provokes some of the most serious thoughts.

According to Gault, who was at the gathering that night in 1900, Hogan said he was a runner between the high command of the South and the underground in Washington. On the night of the shooting, Hogan said he had been sent to Washington and ''carried orders forbidding Booth to kill the president.''

Accounts did not explain why Hogan failed. But it makes you wonder how history might have changed if Hogan had been able to complete his mission, or if Story had gone to the authorities with what he knew.

[DKEast]

By coincidence or other, the Powells lived in present day Oviedo, FL, within proximity of Eustis, until the family moved to Seminole Springs after the death of Lewis Powell.