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AussieMick · (This post was last modified: 12-04-2018 01:45 AM by AussieMick.)

I suppose its a case of picking and choosing who you want to believe , and who most fits the bill to meet what you want to believe ....

"Of all the individuals who had seen the diary between the time it was taken from Booth and the time it was presented to the Judiciary Committee, Baker was the only one who believed that it had been tampered with. Conger, who appeared several weeks after Baker, testified that the diary was in the same condition that it had been when he had taken it from Booth. He remembered no conversation with Baker about the sketch of a house, although Baker had recently spoken to him about it. Conger said that he had examined the diary very carefully and believed that there was "no change" in it. Another member of the capture party, Luther B. Baker, a cousin of Lafayette Baker's, testified that the pages had been missing in 1865. So also did Secretary Stanton himself, who had examined the book for thirty or forty minutes when he first received it. Thomas T. Eckert, an assistant secretary of war who carried the diary from Stanton to Judge Advocate General Holt, had also noticed the missing pages and testified that the book was in the same condition as it had been when he received it from Stanton. Holt, who had had physical possession ever since, declared, "It is now in precisely the condition that it was when it came into my hands." Thus, according to sworn testimony before a congressional committee, either Lafayette C. Baker was guilty of perjury (or a bad memory), or Conger, Luther B. Baker, Stanton, Eckert, and Holt were. The weight of evidence, as well as of numbers, is against Baker. “

booths_diary.pdf
WILLIAM HANCHETT

mikegriffith1 · (This post was last modified: 12-04-2018 05:43 AM by mikegriffith1.)

(12-03-2018 05:27 PM)Rob Wick Wrote: So, I'm Edwin Stanton. Two of my minions have just returned from the field with a diary purported to contain damning evidence of the perfidy committed by myself and other Republicans in the greatest crime of the century. Instead of taking the diary, throwing it into the fireplace, and forever keeping the world from ever knowing of it, I concoct a detailed editing of a book that only three or four people have direct knowledge of? I know I can count on Lafayette Baker and Everton Conger to remain quiet because they work for me. One has the worst reputation in the city and the other is a nobody who would have died in obscurity had he not become part of the search. Should either one try to blackmail me I have the overwhelming power of the government behind me to ensure that my secret is kept.

For three years I conspire to keep the edited book under wraps because even the parts I decided to leave in could still be trouble for me. When its existence is made known, I testify to the fact that I saw it at the same time as the two men who previously testified to that same fact. During those three years I do nothing to destroy the diary completely.

Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.

Actually, your logic makes no sense. It is downright silly, in fact. Here are a few facts that you failed to consider in your rush to see the Emperor's New Clothes:

One, too many people knew that Booth's diary had been recovered, and Stanton could not be certain that all of them would remain silent.

Two, Stanton knew that his chief henchman, Lafayette Baker, was furious over not getting a larger share of the reward, and he knew that Baker knew that he, Stanton, had received the diary.

Three, Stanton and Baker had already had one falling out before the assassination, which led to Stanton firing Baker.

Four, Stanton was surely aware that there had been early press reports about Booth's diary being recovered. Given these reports and given how many people Stanton knew were aware of the diary's recovery, he did not dare destroy it, because if just one or two of these people started talking, he would be unable to give any credible explanation for having destroyed the diary.

Five, given the above realities, Stanton's most logical move would have been to try to minimize the damage the diary could do if its existence became known and if he were forced to hand it over. So his next logical move would have been to alter the diary, via editing and redaction, to remove as much damning content as possible.

Six, no matter what theory one wants to cook up for why the diary was redacted and altered, the fact that the diary was heavily redacted and altered is beyond dispute--it is documented for all to see in the 1977 FBI report on the diary. In addition to the shifting of content, 86 pages--that's 80 plus 6 pages--were removed from the diary, and they were not removed in some hasty grabbing and yanking of pages, but were removed in a targeted, selective manner.

Seven, while you folks "see no evil" about Stanton's suppression of the diary's existence and his withholding of it from the conspiracy trial, Baker's disclosure of the diary's existence in 1867 caused a firestorm of controversy, especially when the diary's contents became known. A huge chunk of the American people could readily see that there was something very suspicious about the suppression of the diary and the failure to enter it into evidence at the conspiracy trial.

Eight, even Bingham did not float the silly, absurd argument that the diary had no evidentiary value. His argument was that it was suppressed and not entered into evidence because they didn't want to let Booth posthumously justify and glorify his actions. Congressman Baker rightly called that excuse "lame."

RJNorton · 12-04-2018, 06:03 AM

(12-04-2018 05:22 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote: Stanton could not be certain that all of them would remain silent.

Mike, this is one of the main reasons I cannot accept your theory about the assassination. You have the conspiracy so large (including people like Everton Conger, James R. O'Beirne, Ford's Theatre staff, etc.) that I really think someone would have talked in subsequent years. It seems to me that the larger the conspiracy, the more likely the truth will eventually be revealed. How could Stanton trust all these many people to remain silent if what you say is true? I am sorry, Mike, but I just cannot believe it.

Offhand, the closest thing I can think of (regarding someone talking) is Bingham's alleged deathbed statement to his doctor that "The truth must remain sealed." But that didn't happen until 1900, and we only have the doctor's word. It regards some things Mary Surratt allegedly told Bingham, but there is zero evidence Bingham ever met privately with Mary Surratt.

GustD45 · 12-04-2018, 02:00 PM

(12-02-2018 07:06 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:
(12-01-2018 07:04 PM)Gene C Wrote: Mike, thank you for posting the link to the FBI report on Booth's diary. I've read the pages you mention. They mention the missing pages torn out of the book are not in sequence.
NOWHERE IN THE FBI REPORT ON THE PAGES YOU MENTIONED DOES IT MENTION WHO OR WHEN THE PAGES WERE REMOVED.

On the bottom of the 27th page of the report
"As a result of the complete examination of the diary, no invisible writings, no unusual obliterations or alterations or any characteristics of question were found."

If you consider the missing pages as tampering, no one disagrees with that. But to attempt to say who or when the pages were removed and why, is pure speculation and the FBI report is silent regarding that.

I think you're missing the forest for a few small trees. Let us start with the point I made earlier:

The report details the intricate editing, cutting, and reconstituting that was done to the diary to remove the 86 pages. This would have required many hours of work and access to the needed materials. If someone has a scenario for how Conger or Lafayette Baker had the time and materials to do this editing between the time Conger said he "found" the diary and the time Baker turned it over to Stanton, I'd like to hear it.

I am saying that the editing, laminating, and reconstruction described in the FBI lab report was too extensive and time-consuming to have been done in the time between when Conger obtained the diary and the time he handed it to Baker. After Conger had the diary, he galloped to Washington to give it and other items to Lafayette Baker, and Baker turned it over to Stanton shortly thereafter. Baker worked for the War Department. When he received the diary, the diary was then in the possession of an official from the War Department. If someone wants to argue that Baker somehow did all that editing before he handed the diary over to Stanton, go ahead, because that would still mean that the editing was done after the War Department had possession of the diary, since Baker worked for the War Department.

(12-01-2018 07:04 PM)Gene C Wrote: On the bottom of the 27th page of the report: "As a result of the complete examination of the diary, no invisible writings, no unusual obliterations or alterations or any characteristics of question were found."

So taking 86 pages, roughly half of the total pages, from the diary was a routine, ordinary alteration?!

You are taking this statement out of context. Remember that the FBI was asked to check for signs of invisible writing and to determine if any of the handwriting was forged, i.e., if any of the handwriting was not Booth's handwriting. "No unusual obliterations or alterations or characteristics of question were found" applies to the two purposes for which the FBI was asked to examine the diary, i.e., invisible writing and determining authorship. IOW, none of the obliterations or alterations cast any doubt on the authorship of the diary.

But you are taking "no unusual obliterations or alterations" as a blanket statement about the diary as a record. By any rational standard, the removal of roughly half of the pages from any record would constitute "an unusual obliteration or alteration," wouldn't you say?

Now let us look at some of the manipulation that the FBI report identified:

* 54 pages were cut from between the 1/1/1864 sheet and the 6/11/1864 sheet, and 25 of the edges of those cut pages were still visible. NOTE: One sheet equals two pages.

* The second and third sheets of packet number five were cut and their edges are no longer visible. Furthermore, those two sheets were originally connected with the two packet pages dated 6/23 and 6/29. IOW, they were cut and put elsewhere in the diary.

* There was handwriting on "many of the remaining edges of the group of twenty-five missing sheets" that would "assist in any future examinations relating to these missing pages." IOW, this handwriting was not identified.

* The removal of some of the pages was very selective and specific, and was not part of the removal of a group of pages all at once. For example, between the sheets for 8/21 and 12/10, three sheets (six pages) were removed; the sheets removed were the sheets for 8/22, 8/28, and 12/9.

* Oddly, some of the removed sheets were only partially torn out, clearly indicating that the redacting was deliberate and targeted. For example, in the back of the diary, between the summary of each cash account page and the rear cover, one of the removed sheets was only half torn, but the ones before it and after it were completely torn. Similarly, the top 1.5 inches of the the sheet dated 8/10/1864 was torn out, but the rest of the sheet was intact.

* Several lines of text on the inside of the back cover were crossed through. There is other writing there but "a reasonable interpretation of their content cannot be derived from the remaining portions alone."

* Some of the stains on the sheets could not be identified as to their origin.

* The text on 6/17/1864 page was was transferred "from the surrounding pages," and most of it was transferred from the 6/26/1864 page, i.e., from text written nine days later. Now try to imagine how that would happen innocently/normally, not to mention without overwriting text on the intervening pages but just text from a page written nine days earlier.

* The four sheets for 6/11, 6/17, 6/23, and 6/29 were "at an earlier date . . . laminated and rebound into the diary." IOW, at some point before the diary reached its final form, four sheets, or eight pages, were laminated and rebound into it. Of course, to do this, the sheets would have had to be cut in half, laminated to different cut-in-half sheets, and then rebounded as whole pages on sheets back into the diary. Humm, now why would anyone have done that to Booth's diary for innocent reasons? Why would anyone do that to any diary for innocent reasons?

Clearly, clearly, clearly, Booth's diary was subjected to some very unusual, targeted, deliberate, and massive editing. In addition to all of the instances of manipulation noted above, 86 pages were removed. When the diary's existence was first discovered, investigators who examined it concluded that 18 pages were missing, and they found this very suspicious. Baker and the War Department each accused the other of removing the pages. One wonders what the House committee investigators, not to mention the newspapers of the day, would have thought if they had had the technology to discover that 86 pages had been removed, and that numerous parts of the diary had been subjected to specific, targeted, and selective manipulation.

For those who would like to learn more on this issue, I suggest that you read Dan Thomas's thorough review of the diary's history and of the FBI report in chapters 9 and 10 in his book The Reason Booth Had to Die. Thomas includes graphics of some of the diary sheets.

Mr Griffith if I may inject myself in this discussion. I have actually just read (yes, actually read) the 1977 FBI report you and Dan Thomas have been alluding to.

My observations are as follows:

The report clearly states that the FBI examined the book forensically for any tampering
Writting impressions were discovered in the covers and on other pages of the diary
EM and infrared photography was performed on the book

Pages being torn or removed from the diary do not constitute tampering by any means. J Wilkes I am sure used this book for multiple purposed including, sending notes, keeping records for his acting career, and while on the run for toiletry. No where in the report does it state the book was ever taken apart; neither in 1977 nor in 1865.

The writing impressions evolved over the time J Wilkes used the book. Whatever you have imagined these mean I can assure you the FBI did not lead you there.

To wrap this up Mr. Griffith you and Dan Thomas are chasing phantoms which none but you two can see.

Rob Wick · 12-04-2018, 05:31 PM

At the risk of being considered even sillier how about explaining the following.

Quote:If Baker, in an act revenge, had not revealed the diary's existence in his 1867 book, we still might not know it ever existed.

And then you write

Quote:too many people knew that Booth's diary had been recovered

Quote:Stanton was surely aware that there had been early press reports about Booth's diary being recovered.

So which is it?

The diary was actually first revealed in print by George Alfred Townsend (GATH) in his dispatches that included interviews with Conger, Byron Baker and Lafayette Baker. On April 28, 1865, GATH wrote "They sewed him up in a saddle blanket. This was his shroud; too like a soldier's. Harold, meantime, had been tied to a tree, but was now released for the march. Colonel Conger pushed on immediately for Washington; the cortege was to follow. Booth's only arms were his carbine, knife, and two revolvers. They found about him bills of exchange, Canada money, and a diary."

Certainly doesn't sound to me like the most brilliant group of conspirators ever put together. Oh, and just as an aside, Stanton had nothing to do with who got what amount of the reward, although I'm sure you don't believe that, so feel free to ignore it.

Best
Rob

emma1231 · 12-04-2018, 07:37 PM

I thank Laurie for mentioning me in such a complimentary context. Only my wife knows how many hours I spent in 1977 on the subject of the Booth diary. After a while it became a nightmare from I could not bring myself to wake. Why? Because I was receiving phone calls from Joe Lynch at unexpected times and he teased, charmed, cajoled and lied -- first to me and then to James O. Hall. AT first we thought he might have some good info, so we listened and listened and listened. Of cs., many things he claimed were later shown to be forgeries or just lies. I reported directly to the late James O. Hall on everything he said and didn't or wouldn't say. Lynch was a brilliant man, but so were many of history's villains. It is a real talent to construct lies that are hard to uncover. Lynch had such a talent. I have studied the FBI report, and found nothing, not withstanding Lynch's statements that their examination still left room for the diary to have been tampered with. (I still have a tape recording of one of his phoners to me!) I spent too much time on the subject, and do not wish to "go there" again. WHile it was exciting, it was also quite a drain. I think Laurie and Gene have said it all -- and very well. Booth tore out all those 86 pages. SOme were surely ripped out in the weeks or months before the assassination, and some of those pages may have been connected to his rebel activities. That's just conjecture. He tore out one or two pages after the asssassination (we know he had something on which he wrote the two notes to Dr. Stewart (I think, if memory serves me correctly, he discarded the first note. I dont recall how we know of that first preliminary note.) He may have torn out other pages after the assassination. I don't think anyone in the govt had the ability or time to count 86 (instead of 18) missing pages. Thdere is no good evidence that the diary was suppressed. I don't recall if the FBI found any evidence that a few pages were ripped out all at once. I would think not, bec. to do so might have loosened the stitched binding of the book. I don't think anyone in the govt ripped out pages that were damning to anyone. The diary was mentioned in the newspapers as having been found with Booth when he died on Garrett's porch. Someone here (Gene?)wrote that it was Townsend who reported that. The diary's existence was known long before 1867, and anyone here who didn't know that hasn't done his homework. I think it idiotic to say or suggest that the govt laminated pages in 1865. Altho conservators now wince at the thought that valuable papers were laminated. However, at the time it was thought to be a good measure in trying to preserve documents. Booth's pages were prob. getting more fragile and subject to deterioration. (Who knows -- there may have been bugs in it from the terrain Booth escaped over.) I find a lot of truth-stretching and conjecture in the posts here (not by Gene or Laurie!)
I chuckle that after all these years, people are still inspired to go off about the diary like this. I will not engage in responses to my post. I just felt that I should say something, my name having been dropped. Otto Eisenschiml, Lynch, Neff, Balsiger, and Guttridge are prob. smiling in their graves!
If you look

(12-03-2018 09:43 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:
(12-03-2018 07:16 PM)L Verge Wrote: I started out being generous and thinking that we would just be tolerant and put up with this game of historical ridiculousness. I now want to urge those of our readers who are not up to speed on all the intricacies of the Lincoln assassination story to be very cautious in what you make of all this. I would urge taking it all with a grain of salt, but at this point of the game (and that's what it appears to be to a certain person), you are going to need several blocks of rock salt to digest this. Move over reindeer (and watch where you step...).

Leaving aside your failure to address the facts I've presented about the FBI report on the diary, you and your fellow apologists for the military commission here claim there is nothing suspicious about Stanton’s suppression of the diary and his failure to have Holt and Bingham enter it into evidence at the conspiracy trial. Well, none other than Congressman Benjamin Butler saw the matter very differently when Lafayette Baker revealed the diary’s existence in 1867. This is fascinating because Butler was a Radical Republican (1) who was hated by the South for his harsh treatment of New Orleans as a U.S. Army general during the war, and (2) who had argued in defense of trying the alleged conspirators before a military tribunal.

On the floor of the House of Representatives in 1867, Butler had a heated exchange with one of the prosecutors at the military tribunal, John Bingham, over the failure to introduce the diary as evidence at the conspiracy trial and over the execution of Mary Surratt given the revelations in the diary. David Dewitt discussed this revealing exchange and quoted the main parts of it:

General Butler, the recent defender of military commissions before the Supreme Court, of all men in the world, became her [Mary Surratt's] champion. Bingham, on the floor of the House, bearing upon his brow the laurels won as special judge advocate, in an unlucky hour was provoked by a jocose remark of the gentleman from Massachusetts to hold ''the hero of Fort Fisher not taken" up to ridicule as but a carpet-knight; thereby laying himself open to the following crushing retort:

"The gentleman has had the bad taste to attack me for the reason that I could do no more injury to the enemies of my country. I agree to that. I did all I could, the best I could. . . . But the only victim of that gentleman's prowess that I know of was an innocent woman hung upon the scaffold, one Mrs. Surratt. And I can sustain the memory of Fort Fisher if he and his present associates can sustain him in shedding the blood of a woman tried by a military commission and convicted without sufficient evidence in my judgment.''

Bingham, in reply, protested that he had executed no person, had but acted as the advocate of the United States; and, then, in imperious tones, demanded by what right the member assailed ''the tribunal of true and honorable men who found the facts upon their oath and pronounced the judgment. What does the gentleman know of the evidence in the case, and what does he care?"

This demand, a few days later, Butler took occasion to answer:

"I hold in my hand the evidence as reported under the gentleman's official sanction. . . . The statement I made the other day . . . was the result of a careful examination of the case for another and a different purpose, in the endeavor to ascertain who were concerned in fact in the great conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. The gentleman says he was 'the advocate of the United States only.' Sir, he makes a wide mistake as to his official position. He was the special judge advocate whose duty it was to protect the rights of the prisoner as well as the rights of the United States, and 'to sum up the evidence and state the law as would a judge on the bench.' Certainly, it was his duty to present to the commission all the evidence bearing upon the case. Now there was a piece of evidence within the knowledge of the special judge advocate . . . which he did not produce on this most momentous trial."

And, alluding to the appearance of the diary before the committee, he continued:

"Now, what I want to know is this: ... If it was good judgment on the part of the gentlemen prosecuting the assassins ... to put in evidence the tobacco pipe, spur and compass found in Booth's pocket, why was not the diary, in his own handwriting and found in the same pocket, put in evidence. . .? And, therefore, I did not charge the able and gallant soldiers who sat on that court with having done any wrong. They did not see the diary, they did not know of the diary. If they had they might have given a different finding upon the matter of this great conspiracy. ... I understand the theory to be that that evidence was not produced lest Booth's glorification of himself . . . should go before the country. I think that a lame excuse. If an assassin can glorify himself let him do so. ... I believe that piece of evidence would have shown what the whole case, in my judgment, now shows; that up to a certain hour Booth contemplated capture and abduction, and that he afterward changed his purpose to assassination. . . .

"Now what I find fault with in the judge advocate ... is that in his very able and bitter argument against the prisoners, no notice is taken ... of this change of purpose and brought to the attention of the men who composed that military tribunal. And if Mrs. Surratt did not know of this change of purpose there is no evidence that she knew in any way of the assassination, and ought not, in my judgment, to have been convicted of taking part in it. . . .

"Although in some aspects of the case it might not have been legal evidence, yet in all aspects it was moral evidence, carrying conviction to the moral sense. It is the dying declaration of a man, assassin though he be, who was speaking the truth, probably to himself, as between himself and his God. . . .

"That diary, as now produced, has eighteen pages cut out, the pages prior to the time when Abraham Lincoln was massacred, although the edges as yet show they had all been written over. Now, what I want to know, was that diary whole?" (Baker when on the stand was positive the leaves were in the book when he delivered it to Stanton.) "Who spoliated that book? Who caused an innocent woman to be hung when he had in his pocket the diary which stated at least what was the idea and purpose of the main conspirator?"

And, quoting from memory the sentence expressing Booth's half-formed purpose to return to Washington and clear himself, he vociferated:

"How clear himself? By disclosing his accomplices? Who were they? ... If we had only the advantage of all the testimony, we might have been able ... to find who, indeed, were all the accomplices of Booth ; to find who it was who changed Booth's purpose from capture to assassination; who it was that could profit by assassination who could not profit by capture and abduction; who it was expected would succeed to Lincoln, if the knife made a vacancy." (The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1909, pp. 176-180)

Rsmyth · 12-05-2018, 07:09 AM

Good response Richard!

Gene C · (This post was last modified: 12-05-2018 07:58 AM by Gene C.)

Richard, thank you for your comments, wish I could take credit, but
It was Rob who mentioned Townsend first reported on the diary

I'm not very familiar with Lynch, other than he's the one who claimed to have found the missing pages of Booth's diary?

RJNorton · 12-05-2018, 08:30 AM

Gene, here are a couple of places where you can read about him:

p. 228-229 in Dr. Hanchett's Lincoln Murder Conspiracies

Chapter 12 in Dr. Steers' Lincoln Legends

Gene C · 12-06-2018, 07:01 AM

Thanks, and I found Ed Steers has a full page on Joseph Lynch in the Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia.
His first listed source is Richard's, "The Case of the Missing Pages", Journal of the Lincoln Assassination, 9 no. 3(December 1995).
That would be interesting to read.

L Verge · 12-06-2018, 09:08 AM

(12-06-2018 07:01 AM)Gene C Wrote: Thanks, and I found Ed Steers has a full page on Joseph Lynch in the Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia.
His first listed source is Richard's, "The Case of the Missing Pages", Journal of the Lincoln Assassination, 9 no. 3(December 1995).
That would be interesting to read.

Our librarian at the James O. Hall Research Center is on maternity leave until January 8, but we should have that issue of Fred Hatch's Journal. Send me an email after the holidays, and I'll have her check for it.

Gene C · 12-06-2018, 10:45 AM

Thanks Laurie,
(she gets a whole month?)

Congratulations to the happy couple and this kinda reminds me of a song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjftii-T3YY

L Verge · 12-06-2018, 12:33 PM

(12-06-2018 10:45 AM)Gene C Wrote: Thanks Laurie,
(she gets a whole month?)

Congratulations to the happy couple and this kinda reminds me of a song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjftii-T3YY

You are behind-the-times, Gene. New laws give new moms (and dads) eight weeks of FMLA. This baby was born on November 12, so Colleen is well into her leave time. This is daughter #2, so motherhood should be a breeze! LOL

mikegriffith1 · 12-06-2018, 03:52 PM

Below are some additional sources on evidence that most books on the Lincoln assassination ignore or minimize. All of these sources strongly challenge the military commission’s version of the assassination, and they include most of the points I presented in my original post for this thread.

Dr. Thomas Reed’s book Avenging Lincoln’s Death: The Trial of John Wilkes Booth’s Accomplices (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015, paperback version published in 2017). Dr. Reed is a professor emeritus of law at the Widener University School of Law. Here’s what the publisher says about the book:

The book analyzes the trial transcript and other relevant evidence relating to the guilt of Booth’s alleged accomplices, as well as a careful application of basic constitutional law principles to the jurisdiction of the military commission and the fundamental fairness of the trial. The author found that the military commission trial was unconstitutional and unfair because Congress never authorized trial by military commission for these eight civilians. President Johnson exceeded the scope of his authority as commander in chief by ordering the accomplices to be tried by military commission. He failed to follow the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 that required him to turn over the alleged accomplices to civilian authorities for prosecution. The accomplices were convicted on perjured testimony and the Government was allowed to drag in unrelated evidence of Confederate atrocities to poison the minds of the panel of officers. (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781611478297/Av...omplices#; see also https://www.amazon.com/Avenging-Lincolns...B0148Z69W0

Civil War scholar H. Donald Winkler’s book, Lincoln and Booth: More Light on the Conspiracy (Cumberland House, 2003. Winkler has authored three highly acclaimed books on nineteenth-century historical subjects, including Civil War Goats and Scapegoats and The Women in Lincoln’s Life. He has been a featured speaker at Ford’s Theater and at the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site. Excerpt:

[John] Surratt was charged as an accomplice in Lincoln’s murder, which meant that the prosecution had to prove he was involved in the assassination—a major task considering that Surratt was 300 miles from Washington when Lincoln was killed. The prosecution, with the aid of the War Department’s hired witness hunters, drummed up a dozen people who swore they saw Surratt in Washington on that date. One of them even claimed that he saw Surratt in the vestibule of the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre. . . .

Surratt’s able attorney Joseph H. Bradley easily broke down these testimonies, drawing out so many inconsistencies that all their stories were highly suspect. Bradley, who defended Surratt without remuneration, further outmaneuvered the prosecution by showing convincingly that Surratt had been in Elmira, New York, from April 13 to 15. For the clincher, Bradley tried to secure the register of Surratt’s hotel in Elmira, which contained his signature for the dates indicated, but the register had mysteriously disappeared, and as Bradley noted, “the proprietors and servants of the hotel were scattered in every direction.” (p. 245)

Dr. Robert Ferguson’s book The Trial in American Life (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Ferguson was a professor of law and literature at Columbia University, and earned his law degree and his doctorate in American civilization from Harvard University. Excerpt:

Mary Surratt was the most peripheral of the four convicted defendants who, on July 7, 1865, faced the hangman’s noose for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. “Mrs. Surratt is innocent,” claimed Lewis Payne, who stood beside her on the scaffold and was the most active member of the conspiracy after John Wilkes Booth. “She doesn’t deserve to die with the rest of us.” But no one in authority wanted to hear those words from anyone in the summer of 1865, much less from an assassin like Payne. . . . (p. 153)

The court ofﬁcer best placed to sift through all of the evidence was the courtroom reporter who also took down every witness’s testimony during prior interrogation. He left a stunning summary of what he had learned. “That Mrs. Surratt, who was hanged with the three male conspirators who were concerned in a plot to assassinate President Lincoln and other high government ofﬁcials, was entirely innocent of any prior knowledge of or participation in those crimes, is, to my mind, beyond question,” Benn Pitman, this ofﬁcial stenographer, would write later. Pitman would detail his reasons and conclusions on several occasions, and he would add: “I again afﬁrm my solemn conviction that Mrs. Mary Surratt was innocent of the crime for which she was hanged”. . . . (p. 161)

The defense had an answer for each incriminating fact and insinuation. Mrs. Surratt’s son, John, had escaped to Canada, and he was the one who brought the conspirators into his mother’s house. Where was the evidence that he had conﬁded in her? Available letters proved that Mrs. Surratt went to her farm in Maryland on legitimate business on both occasions [April 11 and 14]. It was hardly surprising that a landlady on the margins of society would treat a leading ﬁgure like Booth, a well-known actor from a famous family on good terms with ofﬁcial Washington, with respect when he entered her modest home. . . .

Mrs. Surratt’s failure to identify Lewis Payne could also be explained. She was extremely nearsighted, the hallway where Payne stood at some distance was dark, Payne had changed his appearance drastically since previous meetings, and Mrs. Surratt was under arrest. Why should she speak when anything she said would be used against her? Others in the house also failed to identify Payne. All of the facts were “explainable so as to exclude guilt,” and, facts aside, “where was the guilty knowledge” required to convict? By law in a conspiracy case, defense counsel reminded the court, “the intent or guilty knowledge must be brought directly home to the defendant.” The prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. (pp. 162-163)

Dr. John Chandler Griffin’s book Abraham Lincoln’s Execution (Pelican Publishing Company, 2006). Dr. Griffin is a professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and the author of several books on historical subjects, including the Civil War. In 1998, Dr. Griffin was awarded the Order of the Silver Crescent, South Carolina’s highest award, by Gov. Jim Hodges. Excerpt:

Miss Chapman goes on to say that Charles Bishop unwrapped the blanket from the corpse [at the 1869 viewing of the body of the man shot in Garrett’s barn] and stood for long moments gazing at the remains. Says Miss Chapman:

“Mr. Charles Bishop then carefully drew off one of the long riding boots, which were still on the feet of the body, which had evidently lain in the earth for years, and as he did so the foot and lower portion of the limb remained in the boot. An examination was then made, and it was plainly seen that the ankle had been fractured.”

The fact that the corpse was apparently wearing two boots is a most remarkable revelation, for according to the official records of the assassination, Dr. Samuel Mudd cut away the boot encasing Booth’s fractured leg on the morning of April 15, 1865. Dr. Mudd inadvertently kept the boot at his home, where it was later discovered by Federal officers. . . .

If the military commission had this boot in their possession long before “Booth” secretly had been buried beneath the flooring at the military arsenal, just how could that boot possibly have gotten back on the corpse being investigated at Weaver’s Undertaking Parlor in Baltimore, Maryland, in February 1869? . . . If the military commission was telling the truth when they displayed the boot of John Wilkes Booth, then it stands to reason that the corpse examined at Weaver’s Undertaking Parlor, the corpse wearing two boots, was not that of John Wilkes Booth. (pp. 408-409)

And you know what? Not one of these books is offered for sale at the Surratt House Museum’s gift shop. In reading through the gift shop’s list of books for sale, one sees an extreme bias in favor of the military commission’s story. Out of the 40-plus Lincoln assassination books on the list, only two challenge the military commission’s version.

In fact, even after all we have long known about the bogus nature of much of the military commission’s evidence, especially its Confederate conspiracy theory, some of the books offered at the gift shop double-down on that theory, and one of them even goes to the ludicrous extreme of suggesting that General George McClellan might have been involved in an assassination plot against Lincoln!

You would think that since the Surratt House Museum receives taxpayer money, its staff would ensure that the gift shop offered a more balanced selection of books. You would also think that the staff would feel some moral obligation, or at least some sense of basic fairness, to carry a few more books that defend Mary Surratt, especially since they are getting paid to run her house as a museum.

Warren · 12-06-2018, 04:06 PM

So, the Surratt House Museum's gift shop is in on the conspiracy cover-up? Those scoundrals! Indictments coming soon.